John Fugui, Solomons first ambassador to China,  meets Director-General of Oceanic Affairs Lu Kang, Beijing,  July 2021

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – In September 2019, just days after the Solomon Islands ditched diplomatic relations with Taiwan, it established them with China, with the Chinese pledging its support for the Solomons in moving “forward in the development path it has chosen for itself”.

Now, eight months after the new Solomons ambassador to China, John Fugui, was installed, the time has come when China is revealing what form that pledge will take.

In a statement this week, the former member of parliament provided considerable substance to the concerns expressed by the United States and Australia about Beijing’s increasing clout in the region.

Fugui is a former Solomon Islands politician, and probably the only one to hold three master’s degrees: one from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and two more from the University of Hawai'i in the United States,

He has canvassed a long list of the negotiations and discussions now taking place between the two countries, including a direct air link between Honiara and Guangzhou, a port city near Hong Kon.

“Fujian Province also has expressed similar interest on a route between Fujian, Manila and Honiara,” Fugui said from Beijing.

It is proposed to bring in 50,000 tourists a year under a state-directed program in which China will organise tourists to travel to Solomon Islands. “This is one way to boost government revenue,” he said.

Fugui pointed to the plentiful business opportunities in tourism, fisheries, agriculture, information technology and timber products, including round log exports.

Negotiations have also begun on student exchanges and to establish a Chinese bank in the Solomons.

“The more competition we have between the financial institutions, the better,” he said. “We have banks with huge liquidity but they are not lending much to Solomon Islanders.”

Fugui said that last year Solomons had joined the new China-Pacific Island Fishery Forum at its first meeting, which included discussions on fish farming, aquaculture, tuna and bêche-de-mer projects.

“In this forum we meet interested parties who want to establish fishery firms in the Pacific for countries that have diplomatic ties with China – this is the first of its kind,” he said.

Negotiations are continuing about agricultural products like coconuts, noni, kava, ginger and mushrooms.

“China is the world’s biggest market for these commodities,” Fugui said. “There is a huge possibility that we can market our products there.”

He said a big challenge is that China requires supplies in great volume. “My only concern is that we will not have enough supply.”

Another aspect of Fugui’s negotiations in China involves establishing relationships between provinces and businesses in the Solomons with provinces and businesses in China.

“So far Western Province is establishing sister-relations with Fujian and Renbel is also expressing interest in establishing sister-relations with Hainan,” he said.

“To have relations with China, because the bureaucracy is so big, it is important to narrow down shared interests to relations between cities or provinces.”

Fugui is also keen on forging relationships between the Solomon Islands National University and institutions in China.

“We want to improve our economy but education and training are foundational.

“I want to increase education opportunities and research exchanges,” he said.

“The most important thing is we now have an office in Beijing. Whenever Solomon Islanders come to China, they have a home here.

“In terms of diplomatic relations, China can speak to us right in Beijing,” he said.

President Toroama - Decision of the five clans the "beginning of a new chapter to realise Bougainville’s independence"

KEITH JACKSON

BUKA –In a major development, landowners from the Panguna mine area and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) have agreed to re-open the Panguna mine, abandoned after a civil war broke out in 1989.

The mine is one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits with an estimated remaining resource of copper, gold and silver valued at more than K200 billion.

Since Rio Tinto, which developed the mine through its subsidiary Bougainville Copper Ltd, relinquished its majority shareholding, a bevy of would-be operators has pressed their interest.

In its 20 years of operation, Panguna provided 45% of Papua New Guinea’s exports and 17% of its overall revenue, effectively setting up PNG as a viable state as it moved to independence.

Australian iron ore magnate Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest has shown interest in reviving the mine, a process expected to take ten years and require an investment of at least K35 billion. In 2019, Forrest’s company, Fortescue Metals, confirmed it was exploring “potential opportunities”.

There were many other suitors, including:

Bougainville Copper Ltd, the original developer seeking a comeback and at the time supported by some local landholders through the Panguna Development Company

RTG Mining, an Australian group accused of attempting to bribe the Bougainville government

Callabus, which offered Bougainville a joint shareholding and was supported by previous president John Momis

An unnamed Chinese entity which was reported to have also offered Bougainville $1 billion to fund its transition to independence

There’s been no reliable indication of which entity will be asked to restore the mine or how it might be structured.

In late 2019, a referendum on Bougainville’s political future showed 98% of the population supporting independence.

Then, in August 2020, the dynamic, aggressive former rebel commander, Ishmael Toroama, was elected president and began moving decisively to prepare the province for independence, and a second life for the mine always on the cards as the best way to make a Bougainville nation economically sound.

It is highly likely we will now see much fierce action from suitors old and new as the resolution to reopen the mine has been agreed by its hitherto most adamant opponents – the people it most adversely affected and still affects through a despoiled environment.

The joint resolution was signed by chiefs and other leaders of the five major Panguna clans – Basikang, Kurabang, Bakoringu, Barapang and Mantaa.

It was reached at the end of a three-day summit at Tunuru, a coastal village between the mine port of Loloho and the important administrative centre of Arawa in Central Bougainville.

“Today marks the ending of a chapter and the beginning of a new chapter, a chapter to realise Bougainville’s independence,” President Toroama said congratulating the clans on their decision.

He reassured landowners that the government will continue to protect the people and their resources through laws passed by the Bougainville parliament.

Panguna clan chiefs agreed that the time had come to start work on reviving the copper and gold mine

And he urged the landowners to continue to use the government to control resources that rightfully belongs to the people.

The government is confident the re-opening of the mine will provide a major boost for Bougainville’s economic future even during the restitution and reconstruction phases and guarantee Bougainville’s political independence.

The ABG’s Department of Mineral and Energy Resources and other agencies will work with landowner groups to facilitate the mine’s rebirth.

Gabriel Buanam OBE - a “soft-spoken but down to earth” senior administrator

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – We old Papua New Guinea hands - who remember the country as a colony (though we never so called it at the time) and our service there mostly with deep affection - now share a melancholy time of life.

Even we younger officers (we were all called officers – patrol officers, education officers, health officers etc etc) are charging through our seventies and too often mourning the death of a former colleague or acquaintance.

It’s not unusual for the grapevine take some months to carry that grim news and so it has been with the death of former kiap and district commissioner Gabriel Buanam, who died in Madang on 20 October last year aged 79.

The PNG Post-Courier reported that he was the last of the 15 Papua New Guinean district commissioners who replaced their expatriate counterparts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Gabriel [known as Gabriel Salu for his first six years of service] was from Korak village in the Bogia district of Madang Province, died on 20 October at his home in Madang.

His career, which began after he graduated from the prestigious Sogeri High School in Central Province, began at about the same time as my own in 1964.

His public service carried him on an upward trajectory through the Southern Highlands, Milne Bay, West New Britain, Simbu, Eastern Highlands, Northern (now Oro) and finally to his home province of Madang.

Gabriel, described as “soft-spoken but down to earth” became the district commissioner (effectively the administrative head) of Milne Bay Province in 1973, replacing the late Kingsley Jackson.

While in Milne Bay, Gabriel and his late wife Dorothy hosted Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh in their family home, when the royal couple visited the province in 1974.

In 1976 his name was mentioned in the Australian press as assisting a project to maintain important wartime memorials that were deteriorating or vandalised.

Turnbull War Memorial Park is now a popular tourist attraction for visitors to Milne Bay

One of these was the Turnbull War Memorial Park at Gurney, marking the first defeat on land of the Japanese Army in 400 years.

This was an event very close to home for Australians as the action was carried out by Australian troops, the 61st Battalion (Queensland Cameron Highlanders), in late August 1942.

The park also contains the grave of 85 unknown Japanese marines, three monuments and a relief map of the battlefield.

Gabriel made it known that the K2,000 a year required to maintain the memorial in good condition was never provided.

The park is now a popular tourist attraction for visitors to Milne Bay.

During the Queen’s next visit to PNG in October 1982, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for distinguished public service, his investiture being held on board Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia in Port Moresby.

Japanese field artillery piece at the war memorial park in Gurney

The old people of Tari, SineSine-Yongumul and Kainantu in the Highlands will remember him as the first Indigenous kiap in those areas.

Gabriel returned to Madang as deputy secretary of the Madang Provincial Administration until he retired in 1984.

WITH THANKS TO ARTHUR SMEDLEY AND PHIL FITZPATRICK

Annastacia Palaszczuk watches on as Queensland chief health officer Dr John Gerrard briefs journalists. Their handling of the pandemic has met with widespread condemnation in the community

KEITH JACKSON

“A pandemic is over when we stop widespread infection. It’s in the definition” - Dr Henry Madison

NOOSA – I’ve had a fair bit to say recently, rather more on Twitter than here, about the tragedy being played out in Australia as fools gain the upper hand in determining Covid policy.

It has been a struggle that pitted politics and commerce against science (see quote by the Queensland chief health officer quoted in the box below). And science lost.

It turned out to be an uneven struggle. The deranged policy switch that has let the virus run, a policy defying the science and ignoring best practice, has condemned many Australians, especially those in aged care facilities, to death and many more to chronic illness.

It is an unbelievably reckless approach which has forsaken good planning and careful implementation thereby enabling the rapid spread of Covid through the community.

Too many influential Australian politicians, health bureaucrats and academics were willing to force feed the population with contemptible policy and contaminated information.

Policies and information that often contradicted authoritative studies from the world’s leading medical researchers and that dismissed the reality that millions of Australians were experiencing or observing around them.

In throwing open the front door to Covid, Australian authorities have also shown not to understand risk, which in its simplest formulation can be represented in the equation risk = severity + probability.

They quickly understood that Omicron was less severe than the Delta that preceded it. But they ignored its probability: the probability that, because of its extreme infectiousness, it would affect many more people.

One outcome of this policy was to bring schools back before there had been mass vaccination of students and before most schools were not equipped to take the precautions necessary to slow the spread of the virus.

So it was that Queensland’s chief health officer Gerrard last week announced 1,149 cases in children aged between five and 17 in a single 24 hour period last week.

Gerrard said he was “not unduly concerned” about that huge number of infected children. In fact he should have been alarmed.

Statistics from research conducted by the American Academy of Paediatrics show that as many of 1.9% of children under 16 infected by Covid will be hospitalised. Other studies have shown a likely hospitalisation rate of 1.3% to 1.5%.

Adopting the middle of that range and applying it to last Thursday in Queensland, we could expect 17 of those children to be hospitalised.

And, applying US experience again, it could be expected that 160 of those children will end up with Long Covid.

There has been a rush to get children back to school to avoid further disruption to their education.

But in doing this in the absence of full vaccination and preparations to make classrooms safe, there has been a dreadful lapse of logic.

When community transmission is high, education is disrupted. More child become ill, hospital admissions rise and the number of children suffering the chronic illness Long Covid increases.

Earlier this month a child aged “under 10” died of Covid in Queensland. Gerrard adopted the scoundrel’s defence to allege that the child had a “very serious underlying rare inherited medical condition”.

But it wasn’t that condition that killed the child, it was Covid.

A disease that had been allowed to spread through the community without anywhere near the appropriate precautions.

The public health system that Australians have enjoyed and relied upon and been grateful for has taken a huge backwards step.

And, until our alleged leaders and experts begin to understand the implications of risk = severity + probability, and the wisdom of heeding science, things seem unlikely to get much better.

COMPILED BY KEITH JACKSON
| With Philip Fitzpatrick, Chris Overland,
    Bernard Corden and Lindsay F Bond

“An emerging public health crisis has already hit our nation. A promising nation lost in paradise with bad politicians and a weak bureaucratic system and institutions that can’t turn the tide around after 46 years of independence” - Jerry Kuri Mandara (Twitter @KuriJMandara)

NOOSA – Yesterday the ABC’s Papua New Guinea correspondent Natalie Whiting, in conjunction with her colleague, producer and journalist Bethanie Harriman, published an evocative but brutal article.

It was based on the fact that PNG’s entire health system is collapsing - overstretched staff, no money, limited medical supplies, a population in desperate circumstances with out of control Covid and the constant, unforgiving burden of other disease.

The beauty of the story, which you can link to here, lies in the writers’ clever weaving of the health crisis with the predicament of the stoical and unfortunate villager Robin Balo, brought down by a solitary arrow.

What happens to him then makes for an enthralling piece of journalism as Robin is subjected to the full force of a shocking chain of events.

It is a story that brings shame on the governments of both PNG and the country where it has most frequently looked for guidance, Australia.

Both governments have shown a monumental incompetence over very many years in protecting PNG’s health system: PNG has failed a primary duty of government to keep its people safe; Australia has failed because an adjacent nation, whose performance profoundly affects Australia in many respects, is weak and vulnerable.

Two stories in PNG Attitude– Friday’s on the ambitious cooperation goals agreed by China and the Solomon Islands, and yesterday’s about Bougainville’s decision to reopen the Panguna mine (a K30 billion exercise) – point to just how exposed PNG is to newly expansionist China.

In this article, four Australian writers well known to PNG Attitude readers, tell of their own experiences with PNG’s appalling health care system, including Chris Overland who astutely perceives that “the Chinese might step into the breach before us”.

That is neither an outrageous nor eccentric thought. Indeed, today it looks more likely than not.

HOW TO REMOVE YOUR OWN APPENDIX

Philip Fitzpatrick

It was 2014 and the resupply order for the hospital at Awaba, on the Aramia River in Western Province, had been constantly ignored by the authorities for two years.

The orders included just about everything you could think of from antivenin for snakebite through to spare parts for the hospital refrigerator that had broken down and couldn’t be repaired.

The frustrated matron was at her wit’s end with ‘making do’ when she pleaded with me to try to kick free the logjam.

So I decided to personally take copies of the orders with me to Health Department headquarters in Port Moresby.

After a lot of yelling and pointing and some cash under the table, I was able to secure about one-third of the supplies and put them aboard a plane to the hospital.

The remaining two-thirds of these basic supplies just weren’t in stock – not even in the national capital.

Working in mining exploration camps and later undertaking social mapping studies all over PNG, it was a common occurrence to come across abandoned aid posts established under the colonial Administration.

It was also common to come across health personnel – medical assistants and nurses – who had continued to work without pay or supplies, supported as best they could by the local people.

All the big mining companies in this remote but resource-rich corner of PNG had well equipped medical facilities with trained personnel but many, like Exxon and Chevron, had a policy of refusing to allow villagers into their clinics or hospitals.

There was a sad case where an Oil Search security guard sought help for his baby daughter who was very sick with malaria at Lake Kutubu. He was turned away and his daughter died. I can tell you it did nothing for morale at the camp.

While working in Western Province we talked one of the companies into building a new aid post which a retired nurse in the area said she would voluntarily staff.

But when the company left the nurse couldn’t get further supplies and the facility closed.

One useful thing I did in these trying circumstances was purchase and distribute copies of the excellent publication, ‘Where there is no doctor’.

It contains heaps of useful information along the lines of ‘how to remove your own appendix’. It’s still available and there’s a link here if you’re interested.

PUTTING OUT THE WELCOME MAT FOR CHINA

Chris Overland

At Mendi Hospital in 1999, I witnessed scenes similar to those described by Bernard Corden (below) and referenced in Nat and Bethanie’s article.

The nurses in emergency were working with bugger all equipment managing presentations ranging from births going wrong to spear and shotgun wounds.

The hospital had no working equipment - no autoclaves, no oxygen concentrators, no IVAC pumps to deliver antibiotics, pain relievers and similar fluids. There’s wasn’t much of anything else either.

The food was cooked in two cut-down 44 gallon drums in a lean-to annex.

Back in Australia I persuaded the board of the hospital of which I was CEO to pay for our chief biomedical technician to spend four weeks in PNG.

During this time he worked with Mendi Hospital’s only biomedical technician to repair every piece of equipment and get it working. He called in favours with suppliers all over Australia to get this done.

Our board, now fully aware of the desperate need of such hospitals, subsequently released him for three months each year to do the same sort of work in Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and, of course, PNG, this time funded by various aid agencies.

The PNG Department of Health was useless. The hospital employees had not been paid for many months and were living on gifts and donations.

My friend and former colleague David Vorst is currently the CEO at Mount Hagen and he says the situation has not materially changed.

Only the dogged commitment of the staff to keep working prevents the total collapse of the system. It is shocking and it is a disgrace.

The best solution is for Australia to simply take control of the entire system on the basis that it will fund it if the PNG government gets out of the road.

Of course, the Chinese might step into the breach before us. They have plenty of capacity and it would be an easy win for them in the contest to win hearts and minds in PNG. Personally, I would cheer them on if they did.

AN INTRODUCTION TO PNG HOSPITALS

Bernard Corden

Within a month of my arrival in Lae in April 2006, an employee from a logistics company working outside our factory late one Friday afternoon fell several metres from a ladder to the road.

He cracked his head on the concrete gutter and was quickly bundled into a utility and taken to the Angau Memorial Hospital.

The next morning I drove to the hospital to check on his condition.

He was on life support and his grieving family were surrounding the bedside as I approached.

I was stopped urgently by a doctor and thought I had inadvertently breached some cultural protocol.

But the doctor was frantically pointing to the floor where I was about to step to reach the bed.

There was a gaping hole encircled by rotten floorboards infested by termites.

The victim never regained consciousness and my introduction to the PNG health system had begun.

A couple of years later, in 2009, I vividly recall taking a young Papua New Guinean to Angau’s emergency department during the silent hours of an early Saturday morning.

He had been attacked in the Eriku settlement by a man wielding a broken beer bottle and was covered in blood which was pouring from the gaping wound in his head.

After receiving a frantic call from one of our security guards, I picked him up at the company gatehouse near Lae wharf.

The hospital’s emergency department was like a scene from Bedlam and the floor of the waiting room was dense with the sick and injured and wailing relatives.

I was stepped gingerly through the bodies on the floor looking for medical personnel.

Then I spotted the beleaguered duty doctor, his only identification the stethoscope hanging from his neck.

He quickly rallied a nurse and they eventually stemmed the flow of blood and stitched the wound. The patient was as stoic as they were noble.

As dawn broke over Lae, I was assured he did not need to stay at the hospital so took him back to my accommodation block where he was able to shower and I gave him a change of clothes and breakfast.

His family were beside themselves with relief and joy when I drove him to their settlement 20 kilometres along the Highlands Highway.

THERE WAS A TIME OF COOPERATION & PROGRESS

Lindsay F Bond

Thanks to Natalie Whiting and Bethanie Harriman on ABC news last night, Australians saw a report of the present day to day reality of PNG health service provisioning.

There is insufficiency in that delivery, and absolute absence of needed equipment and medications.

Covid-19 hardly gets a mention, the emergence of cases having already inundated communities and medical staff.

My own experience at Oro Bay in 2005 was of a hospital in such dire need that tears whelmed as I recalled our two children born there in 1969 and 1971.

That hospital was, in 2012, largely rebuilt and equipped by providence of humanitarian folk in Australia (inclusive of religious groups and more broadly in the community, all support by and in cooperation with the PNG government.

So, as this example shows, things can be improved where goodwill gives rise to participation and cooperation.

At Kabwum there are matters difficult to comprehend and harder to accept, that after many months its demolished health centre has gone to make way for a new facility but has so far only had the slab poured.

I hope that the contractor is active and able to achieve construction objectives.

We hope the PNG government (not only the Health Department) is also awake, aware, arranging auspiciously, and likewise assisting achievement of the objective.

Antony Blinken in Suva at the weekend - new Solomons embassy required before China becomes “strongly embedded”

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Cold on the heels of the Solomon Islands and China establishing diplomatic relations and, coincidentally, just a day after the disclosure of a broad-based cooperation plan between the two countries, the United States has announced its intention to open an embassy in Honiara.

The US had an embassy in the the country between 1988 and 1993, when it was closed.

Since then the Solomons has been served by the US embassy in Port Moresby, which also covers Vanuatu.

The US has sufficed with the minimal representation of a ‘consular agency’ in Honiara (I’m guessing that’s one person) which at present is inconveniently closed for a couple of months, no reasons given.

The US State Department announcement said the new embassy was required before China becomes “strongly embedded” in the Solomons and that China was “aggressively seek[ing] to engage” senior figures in Solomons politics and business.

There was the usual clutching for affinitive parallels showing how closely was the love between the two countries with the State Department having to reach back nearly 80 years to, rather insensitively, declare that Solomon Islanders cherished their history with Americans on the battlefields of World War II.

In December China announced it would send police advisors and riot gear to the Solomons as foreign peacekeepers began to leave following a period of civil violence.

The Solomons government accepted the offer of equipment and six liaison officers to train its police force.

Visiting the region last week, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the US strategy for the Indo-Pacific emphasised building partnerships to counter China’s growing influence and ambitions.

It said it did not want to remain “a remote player”.

In its statement, the State Department said China had been “utilising a familiar pattern of extravagant promises, prospective costly infrastructure loans and potentially dangerous debt levels” when engaging with Solomons political and business leaders.

However, the State Department said it would not build a new embassy immediately but lease office space for two US diplomats and five local staff.

Baka Bina - author and thinker.
"I give credit to those who write
Tok Pisin for print. It is daunting"

BAKA BINA

PORT MORESBY - Reading Dr Michael Dom's essays, ‘Vernacular Traces in the Crocodile Prize’, published in Tok Pisin and English in PNG Attitude and Ples Singsing, made me wonder if Tok Pisin or even a Tok Ples can be used in literature.

For many years, Tok Pisin has been used in the print media with Wantok Niuspepa, although the last time I bought the paper to read an article in Tok Pisin was three years ago.

This is dismal on my part however I give credit to those who do write Tok Pisin for print. It is daunting and I have great respect for those who write articles for Wantok.

I find that writing in Tok Pisin is hard when we are all inclined to write in English.

For simple straight stories, it is and can be done, but you have to put in the hard yakka.

Oral literature exists by the tonne, but getting it documented is problematic. 

Tok Ples is next to impossible when words keep dropping out of the Tok Ples vocabulary. For example, names of specific common garden weeds and trees are replaced with the generic 'gras' and 'diwai'.

When writing in Tok Ples loses its genuineness and in Tok Pisin loses its specificity, we look to English science to name these items. 

I wonder what my Tok Ples calls okoropi (a common weed) will be called in future. I have heard it called the 'huk-huk gras' but that is also the name for several other grasses.

I exemplify my struggles with the pieces of writing below, which I’ve worked on for some time and developed a bit further. 

In future it may become easier but it takes time and effort.  However 'not finding the time' should not be a deterrence.

Poetry, though, whilst it lives in our songs and dances, constitutes a problem to me when it is written.

It may be my ignorance in not indulging in it. I will not delve further, perhaps the problem can be examined in further discourse by eminent others.

So writing in Tok Pisin may be hard and, yes, I realise word-for-word verbatim translations do not capture the nuances specific to each language, including Tok Pisin.

In the story below, I tried Tok Ples, Tok Pisin and English. I do my little bit to capture stories in the language and in Tok Pisin. (In this piece, I am already lazy on the English version).

I had tried this type of writing with my language group. I rejigged it here with a few additions posted on my language group Facebook page, Lets Learn Tokano and Embrace It.

I wrote the story separately first in Tokano, then in Tok Pisin and then interposed both over each other so readers can could follow. As an afterthought, I tried the English equivalent. 

There are some words like 'iihi' and 'eghhe' that are language specific and no equivalency will bring out the intended meaning.

Venevekata is a swimming spot with a pool along the Mapemo River that children from Blacks (Konobiufa) and Faif (Kotiyufa) villages have used for many years.

Swimming at Venevetaka has always created problems for mothers letting their children go without adult supervision.

Flash flooding is a constant threat as the view to the headwaters and mountains where the rain is generated is hidden by ravines. 

Children could be swept away by the flood surge. It was this initial surge we were always warned about.

This narration and the future four parts I intended would have captured the day's outing.

I wrote this first section in Tok Ples, then rewrote it in what I thought was the best Tok Pisin equivalent and finally did the same in English. 

I set them out as first drafts but obviously the Pidgin and English versions need tinkering with to select the most appropriate words to elicit good and equivalent meanings.

Na Yes, Tok Pisin ken kamap Singsing na Stori taim toktok (Language of Literature) na em i min olsem, yu na mi, yumi olgeta mas triam long mekim dispela i kamap. 

Yumi mas igat hangre long raitim ol stori nau long Tok Ples na Tok Pisin. 

Mipela ken wari long tanim tok igo long gutpela Tok Pisin and Tok Inglis bihain. 

Kaunim liklik hap wok mi raitim ya na lukim, em samting mi, yu, mipela olgeta ken mekim.

Enjoy.

____________

Venevetaka Nosa Napa lo Nosau Okalosa Novune.

Yumi go Waswas long Venevetaka

We are going Swimming at Venevetaka

Hanava hamo

Nambawan hap

Part 1

(Tokano)            GHIJEGIPE KOMA MA'SI, IYELAHOSI GAMOJE KOMA MA LASI VE'.

(Tok Pisin)          WANPELA PIKININI NA MAMA MEKIM LIKLIK TOKTOK.

(English)             A MOTHER HAS A CONVERSATION WITH HER CHILD

(T)         Mah ghamena ve lii, vena mako miku ghonah toko miniveh.

(TP)       Wanpela taim wanpela meri i wok long gaten istap.

(E)         One day a woman was working in her garden.

(T)         Ghijigipela koma ma moneko mini kuti ake iyelahine ma, ive tunu, loka mike o tave.

(TP)       Liklik pikinini bilong em, em raun long wanpela istap long en, em wantaim ai wara i kam na krai long em.

(E)         Her child who was out somewhere came to her and cried to her about going someplace.

(T)         'Ii ii vemage, ma lona' ghano ghipilihe, mah'lo.  Ive novoya tu'nu, neni lokamike  lamine ma nani ye,   lo'na.'

(TP)       'Oloman, gutpela mahm, yu tok, hangere painim yu oh.  Yu askim mi gutwan wantaim ia wara ya yu   tok.'

(E)         'Oh my Gosh, young man, you say, are your hungry oh what.   You are asking me nicely with tears in  your eyes.  What do you want?'

(T)         'Ihi, ihi, iyenoh!' ihi.'

(TP)       'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi.'

(E)         'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

(T)         'Iyenahh, ihi ihi.'

 (TP)      'Mama, ihi ihi.'

(E)         'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

(T)         'Ii-ii, Apomake, naneta ihe, ma loh'na vo?'

(TP)       'Ii-ii gutpela pren bilong mi, olsem wonem ya, yu tok.'

(E)         'Ii-ii, my good friend, tell me what is it.'

(T)         'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi.'

(TP)       'Ihi, ihi, mama, ihi.'

(E)         'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

(T)         'Eghhe, eghhe, ghijegipe napa li'mohsi nane ihi ihi ka noli gho.'

(TP)       'Eghhe, eghhe, bikpela pikinini pinis na wonem dispela ihi, ihi tumas ya.'

(E)         'Eghhe, eghhe, you are already a big child and why are you still whimpering.'

(T)         'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi, Venevetaka vikena la!'

(TP)       'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi, ol igo long Venevekata ya!'

(E)         'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi, they have all gone to Venevetaka!'

(T)         'Ghoseleka noilaine'q la ghelepe! Nene yakaho ma Venevetaka vike gamoje ma  nolane.'

(TP)       'Yu mekim les pasin ya, yu harim ah. Em husat tok ol go Venevetaka toktok yu mekim.'

(E)         'You know that is ridiculous, who is that talking about Venevetaka that you are echoing here.'

(T)         'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi.'

(TP)       'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi.'

(E)         'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

(T)         'Ihiq' liha', mene vena ma, amuto nakavosa to minine matunu, yokai  hiji ne'ja, ghigipe koma oluto  novi.'

(TP)       'Eh' wonem ya', nau dispela mama ya tok na i kisim stik bilong digim kaukau na laik traim sut spia  long pikinini tasol pikinini ya i kalap igo.'

(E)        What is this? Now the mother was angry.  She took her digging stick that she was digging kaukau with  and tried to spear her child with it.  The child jumped out of her way.

(T)         Mine apasalaka vominike, ghijigipe ma nene ive vela novoja to gholosa oko no huli. 

(TP)       Pikinini igo stap long arere bilong gaten na givim krai nogut tru.

(E)         The child then went to a safe distance and bawled his eyes out crying

(T)         (Koma a' ne' si.  Apasava'a koma a'li ke koma ma lolo niye.)

(TP)     (bilong surukim bihain taim)

(E)       (to be continued).

TOKANO TOK PLES

Ghijegipe Koma Ma'si, Iyelahosi  Gamoje Koma Ma Lasi Ve'

Mah ghamena ve lii, vena mako miku ghonah toko miniveh.

Ghijigipela koma ma moneko mini kuti ake iyelahine ma, ive tunu, loka mike o tave.

'Ii ii vemage, ma lona' ghano ghipilihe, mah'lo.  Ive novoya tu'nu, neni lokamike lamine ma nani ye, lo'na.'

'Ihi, ihi, iyenoh!' ihi.'

'Iyenahh, ihi ihi.'

'Ii-ii, Apomake, naneta ihe, ma loh'na vo?'

'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi.'

'Eghhe, eghhe, ghijegipe napa li'moh'si nane ihi ihi ka' noli gho.'

'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi, Venevetaka vikena la!'

'Ghoseleka noilaine'q la ghelepe! Nene yakaho ma Venevetaka vike gamoje ma nolane.'

'Ihi, ihi, iyenah!' ihi.'

'Ihiq' liha', mene vena ma, amuto nakavosa to minine matunu, yokai  hiji ne'ja, ghigipe koma olutoko novi.'

Mine apasalaka vominike, ghijigipe ma nene ive vela novoja to gholosa oko no huli. 

(Koma a' ne' si.  Apasava'a koma a'li ke koma ma lolo niye.)

TOK PISIN

Wanpela Pikinini Na Mama Mekim Liklik Toktok

Wanpela taim wanpela meri i wok long gaten istap 

Liklik pikinini bilong em, em raun long wanpela istap long en, em wantaim ai wara i kam na krai long em.

'Oloman, gutpela mahm, yu tok, hangere painim yu oh.  Yu askim mi wantaim ia wara ya yu tok.'

'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi.'

'Mama, ihi ihi.'

'Ii-ii gutpela pren bilong mi, olsem wonem ya, yu tok.'

'Ihi, ihi, mama, ihi.'

'Eghhe, eghhe, bikpela pikinini pinis na wonem dispela ihi, ihi tumas ya.'

'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi, ol igo long Venevekata ya!'

'Yu mekim les pasin ya, yu harim ah. Em husat tok ol go Venevetaka toktok yu mekim.'

'Ihi ihi, mama, ihi.'

'Eh' wonem ya', nau dispela mama ya tok na i kisim stik bilong digim kaukau na laik traim sut spia long pikinini tasol pikinini ya i kalap igo.'

Pikinini igo stap long arere bilong gaten na givim krai nogut tru.

(Bilong surukim bihain taim)

ENGLISH

A Mother Has A Conversation With Her Child

One day a woman was working in her garden.

Her child who was out somewhere came to her and cried to her about going someplace.

'Oh my Gosh, young man, you say, are your hungry oh what.   You are asking me nicely with tears in your eyes.  What do you want?'

'Ii-ii, my good friend, tell me what is it.'

'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

'Eghhe, eghhe, you are already a big child and why are you still whimpering.'

'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi, they have all gone to Venevetaka!'

'You know that is ridiculous, who is that talking about Venevetaka that you are echoing here.'

'Ihi ihi, mamma, ihi.'

What is this? Now the mother was angry.  She took her digging stick that she was digging kaukau with and tried to spear her child with it.  The child jumped out of her way.

The child then went to a safe distance and bawled his eyes out crying

(To be continued).

Logs cut from pristine forest, Sepik River (Global Witness)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - Prominent church, environmental and community organisations have demanded that the Papua New Guinea government take urgent action to establish an independent review of the country’s forestry sector following the killings of two landowners and a policeman at a logging site.

Johnson Wapunai, the member for Ambunti-Drekikir, told the PNG parliament that the incident arose from landowners’ anger at illegal logging and the logging company’s use of police against them.

PNG Post-Courier, 19 January 2022

Mr Wapunai called on the police minister and police commissioner to explain the use of police on forestry projects where they work on behalf of logging companies.

In a joint statement, eight leading organisations, including the Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights, Caritas PNG and the Institute of National Affairs, said the deaths were an outcome of broader issues within the forestry sector that PNG leaders need to address urgenty.

“This tragedy further unveils larger issues of exploitation and suffering by the people of PNG in the natural resource industry,” the statement said.

“The country needs to reassess its approach to management of natural resources so it better understands the causes of conflict and finds solutions that respect and protect the rights of our people and their environment.

“Illegal logging is well documented across the country,” they said, adding that there is a long history of police acting for logging companies.

“We are concerned that logging companies continue to use the police force to inflict violence against the very people the police are supposed to protect – the traditional landowners, who rely on their forests for their livelihood.”

While previous police commissioners had called for an end to police being stationed at logging camps but the problem continued unabated.

This meant that, when landowners’ human rights are violated, “they are left cornered with little to no protection under the laws of the land”.

The logging industry in PNG and accomplices within the government have long been the focus of inquiries, investigations and reports that consistently identified widespread corruption, fraud, exploitation of landowners and serious environmental damage.

In January, PNG Attitude reported that the public had been repeatedly misled by the government over illegal land grabs in PNG which now represented “a mass theft encompassing more than five million hectares of land, 12% of the country”.

But, despite many commitments to take corrective action, illegal practices have persisted and approvals continue to be made for large forest areas to be cleared and permanently lost while long-term social, environmental and economic benefits are lost forever.

The organisations called on prime minister James Marape, who is facing elections mid-year, to finish his first term by initiating a public inquiry by an independent committee “into the integrity of the forestry sector, allegations of illegal logging and the serious and prolonged human rights breaches” at logging sites throughout the country.

They said the government must take back customary land by nullifying illegal leases, stopping illegal log exports, issuing no new forest clearing authorities and nullifying existing authorities found to be illegal.

The organisations also want parties that illegally issued leases and authorities to pay compensation and restore the areas affected.

“The killings demand immediate responses,” they said, “but these responses must go beyond police investigation to addressing the root causes that are seriously affecting the lives of customary landowners.

“This must be done to prevent such future tragedy in the Sepik region and around the country.”

LINK HERE TO READ THE FULL STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE CENTRE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND COMMUNITY RIGHTS INC

The statement is authorised by:

Peter Bosip, Executive Director, Centre for Environmental Law and Community Rights Inc
John Tagai Kuange, Assistant Country Director, Wildlife Conservation Society
Paul Barker, Executive Director, PNG Institute of National Affairs
Cosmas Makamet, Manager, Forest for Certain Forest for Life
Sangion Appiee Tiu PhD, Director, Research & Conservation Foundation of PNG
Kenn Mondiai, Executive Director, Partners With Melanesia
David Mitchell, Director, Eco Custodian Advocates
Mavis Tito, Director, Caritas PNG

Paul Oates - experiences interesting, educational and humorous

PHILIP FITZPATRICK 

Around the World BC (Before Covid) by Paul Oates, Independently Published, 2022, paperback, lavishly illustrated, 427 pages, AU$50.47. ISBN 979-8413290927. Available here from Amazon Australia

TUMBY BAY - There is little doubt that the world has been irrevocably changed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The forlorn hope that we might return to some sort of pre-pandemic normalcy is at best overly optimistic.

There will be things that we once enjoyed and took for granted that will now be impractical if not impossible. We may now only be able to look back on those things with longing and nostalgia.

One of those things will be unimpeded travel. Something many Australians hold dear to their hearts.

As young adults travel was always regarded as a rite of passage. Exposure to other places and other cultures and their formative effects has a lot to do with the Australian ethos.

That travel is a liberalising experience becomes abundantly apparent when we compare ourselves to the many Americans who are isolated and ignorant of the world beyond their shores, an illiteracy about life and other people that causes the world many problems.

As older adults drifting into retirement travel can be a culminating indulgence. Instead of backpacking across Asia and Europe we can opt for the luxury of cruise ships and guided tours.

For those who can afford it and are so inclined, a good life, even a hard life, can be topped off by a world cruise as an affirmation of Australian spirit and difference.

This is what Paul Oates’ latest book is all about. It is ready made nostalgia.

In that sense, its publishing demanded lavish presentation and Around the World BC, a clever title, meets that requirement.

There’s wall to wall colour on nearly every page interspersed with scintillating commentary and fascinating history, all delivered with an erudite and dry Aussie humour.

Getting it down to 427 pages and only the best photographs was no mean feat.

The text has been tightened to absolute pertinence and I feel sure that dozens of discarded colour photographs still litter the study floor.

Thus have the decade long wanderings of Paul and his wife Sue through Asia, Europe and the USA been distilled into one volume.

It is a book for readers to mull over and maybe compare with their own adventures. And perhaps to wonder what might have been had Covid not arrived to thwart our plans.

The Oates’ travels and experiences are interesting, educational and often humorous.

They impart a realistic view of the places they visited before Covid cut its swathe and turned the world upside down.

Paul has variously been a patrol officer in Papua New Guinea, a senior public servant in Australia, an administrator in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and a cattle farmer in Queensland. He is now retired.

This is his fourth book about his work and life and all have proved popular with readers.

His others are ‘Small Steps Along the Way’ (PNG), ‘Life on a Coral Atoll: Australia’s Cocos (Keeling) Islands’ and ‘Phascogales and Other Tales: A Queensland Tree Change’.

If you are thinking of throwing caution to the wind and travelling overseas sometime soon, this latest book is a must-have.

MICHAEL DOM

| Ples Singsing - A Space for
   Papua Niuginian Creativity

Vernacular Traces in the Crocodile Prize:
Part 5 of an essay in five parts

ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY ED BRUMBY
| TOK PISIN ORIGINAL FOLLOWS

LAE - Translation is a headache-inducing activity and it is likely that many writers don’t like, don’t want or don’t know how to translate their writing.

Unlike English, many of our indigenous languages don’t have the established grammars and associated rules of writing.

And we tend to speak and write Tok Pisin according to our own rules, habits and preferences.

Steven Winduo, ‘Transitions and Transformations’, UPNG Press and Bookshop and Manuia Publishers

I can see within their poems that writers have no problem including parables, metaphors and all kinds of stories when they write in English.

But they do have difficulty in effectively translating Tok Pisin ideas, metaphors and such. English still has a way to go to deal with our Tok Pisin thoughts and ideas.

For this reason, I have been trying to translate some of my poems which look and sound good in Tok Pisin.

Two illustrations of this kind of effort can be found in Jimmy Awagl’s poem, ‘Ol Man-Meri Bilong Back Page’ and Dolorose Atai Wo’otong’s ‘Perfect Gentleman’.

I’ve been scratching my head wondering why other writers who tried their hand at writing in Tok Pisin and Tok Ples were not interested in the 2016 Crocodile Prize.

Raymond Sigimet is one poet and writer who has written poems in Tok Pisin and translated them into English and there are others who have written Tok Pisin poems for the PNG Poetry Facebook page.

It’s true that Tok Pisin and Motu are not capable of recording and reporting some technical, scientific and high-level educational work – and the same can be said of our indigenous languages.

So how are we going to assist people to understand the new and different kinds of knowledge being created nowadays?

In our literature we have ancient tales, modern stories and drama. There are plenty of examples of Tok Pisin and Tok Ples in our literature. Shouldn’t we think more about promoting and using them?

However, across most information media and basic education we make the mistake of forgetting these two of our national languages.

While there is undoubtedly a big role for Tok Pisin and Motu in our literature – and in literacy programs generally - we just don’t do enough to promote them.

One mistake is to downplay the value and usefulness of Tok Pisin by saying it belongs only to ordinary grassroots people.

This disparagement suggests we have to use other languages to acquire a higher order of knowledge.

This kind of thinking ignores how Tok Pisin and Motu can and should be used for literary and literacy purposes – if only we cwuld try harder.

Some people say Tok Pisin is only good for talking and singing because it has no grammar and we use it only when we want to.

This kind of thinking suggests Tok Pisin is used only for play talk and jokes – which is not true because it is present in published works and regarded and taught as a language in its own right.

This kind of thinking also dissuades us from trying to establish Tok Pisin properly in its rightful place.

It is also true that Tok Pisin is in the tongues and hands of everyone, which means we writers should work together to strengthen our thinking about how to build and promote our culture.

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that there is no rule to stop us from writing our ideas, stories and poems in Tok Pisin, Motu and our mother tongues.

Our forefathers never banned the use of Tok Ples, so there are no rules or boundaries to breach.

It is beholden upon us writers to devise and publish our stories in Tok Pisin, Motu and our mother tongues.

English still has its place in school and work and when meeting people from other places – and remains important to learn.

If some of us feel that it’s too hard and gives us headaches to write in Tok Pisin and Motu and to translate from one language to another, we have to acknowledge that.

And even though some writers find it so, this is not a reason to criticise them.

Indeed, it is important that our writers are recognised for what they do.

Their writing about our customs and culture is read in other places beyond Papua New Guinea, it will last for a long time and it reminds us that we are the one true people of Papua New Guinea.

In the 2015 Crocodile Prize there were some writers who recognised that some of our ancient languages might become extinct and supported the notion that Tok Pisin and indigenous languages should be taught, and used as mediums for instruction at school.

(The fact that indigenous languages are becoming extinct is an issue of concern in many countries, Australia included, not just Papua New Guinea.)

In 2015 there were also writers who argued strongly that using indigenous languages in this way would not help young people to succeed when they ventured into the world to find a good job and establish a satisfying and fulfilling life.

I stand somewhere between these two schools of thought, mainly because I speak and write my poems and stories in English.

That said, I can see good examples and thinking from my fellow writers who write their stories and poems in their mother tongue.

This is, and I hope will be, an essential feature of our ever-emerging national literature – and will provide ongoing sustenance for national literacy.

So, we must try to combine our thinking about a new way forward. We must not shut the door to acknowledging other potential roads in our national journey.

While it is true that some of our indigenous languages may become extinct, this is no reason to stop thinking about preserving and sustaining the customs and culture as expressed through our own languages.

Finding only a few works in Tok Pisin, Motu and indigenous languages in the Crocodile Prize meant that I couldn’t properly hear our kundus and garamuts– which elicits the question about what makes us hear and understand clearly when we read literature and what makes us feel so good that we want to dance.

Papua New Guinea has kundus and garamuts which provide the beat for our own dance – and we are more than capable of playing them again.

Ating kastam pasim maus bilong yumi

Tanim tok i hetipen wok tu na ating ino olgeta raita man-meri bai igat laikim na save bilong raitim. Ol tokples bilong yumi inogatim alfabet, grama na ol rul bilong raitim olsem Tok Inglis, na tu Tok Pisin mipela save raitim na toktok long laik bilong mipela iet.

Tasol mi lukim olsem insait long wanwan tok-singsing igat sampela tokbokis, tok-piksa na ol kain stori ol raita i putim long tokinglis we em i kam long nek bilong tokpisin stret na igatim narapela as tingting bihain long en na tokinglis bai ino inapim em olgeta. Tok Inglis tu isave sot long ketch-up long sampela tokpisin yumi tromoi, laka.

Long dispela as mi bin traim han long tanim tok bilong ol sampela tok-singsing we mi lukim bai kam gut long Tok Pisin. Tupela piksa bilong dispela wok em long tok-singsing bilong Jimmy Awagl ‘Ol man-meri bilong back page’ na Dolorose Atai Wo’otong ‘Perfect Gentleman’. Mi bin traim long sikirapim tingting na laik bilong ol narpela raita long traim han bilong ol tu long Tok Pisin na ol Tok Ples tasol inogat bikpela laikim long Crocodile Prize bilong 2016.

Raymond Sigimet em i wanpela raita na poet husait i kamapim sampela tok-singsing long Tok Pisin na tu i tanim Tok Inglis long en. Na tu mi luksave olsem ol wanwan poet i stap long ol narapela sosel midia olsem Poetry PNG Facebook i raitim sampela tok-singsing ikam long Tok Pisin.

Ating em i tru olsem long ol sampela teknikol na saientific wok na ol sampela bikpela save skulwok bai Tok Pisin na Tok Motu i pundaun. (Na wankain pundaun tu long ol Tok Ples.) Tasol long wanem as bai yumi supim nus bilong ol igo long dispela ol niupela na narakain save yumi ol man-meri i kisim long dispela moden taim?

Ating long wok litiretia we igatim ol stori tumbuna, stori bilong nau, drama, na long ol kain media toksave, infomesen na liklik skulwok, bai yumi asua long lusim tingting long dispela tupela nesenol tokples. Igatim planti hanmak bilong Tok Pisin na Tok Motu ikamap pinis long ol literitia wok mi singautim nau tasol. Inap yumi tingting long strongim?

Mi ting olsem Tok Pisin na Tok Motu igat bikpela wok long litiretia (ol kainkain wokmak bilong raita) na litiresi (save bilong rid na rait) tasol yumi iet ino strongim.

Wanpela asua mi lukim em olsem mipela save tok “Tok Pisin emi toktok bilong mipela ol grasruts na liklik man-meri”. Dispela emi igat nek bilong daunim yumi iet long noken igat bikpela save na soim narapela. Mi ting olsem dispela kain tingting em bai sotim bikpela wokmak we Tok Pisin na Tok Motu iken inapim long litiretia na literesi sapos yumi traim long wok wantaim.

Narapela nek em olsem “Tok Pisin em i gutpela long toktok na singsing tasol na inogatim rul na grama bilong en na yumi save tromoi long laik bilong yumi iet”. Dispela kain nek em laikim olsem yumi ken tromoi tokpisin nating tasol long tok pilai na autim giaman tingting na ino tok trutru olsem igat wokmak na skul bilong en. Mi ting olsem dispela em soim les pasin long traim bilong lainim gut na stretim Tok Pisin long ikampam gutpela moa iet.

Tasol em i tok tru olsem “Tok Pisin i stap long tang na long han bilong ol pipol” na long tingting bilong mi ating moa beta yumi ol raita wok wantaim suga-tang na hanmak bilong yumi iet long traim kirapim tingting bilong mipela igo long narapela gutpela rot long strongim kalsa bilong yumi.

Sampela taim mi save tingting olsem nogut igatim sampela kain kastam i pasim maus bilong yumi long raitim tingting, stori na tok-singsing bilong yumi long Tok Pisin, Tok Motu na Tok Ples.

Sapos tumbuna i putim itambu long wok wantaim tokples orait moa beta long tokaut na tokstret long dispela mak, olsem yumi putim tanget long noken abrusim giraun bilong en.

Sapos inogat itambu orait em istap olsem wok bilong mipela ol raita long stap olsem ol lain bilong luksave, kirapim na kamautim ol stori bilong yumi iet long putim Tok Pisin, Tok Mout na Tok Ples igo het. Tok Inglis ating yumi olgeta igat laik long em na istap long skul na wok na long bungim ol narapela pipol. Emi gutpela tu long lainim.

Sapos ol sampela i pilim olsem emi hatwok tumas na hetipen tumas long raitim Tok Pisin na Tok Motu na tu long tanim tok orait dispela luksave long ol iet em tu emi gutpela long wanem wok bilong raita ino wok we olgeta man-meri igat laik long mekim na yumi noken givim hevi igo long ol lain i les long wok.

Wantaim dispela tingting tu imas igat sampela gutpela luksave igo long ol raita bilong yumi. Ol dispela lain i mekim wok bilong kastam na kalsa bilong yumi long em bai kirap na igo pas long narapela ples griaun, na istap iet long narapela taim, na moa iet, em bai makim olsem yumi stap nau ibin wanem kain lain tru long dispela ples giraun Papua Niugini.

Long 2015 Crocodile Prize ibin igat wanwan raita i luksave olsem ol tumbuna tokples bilong yumi bai lus igo pinis na ikirapim tingting bilong kisim Tok Pisin na Tok Ples igo bek gen long skul wok. Dispela luksave olsem ol tokples bai lus igo pinis istap long olgeta kantri na ino asua bilong nau tasol.

Tasol igat narapela lain raita ibin tok strong olsem dispela kain Tok Ples skul inogat gutpela wokmak na bai ino inap halavim ol sumatin long resis long bikpela ples giraun long taim bilong painim wok na kamapim gutpela sindaun.

Mi iet mi sanap namel long ol dispela tupela tingting bilong wanem mi iet mi save tasol long tokinglis, na tu mi pinisim wokmak bilong mi long dispela Tok Inglis. Tasol mi lukim naispela hanmak na gutpela bel tingting i kirap taim wanwan ol wanwok raita bilong mi i raitim tok-singsing na tromoi tok ples bilong yumi iet. Dispela em i wokmak bilong nesenol litiretia long kamapim. Em iken karim gutpela kaikai long nesenol literesi.

Bai yumi mas traim bungim tingting gen na stori long sampela niupela rot, na inoken pasim dua nating long ol sampela gutpela tingting na luksave long narapela rot bilong nesenol wokabaut.

Em i tru olsem sampela tok ples bilong yumi bai idai igo pinis tasol dispela inoken mekim yumi lusim strongpela tingting long holim pasim ol gutpela kastam na kalsa we istap insait long tokples bilong yumi iet.

Sapos mipela lusim ol dispela stori, kastam na kalsa bai yumi stap olsem ol lus prut long ples graun na bai lusim tingting olsem mipela Papua Niugini ibin sanap strong long mak bilong miplea iet.

Taim mi bin painim aut olsem Tok Pisin, Tok Motu na Tok Ples igatim liklik mak tasol long Crocodile Prize, emi olsem mi ino inap long harim kundu na garamut bilong yumi iet. Na mi bin igat askim olsem, long wanem kain nek bai yumi harim gut tru na luksave taim yumi ridim ol dispela wok literitia, we mipela iken pilim swit moa iet na mekim sampela danis.

Papua Niugini igatim kundu na garamut bilong pairapim long danis bilong yumi iet. Mipela inap long kirapim gen.

Sincha Dimara - EMTV news boss suspended after minister 'displeased' over news team pursuing a story about a hotel owner caught up in a drugs bust

NEWS DESK
| Pacific Media Watch

AUCKLAND – The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, has condemned the “unacceptable political meddling” at EMTV News, Papua New Guinea’s main public television news channel.

Sincha Dimara was suspended as head of news and current affairs at EMTV after three news stories annoyed a government minister.

After 33 years at EMTV News, Dimara was suspended without pay two weeks ago.

Reporters Without Borders has said she must be reinstated at once.

A leaked memo from Lesieli Vete, the CEO of EMTV owner Media Niugini Ltd, revealed that Dimara had been accused of “insubordination” and “damaging the reputation of the company”.

The “insubordination” consisted of three stories by Dimara’s news team about Australian hotel manager Jamie Pang’s legal problems in PNG and suspicions that police had violated criminal procedure in the case.

The news team’s reporting seems to have displeased Public Enterprises Minister William Duma, who — according to several accounts — was behind the decision to suspend Dimara.

Duma is also in charge of Telikom, the state-owned telecommunications company that owns MNL, and, by extension, EMTV News.

Two days after Dimara’s suspension, the Media Council of PNG issued a statement defending her decision to broadcast the three stories.

Dimara told Reporters Without Borders that she was very concerned that her suspension was “affecting the performance of my staff”.

“As Sincha Dimara’s suspension is clearly a ploy to intimidate the entire editorial staff at EMTV News, we demand her immediate reinstatement as head of news and current affairs,” said Daniel Bastard, head of the Asia-Pacific desk of Reporters Without Borders.

“This political interference weakening diversity in news and information is all the more unacceptable for having disturbing precedents and coming just four months ahead of next June’s general elections,” he said.

Political and commercial pressure aimed at limiting editorial freedom at EMTV News is not new.

Scott Waide, an EMTV News senior journalist of long standing, was suspended in November 2018 over a story suggesting that the government had misused public funds by purchasing luxury cars, as reported by Asia Pacific Report.

He was later reinstated after protests and has since become an independent media operator.

The political pressure on EMTV News is such that Neville Choi was fired as head of news in 2019 on the same grounds as Dimara — for “insubordination.” He was eventually reinstated.

Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch collaborate with Reporters Without Borders

Eddie Tanago - "The PNG Forest Authority should be abolished". A rogue institution that has orchestrated illegal logging for 30 years

EDDIE TANAGO
| Campaign Manager | Act Now!

PORT MORESBY - The Marape government’s claims that it has stopped issuing new log export licences to foreign-owned logging companies are not borne out by the evidence.

Nor are its statements that it is moving to 100% downstream processing of logs before they are exported.

According to the government’s own data, 16 new foreign-operated log export operations have started since 2020.

This contradicts the prime minister’s claims that under his government new log export licences have been given to only locally owned businesses.

Nine of the new operations started in 2020 and another seven in 2021. The latest to be licenced exported its first logs in October last year.

Over half the new operations were falsely licensed as ‘agriculture projects’, previously found to be riddled with corruption.

The SABL Commission of Inquiry found that the false promise of agriculture projects was routinely used by foreign-owned logging companies to fraudulently acquire export licences and then clear large tracts of forest.

Current log export data shows it is very likely the same abuses are continuing.

According to government figures, the new logging operations were responsible for over 20% of all unprocessed log exports in 2021.

Their operations are spread across seven different provinces: five in West Sepik, four in West New Britain, two each in East New Britain and Central, and one each in Oro, New Ireland and Western.

Act Now, as a community advocacy organisation, fully supports the government’s policy to stop unprocessed log exports by 2025 in favour of 100% downstream processing.

But the facts show the PNG Forest Authority is misleading the prime minister and is failing to implement government policy.

The Forest Authority is a rogue institution that has been instrumental in orchestrating the illegal and unsustainable logging of our forests for the past 30 years.

Clearly it cannot be trusted to implement government policy or protect our forests.

The PNGFA should be abolished and a new government institution set up under a completely new Forestry Act.

Such measures are the only way we can ever ensure the sustainable management of PNG’s rich forest resources and the development of secure, well paid jobs based on downstream processing.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Most longstanding readers will remember December 2011 when Peter O’Neill was trying to wrest control of Papua New Guinea from prime minister Michael Somare.

It was a strange time. While the courts were trying to work things out, the country had two prime ministers, two police commissioners, two army commanders and two of a lot of other positions.

Eventually the Supreme Court made a decision and life went back to getting ready for Christmas.

I was reminded of this today when sitting down to write this article.

Life in Australia at present is a bit like living in two almost identical universes. In one, it seems that everything is just about normal. In the other, the one in which I live, it looks family but is not.

This other Australia is frequented by people who do not believe everything is normal, that is, Covid-safe.

Not all of these people are like me and carry conditions highly likely to be made worse by catching Covid.

Strangely, perhaps, one of my afflictions is a neurological illness almost identical to what is termed ‘Long Covid’. People with my condition who caught Covid have ended up much worse. For me that would be disastrous.

But even if I was as fit as a Mallee bull, I would still belong to the second group – the avoiders. The people who do not want to catch Covid because of the substantial risk, especially if you’re older, of acquiring a very unpleasant collection of chronic illnesses.

So, in this second and cautious Australia, we maintain protocols like social distancing, mask wearing and avoiding crowded rooms.

The price we pay for this is to be increasingly told by many governments and their lick-spittle health bureaucrats and tame scientists that we have things all wrong.

Well, we’ll see how that pans out.

So far, this cadre of let-it-rippers have shown excellence in trying to deny that their policies are resulting in hundreds of deaths of people in aged care and in thousands of children catching a disease that nobody is really sure won’t have future repercussions.

And of course, they never speak of the Long Covid which seems to affect between 15% and 40% of people depending on factors themselves not much understood. One of them, a Dr Coatsworth, would like you to chuck your mask away, snowflake.

I believe that we cautious folk have science on our side. As you might expect, I keep in close touch with the science – the real science not cowboy science, and from credible research institutes not politicised ones, and published after peer reviews in trustworthy medical journals not as eyeball-baiters in the tabloid press.

The Danish immunologist Professor Kristian Andersen runs a highly-regarded research laboratory in California. It’s part of the prestigious Scripps Research Institute.

Andersen uses the term ‘endemic delusion’ to describe what he says is “the unrealistic belief that the Covid pandemic is over” which preaches “that we can get back to 2019 life by suppressing the fact that we need to keep innovating and fight the virus”.

In fact, I equate that delusion to what I see beginning to happen around me in Australia.

However Andersen believes the delusion is best exemplified by what is happening in his native Denmark.

“Denmark effectively declared the pandemic over about two weeks ago,” he writes. “It declassified the virus so it's no longer a ‘critical disease’, and ended all restrictions.

“This is despite the fact that cases, hospitalisations and test positivity are higher than ever - with deaths rapidly rising.

“Yet all of this is basically ignored by Danish media, mostly by focusing on ICU numbers, which are stable, but ignoring that deaths are going up.

“And endlessly focusing on ‘with Covid’ versus ‘of Covid’, ignoring the fact that it's all ‘Covid’,” Andersen writes.

This is a nasty and offensive habit that’s been picked up by the bad guys in Australia, who now make a distinction between whether you die ‘with Covid’, which seems to be OK, or ‘of Covid’ which they don’t like.

In truth the distinction should be whether it was Covid that caused death to occur or whether you would still be alive if you hadn’t caught Covid, no matter how old you were or what other conditions you had.

“Choosing a strategy is far from easy,” writes Andersen, “however, whatever the strategy, it must be based on realistic expectations and not delusion.

“Sadly, the strategy in Denmark is based on the latter.”

What happened a couple of weeks ago when Denmark declared the pandemic over

I suppose like, in Australia, it’s also based on false equivalences, half-truths, dodgy statistics, cherry picking, ignoring contrary evidence and sometimes downright lying.

Andersen concludes by saying that if people “simply declare the pandemic over – when that is very much not the case - we stop innovating and fighting, which will only prolong the pandemic and make it worse.

“We need to innovate our way out of this - better vaccines, drugs, masks, tests and systems,” he says.

You can link here to a podcast in which Dr Andersen and Dr Andy Slavitt, President Biden's senior advisor on Covid, discuss Denmark’s decision to lift all Covid restrictions, what we know about the new Omicron sub-variant and other timely issues.

The World Health Organisation is also concerned about ‘endemic delusion’.

“This pandemic is nowhere near over,” says director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Now is not the time to give up and wave the white flag.

“We can still significantly reduce the impact of the current wave by sharing and using health tools effectively, and implementing public health and social measures that we know work.”

His emergencies director, Michael Ryan, picks up the argument: “Omicron may be less severe on average, but the narrative that it is a mild disease is misleading.

“Make no mistake, Omicron is causing hospitalisations and deaths, and even the less severe cases are inundating health facilities.”

I also found a piece by Dr George Lundberg, ‘Human race keeps trying to make itself extinct’, to be particularly interesting.

Lundberg is a clinical professor of pathology at Northwestern University in Illinois.

“Covid-19 is a particularly voracious and devious evolutionary wonder for which humankind so far is no match,” he writes.

“Our wondrous technical science may eventually win out. But the frailties of human knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour - and the resulting lame social and political entities that drive mass decision-making - are so unreliable and subject to nefarious manipulation as to cast real doubt on a favourable ultimate outcome.”

Dr Lundberg sees this beginning third year of the pandemic to be particularly troubling.

“With so many reactionary governments in the throes of ‘freedom über alles’ (freedom above everything), a large portion of humankind is left to an ‘every person for themselves’ mode,” he says.

“Who survives will depend upon wealth, education and individual protective actions, such as vaccination, isolation and masking, much to the harm of ‘the masses’ and a valiant, but likely overmatched, healthcare workforce.

“Public health and prevention thinking have been undermined by many. Those old human traits of ignorance, hypocrisy and greed continue to render many humans easy targets for political and economic exploitation.”

And so too the colourful prose of Dr Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist who is a senior fellow of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC:

“My God,” he exclaims on Twitter, “Danish political leaders have completely lost their frigging minds releasing all Covid-19 mitigations — these are exponentially surging deaths not cases!

“This is what happens when a country’s leaders gaslights its own citizens. Covid is not over.

“There is complete ‘endemic delusion’ going on right now in Denmark and many other countries.

“I’m not the only one that thinks Danish leaders are being completely irresponsible.

“Say what you will about ICU, but the hospitalisations and deaths don’t lie.”

Of course, the fight for reason and science is far from totally absent in Australia. I can think of many scientists, and even a few journalists and politicians, who understand that the toughest battles, far from being over, still lie ahead of us.

But the endemically deluded are in for a rude shock.

As for those who have great influence over public health policy and who have made the cynical decision to let ‘er rip…. I hope my cautious ways and unpredictable health allow me to ive long enough to see you brought to account.

ABC chief David Anderson says Pacific countries are concerned about Chinese media content (Adriane Reardon)

HENRY BELOT
| Australian Broadcasting Corporation | Edited extracts

CANBERRA - The managing director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation says Pacific public broadcasters have raised concerns about Chinese government pressure to carry state-controlled news content.

As China increases its influence in the region, David Anderson told a Senate committee on Tuesday the ABC is planning to expand its operations in the Pacific and play a greater ‘soft diplomacy’ role.

"For the ABC to have an expanded presence is important, particularly with concerns over the Chinese government," Anderson told the committee.

He said the ABC has been working with public broadcasters in the region through a partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

"The single biggest piece of information that comes back to us from the public broadcasters is concern over the pressure the Chinese government put on them to carry content," he said.

Several media experts have noticed an increase in Chinese media content in the Pacific, coinciding with a gradual decline in Australian output.

The ABC previously broadcast news bulletins to 46 nations including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea through the DFAT-funded Australia Network.

The service was closed in 2014 after budget cuts but retained an international TV service, ABC Australia.

The ABC has continued to broadcast to the Pacific but at a smaller scale.

The Australia Network was created to facilitate ‘soft diplomacy’ and improve understanding of Australia.

But it was criticised by government figures, including former foreign minister Julie Bishop, who questioned whether it was effectively promoting Australia's interests.

When the ABC switched off its shortwave radio transmissions to the Pacific in 2017, the frequencies were gradually taken over by China Radio International, China’s state-owned overseas broadcaster.

During the same year, president Xi Jinping expanded the state-owned China Global Television Network and urged it to "make the voice of China heard.

"The relationship between China and the rest of the world is undergoing historic changes," Xi said at the time.

"China needs to know better about the world and the world needs to know better about China."

An Australian National University study found that between August 2016 and September 2020, Chinese ambassadors published 92 articles in newspapers in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia.

"All were clearly labelled as authored by the Chinese ambassador or provided by the Chinese embassy," the report said.

It said that competition was intensifying between China and the Pacific’s traditional partners such as USA and Australia, and this included broadcast communications.

Anderson spoke of the importance of expanding the ABC’s broadcast presence and said it has asked the federal government for an additional $12 million to support this.

TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL DOM

Yu lukim kunai silip antap long bus diwai
Na giraun nating insait long haus bilong mi
Taim mi opim dua long yu
Na yu tingting long yu iet olsem wanem bai yu inap halapim mi
Tasol…

Mi simelim kol win long moning taim mipela i katim kunai
Na mi harim ol pikinini i lap na pilai istapArere long liklik mauten garas
Na sol bilong tuhat ikam long maus emi swit
Taim mipela pundaunim ol diwai long giraun.
Mi pilim strong bilong san na paia tu i kukim mi
Taim mipela simukim haus na pasim gut tru
Aninit long traipela lait bilong blu skai
Na long tutak tutak tru bilong bik nait.

Mi tingtim ol dispela nait mipela i kaikai kumu tasol
We ol lapun mama i karim ikam
(Anutu givim blesing long gris pik!)
Emi olsem luksave long hat wok bilong mipela
Na tu ol i laikim tru ol tumbuna blong ol.
Tasol mi nogat gutpela save na mi wari tru
Long wanem rot bai mi givim tingting long yu?

Em nau na bai mi mekim beten olsem
Sapos Anutu bai inap harim nek bilong mi wanpela taim tasol
Long wanpela nait insait long kingdom bilong Em istap oltaim oltaim
Em istap antap, antap tumas long pipia paia ples bilong mi
Yu givim bel isi long poro bilong mi, sapos trutru yu iet yu Anutu
Na givim blesing ikam long kingdom bilong Yu iet
BIlong wanem mi igat planti as long tok tenkiu
Tasol mi nogat liklik samting bilong givim igo.
Salim wankain save igo long poro bilong mi
Olsem yumi olgeta istap hia long naunau, na wanwan igatim laip
Na mipela olgeta igat lewa.

DUNCAN GABI

FICTION - It was 2018 and I was in my third year at Divine Word University in Madang when I was terminated from further studies on disciplinary grounds.

I planned on running away, to where I didn’t know, but the thought had formed in my crafty mind as I awaited the decision of the university’s disciplinary council on what to do with me.

I was scared of going home and felt it was in my best interests not to tell my parents of this unpleasant news. I feared it would break my mother’s fragile heart and send my dad into a rage.

So I hung around the campus for a while until an opportunity popped up on my Facebook page.

In the newsfeed was an item from the YWAM medical ship, which was on its sixth outreach to Finschhafen and was calling for volunteers.

I applied without hesitation and was told to board the ship, which would be docking at Lae. I packed my bag and took the road from Madang, feeling like a drifter.

Just a piece of wood floating on the vast ocean called life, going wherever the currents and waves carried me. Anyway, right now the tide was favourable and so I found myself in a 25-seater bound for Papua New Guinea’s industrial hub.

It was about six hours later and late when I arrived in Lae and asked the driver to drop me off at the port. I found a YWAM worker who took me on board the ship where I thought I would be spending the next two weeks.

After that, well, I’d find another place, somewhere very far away from home.

On board the ship, I met people of different nationalities and from various parts of PNG.

Early the next morning, the ship left the wharf and sailed east towards Finschhafen.

At first we anchored in Langema Bay off Butaweng where we would serve villages and communities as far north as Sattelberg

I was assigned to work with the optometry team and spent the first week patrolling to rural areas conducting eye tests and handing out glasses to people.

For the second week, we dropped anchor at Dregerhafen and I was put to work in the galley to prepare food for the volunteers. I really enjoyed this, and decided to spend much time eating every type of food I laid eyes on.

It was in the middle of the week that one of the team leaders approached me and said we were going on a patrol to a remote village, Makini, perched high up in the mountains of Finschhafen.

I packed my bag and went ashore with the team to Dregerhafen secondary school field where a helicopter owned by Manolos Aviation was waiting on the sports field.

Wow, I thought, as we were airlifted to Makini, this was developing into a real adventure.

We landed at Makini on a small airstrip built for single engine aircraft. Nearby was the aid post that served the entire population of the region.

Or it had, because it had been closed for almost two years. The medical workers left one day and never came back.

As the helicopter took off on its next mission, a small group gathered and gave us a warm welcome.

It was just as well, as this place was cold. I’ve spent a lot of time in the New Guinea Highlands and I can tell you Makini was colder.

There were no roads around here. I’d seen only one as we flew from the coast, but it wasn’t near Makini.

It seems it was constructed for a logging company to move logs down to the coast.

There were eight of us in the patrol team, three nationals and five expatriates, all volunteers. We had a guy from Canada, a lady from Switzerland, an American lady, two Australians and three locals - one from Finschhafen, one from Kabwum and me from Central.

We were shown to the house where would sleep. It was a traditional house with walls of woven bamboo, a sago leaf roof and a floor made from palm trunks.

Most of the expatriates had never slept in a traditional hut before and inspected it to see if it was safe, being particularly surprised to see a fireplace in the middle of the hut.

I explained that it was needed to keep the hut warm and quite safe. The American lady joked, “It’s just like our heating systems back in US, how cool is that?” I nodded in agreement. You got that right.

It was already afternoon by the time we had settled in, so I started a fire in the fireplace in the middle of the hut without any difficulties.

From the expressions on the faces of the expats it was like I’d performed a magic trick.

The Swiss lady, startled at the speed with which the fire started said, “Wow Duncan, you’re an expert in starting fires, how did you do that?”

In my mind, a voice said ‘like really?’, but I understood that most of them had probably never started a fire in their lives.

Coming from first world countries, they had no experience in collecting wood or starting fires. So I didn’t say a thing.

They were here to serve my people and had patrolled to a remote rural area. They were experiencing new cultures.

I felt that, as a native, I had to make sure they enjoyed the experience.

When the fire was up, I poured three cups of rice into a pot, measured out some water and poured it in water and set the pot on top of the fire, which was now burning like the furnace because the Canadian guy kept feeding it with dried twigs.

I told him to stop with the wood and save some as we’d need it during the night to keep the fire going. Not that we would have run out because the villagers were kind enough to bring us more.

My two PNG friends were outside while I was in the hut with the foreigners making sure the fire was burning (and also to make sure the Canadian guy didn’t push any more in).

When I saw the rice boiling, I minimised the fire and told them to keep an eye on the pot and remove it from the fire when the rice was cooked. Or if they couldn’t, just let the fire die down.

When I was sure they understood my instructions, I went outside to join my wantoks in a smoke.

The sun was setting on the horizon, the scene was so beautiful that my wantoks and I stood silently looking at the sunset and the magnificent jungle below us while we enjoyed the tobacco the locals had given us.

We were laughing at Kande’s jokes when he poked me and said, “Muna, go na lukim rais ya, mi smelim em paia stap ya”.

I turned around and sniffed the air. Indeed, the air smelled of burning rice.

I rushed into the hut and was hit by the overpowering smell of overcooked rice.

I picked up the scorching pot with my bare hands, dropped it on to the palm floor and took off the lid.

The searing smoke coming out of the pot burned my hands and face.

I was very angry and wanted to swear but somehow kept my cool.

I asked the expats why they didn’t remove the pot from the fire and the American lady replied, “We didn’t know if the rice was cooked or not”.

My anger evaporated when I remembered they had never cooked rice on a fire before and so this was totally new to them.

I explained how cooking on the fire worked and then asked why the fire was burning so furiously when I had instructed them not to feed it with any more wood.

Just as I feared, when I left the hut the Canadian guy was back feeding the fire with wood until the flames blanketed the rice pot, the pot which was now as black as a starless night and the rice the same.

I inspected the rice and found that most of the rice was black and hard and shrivelled and totally useless for eating.

Some rice that was on top looked properly cooked but the rest was burned beyond recognition.

The American lady, a concerned look on her face, asked about my hands but I told her they would be fine.

I then went on to explain that the burned rice had to be thrown away and some more cooked.

Then, to my amazement, one of them said, “It’s okay, we’ll just eat it”.

I looked around in disbelief, replying in my best English, “No, no, this rice is unfit for consumption”.

The American responded, “It’s fried rice,” saying something about how good fried rice was to eat, her four associates nodding their heads in agreement.

“This is not fried rice,” I said. “There’s a difference between fried rice and burnt rice.”

“But it will still taste like fried rice won’t it?’’

By this time I was about to lose my mind and kick the rice pot out of the hut and down the hill.

Instead I stood up and went out of the hut to inform my two wantoks about the disaster.

I asked one of them and make some soup while I stood outside for a while and got some cool air before returning to the hut.

The foreigners were watching soup being prepared and were surprised when we dumped everything into the one pot.

I told them that this is how we cook in PNG and one said, “Now I wanna try that PNG soup, yeah, everything into one pot”.

Everyone found the comment hilarious and laughed while my Kabwum wantok tasted the soup like any chef would do.

When the soup was ready, we served the small portion of rice which was properly cooked and kept the burned rice for ourselves.

During dinner, we watched as they enjoyed their meal and complimented our cooking.

Meanwhile we sat quietly in a corner of the hut and tried our best to swallow the burned fried rice.

Ialibu 1972

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – In April 2019, Raymond Sigimet shared his father’s memories of being a policeman in the kiap system in the early years of Papua New Guinea’s independence.

The article, A Policeman Remembers, included two photographs, the first of four members of the disciplined forces (army, police and corrective services) posing in their uniforms for Paul Oates at his Morobe outpost.

The other, reprised here, of a group of expatriate men based in Ialibu, posing in the fashion of 19th century pioneers.

The photograph named the subjects as Phil Birch, Peter Barber, Jack Bullock, Mike Lowe, Phillip Hazleton (back) and Ben Probert and Rob Rawlinson.

At the time we knew neither the motivation for the event nor the identity of the photographer.

But now, nearly three years later, Juliet Barber has been in touch to say she captured the image and to tell us something about it.

The Ialibu boys (Juliet Barber)

“In a leisurely moment of fond reflection,” Juliet wrote, “I googled an erstwhile colleague, Ben Probert, and your blog came up.

“I read the policeman’s story with interest and then was flabbergasted to see my photo of the Ialibu boys.

“My husband, Peter Barber, was a kiap from 1959 to 1976 - mostly in the Southern Highlands.

“We were stationed at Ialibu, where I was the Community Development Officer, and we had loads of fun.

The second photo which appears in the article is a spoof. We’d had a boozy lunch and decided to present the men as outsiders might see them.

“Peter raided his gun cabinet and the boys raided their limited wardrobes and each took on a persona.

“We wives (Carolyn Bullock, Rose Lowe and I) posed the men and I took the photo,” Juliet said.

And she shared with us just how the stage was set.

“Phil Birch, earning his medical degree in the UK and visiting Ialibu, joined in for a breath of comic good cheer.

“My husband Peter, who was the Assistant District Commissioner, wears a jacket of mine (he wasn’t a safari suit kind of guy).

“Jack Bullock poses as the missionary.

“We never did decide what Mike Lowe might be, perhaps a misplaced Canadian Mountie?

“Phil Hazleton leans on a Buka walking stick.

“Ben Probert, for whom I was searching when I came across the article is there alongside didiman Rob Rawlinson.”

Juliet says a large print of the photo was sent to District Commissioner, Des Clancy, presumably so he could be assured his men were well and truly on the job.

“They were good times, safe times and I reflect with nostalgia on our years there,” Juliet wrote.

“I sincerely hope the photo is not considered as a reflection of how we were.”

Not so considered was this clever and beautifully stage-managed parody.

But, 50 years on, it evokes something else – and that is in its capture of the spirit of an outstation.

Young men and women far from home doing important work in a remote locations and, on their time off, compelled to create their own entertainment.

I vividly recall my first posting to Kundiawa, a very small (population 80) and isolated town at the time but which boasted a thriving multiracial club, a nine-hole golf course around the grass airstrip, two cricket teams, gumi (inner tube) races down the Chimbu River, caving, mountain climbing and a fortnightly newspaper.

There were regular Gastronomic Tours featuring exotic dishes at Dick Kelaart’s Kundiawa Hotel, satirical revues played at the Chimbu Club a few times a year and the famed annual Chimbu Ball which brought people from all parts of the Territory in aircraft that crowded the small airstrip (but never drew the much-promised planeload of single women that each year was said to be on its way from Port Moresby).

So thanks for the memories, Juliet, and well done to the Ialibu crowd all those years ago, a Sunday afternoon well spent.

Other frontiersmen from days of yore. The gallant
officers of the TPNG kiapry were much better turned out

The empty EMTV newsroom last night (APN)

NEWS DESK
| Pacific Media Watch | Edited extracts

AUCKLAND - The national news team of Papua New Guinea’s major television channel, EMTV, walked out last night in protest over a decision earlier this month to suspend the head of news, Sincha Dimara, for alleged insubordination.

The news team condemned the “endless intimidation” which has led to the suspension or sacking of three news managers in the past five years.

The team vowed not to return until the “wrongs have been righted” by EMTV management.

They want EMTV to reinstate Dimara, a journalist of 30 years’ experience, and acting CEO Lesieli Vete to be “sidelined and investigated for putting EMTV News into disrepute”.

In a statement signed by ‘Newsroom 2022’, the team apologised to viewers for not broadcasting last night’s news bulletin.

“With all that has happened in the last eight days, the EMTV news team has decided to walk off producing EMTV News,” the statement said.

“We, therefore demand that Ms Dimara be reinstated and for interim CEO Lesieli Vete to be sidelined and investigated for putting EMTV News into disrepute.

“We no longer have confidence in her leadership.

The controversy arose over a series of news stories on court cases involving Australian businessman Jamie Pang.

According to a statement of 7 February, “a fraction of the EMTV News team was verbally notified of a decision made by EMTV management to suspend EMTV’s head of news and current affairs, Sincha Dimara for a 21-day period”.

The statement said the decision had been based on “purported insubordination over a series of news stories relating to Jamie Pang and his associates, and damaging the reputation of EMTV” because of “negative comments from the public on the airing of Jamie Pang’s stories”.

In 2018, Scott Waide was the first manager suspended over a story aired during the 2018 APEC meeting.

Neville Choi was terminated in August 2019, also on grounds of ‘insubordination’.

And now Sincha Dimara has been placed in a similar situation.

Immediately after her suspension, the news team wrote a letter to Vete expressing concern.

Vete queried the letter demanding to know which staff members were involved.

The entire news team then expressed their concern in another letter with signatures from all individual members to support the call to reinstate Dimara.

“We are certain that the manner and approach taken by the interim CEO over the suspension of Ms Dimara is not right,” the letter said.

“We consider the grounds of suspension to be shallow, contradictory and irrelevant.

“The news team strongly believes that the stories that ran on the nightly news relating to Jamie Pang were unbiased and reported with facts and did not impede on any of the current laws nor did not implicate anyone.”

On Thursday, 10 February 2022, the management team, acting CEO of Telikom – the owners of EMTV’s parent company Media Niugini Limited (MNL)  — and few senior officers met with the news team and explained their decision to suspend Dimara.

The EMTV management team then initiated an investigation into the situation to determine what went wrong. That investigation is still continuing.

In the letter sent to Telikom acting CEO, Amos Tepi, and copied in the chairman of Telikom, Johnson Pundari, the news team wrote, “The decision to suspend Dimara is wrong as it breaches the Media Code of Ethics which is to report without fear or favour.”

The team also said it was standing up against continuous intimidation from the interim CEO.

There was no immediate public response from EMTV management to the news team’s walkout last night.

The Media Council of PNG has condemned Dimara’s suspension, describing the move as a “dangerous precedent in an election year”.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders also condemned “unacceptable political meddling” and calling for immediate reinstatement of Sincha Dimara.

In 1966 a PNG schoolboys' team defeated a NSW team 13-5 in Sydney (link to this remarkable story at end of  article)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – In 2020, Rob Corra took on the massive task of producing a podcast for fans of rugby league – the self-styled ‘greatest game of all’.

Rugby league is also, uniquely, the national sport of Papua New Guinea, the only nation that has awarded it such a high honour.

Corra’s podcast ‘That’s The Way It Was’ made its internet debut in January 2021 looking back at the history and traditions of rugby league.

As part of his diving and delving, Corra decided that no review of the sport would be complete without including PNG, where its fans are arguably the most passionate in the world, sometimes to a fault as they fight each other to a standstill.

And so it was determined that Episode 20 of ‘That’s The Way It Was’ would be devoted to, and titled, ‘The History of Rugby League in PNG’.

“In a nation where communities are far apart and many people live at minimal subsistence level, the enthusiasm for rugby league has been theorised to flow from its role as an alternative to tribal warfare,” Corra says.

“PNG had made history in the 2000 rugby league World Cup by finishing top of its pool and qualifying for the quarter finals for the first time.

“Led by Adrian Lam, PNG lost the game against Wales but showed the rest of the rugby league world how far it had progressed.

“When the players returned home they were greeted as heroes by thousands of PNG fans. Rugby league in PNG had come of age.”

In assembling material for the program, Corra encountered numerous difficulties.

He discovered PNG Attitude early in his research, but tracking down the origins of the sport in PNG was a challenge.

So was trying to locate the people who, in the 1960s and 1970s, had turned rugby league into an activity of almost religious power.

But fragment by fragment, Corra assiduously pulled together the podcast, however there were still many gaps – and then he found his woman.

He came across Urith Toa, who works for the Port Moresby Rugby League, and she told him he must talk with David Silovo.

“He knows everything about rugby league in PNG,” Urith said.

And so Corra lined up an interview with Silovo, whose knowledge of the sport in PNG is indeed mountainous and who turned out to be everything Corra needed.

As well as being a sport historian, Silovo is on the judiciary committee of the Port Moresby Rugby League and an independent match reviewer for the Digicel Cup, PNG’s national, semi-professional rugby league championship.

Their first interview was done by phone and the audio quality was so bad the recording could not be used.

Pressed for time, Corra interviewed Silovo, by Skype. It was a near thing but the late January deadline was met.

“I finally got it done!” Corra emailed me. “Massive communication issues!”

As you’ll find out listening to the interview, the audio quality is sometimes frustratingly poor.

But the story, and especially Silovo’s contribution, is remarkable. It had me enthralled, poor feed and all, right through.

You can link here to the ‘That’s the Way It Was’ website

Or find it on Facebook here

Or on YouTube here

As Rob Corra says, for Papua New Guinea, rugby league is another bird of paradise.

Link to that amazing schoolboy encounter here

The MP database and its companion Elections database are essential tools for anyone interested in Papua New Guinea. A laudable joint project of the Australian National University and the University of PNG

STEPHEN HOWES & THOMAS WANGI
| Devpolicy Blog | Edited

CANBERRA - It’s not easy keeping track of Papua New Guinea’s members of parliament.

They might change from one party to another, or from government to the opposition. To help make it easier, we’ve created the PNG MP Database, which you can link to here.

A few years ago, we created the PNG Elections Database, which tells you who competed in every seat in almost every election back to independence, and how they fared.

Now, to complement that, we have the PNG MP Database, which provides information on what MPs have done once elected.

We’ve only done this for the Tenth Parliament (2017–2022), but we plan to keep it going through the life of the next parliament and beyond.

For the Tenth Parliament, at six critical points of time we captured which parties MPs belonged to, whether they supported government or the opposition and the time they have served in parliament.

These critical points were:

the July 2017 elections

the formation of the O’Neill government (August 2017)

the O’Neill overthrow and his replacement by Marape (May 2019)

the vote of no confidence on Marape (December 2020)

just after the vote of no confidence, which Marape narrowly survived (February 2021)

this month (February 2022), as PNG politics warms up for the mid-year election

There’s a lot of fascinating information in the database, including:

111 MPs were elected at the 2017 general election. There are now 107 - sadly six died, four joined since, one resigned, one was disqualified

55% of members lost their seat at the last election, but 45% of MPs are in their first term because about 10 MPs returned to parliament in 2017 after being out for at least one term

32% of MPs are in their second term, 9% are in their third term, 10% are in their fourth term and 3% have served five terms or more

there are as many fourth term as third term MPs

You can link here to download a discussion paper by Thomas Wangi and Terence Wood on MP’s terms and related issues.

There were 21 political parties (not counting independents) represented in Tenth Parliament when it was elected in 2017. This rose to 28 parties at one point and there are currently 25.

Forty MPs have stayed in the same party (or continued as an independent) throughout their stay in parliament.

Another 48 have moved parties once, 24 twice, and four have changed three times.

Sixteen independents won election, but there are only five now. (We counted moving from being an independent to joining a party as moving parties.)

PANGU, the party of prime minister James Marape, has been the big winner of the Tenth Parliament.

Only nine PANGU party members were elected, but the party now has 34. By contrast, the membership of former PM Peter O’Neill’s’ party, People’s National Congress (PNC), has fallen from 29 to 12 MPs.

Only three parties have 10 members or more: PANGU 34; PNC 12; and the new United Labour Party with 10. National Alliance had 15 at the start of the parliament, but is now down to nine.

As you can see, party size is not static over the life of the parliament.

This graph shows the two biggest parties and also the number of independents – nearly all of whom joined a party immediately after the elections.

Prime Minister Marape has largely, but not fully, recovered from the vote of no confidence at the end of December 2020.

At one point, it looked like Marape only had minority support, but by the time of the vote he had recovered significant numbers and since then has continued to regain support.

The government now numbers 81 members, a convincing majority, but below the 88 who supported O’Neill when he became PM in 2017 and the 94 who originally supported the election of Marape.

We can go further to categorise MPs based on their position in relation to government. The 81 current government supporters can be divided into four groups:

governmentalists – those who have been in the government camp throughout this term of parliament – the largest group, 37

swinging – those who supported Marape, then tried to overthrow him, but have since gone back to government, comprise the second largest group, 25

loyal Marape supporters – those who moved to government when Marape became PM and were loyal during the vote of no confidence – 12

others – some recently elected MPs and a few others – seven

The 25 members of the opposition can be divided into three groups:

former Marape supporters – those who supported Marape until the vote of no confidence and have been in opposition since - 13

O’Neill supporters – those who supported O’Neill in government and went with him to opposition – nine

oppositionists – in opposition throughout the term of this parliament – three

This categorisation confirms that, in PNG politics, there is only a minority rusted on to one side or the other.

Most MPs want to be in government. The ‘governmentalist’ and ‘swinging’ MPs make up 57% of all MPs.

Hence the importance, when trying to form a government, of convincing other MPs that you have the numbers.

Footnote

The PNG MP Database was created by Stephen Howes, Thomas Wangi, Michael Kabuni, Maholopa Laveil, Geejay Milli and Terence Wood.

We are independent and non-partisan and we hope our work will be useful for the general public, journalists and researchers.

Please provide us with your feedback so that we can continue to improve the PNG MP Database.

The ANU–UPNG PNG MP Database is not official. For official information on MPs, visit the PNG Parliament website or the IPPCC website.

We do the best we can to be accurate, drawing on these databases as well as media reports, and our website lets you track changes over time, keeps you informed of the level of governmental support, and it is up to date.