BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO
ONE Thursday afternoon recently I woke up to an abrupt sound coming from a speaker. It was urging my community to attend an important forum.
I learned later the purpose of the forum was to address the inhumane eviction of settlers by the government and also the ban of the sale and consumption of betel nut in the National Capital District.
The main speaker was to be the well-known figure of Paul Paraka (pictured), the principal owner of Paul Paraka Lawyers, currently embroiled in the middle of what has become known as “Parakagate”.
While everyone in the community, including some members of my own family, flocked to hear what he had in store for them, I went about my usual business.
Having closely followed the Parakagate issue as it unfolded in the media, I had no interest in listening to him as I suspected there was an ulterior motive behind his crusade.
Sitting outside on the verandah of my house, I wondered why this man - who was hardly seen in public in the past but seemed to have his fingers in just about every major government law case - would decide to go on a crusade to talk about issues at the heart of most city dwellers.
I asked myself why now, when his long and illustrious career seemed to be at such a low point?
My curiosity motivated me to lend my ears for couple of minutes to listen to the man himself and I wandered over to join the crowd.
The arrival on stage of Mr Paul Paraka quickly turned from anticipation to confusion as he spent much time lecturing us on his personal achievements.
He began by telling us stories of his university days and how he was the top law student from the firstto the final year. Then he dwelled on details about how he started his law firm that grew to employ well over 1,000 Papua New Guineans nationwide.
For a while it seemed like he was being interviewed for a job as he took us blow by blow through his curriculum vitae.
His speech may have been mistaken for a political rally, which was what I suspected. He tried to draw a line between politics and law in terms of the role of elected MPs and himself as a lawyer fighting for justice and fairness, eventually it became confusing as his speech painted himself as an invincible force behind the rise and fall of PNG.
I got a feeling that he was trying to convey to us the message that he has much influence on the decisions of political leaders and would be able to convince them to change their mind about removing illegal settlements and banning the sale and consumption of betel nut.
Reflecting back to Paragate, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that Mr Paraka may be one of the grand puppeteers. Mr Paraka’s connection with prominent political leaders is well documented and was an area the courts were looking into to establish the legality of the payments made to his law firm for services rendered to the State.
By the time he got to the main agenda of his speech, the majority of the audience had already left.
By the time the address touched on the critical issues we who remained were eager to listen to, 7:45pm had arrived. Eventually the forum finished around 8:45.
The tone of Mr Paraka’s speech gave me the impression of a man who was out on a political point-scoring exercise.
At times he lambasted the government for neglecting the needs of the majority of Papua New Guineans living in settlements and, as the session went on, he got bolder and even berated a group of police officers inside a police vehicle that was flashing its lights towards the stage.
It was understandable why the police did that given that the lighting at the field was very poor.
To be honest, I found it amusing to see a renowned senior lawyer acting so irrationally. At the end, he promised the audience that he would look into the decision to ban the sale and consumption of buai and the eviction of settlers as these were serious cases of violating human rights.
Paul Paraka’s crusade ended with the same message that we have become accustomed to for so long, which is that “something will be done to address the plight of the people”.
As usual we were asked to wait and see and hope for the best. Our hopes are bright but the flame is dwindling.