Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

A compelling story of the time when the kiap was king

A young Robert Forster at Bundi in 1968 - milling timber before he became a kiap

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG – The just published memoir, ‘The Northumbrian Kiap’, is a skillfully written book about Papua New Guinea during the sixties, before the time when people knew what self-government and independence meant.

It clarifies many questions and doubts of the people who lived and grew up during that time – the present day sons and daughters of primitive tribesmen who had just witnessed with awe these men known as kiaps lead long lines of carriers with armed police escorts as they penetrated the hinterland and its traditional tribal lands.

These strangers established encampments, built patrol posts, constructed roads, hospitals and schools as they demonstrated there was another – perhaps a better - world far beyond the high mountain ranges and the raging rivers.

But life comes and goes. Just like ancient civilisations left behind monoliths, pyramids and relics, the kiaps left a legacy. They went and much of what they accomplished was abandoned and left to decay.

ABC’s shortwave cutback ‘weakens thin link’ for Pacific

LEILANI SITAGATA | Pacific Media Watch

AUCKLAND - The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s cutback in services to the Asia-Pacific region has “weakened the thin link” that many parts of the region have with the “outside world”.

In a public submission to the government review of broadcasting to the region, the Pacific Media Centre said the situation had impelled Radio New Zealand to “stretch their resources to do more, to make up for what has been removed”.

The ABC switched off shortwave services to the region in 2017.

Calling for the ABC to restore services, the PMC said “Australian broadcasting from the South Pacific is a sorry loss to people and cultures – as we know them well from the accumulation of studies and from our own media production exercises at this centre”.

Bring back a revitalised Radio Australia – with Tok Pisin

A young Jill Bosro listening to Auntie Caroline Tiriman in a Tok Pisin broadcast on Radio Australia in the 1980s. Elizabeth Cox says "Radio Australia’s shortwave programs made the listener feel part of the nation, region and the world, and not forgotten, isolated and neglected, as they now often feel"

Submissions to the Australian Review of Broadcasting Services to Asia-Pacific have now closed. Development worker ELIZABETH COX provided the review panel with this grassroots perspective and has shared it with Pacific Media Watch and PNG Attitude

AUCKLAND - I am a citizen of Australia who has spent 40 years living in Papua New Guinea, working mainly in rural areas.

I was based in Angoram District of the East Sepik Province for 20 years and I have, for all of these decades, collaborated with rural teachers, village leaders, including women, youth leaders and community-based village health volunteers.

After my 20 years in Angoram, I spent a further 20 years in Wewak where I continued to work for rural development across all districts and in partnership with other provinces.

I have trained hundreds of community-based development workers over the years and admired their conviction to service their people through thick and thin, often working in difficult, dangerous and seriously under-resourced circumstances.

Together these thousands of people have brought health care, education, community peace and harmony, hope and optimism, to hundreds of rural villages and organisations.

James Sinclair - Last word on a land he loved

James Sinclair on patrol at Lake Kopiago with Pami, 1952

KEITH JACKSON | The Australian

Middle Kingdom: A Colonial History of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, by James Sinclair, Crawford House, 672 pp, $89.95)

NOOSA - British journalist Joshua Burt has written of “great scholars endlessly returning to excavate old terrain, to carefully study it from all angles and prod it gently with a stick”.

Burt could have been describing James Patrick Sinclair, whose final and monumental work about Papua New Guinea, Middle Kingdom, crowns 50 years of writing about Australia’s erstwhile colony.

Sinclair’s oeuvre was the exploration and development of PNG, a pursuit augmented by his vast knowledge and great love of its Highlands, the ‘‘middle kingdom’’ of the title.

When Sinclair died late last year aged 89, he ­bequeathed an opus of 35 works and an indelible reputation as the great recorder of PNG’s colonial history, especially after World War II.

Cumulatively, his books amount to a substantial ­contribution to the understanding of an important ­period in the development of PNG, and Australia’s critical ­involvement in the creation of this nation.

They tell the story of the Australian ­encounter (often more of a collision) with New Guinea, a land so ­unexpected and exotic that even ordinary people found themselves doing extraordinary, and sometimes exotic, things.

Pacific Beat’s end signifies the corrosion of PNG-Australia bonds

FRANCIS NII

KUNDIAWA -  There have been certain things that signify the bond between Australia and Papua New Guinea despite what appears to be a quickly eroding relationship.

Amongst them was ABC’s shortwave service and the program Pacific Beat, which has had a history of its own in playing a vital role in the Australian-PNG relationship and development process.

But these connectors between the people of PNG and the people of Australia are disappearing.

It is ABC’s Tok Pisin service Pacific Beat that reaches all corners of PNG and the Pacific with news and other information.

China Radio seeks to address 'misunderstandings'

Dr Viola Kuo Huang - not possible for China Radio to provide a service targeting a Pacific islands audience

JOHNNY BLADES | Dateline Pacific Radio New Zealand

WELLINGTON - China Radio International is seeking to bridge the gap in understanding about China in other parts of the world. That's according to Dr Viola Kuo Huang, a principal researcher at China Radio International's English Service in Beijing.

China Radio International recently took up frequencies formerly used by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's short-wave service into the Pacific Islands. It broadcasts globally in 65 languages including Mandarin. Dr Kuo Huang spoke to Johnny Blades.

VIOLA KUO HUANG: The English service of China Radio International is trying to braid the misunderstandings between the outside world and China. So we have hourly news about what's happening in the world, what's happening in China and what's happening in some English-speaking regions.

The last days of the kiap – a rare tale of the end of an era

PHIL FITZPATRICK

‘The Northumbrian Kiap: bush administration in self-governing PNG’ by Robert Forster, UK Book Publishing, Whitley Bay, 2018, ISBN: 978-1-9-12183-36-4, 294pp. My copy from the Book Depository UK, AU$25.80 with free postage

TUMBY BAY - By 1960 the training of local indigenous officers for the public service in Papua New Guinea had accelerated dramatically.

These officers were paid the same rates as expatriate officers. As a result the wages bill of the Australian Administration rose rapidly.

In 1962 Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck decided to restructure the public service. His aim was to cut costs by turning it into “an essentially territorial service based on local conditions and rates of pay, staffed as fully as possible by indigenous officers and assisted by an auxiliary service staffed by expatriate officers”.

This was the beginning of what later became known as “localisation” and signalled the end of career paths for expatriates in the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

This development caught a lot of people by surprise, including a lot of local staff whose salaries were suddenly reduced.

Here’s how YOU can help revive ABC services to PNG

JEMIMA GARRETT*

Jemima Garrett - "Radio is still the best way to reach people with news and debate. Let's rebuild Australian broadcasting in the region on a new partnership model"

If you - or anyone you know - would like to make a submission to the Review of Australian Broadcasting in the Asia Pacific, it is taking submissions here until Friday 3 August. Background information, including on broadcast technology options is available from Supporters of Australian Broadcasting in Asia and the Pacific.  Members of this group include Jemima Garrett, Sean Dorney, Max Uechtritz, Tess Newton-Cain, Sue Ahearn, Peter Marks, Jioji Ravulo and others. 

Sean , Sue and and Jemima are happy to help you prepare a submission to the Review if you need a helping hand. You can contact them here:
Jemima Garrett garrett.jemima@gmail.com 0408 163 226
Sean Dorney sean_dorney@hotmail.com 0409 468 559
Sue Ahearn srahearn@hotmail.com 0439 474 444

BRISBANE - Despite the antipathy of some members of Australia's Liberal and National parties to the ABC, a curious confluence of events has made possible the best opportunity since 2014 for revamping the ABC’s Asia Pacific broadcasting, including Papua New Guinea.

The Australian government is currently conducting a review of Australian broadcasting in the Asia Pacific and it wants submissions from PNG and the region as well as from Australia.

It has wide terms of reference so has left the way open to hear what the audience really wants from Australian broadcasting.

Of all the countries the ABC reaches with its overseas service, PNG is the most important and the most difficult. The difficulty lies not in politics in Canberra or Port Moresby but in finding technology that can cope with the terrain.

ABC appoints Natalie Whiting as new PNG correspondent

Natalie Whiting

KEITH JACKSON | Media Week, ABC & Sources

SYDNEY - Hobart-based Natalie Whiting has been appointed as the ABC’s Papua New Guinea correspondent, taking over the key post from Eric Tlozek, who has spent three years in the role.

Tlozek has been re-assigned as one of the ABC’s Middle East correspondents, based in Jerusalem.

Whiting currently reports for ABC News and the 7.30 current affairs program in Tasmania.

Before moving to Hobart, she was the South Australian reporter for AM, The World Today and PM. In Adelaide she won several media awards, including best radio broadcaster and was an Andrew Olle scholar and twice a finalist in the Young Walkley Awards.

ABC denies it but seems to be crab-walking away from the Pacific

STAFF REPORTER | Radioinfo 

Keith Jackson - 'Chinese want to make the Pacific  a sphere of influence'

SYDNEY - Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat morning program has undergone some format changes, causing concern that there have been more cuts to the national broadcaster’s international radio service.

And, in another change, announced internally today, esteemed Pacific Affairs reporter Bruce Hill will be leaving the ABC.

The format changes “are not cuts,” according to Radio Australia manager Cath Dwyer, who has told Radioinfo the format of the morning sequence was rearranged to make it sound better.

At the beginning of this year, before Cath Dwyer took up her current position, the ABC announced that “listeners in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific will get an additional two hours of live morning weekday programming with the launch of a new morning news, talk and entertainment show.”

Retelling old stories – tales that keep alive great traditions

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Viviwava: Tales from the Islands by Jordan Dean (illustrations by Tamara Jenkinson), JDT Publications, Port Moresby, 2018. ISBN: 9789980901705, PGK20, US$5, available from Amazon

TUMBY BAY - For people attuned to western traditions of storytelling the legends and folktales of pre-literate societies can often seem confusing.

Quite often these old stories mix reality and the supernatural in unfamiliar ways and make the underlying narratives elusive for western readers.

Re-interpreting these stories for popular consumption without losing their essential meaning and flavour requires great care and skill.

It is not just a case of translating the original language but also fitting the stories into a modern reading context so that people schooled in that style can understand and relate to them.

Literal translations, such as those undertaken by anthropologists, often fail to spark the interests of modern readers.

Mi no save gut long dispela ‘go pinis’

ANNE-MARIE SMITH

From ‘Pardon My French’ by Anne-Marie Smith, Ginninderra Press, 232 pages, $32.50. You can order your copy here

HENLEY BEACH - Leaving Papua New Guinea after ten happy years there was the toughest yet the gentlest of experiences.

“We’ve come to see you out. It’s for good luck,” our Melanesian neighbours stood at the door.

“It’s our custom,” they said, “we like to safeguard our friends as they leave their house.”

Their presence also took the fuss out of locking up and dulled the ache of glancing at the house for one last time.

Arriving at the airport, I sensed a sweet smell. The scent got stronger, reminding me of the frangipani tree I had left in bloom in the front garden of our house.

“We made these leis for you to wear.” a group of waiting friends called out. “Look, there is one for each of you. Try them for size.”

Someone said “size 0” and giggling resounded throughout the group, a Papua New Guinea English in-joke, no doubt.

Facebook - the modern hausman enriching leaders & us all

Hausman blo tede

Hausman blo bifo

JIMMY AWAGL

CHUAVE - In the recent debate over the suspension of Facebook in Papua New Guinea, the conclusion of most people was that such a move would be both uncalled for and childish.

Facebook plays a significant role among the elites and the intellectual citizens of this country. It is used as a forum to discuss issues concerning PNG including the deeds, conduct and perceptions of the leaders who are administering its political, economic and constitutional affairs.

Communication minister Sam Basil came out publicly advocating the switching off of Facebook for a month to ‘research’ its use. It was a proposal that demeaned the competence of his leadership.

FB reaches out to PNG over concerns about free speech

MONG PALATINO | Global Voices

AMSTERDAM - Papua New Guinea’s reported plan to ban Facebook for a month has raised concerns about government suppression of free speech.

And one outcome has been that Facebook has reportedly "reached out" o PNG about the issue.

On 29 May 2018, the Post-Courier newspaper reported on a proposal of the Communications and Information Technology Department to ban the social network in order to analyse its use and protect the safety of users. The article quoted Communications Minister Sam Basil as follows:

“The time will allow information to be collected to identify users that hide behind fake accounts, users that upload pornographic images, users that post false and misleading information on Facebook to be filtered and removed…We cannot allow the abuse of Facebook to continue in the country.”

Facebook ban would stifle dissent of the people’s parliament

Alan Bird MP says Facebook is the 'people's parliament' which gives citizens a voice

BEN PACKHAM The Australian

CANBERRA - The Papua New Guinea government has been accused of trying to stifle dissent in the lead-up to this year’s APEC conference with a plan to take Facebook offline in the country for a month.

Free press organisation Reporters without Borders this week condemned the plan as a move by the government to silence online critics, particularly those sounding the alarm over corruption.

Amid growing criticism of the ban, opposition MP Allan Bird warned it would alarm APEC nations as PNG prepared to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation leader’s week in November.

Communications minister Sam Basil announced the ban late last month, saying it was to identify “fake accounts” and users who posted “false, misleading information”.

“This will allow genuine people with real identities to use the social network responsibly,” he said.

PNG’s roughly 900,000 internet consumers are big users of Facebook, which has become the primary means of sharing sensitive political stories that mainstream media would be reluctant to report.

Major publishing innovation provides PNG authors with a big boost

Jordan Dean - “A whole new reading experience for authors and book lovers”

KEITH JACKSON

PORT MORESBY – In the most important development in Papua New Guinea publishing since the advent of the Crocodile Prize seven years ago, author Jordan Dean has established a company to produce the work of emerging writers and present a new generation of literary talent to an international audience.

JDT Publications Ltd was established to provide an avenue for PNG and Pacific writers to publish their writing in the form of quality paperbacks and e-books.

“I believe that our literature survives in great books,” Dean says. “JDT gives a whole new reading experience for authors and book lovers.”

The company offers a range of products for writers including its ‘basic package’ for K100 which provides basic editing and proofreading, cover design and production supervision for a standard book size publication produced as a paperback and e-book and including a free copy for the author.

Other products - the wantok, premium and children’s storybook packages – range in price up to K500, each offering successively increasing benefits. You can download the JDT prospectus here. 

Speak up & protect your voice: An open letter to Papua New Guinea

PNG MEDIA COUNCIL

DEAR PAPUA NEW GUINEA - In recent weeks, we have seen members of parliament questioning the integrity of the mainstream media in Papua New Guinea.

In our biggest year as international hosts to some of the most powerful nations on the planet - under a theme of harnessing inclusive opportunities and embracing a digital future - we find this disheartening.

We have also seen what we feel is the start to leaders censoring public access to avenues of public expression. It is something we cannot sit idly by, and let continue without challenge.

The first instance was that of a statement made by the Information, Communication and Technology Minister regarding the potential restriction of popular social media platform Facebook in Papua New Guinea.

Any Facebook shutdown would be dangerous on many levels

Scott Waide - 'Facebook is an integral part of policing & a primary disaster reporting tool'

SCOTT WAIDE | My Land, My Country | Asia Pacific Report | Edited

LAE - Maybe it was a slip of the tongue or a misinterpreted statement. But there is no doubt whatever it was Papua New Guinea’s minister responsible for communications and information technology (ICT) Sam Basil last week created a storm domestically and in the global media.

What gave this statement its legitimacy was its publication in one of Papua New Guinea’s two dailies – the Post-Courier. The online version of the story has been quoted numerous times and became the top story out of Papua New Guinea.

The country doesn’t usually make it into the tech pages of websites, but it has:

Matt Novak from Gizmodo wrote: “The (PNG) government also said that it’s exploring the creation of its own social media site to replace Facebook.”

John Russell from Techcrunch: “… the Facebook ban — however delicious it may sound given recent events — is not confirmed for Papua New Guinea. It remains a possibility once Basil has liaised with police.”

PNG students in China say Facebook ban could be damaging

Is Sam Basil's one month takedown of Facebook for dubious "research" just a precursor to a total ban?

MELISHA YAFOI | Pacific Media Watch

Since this article was written and the Facebook ban story widely reported  around the world, PNG communications minister Sam Basil has walked back from his statement about suspending the social media platform. Basil now says his words were 'taken out of context' and 'not official, just a discussion'.....

BEIJING – Papua New Guinean students studying in Beijing, China, have described the move by PNG communications minister Sam Basil to suspend Facebook for one month as “irrelevant” and damaging for educational communications.

Speaking in a forum, the students expressed disappointment, saying there are more pressing issues that the government needs to address yet it is concerned about legislating freedom of speech for the people.

They said that being outside the country they were able to read information and connecting with family back home as many of the people do not have other social media platforms other than Facebook.

Basil hints at Chinese model as Facebook faces PNG shutdown

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The Post-Courier newspaper reports today that the Papua New Guinea government intends prevent access to Facebook for one month for so-called “research purposes”.

Communication minister Sam Basil has established no date for the shutdown, nor has he revealed how he will achieve it.

He has also not stated how the country will cope if access is prevented to the many substantive and legitimate sites that are used for day-to-day commercial, government, personal and emergency transactions in PNG.

Basil said his Communications and Information Technology Department and National Research Institute will conduct “research and analysis” of Facebook’s use, adding that his ministry was trying to enforce the 2016 Cyber Crime Act.

Half a century on, Biga & Sinclaire recall early Post-Courier years

PATRICK (BIG PAT) LEVO | PNG Post-Courier

PORT MORESBY – Down memory lane can only be a nostalgic yet lonesome place.

And the pages of time, soiled by the minutes of a bygone era, hold their own abundant place. And the space afforded in the liberty of the black and white typeface of a bold bygone era.

As these two oldies discovered when scrutinising the first issue of the PNG Post-Courier, time does dispense eternal friendships.

After many years of separation, with wizened bald patches and diminishing waistlines, the two old mates got together again to search for their bylines in the first ever Post-Courier edition of 1969.

They were young, daring and sparing of thought, but in their sprightly nuances, they forgot that the hot metal typesetting of yesteryear spared no-one, not even the brightest ink toasting spark.

Their impromptu meet and greet in the Post-Courier newsroom foyer created a mini sensation in Sela Haus, drawing curious stares from today’s generation of PC workers and editorial staff.

Sedition case: ‘Fiji Times’ executives acquitted of serious charges

LITIA CAVA | Fiji Times

 

SUVA - “It is a victory for the media in Fiji and we should be encouraged to keep going and to stay within the law.”

These were the words of an emotional publisher and general manager of the Fiji Times, Hank Arts, after high court judge Thushara Rajasinghe concurred with the unanimous not guilty opinion of the three assessors and acquitted him and two other senior officials of the Fiji Times, the company and a letter writer of sedition charges.

‘Mr Tomato’ defamation case back in national court today

Martyn Namorong - gagged for last year's national election

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The ‘I am not a tomato’ defamation case brought by Papua New Guinea electoral commissioner Patilias Gamato against writer Martyn Namorong returns to the national court in Port Moresby today.

The case began in an unusual way during last year’s PNG election when Gamato complained he was defamed in critical social media posts that likened him to a tomato.

The chaotic PNG election had resulted in wide criticism of his commission’s conduct of polling and counting.

"He made some defamatory statements and also called my surname, which is Gamato, as 'tomato'," the ABC reported Gamato saying about Namorong at a press conference.

"I don't look like a tomato, I'm a human being. He put a big tomato on my head, what if he did that to you?"

Pacific journalists launch environment group at media summit

Moses Steven, Imelda Abano & Iliesa Tora cut the cake to mark the launch of the Pacific Environment Journalist Network

STAFF CORRESPONDENT | Pacific Environment Journalist Network | Pacific Media Watch

NUKU'ALOFA - The Pacific Environment Journalist Network (PEJN) has been officially launched in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, on the eve of the opening of the 5th Pacific Media Summit.

It aims to bring together journalists who are interested in reporting on environment issues and to provide them with the space, training and resources to do so.

“It is time Pacific Islanders tell the world their own stories and this is a part of it. I would like to congratulate everyone behind it,” said Pacific Islands News Association president Moses Steven.

He said PEJN should work with national media organisations to develop and grow reporting on environment issues because "we have to take ownership of our stories".

PNG journalists work in fear says media freedom advocate

STAFF REPORTER | RNZ Pacific | Pacific Media Watch

PORT MORESBY - A senior journalist in Papua New Guinea says there is no media freedom in the country and journalists are often working in fear.

Media freedom advocate Titi Gabi said local media had become a public relations entity for the powers that be.

Ms Gabi said World Press Freedom Day on Thursday was a reminder of the many issues that exist in PNG.

“There’s interference from outside influences right up to setting the news agenda to bribing journalists to threats to threats of court action against journalists,” she said.

The authenticity, imagery & flavour of Sean Ova's verse

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Headugu: An Anthology of Poetry by Sean Ova, 2018, JDT Publications, Port Moresby, ISBN 978-9980901606, 58 pages, paperback, US$3.60. Available from Amazon Books here

TUMBY BAY - I like poetry. William Blake, Gerald Manley Hopkins, Stephen Crane, Judith Wright, Banjo Paterson, Michael Dom, Wardley Barry and many more inspiring poets provide me with pleasure.

Inspiring but not instructive. I can’t for the life of me write poetry. My best efforts come out clunky and affected and usually end up in the waste paper bin.

I understand the dynamics but it is the rules and regulations that defeat me. I suspect it’s got something to do with my natural aversion to discipline. Meter, rhythm, rhyme and structure leave me cold.

I suspect I’m not alone in this. It is seldom in modern collections of poetry to see any sort of formal discipline. What we tend to get nowadays is something loosely described as free verse.

The lure of the ‘kaikaiman’ – and the courage to speak & write truth

Sylvester Gawi at work

SYLVESTER GAWI | Graun Blong Mi | Edited

LAE - The greatest challenge facing journalism in Papua New Guinea is that there is no freedom of the press.

Journalists need much courage to speak and write the truth and to know how to use the right medium to express their views.

Almost everything that is printed in the press is scrutinised and controlled by the government or an agent in the newsroom - usually the editors.

Every day, Papua New Guinean journalists face a big challenge as they have to write according to what their editors will accept, or they can get sacked for insubordination.

In PNG, the term ‘kaikai man’ is used to refer to someone who writes propaganda in return for favours.

This syndrome is already deeply rooted and one cannot get away from it, even the reporter with full knowledge that someone is corrupt or lying will continue to write good about them. Glorifying parliamentarians and government bureaucrats is common in PNG.

Morobe governor sacks officer involved in assault on journalist

Morobe Governor Ginson Saonu - "I will not tolerate violence" (Scott Waide)

SCOTT WAIDE | My Land, My Country / Pacific Media Watch

LAE - One month after the incident, Morobe Governor Ginson Saonu has apologised for an assault on Lae-based Post-Courier journalist Frankiy Kapin.

Governor Saonu told the media that the staff member who assaulted Mr Kapin has been sacked and new staff have been appointed.

The governor received strong criticism after he delayed making a public statement to condemn the assault by staff member while the matter was in court.

This led to a month-long standoff between journalists and the governor’s office during which all media events by the Morobe provincial government were turned down.

“The staff member concerned has been terminated from his job as an administration officer as a result of the incident and for bringing the office of the Governor into disrepute,” he said.

“I am setting this precedent as a warning to all of my staff as well as staff within the Department of Morobe that I will not tolerate violence of any sort.”

The reckoning: The Leahy family revisited 30 years on

Joe Leahy with son Jim at Kilima. “We could be the last of the Leahys in the Nebilyer Valley,” Jim says. “There’s a high probability of that” (Stephen Dupont)

SEAN FLYNN | Smithsonian Magazine | Extract

Read the full article here – beautifully written, stunningly presented & replete with wonderful images

WESTERN HIGHLANDS - The road out of Mount Hagen deteriorates by the mile, the pitted blacktop of the little city crumbling to dirt before collapsing into reddish ruts scraped through the deep green of Papua New Guinea’s highlands.

In the final stretch before Kilima, a bedraggled coffee plantation in the Nebilyer Valley, our Toyota Land Cruiser has to crawl in low gear, wobbling and tottering through craters and washouts.

Bob Connolly bounces in the front seat, rolling with the pitch and yaw. He’s just over 70 years old but sturdy, dark-haired and barrel-chested, with a round face that still seems boyish.

He grumbles about the drive: too much traffic in town, too little maintenance everywhere else. When he was a younger man, the drive from Mount Hagen to Kilima took him 35 minutes. Now it takes twice as long.

The highlands seemed to hold so much promise when Bob first came to Kilima in the early 1980s. Bob is an Australian documentary filmmaker, and he lived here for years in a hut thatched with kunai grass, making films with his wife, Robin Anderson.

The plantation sprawled in endless rows, trees heavy with coffee cherries, wide fields pale with virgin beans drying in the sun. Back then, Kilima’s owner, Joe Leahy, was wealthy and powerful, and he employed dozens of local people to tend his groves and work his pulping factory.

Many in the Ganiga tribe eventually became his partners, and they were going to get rich in the coffee business, too.

Bob and Robin made three documentaries in the highlands, two of them about Joe Leahy and his neighbours. Each was a triumph, and they still are recognized as such, icons of a genre, touchstones of both anthropology and film.

Governor’s drunken staff bash journo in another media assault

KEITH JACKSON

LAE – A drunken pack attack on a journalist by six men including a senior adviser to the Morobe governor has drawn widespread condemnation throughout Papua New Guinea.

On Thursday the Post-Courier’s Lae-based journalist Frankiy Kapin (pictured) was assaulted by officers of Governor Ginson Saonu, who accused him of writing “negative reports”.

One of the men was the governor’s chief of staff, Steven Boting.

Boting and five other assailants punched Kapin, who was on assignment, multiple times. They also issued threats against other journalists in Lae.

Four men including Boting have been arrested and charged with assault and drunk and disorderly behaviour. They are in police custody and will appear in court today.

Powerful call to action as Pacific slides into media repression

DAN McGARRY & MARC NEIL-JONES | Editorial | Vanuatu Daily Post

PORT VILA - It’s becoming far too common: Journalists and whistle blowers are being singled out and silenced as governments throughout the region allow the Pacific to slide down the slippery slope of repression.

Either we act now to stop it, or we accept that in ten years, the region’s media may look a lot more like the People’s Daily News than the Sydney Morning Herald.

Australia is no exception. Even now, the Coalition government is considering draconian new laws that would outlaw activity that is necessary to the proper functioning of a democracy.

In every country of the world, social media is eroding people’s sense of the truth, and undermining its importance in their daily existence.

In the Pacific islands, the threat is real. Last week, three veteran journalists, all of them with spotless reputations, were detained by police on suspicion of inciting unrest.

They had published the news that a magistrate who ruled against the government’s interest in a labour case had been sacked. They were held for hours, and their phones and laptops were seized.

A radio station run by women rises to the daily challenge

Radio East Sepik - powered by hard work & faith in God to brush off resource scarcity and inform the people of PNG

SYLVESTER GAWI | Graun Bilong Mi (My Land) | Edited

LAE - It was quite an experience for me travelling home to Wewak for a well-deserved break from reporting stories of petty crimes, housing issues and road accidents which dominate news out from Lae.

The plan was to go to Wewak and travel by road to Pagwi where I would get on an outboard vessel and travel up the Sepik River to home sweet home, Aibom - an island in the Chambri Lake.

Accompanying me on the trip was Post Courier reporter Frankiy Kapin who had been assigned to cover the aftermath of the Kadawar Island volcanic eruption, which had occurred three weeks earlier.

But I decided to stayed on in Wewak and follow Frankiy on his news trips and that is when we met NBC East Sepik journalist Edward Hagoria, who introduced us to several of his contacts in Wewak and soon we were on the news hunting trail.

I wasn't sure where to go in Wewak, having spent most of my life growing up and working in Lae. But I covered news and filed stories for radio and television and Frankiy did the same for print media.

Of missionaries and kiaps and great partnerships

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Leprosy, Leeches and Love by Val Bock, Published for The Leprosy Mission by Kingsway Publications, Eastborne, Sussex, 1981, ISBN 0860651401. My copy from The Book Bazaar, Port Lincoln, $2.00

TUMBY BAY - Our nearest large town is Port Lincoln, about 50 kilometres south of here. Among its numerous attractions is one of the best second hand bookshops I’ve ever come across.

It’s run by a team of middle-aged ladies and the proceeds go to various charities in the district. The shop’s not big enough to be daunting and everything is neatly arranged in sensible categories with authors listed in strict alphabetical order.

The ladies know a valuable book when they see one, so there’s no opportunistic profit to be made here. They also know a gem when they come across it and, once they get to know you, they are happy to lead you to it.

That’s how I picked up this delightful little paperback called ‘Leprosy, Leeches and Love’ by Val Bock.

I see; You see - The several sides of history

PHIL FITZPATRICK

“There is a crisis in the writing and teaching of Papua New Guinea history. It is created by the real gap between what is being made available through publication and the needs and demands for a truly autonomous and indigenous history.

“Put in the simplest terms, writers of history continue largely to publish histories dealing with foreigners, or at best, with relations between foreigners and Papua New Guineans or with actions and achievements of Papua New Guineans within a framework of foreign endeavours.

“But the educated and literate minority demands a history which makes known to them their own historical roots in the precolonial past, a history which is about their own people” - Rod Lacey 1981

Image: Dwyer & Leahy 1930. Ewunga is fourth from left in middle row

TUMBY BAY - In 1930 gold prospectors Mick Leahy and Michael Dwyer followed the Markam River and crossed the gap to the Ramu River valley. They then worked their way along several highland rivers, panning for gold, before descending the Purari River to the Papuan Gulf.

Ewunga Goiba, a Waria Valley man from the Morobe Province, accompanied them with a small band of warriors. The bosboi and his clansmen provided protection for the prospectors, organised carriers for them and acted as intermediaries with the new groups they met.

Insights into dispossession and inequality in PNG

CAMILLA BURKOT | Dev Policy Blog

Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea by Paige West, Columbia University Press, New York, 2016. Paperback, 216 pages, $US36.11. ISBN-10: 0231178794. Available from Amazon here

MELBOURNE - In a globalised world how are inequalities produced, experienced, and reinforced? It’s a big question for a small book, but one which Paige West admirably takes on in her 2016 essay collection, Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea.

In it, West, a professor of anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University in New York, draws on two decades of ethnographic fieldwork in PNG, primarily with Gimi-speaking peoples, as well as her involvement as a co-founder and board director of a national NGO there.

In short, as the title suggests, the book is concerned with the relationship between inequality and representation: the ways in which various forms of inequality presuppose and build upon specific representations of people and places. These representations are in turn premised on ideas about ‘nature’ and ‘culture’.

Inside commercial television – a grumpy old man tells

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Television Viewer

TUMBY BAY - I’ve hit a bit of a log jam with the current book I’m writing and I thought it best to leave it alone for a week while it sorts itself out in the backwaters of my mind.

Unfortunately it’s been hot outside so I haven’t been able to work in my vegie garden or go for a long walk. Anyway, the beach here is currently lousy with out-of-towners frolicking around in the water and making a terrible noise.

Not much I wanted to read either, so I thought I’d have a squizz at daytime television and see what’s currently occupying the synapses of the great unwashed out there in television land.

Understand, this is not something I ordinarily do. Though my wife has a few favourite programs, so there must be some sort of attraction.

She gave me a queer look when I sat down beside her. Normally I just shuffle past making snide comments about inanity.

Anyway, I stuck it out for about 2½ hours. After that, heat or no heat, I headed for the beach.

Sensitive & wise stories about PNG women – by a PNG man

RASHMII BELL

Survivor, Alive in Mum’s Loving Arms by Daniel Kumbon, Pukpuk Publications, July 2017, 172 pages, ISBN-10:1973724979, ISBN-13:978-1973724979

BRISBANE - In ‘Survivor, Alive in Mum’s Loving Arms’, Daniel Kumbon skilfully presents the separate lives of three Papua New Guinean women: Tuman Kende Apuulu, Julie Kumbon and the fictional Delisa Ingirum.

All three are connected (through ancestry or marriage) to the province of Enga in Papua New Guinea.

In 2016, the McKinnon-Paga Hill Fellowship Scheme, an initiative of Keith Jackson AM (editor and publisher of PNG Attitude), sponsored a two-week literary tour of Queensland and New South Wales for Daniel Kumbon and fellow PNG writers Francis Nii and Martyn Namorong.

I joined the trio in Brisbane for the annual writers’ festival where we presented a session on PNG writing which, as a result of a lively dialogue with the audience, led to Survivor as well as to the collection of women’s writing, ‘My Walk to Equality’.

Exemplary fictional work offers a close connection to readers

RASHMII BELL

The Restorer by Michael Sala, Text Publishing Company, February 2017, 352 pages, $20.75, ISBN 9781925355024

BRISBANE - Several weeks out from this year’s Brisbane Writers Festival), I received a copy of Dutch-born Michael Sala’s latest novel from his publisher, Text Publishing Company.

Opening the white postage packet, I retrieved the book and was immediately struck by Australian writer Hannah Kent’s challenge on the front cover: “I would defy anyone to read this story and remain unmoved”.

It was a most accurate prediction.

The Restorer is Sala’s second novel and follows his critically acclaimed debut offering, The Last Thread, for which he was awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Award for New Writing and was a regional winner in the Commonwealth Book Prize.

The Restorer is a compelling story that captures the dynamics of everyday individuals bound by unspoken and unacceptable personal violation.

Evidence of media manipulation surrounds Manus refugee story

BEN ROBINSON-DRAWBRIDGE | RNZ Pacific | Extract

You can read the full article here

WELLINGTON - Few reporters have been able or allowed to report on what has really been happening on Manus Island.

Secrecy law prevents the dissemination of official information from Australia's refugee detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

Leaked intelligence, claims from politicians, advocates and the refugees themselves have formed the basis of many reports in this vacuum.

Among those who are not sure what to believe are New Zealand MPs.

The government's offer to resettle 150 refugees from offshore detention has repeatedly been knocked back by Australia.

The exigencies of Empire: Those were the days my friend

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Burmese Days by George Orwell, Penguin Modern Classics, 2010, Paperback, 320 pages, $A15.76. Available from The Book Depository

TUMBY BAY - I can’t remember ever being without a book to read. Being caught bookless is one of my worst nightmares.

In the wilds of Western Province in the 1960s, two or three thick books in my patrol box were as essential as the tins of bully beef and bags of rice.

I don’t know how many books I’ve read over the years but it must be many thousands.

Following such a span of time, I’ve more recently discovered - and delighted in - re-reading some of those books.

I would recommend the practice. Many of the books I read in my teens and in my early 20s and 30s now offer a totally different reading experience.

Messages by Manus Island refugee win major journalism award

LEE MANNION | Thomson Reuters Foundation

Sydney Morning Herald cartoon by Kathy Wilcox,
29 November 2017

LONDON - A podcast made from 5,000 WhatsApp messages sent on a smuggled smartphone by a refugee on the Australian-run Manus Island detention centre has won an award for excellence in journalism.

‘The Messenger’ podcast, which won best radio/audio feature at Australia’s Walkley Awards on Wednesday, was produced by a team led by freelance journalist Michael Green, who exchanged voice messages with Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Muhamat.

The podcast reveals, in intimate detail, Muhamat’s memories of fleeing tragedy and seeking asylum by boat as well as his recent forcible removal from the centre in Papua New Guinea.

“It has given me a chance to say something about my life, and also to report what has been happening for the last four and a half years in the detention centre,” Muhamat said in a statement.

Rejecting anger & sincerely wanting PNG to succeed

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Lively Tales from Papua New Guinea by Bev Floyd, Watson Ferguson & Co (Boolarong Press), Salisbury Qld, 120 pages, 2017. ISBN: 978-0995410541. Available from the author here

TUMBY BAY - What seems ordinary to some people can appear quite exotic to others. Thus it is with the experiences of many Australians in Papua New Guinea prior to independence in 1975.

In reading Bev Floyd’s story of her eleven odd years as a teacher in Papua New Guinea, beginning in 1964, I came across nothing remarkable but that is only because I was there myself.

To someone unfamiliar with Papua New Guinea, Bev’s time there will be read quite differently.

Yokomo may ride again in the virtual world of the 21st century

Yokomo & Omokoy meet the Beatles, PNG School Paper, June 1967

KEITH JACKSON

You can visit the Library for All website here

NOOSA – A Papua New Guinean schoolkids literary hero may make a return after 50 years if an organisation dedicated to making books accessible to everyone has its way.

Library for All, a non-profit organisation operating in Cambodia, Mongolia, Rwanda, Congo and Haiti, funded by World Vision and other agencies, is keen on including the fictional character Yokomo in a suite of offerings now being developed for Papua New Guinea.

Yokomo, a clownish figure who always seemed to triumph despite the odds, proved to be a big hit with school students and is still recalled with affection and humour.

The West Papua dilemma: Rockefeller and the demise of Ibu Pertiwi

KERRY B COLLISON

Kerry Collison is an author and Asia desk foreign correspondent for Washington’s Defence and Strategic Affairs. You can find out more about his books here. Kerry's latest book ‘Rockefeller and the Demise of Ibu Pertiwi’ will soon be available in hard copy and as an ebook

IT was towards the end of my tour at the Australian Embassy in Jakarta when, in 1969, West Papua became the twenty-sixth province of Indonesia after the so-called ‘Act of Free Choice’ sponsored by the UN saw the transfer of official administration from the Netherlands to Indonesia.

I have found in my travels that few understand the history of West Papua, and concerned with the growing number of nations voicing their support for the United Nations to revisit the flawed plebiscite, I decided to write this story, part-fact, mostly fiction, in an attempt to offer an insight into a scenario that could bring Australia and Indonesia into conflict.

The story of a 10,000 year old PNG civilisation - & it’s free

FR GARRY ROCHE & ANU SOURCES

Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of PNG by Jack Golson et al, Terra Australis Series No 46, ANU Press, July 2017, ISBN: 9781760461157. Free download from ANU Press here

DUBLIN – It costs $75 for a print copy but ANU Press in Australia has generously made this important book on Papua New Guinea’s Kuk world heritage site available for free download.

While the book concentrates on the Kuk swamp area in the Western Highlands, there are frequent reference to pertinent research findings in other parts of PNG.

Kuk is a settlement 1600 metres up in the Western Highlands – specifically near Baisu in the upper Wahgi Valley, near Mount Hagen.

The slow death of integrity in Papua New Guinean politics

PHIL FITZPATRICK

A Remarkable Journey by Dame Carol Kidu, Longman, 2002, 161pp, ISBN-10: 0733932274, hard to get but available from Amazon Books Canada, $CAN11.01

TUMBY BAY - Notwithstanding the impotent hiatus in Australia's own federal parliament, I’ve been pondering the dysfunctional state of politics in Papua New Guinea.

In seeking explanations of how and why it has reached such abysmal levels I decided to re-read Carol Kidu’s 2002 book, A Remarkable Journey in the hope of gaining some insights and maybe seeing what the future might hold.

The reason I chose Carol’s book was because of her remarkable husband, Buri Kidu. If you want to know about integrity in Papua New Guinea he is the logical starting point.

If you read the publisher’s gushing blurb on the back of the book you could be led to believe it is about “an Australian teenager (in the days of the White Australia Policy) who dared to fall in love with a Papua New Guinean and join his struggle”.

Two new & enjoyable collections of poetry from PNG

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Moments in a Lifetime: Short Poems by Julie Mota, JTD Desktop Publishing, 2016, 28 pages, Available from Amazon Books for US$3.60 plus postage.

Silent Thoughts: Exploring Poetry by Jordan Dean, JTD Desktop Publishing, 2017, 96 pages, Available from Amazon Books for US$3.75 plus postage.

ONE of the ways of judging the success of the Crocodile Prize in its early days was to look at the number of entries coming from Papua New Guinea’s 22 provinces.

We knew that there were variables involved, not least the uneven penetration of digital services in the country, but we assumed that if a province was well represented word would spread about the competition.

Just as Simbu was one of the most highly represented provinces, West New Britain was one of the most under-represented. Sometimes there were no contributions at all from there.

New from Daniel Kumbon – ‘Survivor: Alive in Mum's Loving Arms’

A dramatic book about love, courage, respect & survival
- perfectly pitched for these turbulent PNG times

Read more about 'Survivor' & buy it at Amazon here

 

How Australia facilitates PNG’s culture of elite corruption

JASON SHARMAN

This past week, Australia’s largest bank, the Commonwealth, has been in the news for not reporting hundreds of instances of money laundering and is in big trouble. In this extract from Chapter 5 (‘Australia in Denial’) of Jason Sharman’s book ‘The Despot’s Guide to Wealth Management’ the author explains how Papua New Guinea’s corrupt elite avails itself of a slack Australian attitude to illicit overseas funds. The book is available from The Book Depository (free shipping) which you can link to here

CORRUPTION in Papua New Guinea fits many of the patterns of kleptocracy elsewhere. Although there are problems with corruption at all levels of government, including the police force, it is the corruption of senior public officials that poses the greatest threat.

Previously it seems that most stolen funds were spent domestically, in cash, on consumer goods, and especially to buy favour before elections. However, as the scale of corruption has increased, the country’s ruling elite has become more inclined to send illicit funds overseas.

Interviews with Australian and other foreign officials working in Papua New Guinea suggest that it is an open secret that corrupt Papua New Guinean officials hold their illicit wealth in Australia.