Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Are Papua New Guinea’s provinces really necessary?

PHIL FITZPATRICK

THERE ARE SOME INTERESTING PARALLELS between the way the systems of government operate in Australia and Papua New Guinea.  Not least is the fact that both have their problems.

In both countries there are three tiers of government.  In Australia it is federal, state and local; in Papua New Guinea it is national, provincial and local.

Australia effectively gained its independence from Britain in 1901 when the states and territories became a federation.  Prior to 1901 the states were largely autonomous entities.

If you were droving cattle from southwest Queensland to the market in Adelaide you had to go through customs at the South Australian border.

Campbell beware: There are tricks & traps for Qld cops

JOHN FOWKE

CAMPBELL NEWMAN, PREMIER OF QUEENSLAND, is an ex-Army officer known far and wide in his state as “Can-Do” Campbell.

The agreements to exchange police and to provide a large number of cattle to Papua New Guinea are very much in keeping with Can-Do’s way of working: decisive, battlefield-like commands to attack physical problems or threats.

These offers are positive in intent and I would not argue otherwise. But as always there’s more to setting up an interaction between Australia and PNG than even a battlefield commander is likely to foresee,

Whilst it has been long obvious that PNG’s police need urgent help, I don’t believe that sending Australians, whose experience and training is entirely Australian, to be mentors to PNG policemen is a valuable exercise. Indeed it is not even valid.

Oops, we did Westminster. Sorry PNG, too late now

JOHN FOWKE

BEING A KIND-HEARTED old pundit, I won’t belabour you too much with the reality that the Papua New Guinea situation we witness daily was inevitable and foreseen by many people.

PNG’s path to becoming a really fair and well-managed modern society was always going to be a long and tortuous one. PNG was not a well-driven, fully-functional carriage drawn by a team of the best Shire horses.

This despite perceptions to the contrary expressed by some of those old colonials who are “disappointed,” “disgusted,” and “saddened” by what has gone on in PNG.

Two major historical factors are responsible for the present dilemmas. One was an inexplicable, apparently blind, decision made by Australia to let go the reins in 1975.

The other was the function of the mismatch between PNG’s readiness for independence and world sentiment about colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s, which impelled Australia to grant independence as and when it did.

Jesus: Beyond hauskrai & capital punishment

DAVID GONOL

WE CAN INTRODUCE STRONG LAWS to deal with criminals; we can conduct hauskrai over brutal rape and murder of our innocent women and children; we can impose death penalty on the worst criminals; we can complain bitterly against corruption - but these are all in vain.

They won't solve the problems we are facing in our country. The real problem lies in the human heart.

The human heart is depraved. When the heart is morally corrupt, the results that it produces are also corrupt.

The results of a depraved heart are repulsive and obnoxious to society. There is absolutely nothing we can do about it. There is no drug under the sun that can be prescribed for the cleansing of the heart.

Chinese businesses pose problems for PNG

ISHMAEL PALIPAL

CHINESE BUSINESSES ARE FLOURISHING in all parts of Papua New Guinea and are gradually encroaching upon Bougainville.

The Chinese population and their businesses are increasing. Many Chinese are illegal immigrants and, every year, they come and go as though Papua New Guinea is their home.

The government gives them a visa for a six-pack of beer and citizenship for living here only three years. In my view, these Chinese businesses should be removed from the country for they sell low quality goods, pay low wages to locals, operate filthy shops and send money out of the country.

Let me expand upon each of these points in turn.

Novel for its lack of novelty: Gillard in PNG

JONATHAN SCHULTZ

PRIME MINISTER JULIA GILLARD returned from her first official visit to Australia’s nearest neighbour and former colony Papua New Guinea on Saturday with little to show for it.

Reports of the visit – the first by an Australian prime minister since Kevin Rudd’s visit months after his election in 2007 – focused on PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill’s complaint about the difficulty of obtaining Australian visas and the $16 billion Australian investment in PNG.

This was set against a background of horrific stories of the treatment of women accused of sorcery.

The land of the misdirected: a necessary history

JOHN FOWKE

IN APPARENT CONTRADICTION of the sense of what I said yesterday, I want to respond to Barbara Short’s comment on my Melanesian Way piece.

Answers from Papua New Guinea voices may be more interesting but may I step in to address what Barbara said, that "something has made them powerless; I need a PNG person to explain.”

The thing which has disempowered the ordinary people of PNG is the first of Australia’s two great mistakes in its guardianship of the nation-to-be, TP&NG.

I have drawn attention many times to the fact that political education in TP&NG was confined almost entirely to the example presented wherever a Local Government Council (now an LLG) was established.

Julia spends a pretty banal 3 days in Moresby. Why?

KEITH JACKSON

I’M ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD but, by reading the lines and between the lines, I’m going to analyse Australian prime minister Julia Gillard’s just completed three-day visit, nominally but not substantively to Papua New Guinea.

Strangely, Ms Gillard's first visit to PNG was spent entirely in Port Moresby.

I wonder who was the last national leader to visit Australia to spend all three days in Canberra.

Ms Gillard had her visit preceded by a succession of underlings - the increasingly impressive parliamentary secretary Matt Thistlethwaite and the consistently unimpressive foreign minister Bob Carr. Clearly some issues were on the table and some ‘announceables’ ready to release.

But none turned out to be truly earth-shattering.

Let's kill the sacred cow of the Melanesian Way

JOHN FOWKE

I CAN TELL YOU THE REASON for the story of declining services, declining prosperity and declining well-being in Papua New Guinea (Service delivery? It’s all mauswara, Post Courier, 7 May).

It’s very simple. As coined by a group of Papua New Guinean intellectuals in the 1980s, the problem is “The Melanesian Way”.

There. It’s been said. The big, silent, grey elephant which has loomed in the background, nameless but recognised by many, is out in the open.

Tackle this elephant, or at least recognise it, everyone. Recognise it for the handicap that it has become in the struggle for modernity and fair distribution of the nation’s wealth.

Miners are reaping from the poor, say PNG NGOs

PNG MINE WATCH

PAPUA NEW GUINEA's major non-government organisations say their government and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community are continuing to ignore the wishes of Pacific people in their rush to allow experimental seabed mining (ESM).

"Most impact communities in PNG are still strongly against experimental seabed mining", says Rosa Koian from Bismarck Ramu Group, who has travelled extensively through New Ireland and New Britain talking to local people.

The PNG government has not provided a promised response to a community petition with over 20,000 signatures opposing ESM, which was presented to Mining Minister Byron Chan last year.

Australia should learn how to butt out of PNG affairs

KEITH JACKSON

I HAVE TO TELL YOU that I’m opposed to the death penalty in any circumstances, but that I’m also opposed to Australia interfering in the internal affairs of Papua New Guinea.

Which is what Australia’s foreign minister Senator Bob Carr has just done (again) in some latter day version of Pax Australiana.

And Carr doesn’t even have the benefit of being a member of a credible, competent government that can command the allegiance of anything but a rump of the Australian electorate.  Maybe he should go back to figuring out how he might get that to work.

Nauru: A dog barked but was not heard. It barks yet

JOHN FOWKE

IT IS MY CONVICTION that although Australia was an exceptionally good and generous foster-parent to both territories, Papua and New Guinea, it cared for until 1975, it committed two major sins of omission.

These were sins of short-sightedness which led to continuing and far-reaching consequences.

I have written about the first of my concerns here on PNG Attitude, and fellow PNG-pundits of the aged, expat sort have either shot it down or patted it on the head with faint praise.

This plan for the reversal of the first major sin of Australia has been humbly (yes, humbly for once) lodged with people who may take it seriously and even use some strands to weave their own tapestry for tomorrow. Or not, of course.

But Harry Topham’s well-put article on Nauru prompts me to propound my second concern.

Heart of wisdom & recognition of a true reality

GANJIKI D WAYNE

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" - a psalm of Moses (90:12)

I TURNED ANOTHER YEAR OLD the other day. But I really stopped celebrating birthdays after 16. I wanted to stay there forever. Sometimes I think I still am.

Anyway, birthdays are a time where I'm reminded of how precious life is (not that I forget on ordinary days): to know and be known by the Maker of the Universe; to love and be loved by an incredible woman; to belong to an awesome family; and to dwell in the sweetest country. Such is my lot.

What does it mean to be Papua New Guinean? We were deliberately placed here by God. He didn't randomly chuck us here. Or throw us into the air and see where we'd land on Earth. He deliberately decided I'd be Papua New Guinean.

Back then we carried forward the fight against malaria

DAVID WALL

THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN BY my wife Deborah in 1973 while we were on patrol in the Pora Pora census division of the Angoram sub-district.

It shows John Pandum and me taking a blood sample in one of the half-yearly anti-malaria visits to the area.

The people of Pora Pora were prone to a lot of sickness: malaria, pneumonia, tropical ulcers, TB, influenza and many minor complaints.

It was amazing what could be done with penicillin, chloroquine and a few other simple remedies.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 8: A smile impossible to erase

BEN JACKSON

EVEN AS A NEWCOMER to Port Moresby I seem to find myself running into people I know.

I ended the day in the wildly imaginative company of Emmanuel Narokobi and Martyn Namorong (you can see them being moderately imaginative here).

And last night I came across the lovely and energetic Dr Genevieve Nelson-Hill, executive director of the Kokoda Track Foundation.

Gen was staying at the same hotel as me before heading to Kokoda today to certify land for the development of a Kokoda Track Foundation-funded college. The college, when operational, will provide high quality elementary school training (one year) and health services training (two years).

As luck would have it, the Foundation’s charter flight had a spare seat, so this morning I went out to Jackson’s Airport for a series of aviation firsts in my life: first internal PNG flight, first light aircraft flight, and first grass strip landing (and take-off, now you mention it).

Ben’s PNG Diary: Day 7 – Our forebears would be proud

BEN JACKSON

I SPENT TODAY WITH Jimmy, Wayne, Tyler and Rob; four young indigenous Aussies who are visiting Papua New Guinea as part of a joint Rio Tinto-AFL program, Footy Means Business.

A schoolteacher by trade, Jimmy Sebire originally took part in Footy Means Business as a player in 2010 and now manages the program for Rio Tinto as a specialist indigenous programs consultant.

“Footy Means Business is about the development of leadership skills and opportunities for aspirational young indigenous men,” Jimmy said.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 6: Promoting the Crocodile Prize

BEN JACKSON

LONG BEFORE DR STEVEN WINDUO became a PhD he wrote poetry and studied literature for his undergraduate degree at the University of Papua New Guinea.

He was one of two students in the literature class taught by Russell Soaba – a man he now calls his colleague.

Today Steven welcomed Russell and me in to his class, Literature and Politics, which was attended by well over 50 students.

Steven and Russell, the elder statesman of Papua New Guinea literature, have spent their careers valiantly battling to get PNG writing into the spotlight.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 5: Moresby is people, not places

ONE OF THE REASONS tourists visit the world’s great cities is because of their beauty and iconic monuments.

The photo albums trundled out after such overseas trips are invariably filled with a face well known to the photographer and imposed in front of something grand.

I’m as guilty as the next traveller of pulling a cheesy grin while standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Shibuya crossing, Times Square, Mount Fuji or the Colosseum.

Which brings me to modern-day Moresby, the city of which my father said, when he visited in 2011 after 35 years, he did not know any more.

It is not a pretty place and, Haus Tambaran (parliament house) aside, really has nothing to be photographed in front of.

Deakin reflections: On power & Melanesian elasticity

MARTYN NAMORONG | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

Martyn attended the Deakin conference with substantial support from PNG Attitude readers, his workmates at Ok Tedi Mining Ltd as well as his own bank balance....

NOW ALL THE ALCOHOL and food has settled, I take time to reflect on the recent PNG Leadership conference at Deakin University. For me personally, it was worth the money I spent to travel to Melbourne.

So what do I take out of the conference and what have I contributed towards the understanding of the types of leadership that will be needed to steer forward the new generation of Papua New Guineans.

I begin by reflecting on the presentation by Professor Ian Maddocks, who took us through the story of leadership from traditional independence to colonisation then modern independence.

Ben’s PNG Diary - Day 4: A few things about Sil Bolkin

BEN JACKSON

EARLIER TODAY I SPENT A COUPLE of hours with Kela Kapkora Sil Bolkin at his office in Port Moresby.

Sil is policy and planning coordinator for the National AIDS Council, an organisation that determines and implements prevention, care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS in Papua New Guinea.

It is role that Sil is passionate about and it is this passion that can drive his frustration at PNG politics for interfering with health outcomes.

“For the public service there is a problem with the constant rotation of ministers,” Sil said.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 3: The Bougainville Copper AGM

BEN JACKSON

WELL IT GOT MORE SERIOUS today as I attended the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) annual general meeting, at which chairman Peter Taylor reiterated optimism about the reopening of the Panguna mine.

In his address to the meeting, Mr Taylor pointed particularly to BCL’s development of positive relationships in Bougainville.

“We are building momentum and so are our development partners,” he said. “[BCL maintains] a very good relationship with the political leaders and public servants of the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

“There is an elected and firmly established structure representing landowners… and widespread support amongst the Bougainville community that mining is both necessary and desirable in the near future, and that BCL is the preferred operator”.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 2: The poetry of Tok Pisin

ON THE WAY TO the annual Poetry Slam at Moresby Arts Theatre, I asked my gracious friend/tour guide/bodyguard Martyn Namorong why all billboards around Port Moresby are in English and never Tok Pisin.

(Martyn won't let me take anything capable of taking photos with me, although I had a minor victory this afternoon when I was allowed to walk on the street.)

Martyn’s explanation about the English-language hoardings was simple, but not something I had considered as a Pidgin-ignorant Aussie: Tok Pisin is intrinsically contextual and personal; without the cues of emphasis and body language meaning is open to interpretation.

There are many ways to say one thing and, on the flip side, many ways to interpret one sentence.

Ben's PNG Diary - Day 1: A flight to remember

BEN JACKSON

IN MAY LAST YEAR I collected Martyn ‘Mangiwantok’ Namorong from Sydney International Airport at the start of his two-week Take the Truth to Australia Tour of Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.

Today, almost one year on, the roles were reversed as I sat next to Martyn aboard the Air Niugini flight from Sydney to Port Moresby.

Martyn, being the good friend he is, noticed my excited nervousness about my maiden visit to PNG and sought to settle me with some choice words: “Don’t worry Ben, I’ve arranged for you to be robbed when we get to Moresby.”

Cheers mate.

Civil war to corporate boardroom - but memories remain

KRISTIAN LASSLETT | New Matilda

INTERNMENT CAMPS, THE MORTARING OF CHILDREN, aerial bombardments, assassinations, rape, and the denial of humanitarian aid — these are just some of the criminal state practices endured by civilians during Papua New Guinea’s decade-long civil war on the island of Bougainville (1988-98).

No senior official from Australia or PNG has been formally censured, let alone prosecuted, for their involvement in this dirty war.

To compound matters, over the past two years Australian mining companies have appointed to their boards of directors individuals that headed organisations directly responsible for some of the worst atrocities during this dark period.

Universities and the media have played a part too, lending cultural capital to various senior players, without a word on the crimes that occurred under their watch.

Self-development: A new direction for Bougainville

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

AS BOUGAINVILLEANS, WE HAD TO BE INNOVATIVE during the height of the Australia-backed Papua New Guinea blockade of our island.

During that time, I witnessed a range of discoveries: food processing, gunsmithing, electricity production, building and construction, engine mechanics, electronics, home economics, health care training, navigation.

Just some of the many skills that the crisis forced upon the illiterate people of Bougainville.

But since the peace process and the return of so-called Eurocentric services to the island, I’ve been saddened to see this innovation being shattered by the cash economy and a clear lack of vision and pragmatism at the political level.

There is also, unfortunately, corruption and self-interest in our midst.

The light upon the far mountain glows at last

PAUL OATES

“Our communal existence imposes certain obligations that more often clashes with the demands of the law… The society is conditioned to protect even the worst criminal” – Sam Koim (pictured)

AT LAST, A LIGHT upon the mountain.

The nexus between the so called Melanesian Way and personal responsibility and accountability has been a stumbling block for Papua New Guinea for many years.

The problem may be divided into two main parts.

First, there was the dilemma of how to deal with the norms of modern society when the traditional culture is all you have to fall back on.

Secondly, to be told by foreigners that you must change may well be offensive and viewed as being lectured.

PNGSDP - a clever deception on government & people

PAUL YABOB

IN HIS STORY IN the Sydney Morning Herald, republished in PNG Attitude, Michael Pascoe forgets several key facts in his one-eyed and ill-willed article.

Such articles do not bode well for relations between Papua New Guinea and Australia. Indeed such stereotyping by ignorant and lazy journalists, who should know better, keep raising the ire of decent Australians and Papua New Guineans year in and year out.

Fact 1. All minerals in the ground belong to the Independent State of PNG. Once a license runs out, the State can do as it pleases. In the case of Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) it is the Independent State of PNG's sovereign right to grant or not grant a renewal. That is the law of England that Australia instituted in PNG.

A confused world. Can we be happy by playing God?

GANJIKI D WAYNE | Supported by the Bea Amaya Writing Fellowship

“You shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free” - Jesus

WE LIVE IN A MORALLY CONFUSED WORLD where philosophers tell us even the notion of morality is an irrelevant consideration in the make-up of society.

"What you believe in private doesn't matter in public,” they suggest. So keep your morality at home.

In the book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden the Devil, through a serpent, tried to convince man he didn't need God to know good from bad, right from wrong. That we could be like God.

Nothing has changed except the form of the devil’s messenger.

Of wars & warriors: the persistence of conflict in PNG

PHIL FITZPATRICK

PAPUA NEW GUINEA IS A COUNTRY AT WAR.  But it is not at war with another country.  It is a war with itself.

Internecine clan warfare has been going on for thousands of years and it still persists today, albeit sometimes in a toned down and more subtle way.

In many parts of the country conflict is still the natural state of affairs.

In many of Papua New Guinean societies the cult of the warrior is still extremely pervasive. 

And I don’t mean a warrior in the romantic Homeric sense that many of them like to be portrayed.  I mean it in the dumb and brutal sense described by philosophers like Thomas Hobbes.

Political risk is key in PNG’s sovereign bond debut

JONATHAN ROGERS | International Financing Review

PAPUA NEW GUINEA bonds anyone? If all goes according to plan, the Pacific Ocean nation will soon make its debut in the international debt markets with a dollar issue led by Barclays, BNP Paribas and JP Morgan.

Whatever the merits of such a deal as an investment proposition, you would have to say hats off to bankers from these three houses for escaping unscathed from the beauty contest for the deal held in Papua’s capital Port Moresby, perhaps the world’s most dangerous city.

Port Moresby was last year ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit as the second-worst place to live among the world’s 140 capitals. So-called “raskol” gangs control the city and are rather fond of robbing banks while toting M-16 machine guns. Never mind the mandate, you’d be lucky to escape the pitch with your life.

Who is the most important person in your life?

KARUA PETER | The Melanesian Lookout Blog

IT IS OFTEN DIFFICULT to figure out who in our life is the most important person. If somebody asks you: “Who is the most important person in your life?” what would your answer be?

We live in a rapidly changing world—a world that is continuously in the transitional state where everything is subject to change. Change is inevitable. Our needs change over time with our goals and priorities.

So, the most important person in our life changes every time our needs and priorities change. For instance, the most important person in one’s life would be God if he is a Christian who is asked such a question in a public church congregation.

When he leaves the church, that most important person in his life is changed to another figure depending on the situation he currently is in.

In a meeting at Crown Plaza Hotel on Friday 22 February, a colleague of mine asked me ‘who is the most important person in my life’.

I responded: “The most important person in my life is not God, nor my parents, nor the politicians, nor my countrymen, and even not any single person in the entire world. The most important person in my life is me.” 

Kauona criticised by Europe-based BCL shareholders

Radio New Zealand International

A GROUP OF SHAREHOLDERS in Bougainville Copper Ltd has issued a scathing critique of a former Bougainville militant leader, Sam Kauona,  who this week described the provincial government’s new mining policy as one that could spark a constitutional crisis.

Mr Kauona (pictured) was reacting to news of Australian involvement in drawing up the document during a forum canvassing views on a possible re-opening of the moth-balled BCL-owned mine at Panguna.

Don Wiseman writes:

Mr Kauona, who led the Bougainville Revolutionary Army during the civil war, warned Australia not to meddle in Bougainville affairs.

The National newspaper reported him saying Canberra’s involvement in helping draft the policy, could lead to a constitutional crisis in the province.

But the European Shareholders of BCL call Mr Kauona a terrorist and claim he is spearheading a foreign criminal group that is trying to undermine the peace process for its own business interests.

However Mr Kauona’s deputy with the Bougainville Resource Owners Representative Council, Chris Damana, says what they want is to ensure that the people of Panguna have a say in the final policy on the resumption of mining at Panguna and have been assured that will happen.”

School power: This is the century of educated brains

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

LAST DECEMBER I was invited to be a guest speaker at the end-of-year ceremonies at two primary schools, Darenai and Oune, here in the Panguna District.

I chose Oune because it is here that the Bougainville struggle for independence in the 1960s began; the precedent was set here.

People claim that the Panguna people are responsible for the conflict on Bougainville. But the Panguna man does not hesitate to state that it is the Oune people to the west of Panguna who began the conflict long time ago.

They started it through a little organisation called the Oune Mumungsina, that later had the Napidakoe Navitu as its umbrella body.

In my talk, I ran through this history of Oune. The crowd was silent because, despite the fact that they were historically responsible for leading the anti-CRA and later anti-PNG demonstrations in Panguna and Arawa, the current generation had no idea what their elders had done before they went into their graves.

Move over corrupters, here come the citizens!

MORIOKA | Bertelsmann Stiftung | Future Challenges

IN A COUNTRY LIKE Papua New Guinea, you don’t expect much from the government. If you do, you will be disappointed.

You see, there is a problem when colonisation and Western democracy clash head on with the values and practices of a customary society. The by-product of this collision is corruption.

Corruption leads to corruption. Corruption breeds corruption.

Just earlier this month an office of PNG’s Anti-Corruption Taskforce Sweep was broken into and ransacked. Computers and case files containing details of investigations were stolen.

Over the last 18 months, Taskforce Sweep has uncovered corruption among dozens of politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen. This has led to criminal arrests.

The success of Taskforce Sweep’s investigations worries those who are corrupt. On the other hand, it’s reassuring for the citizens; including the many rural people who are deprived of basic necessities – they are the reasons why there needs to be an end to corruption.

The USA is losing to China in Asia-Pacific influence

DAVID GONOL

THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION is a very strategic area in this 21st century as the world’s balance of economic and political power shifts.

Many nations in the region are taking the lead as the world seeks economic recovery after 2008’s financial crisis. Most notable is China. Its unprecedented economic growth has spurred its military growth and its influence in the region.

Because no other nation in the region or elsewhere has given China much of a challenge over the last two decades, its economic and military growth have been spectacular.

Only the US could have challenged China’s growth and influence in the region but, for the last two decades, the US was so preoccupied with the former USSR and then the crisis in the Middle East that it seemed to forget China and, apart from Afghanistan, the region.

So China grew to become a world power without opposition. Many now come to agree that China has attained superpower status peacefully.

Bible fundamentalists & pubs engulf the suburbs

KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN | Supported by the Phil Fitzpatrick Writing Fellowship

ONE WONDERS WHETHER they have inhaled heroin or cocaine to be so high with energy.  Your ears are assaulted on every street corner into which you turn in Port Moresby where a street preacher stands.

Most of them will be skinny with no muscles and their bones sticking out of their skin. Obvious signs of hunger and unemployment.  But that doesn’t hinder them from being charged with absolute energy.

Yet most of their theories about metaphysics will not stand up to scrutiny and one can clearly see that the poor preacher is half-baked, let alone a student of theology or philosophy.

A few of them are obese and you can tell that they have successfully manipulated their followers with skill and have taken advantage of them by milking every penny for their own hungry stomachs.

You will even see kids as young as five preaching on the street corners of Port Moresby.  Oh dear, what does this kid understand about the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament?

Hey Mr Somare, have we got a deal for you!

PHIL FITZPATRICK

WHETHER PAPUA NEW GUINEA was ready to govern itself in 1975 is a moot point really.  It had been governing itself for thousands of years already.

The question was rather whether it was prepared to centralise its government in the same way as Australia and other western countries so that it could be dealt with on their terms rather than its own.

It needed some form of government to avoid being prey to the outside world, Indonesia in particular, but there were plenty of alternatives.

In that sense, the form of self-government and independence being foisted on it by Australia was a trap into which Michael Somare and the Pangu Pati willingly fell.

So why did the founding fathers fall into the pit so easily?  They were certainly well aware of alternatives and discussed them at great length.  Joe Nombri, whose brain was considered dangerous and who had been banished to the wilds of the Western District, often discussed alternatives when we shared a house in Kiunga.

I apologise, and I want the 'asples' to be progressive

JOHN FOWKE

HAVING ALREADY APOLOGISED for the aspersions I recently cast upon Joe Wasia, and I applaud the sentiments expressed in his recent, eponymous opinion piece.

Joe wrote:

Successive governments have neglected this vast majority, their focus diverted to the main centres of the country. And that was really unfair for the people…. As a member of the educated elite in my society, I know I would not tolerate tribal fights or other social disorder in my society nor support perpetrators in any way.

Indeed, Joe. Oh yes. I have been writing off and on for several years urging people like you to form a progressive linkage or union across tribal and provincial boundaries and the nation.

Much of what I’ve written has been published in the various daily and weekly papers in PNG including in Wantok, and in Australia as well as PNG-related blogs when these arose not so long ago.

Just recently my hopes that I may have a small audience, or better, friends, in a combined enterprise, have risen.

Aid's not the answer; let's develop those resources

BRIAN WAWN | Project Monitor | My Resources

MICK LEAHY (1901-79) was an Australian explorer and prospector, who worked in the rugged mountainous country of Papua New Guinea in the 1930s.

He said to a colleague at the time: “Jim, good country, good climate, good kanakas (traditional people), too good to find gold in”.

But in time, the country Mick Leahy explored gave rise to two major mines operating today: Porgera and Ok Tedi.

Following growth in gold mining between the 1930s and 1950s, PNG had only one major operating mine at independence in 1975: the Panguna copper mine on Bougainville.

Operations at Panguna ended in tears in 1989; the development was closed in the face of fierce local opposition, accompanied by civil war on the island.

Corruption in PNG: curse of the rent seekers

MARTYN NAMORONG | Supported by the Chalapi Pomat Writing Fellowship

IN TRYING TO UNDERSTAND the roots of corruption in PNG, I draw upon my lifelong interaction with the resources sector in my country.

I grew up in a logging camp in the Western Province, and I appreciate the services provided to the local community by the company.

It was there that I came across a Tok Pisin translation of extracts from the Barnett Inquiry.

The inquiry was an investigation of widespread corruption in the forestry sector. Its revelations led to changes to forestry laws and regulations and the introduction of log export monitoring.

I believe the unintended consequence of the tightening of forestry regulations has been the recent land grab known as Special Purpose Agriculture Business Leases (SPABLs or SABLs).

Tomorrow I will present a paper on Corruption in PNG at the Australian National University in Canberra. My trip to Canberra and later Sydney is part of an award for the work I did in reporting the findings of the Commission of Inquiry into Sepik SPABLs.

Wouldn't PNG be a better place without mining?

PHIL FITZPATRICK

I'M NOT SURE that Papua New Guinea really needs the LNG Project, or the Ramu nickel mine for that matter.

In fact, it probably could have done without Ok Tedi, Porgera and Hides (not to mention Panguna). I can understand the need for a large mineral resource base in Australia because nearly everyone works for wages and jobs are extremely important.

Papua New Guinea is not yet primarily a wage-based society.  Estimates vary but I believe something like 85% of the population are still reasonably happy subsistence farmers.

Australia has a vast land mass, much of it extremely arid.  This is used to run hard-hoofed stock like sheep and cattle, which create massive environmental damage.  Dropping the odd mine or two into this scenario hardly makes any difference.

Fiji benefits from Australian 'appeasement lobby'

VICTOR LAL | The Strategist | Australian Strategic Policy Institute

AUSTRALIAN POLICY ON FIJI is shifting to appeasement in ways that will gladden the military regime and sadden Fijians.

What might be called the Bainimarama appeasement lobby—broadly speaking a group of academics and journalists who have never lived under the Fiji dictatorship—make valid points about Australia’s interests.

But they are necessarily made from the viewpoint of a comfortable and calm Sydney, Melbourne, Honolulu or Auckland suburb without recourse to public opinion and conditions in Fiji.

Education in PNG: horror-child of Australian left ideology

JOHN FOWKE

AUSTRALIA'S CARDINAL MISTAKE in Papua New Guinea was to allow a Westminster-modelled, party-based system of political representation to arise in a profoundly tribal, profoundly egalitarian, landowning, subsistence society.

It proved to be a white elephant which would never pull a cart or lift a log.

This unguided policy-free stance, allowing party-based politics to rise, provided for the empowerment of today's selfish and cynical hegemonic elite in all its mishmash of conflict-beset coalitions.

This oversight was compounded by another factor. The great grey elephant was the lack of a well-educated, disciplined and idealistic elite of a size sufficient to have a deep impact upon the unworldly and unsophisticated emerging society.

Formal western schooling came late to PNG. As the government system of education grew from almost nothing in the late forties to the foundation of UPNG and Unitech less than two decades later, the Aussie political leadership quietly decided that "black mastas" should never arise, and so mediocrity and "lefty-luvvy-ideology" became the guiding theme in educational and social development.

To hell with an informed, ethical, history-and-economics-savvy leadership during the most important decades of PNG's hasty transformation from tribal horde to nation state. The principle of excellence was not permitted in a society traditionally free of the ills of a class-system just as the pursuit ofexcellence was anathema to all dinky-di Aussies.

As with most colonial powers, Australia exhibited a supine even welcoming attitude to the flood of lefty political correctness which swirled like an Alpine fog behind UN visiting missions in the sixties and thereafter.

Any pretence to excellence of outcome in education was sacrificed to the sibilant susurrations of fluttering left wings.

It is no accident that names like Kidu, Rarua, Taureka, Siaguru, Namaliu, Nombri, Ainui and others all bring memories of balanced, urbane, highly-educated, personable and effective professionals; people of dignity and purpose. People who served the nation with distinction and honesty.

But it was not even a generation. Because of Aussie policy it was just a flash in the pan. So what happened to replace this cadre of leaders?

The output of a largely undistinguished caste of ideology-driven foreign educationists foisted upon a naive PNG in the formative years of tertiary education was unable to provide a supply of focussed, disciplined, ethical leaders in the same model.

Within its enclosed, self-protective academic community, this pod of politically correct pedagogues live on today, largely invisible and perennially unable to put the stamp of quality upon its product.

In this way, by closing the gate to a purposely socially-engineered class of properly educated, open-minded and pragmatic non-tribal Melanesian leaders, Australia closed off the only avenue whereby young people might see and aim for ethical, socially-positive and creative careers in politics and administration.

Social engineering didn't go away. It was put into reverse. And look at the result.

Better education will tackle social issues in PNG

JOE WASIA | Supported by the Bob Cleland Writing Fellowship

DO WE HAVE ANY COHERENT plans and strategies to combat tribal fights and other violent social unrest which are too common in Papua New Guinea?

I believe education would be a greatest tool to solve these issues in our country - and most of our people are really lacking an education.

The vast majority of Papua New Guineans, more than 70%, still live in rural areas where there is no proper education. As a result, we have an uneducated population with many social issues.

Tribal fights, as mentioned by Francis Nii in a recent article and similar social issues we discuss and read about at PNG Attitude and other media, are very common in much of PNG society where there is no proper education, health and other basic infrastructure.

Successive governments have neglected this vast majority, their focus diverted to the main centres of the country. And that was really unfair for the people.

Rural societies need support from the responsible authorities. The national, provincial and local level governments, NGOs, business houses, international agencies and organisations must support students and educated youths to conduct awareness in rural villages on pressing issues such as warfare, elections, HIV/AIDS, education, global warming, etc.

This will bring some change to community, provinces and country. The students and youths will be engaged so they can be advocates for social peace and order. As we know, young people have the potential to do harm or good and that is where a change for the better needs to start.

Government must invest more in human resource development. Establish schools, subsidise schooling, get more school age kids enrolled and provide more employment opportunities for the growing population.

I know education can play a greater role in maintaining peace and order in the societies throughout the country. Being educated doesn’t mean a bachelor’s degree; it means you do things well and think better than others. And that’s where change starts.

As a member of the educated elite in my society, I know I would not tolerate tribal fights or other social disorder in my society nor support perpetrators in any way.

I know that education has shaped the way I think and act. Education has changed me to be who I’m and given me a bright future. That's how it helps keep societies in order when change starts from an individual through education.

We can deploy armed security, police and even defence force to tribal areas to contain fights and social unrest but they will never solve the problem. Trouble will still erupt because people are uneducated.

As the great Nelson Mandela said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Yes, we can change Papua New Guinea through education.

The fight for land rages in Papua New Guinea

CHRISTINA HILL | Oxfam Mining Advocacy Coordinator

I have just returned from Papua New Guinea where the struggle for control of the country’s natural resources is raging.

Communities are quite literally fighting for their lands, environment, livelihoods and culture – all of these are at risk from logging, palm oil and other so-called developments.

Land is life, as they say in PNG. Yet those who try to defend their land are often intimidated and harassed by the companies who want the land and the logs.

I spent a week working with Oxfam partners learning about community rights to decide what happens on their land, and about how Oxfam partners are supporting communities to understand and defend their rights.

We focused on the right to ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC). The right to FPIC is articulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in other human rights instruments.

FPIC represents the highest standard possible for the involvement of communities in decision-making about large scale projects including logging, palm oil and mining.

FPIC requires that communities must be adequately informed about large projects in a timely manner and given the opportunity to approve, or reject, projects before operations begin. This includes participation in setting the terms and conditions that address the economic, social and environmental impacts of the project.

What became clear during our conversations that week was how important human rights – and human rights language – is. The right to FPIC is not an abstract concept, it is being used by communities to prevent being exploited.

As one of our partners who lives in a community directly impacted by logging said to me, “I have the right to decide what happens to my land because the law tells me so.”

When communities understand their right to FPIC they stand together and demand their voices are heard. I learned that FPIC really does empower local communities to make decisions about the use of their land so that their interests and rights are protected.

FPIC ensures that customary land rights and traditions are respected by project developers  Communities are using FPIC to protect their livelihoods and local environment because for many Papua New Guineans a sustainable livelihood is only possible if natural resources are used sustainably.

FPIC is not just about stopping large projects. FPIC can also be used to ensure that women and men benefit from these projects. For example, we talked about how communities can benefit from project-related infrastructure and services, and small business opportunities, but only when communities are involved in decision making.

Our week together finished with a picnic lunch at the local beach. To get there we drove through mangrove forests – which are important fish breeding grounds – to arrive at beautiful Wom Beach.

This was a fitting reminder to us all of the importance of natural resources for the people of PNG.

Australia’s failing engagement with PNG & Pacific

KEITH JACKSON

A RESEARCHER AT the University of Melbourne (from which, by the way, my stepson, Evan, has just graduated with an MSc in marine biology), has said Australia's relationships with its Pacific island neighbours are characterised by short-term thinking, neglect and stagnation.

Jonathan Schultz (pictured) is condemnatory. He says Australia's engagement with the Pacific is volatile and reactive, fluctuating wildly based on events and lacking any real vision or long-term policy direction.

In his study, Overseeing and Overlooking (download below), Dr Schultz says “we keep making similar mistakes and having to relearn the same lessons''.

He says the federal government should appoint a minister for Pacific island affairs to address this policy drift.

Clearly he doesn’t think much of the current set-up where Richard Marles as parliamentary secretary with responsibility for the Pacific hasn't achieved any cut-through.

Dr Schultz says the situation is exacerbated by the low level of importance placed on Pacific issues within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

At the same time Dr Schultz’s study was released, an AusAID consultant in Papua New Guinea made some observations to me about his long experience with DFAT and its aid arm.

“I am really battling with AusAID direction at the moment,” he wrote, “especially their law and justice engagement.

“It’s all about process, like reports and so on, and little time for actual implementation.

“I know PNG and the Australian public want results. AusAID just seem to employ so many academics that know all.”

And he added, “Don't please put me down saying these things. I need a job and I battle through it.”

When will the Australian government stump up and admit its Pacific policies are failing?

After a change in government this coming September, with any luck.

Download 'Overseeing and Overlooking' - Jonathan Schultz

Nothing more obscene than a fat man on a bicycle

PHIL FITZPATRICK

MY YOUTHFUL FORAY into academia resulted in a very humble Bachelor of Arts degree.

I hadn’t really expected to learn anything useful by doing it that I couldn’t otherwise have picked up by a bit of selective reading, but I did need it as a ticket to earn a half decent salary when I left Papua New Guinea.

My original analysis was reasonably accurate.  As I progressed the idea of pursuing academia seemed more and more like a hollow and futile path to wander down.

There was one thing that tweaked my curiosity during my aimless wandering through the halls of learning however and it is encapsulated in the only book that I kept from my youthful experimentation. 

The volume is entitled Bureaucracy and Democracy: A Political Dilemma by Eva Etzioni-Halevy.  She also wrote another interesting book called Political Manipulation and Administrative Power.

The television series Yes Minister? was playing at the time but I’m not sure what influence it had on Ms Erzioni-Halevy’s thinking; she certainly didn’t refer to it in her texts.  But avoiding the innate truths that sometimes lurk within popularism is an academic trait I think.

In any event her erudite arguments caused me to complete what was a sort of post-graduate major which the University Of Queensland called Government but which was really Politics.

I suppose Joh Bjelke Petersen would have banned it if they had used the latter name.  So, despite Joh, I actually ended up with one and a half degrees before I abandoned the idea forever.

The reason I mention this is that Paul Oates recently directed me to an interesting argument that he was conducting with someone we both hadn’t heard of on another Papua New Guinea orientated blog.

This guy was arguing that there is absolutely no relationship between culture and politics in PNG.  He also went to great pains to suggest that the relationship between corruption and the Melanesian Way, which Paul had raised, was nothing more than a fiction.

He also claimed that The Troubles in Northern Island had nothing to do with the differences between the Protestants and the Catholics!

For him the real bogey man is the political system and in particular unicameralism, that is a parliament with only one chamber. 

His suggestion is that an upper house or a house of review (or multimember electorates, which I admit I don’t quite understand but which he claims fixed the problems in Belfast), is all that is needed to cure corruption.

With an upper house he says even the most evil depredations of the politicians can be pursued and tackled and brought to account.

He cited some interesting historical precedents.  Queensland, for instance, according to him, is the most corrupt state in Australia and it doesn’t have an upper house (not sure where NSW under Labor fits in here).

PNG military expansion is to guard foreign corporations

PNG MINE WATCH

ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY on the Papua New Guinea government’s plan for a five-fold increase in the size of its military force has painstakingly ignored the obvious.

The increase in military personnel from the current 2,000 to around 10,000 is not a move designed to increase security along PNG’s border with Indonesia, nor to deal with international people smuggling and drug trafficking.

The move to increase the size of the military has everything to do with guarding the huge operations of foreign corporations like Exxon-Mobil and MCC.

These companies operations are coming under increasing pressure from dissatisfied local communities as they realize the promised material benefits are not going to arrive and instead they must bear the social and environmental costs while vast profits are shipped overseas.

Already this week, the government had approved the call out of the PNG military for an initial 12 months deployment to protect the interests of US based Exxon-Mobil.

The troops will be deployed all the Highlands Highway, the only transport corridor leading to the LNG sites, to provide protection for Exxon’s truck convoys.

This is not the first time Exxon has called on the PNG government for military assistance. A number of paramilitary police mobile squads, notorious for their ill-discipline and brutal tactics, are on almost permanent deployment around the LNG sites providing protection alongside Exxon’s own private security contractors – mainly from G4S.

Meanwhile, MCC, the Chinese operator of the controversial Ramu nickel mine, is becoming increasingly nervous about community unrest as it moves into full production.

As well as anger at the dumping of toxic waste just 150m off-shore along the Madang coastline, inland communities are increasingly frustrated about the environmental impacts of the mining operation itself and the failure of MCC to properly relocate displaced families.

The new Yandera mine, also to be built by a Chinese company, China Non Ferrous Industries, and the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone are seen as other potential flash points for community anger directed at foreign corporations.

Simbu politicians refuse to act to extinguish tribal war

FRANCIS NII | Supported by the South Pacific Strategic Solutions Writing Fellowship

THE EDUCATION AND FUTURE of the children in the Salt and Nomane area of the Karimui Nomane electorate of the Simbu Province are being overlooked and deprived.

Last week the provincial education authorities suspended classes for each school in the area due to continuing election-related tribal fighting.

The warfare is between the supporters of Mogerema Sigo Wei MP and runner-up in the 2012 general elections, businessman Michael Korry.

This ongoing conflict has caused much hardship and anguish for the people of Salt and Nomane. The fight started in August last year and now into its seventh month.

Three people had been killed. Others have sustained serious gunshot injuries inflicted by high powered weapons. Property worth thousands of kina has been destroyed.

The Kundiawa police have made several attempts to bring the warring groups together but have failed because the two warlords Korry and Wei have not consented.

The fighting has brought government services to a standstill. Worse, the provincial education authorities suspended classes for schools in the fighting zone and for more than 10 primary,15 elementary and one secondary school in the entire Salt and Nomane Local Level Government area for an indefinite period because teachers have refused to take up their postings in fear of their lives.

Parents are very concerned about the education and future of their children and are calling on the two leaders to end the fight immediately.

This is a deprivation of the children’s right to gain an education, especially at a time when the parents have just been relieved of the burden of tuition fee. It is totally wrong.

The parents, police, provincial authorities and general public of Salt and Nomane are calling on the two leaders to return to Simbu and end the war as soon as practical so schools can start classes and other government services can be restored.

The lives of the innocent majority and the education and future of the children cannot continue to be jeopardised by the political greed and craving of two individuals and their barbaric supporters.

As leaders they must consider the welfare of the innocent majority which includes pregnant mothers and sick people to have access to medical services.

It is hoped that the fight ends. The sooner the better for the people of Salt and Nomane and the entire district.

Searching for a strategy to temper superstition

FR PHILIP GIBBS SVD

I SAID MASS at St Paul's church in Mt Hagen on Sunday realising that a number in the congregation would have been witnesses to when Kepari Leniata was burned to death last week.

I spoke with some people who said they actually tried to stop it but were unable. If, as an expat, you tell people they are longlong to believe such superstition, many will just close down.

I found it quite difficult to discern just what to say to the congregation. I spoke in my sermon about how many people have a sense of confusion with one leg in the Christian faith camp and the other in the tumbuna one, and many nodded in recognition. 

I spoke too about how just one person is powerless in such situations and how we need to support one another to counter this sort of thinking and inhuman behaviour as a group, and many, particularly the women showed signs that they agreed.

At a forthcoming conference on sorcery in Canberra, I hope to take a constructive approach developing what Bishop Anton Bal has been doing in Simbu.

Basically there are 5 points to it:

(1) Helping people broaden their understanding of the causes of illness and death

(2) Early intervention before or during a funeral,

(3) Promoting law and order in communities,

(4) Fostering faith to influence attitudes and emotions

(5) Immediate family members taking ownership of the death of a family member

I want to look at the effectiveness of this as a strategy and examine how it might be revised and promoted elsewhere.

It is good that we change or develop laws but that is not enough. We need an approach that will affect peoples attitudes and feelings and in fact their worldview - and this is not easy.

One thing that concerns me is that the Simbu form of witchcraft and sorcery seems to be spreading to other places like Enga and the Southern Highlands.

People used to look at it differently there - and would kill pigs not people, since the cause of death and misfortune was attributed to spirits of the dead. 

The change and spread of a more violent form is a great concern for me. It worries me also that some of the more fundamental, evangelical churches seem to reinforce traditional demonic beliefs. 

I would not argue for total secularism, but we need to promote more of a scientific viewpoint especially when it comes to misfortune and death.

Responses from Papua New Guineans will be much more convincing to the broader populace than that coming from outsiders.

It was good that Bishop Douglas Young along with the two national bishops, Arnold Orowae and Anton Bal from Enga and Simbu respectively, spoke on EMTV last week. Many people saw that. 

Maybe we need more forums on national TV with prominent and thoughtful Papua New Guineans.

Fr Gibbs was born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand in 1947. In 1966 hewent to Holy Name Seminary, Christchurch, and studied for a BA in Sociology at Canterbury University. In 1971 he went to Australia to join the Divine Word Missionaries and, after the novitiate year, studied post-graduate Anthropology at Sydney University. After a year and a half in Papua New Guinea he spent four years studying Theology at Catholic Theological Union, Chicago returning to New Zealand for ordination as a priest in 1978. Since then he has served in various capacities in PNG (parish priest, directing a pastoral centre, seminary lecturer, researcher) with time away to study for a Licentiate and then a Doctorate in Theology at the Gregorian University, Rome