ASOPA PEOPLE

To locate Montevideo Maru

Port Moresby: Thursday 15 May, 2008

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA) has asked Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit the Commonwealth Government to an expedition to locate the last resting place of the Montevideo Maru and the men she carried. The sinking of this vessel in the South China Sea off the Philippines in the early hours of July 1, 1942, claimed the lives of 1,053 Australian troops and civilians who had been interned in Rabaul. It remains Australia’s greatest ever maritime disaster. The sinking of the Montevideo Maru has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea, PNGAA president, Keith Jackson said.

Budget provides solid support for PNG

Last night’s Commonwealth Budget provided a grant of $356 million to Papua New Guinea in 2008-09 and is supplemented by a range of programs focusing on infrastructure development, land administration and public sector capacity building.

“The new package of measures contained in this budget will sharpen the focus of Australia's development assistance program on practical development outcomes and improved quality of life,” according to Duncan Kerr [left] the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Islands Affairs'.

The Government says the new Pacific Partnerships for Development outlined in the Prime Minister’s March Port Moresby Declaration will provide a framework for Australia and Pacific island nations to jointly improve development outcomes. In addition Australia will invest $107 million over four years, with $6 million this year, to strengthen public sector administration in the Pacific. This funding will support management and policy reform and help to improve service delivery.

A new ‘Better Governance and Leadership’ initiative has been allocated $41 million over the next two years to improve leadership. This includes a Pacific Leadership Program overseen by a panel of eminent regional leaders. The funds will be used for civic education and raising awareness about government accountability.

In addition, the ‘Pacific Land Program’ will spend $54 million over four years to protect customary land rights, promote economic and social development and reduce the potential for instability as a result of land-related conflict in the Pacific.

PM asked to fund Montevideo search

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia has asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to commit the Commonwealth Government to an expedition to locate the last resting place of the Montevideo Maru and the men she carried.

The sinking of this vessel in the South China Sea off the Philippines in the early hours of July 1942 claimed the lives of 1,053 Australian troops and civilians who had been interned in Rabaul. It remains Australia's greatest ever maritime disaster.

The sinking of the Montevideo Maru has special relevance for anyone associated with Papua New Guinea. Most of the 208 civilians who died were Australians who considered the Territory of New Guinea their home. Whilst women and children were evacuated, the men had to remain at their places of employment in the New Guinea Islands leading up to the Japanese invasion.

They came from all walks of life, administration officers, school teachers, planters, missionaries and traders; they were of all ages (the youngest a youth of 15); and many had seen prior service in World War I before moving to New Guinea.

The PNGAA has asked Mr Rudd to financially support the search for the Montevideo Maru, declare the site of the sinking a Commonwealth War Grave and erect a monument at an appropriate place on the Philippines coast as a permanent memorial.

I've provided Mr Rudd with a list of the civilians who died aboard the ship. As I found, merely to read their names, ages, occupations and places of work, personalises the tragedy in a most poignant way. Along with the PNGAA media release, you can find the list here [Download Montevideo Maru.pdf].

Source: PNGAA Media Release, 5 May 2008

Former teacher elected PNGAA president

Port Moresby: Friday 2 May, 2008

The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia (PNGAA) has elected former PNG teacher and NBC executive Keith Jackson as its new president.

Mr Jackson taught in Simbu from 1963-66, worked with the ABC and the department of Information, managed Radio Bougainville from 1970-73 and finally was the NBC’s first head of policy and planning.

“I feel strongly that the association should be active in strengthening relationships between the people of Australia and Papua New Guinea,” Mr Jackson told the PNGAA annual general meeting.

He was awarded the PNG Independence Medal in 1976 and the Order of Australia (AM) in 2004. 

New Dawn FM takes to the airwaves

A couple of years ago, Phil Charley and I sat down to lunch in Sydney’s Chinatown with onetime colleague Carolus (Charlie) Ketsimur [left], top flight journalist and accomplished jazz musician. Charlie explained how Bougainville was going through a long process of recovering from a destructive civil war that cost the island 20 percent of its population through murder and disease and most of its infrastructure. And he talked of his ambition to establish a radio station in the north of the island that would assist Bougainville’s rehabilitation from this state of devastation. Charlie even had a name for the station – New Dawn.

Phil, and I said we’d do what we could to help and got in touch with our former PNG media colleague, Martin Hadlow, who had just returned from a gig with UNESCO. Martin, now a professor at Queensland University, had always put up his hand for the tough jobs – Jordan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan – and knew that plugging in a locally-owned radio station could do a lot for the education and development, not to mention the morale, of Bougainvilleans.

After a welter of paperwork – business plans, project proposals, budgets, contracts, assessments, reassessments – we got money from UNESCO. The German Government also provided a timely infusion of funds.

And yesterday afternoon at 2 pm New Dawn FM began its first test broadcast from a studio and transmitter on Buka Island.

“We completed the setting up yesterday and double checked that everything was working,” says station manager, Aloysius Laukai [seen here with German officials], who's been driving the project. “The test started at 1400 and went through to 2200. The signal was OK. We got calls from Buka and surrounding villages. It worked very well, and in stereo!”

Testing will continue for the next two weeks and a date for the official launch will be set for around the middle of May.

It will be a golden moment.

Aid money flashpoint in Oz-PNG talks

The 18th PNG-Australia Ministerial Forum is being held in Madang today – the first meeting between the countries in three years after the souring of relations under the Howard Government.

High on the agenda is the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the Kokoda Track. The agreement comes after recent consultation between land owners and Australia over proposed mining in the area around the track. The two countries will also agree frameworks for bilateral cooperation in resources, energy and tourism and a tsunami early warning system. Other issues being discussed are policing assistance, trade, investment and immigration.

PNG Foreign Minister Sir Sam Abal said the forum will consolidate relations between the two countries, on the mend following Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s visit earlier this year. The 15-member Australian delegation is led by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and includes ten Federal Ministers.

After landing in Madang in a RAAF jet, the Australians received a rousing welcome and Mr Smith told an impromptu media conference that he would also look at providing assistance for the Okuk Highway, recently severed near Kundiawa by a major landslide which has caused massive disruption in the highlands.

A flashpoint at the talks could be the PNG Government’s push for $360 million a year AusAID funding to be “better spent”. Mr Abal criticised current spending as ineffective and said funds would be better deployed to infrastructure like roads, wharves and bridges.

“Too much AusAID money is ‘boomerang aid’ that Australia gives to PNG but actually benefits AusAID agencies and staff,” he said. “It’s not that they are abusing it, but the people of Australia have a right to ask where the money is going. PNG, as a recipient, is also asking where the money is going.”

Australia will give PNG $400 million next year after Kevin Rudd announced additional funding during bilateral talks with Sir Michael Somare.

Photo: Sir Michael Somare at a media conference in Port Moresby yesterday [PNG Post-Courier]

Mother & children reunited after 40 years

In PNG the Post Courier reports that a mother who lost her babies to an Australian father 40 years ago met them for the first time on Friday at Sigmil outside Minj in the Western Highlands.

Kopan Amb Opo’s twins were taken to Australia in the late 1960s by their father, who lived in Kundiawa. She says her husband, a teacher, left without saying a word.

The reunion was held in Highlands fashion with a thousand people mourning the lost children returning home. Kopon Amb said she had fulfilled the dreams she had to one day meet her children before she died.

The ABC’s PNG correspondent Steve Marshall organised the reunion. Mr Marshall had broadcast Kopon Amb’s story of searching for her children in an ABC program which one of the children, Anne Marie, heard. When Anne Marie told her twin brother, Steven, they arranged to meet their mother immediately.

Steven said they did not get visas before traveling as they were desperate to meet their mother. When asked if he had any memory of his mother, Steve said he could only remember the day his father took them away. “We could sense something was wrong but you would not know where to start as a three year old,” he said.

10,000 issues later – still going strong

Andrea Williams, who edits the journal of the PNG Association, Una Voce, alone worth the $20 membership fee, remarks that the PNG Post-Courier [Friday’s front page at left] will be publishing its 10,000^th issue in August.

The Post-Courier’s Dave Lornie, who’s been given the job of preparing a supplement to mark this significant publishing event, got in touch with Andrea who asked Richard Jones and me – both freelancers for the newspaper in the 1960s and 1970s - to help out. Which, of course, we will.

Old PNG hands will remember that the Post-Courier took over from the previous South Pacific Post and New Guinea Times-Courier in June 1969. The Post-Courier is owned by News Ltd and remains the largest selling paper in PNG despite some stiff competition from The National, which is Malaysian owned.

The newspaper says it is:

… proud of its record as the voice of PNG. We were there when the nation took its first bold steps towards independence. Since that time, we have fearlessly recorded the nation’s progress.

The Post-Courier unashamedly supports the constitutional rights of Papua New Guineans and will fight to the last drop of ink to protect them. We are accountable to the people of Papua New Guinea first and foremost.

By the way, you can subscribe to Una Voce by joining the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia The membership fee is $20 and you can find the membership application form here

Photo: ‘Una Voce’ editor Andrea Williams walks the Kokoda Track.

Let PNGns work in Australia: Downer

The Howard Government wouldn’t have a bar of it while he was Australia's foreign minister but now Alexander Downer is urging Kevin Rudd to give people from South Pacific nations special rights to work in Australia. And Mr Downer says would use this labour mobility as a trade off for Pacific nations’ showing commitment to minimum standards of governance.

“I think the idea of going to these countries and saying, look, we will give you a whole series of medium-term commitments including funding commitments, aid program commitments and some commitments in terms of labour mobility into Australia, personally I don't have a problem with that, although it wasn't the policy of the Howard government.”

But Mr Downer says there will need to be minimum standards of governance met by nations in the Pacific. “If they don't meet those minimum standards of governance then the deal is off. I do think that's a very good idea,” he said.

“I'm not sure how popular this will be with the public or with politicians in Australia,” Mr Downer said, “but it's something that needs to be examined. I've always thought that, and I argued that in years gone by.

“In the case of a country like Nauru, you've got around 11,000 people with no real long-term economic prospects. The prognosis for Nauru is pretty dire. I think in time we will have to allow Nauruans some access to the Australian labour market.”

Should Australia offer the same access to Papua New Guinea? “I think it’s something the new government will want to talk to them about,” Mr Downer said. “I think it would depend very much on what sort of terms you negotiate. You wouldn't want to give them carte blanche and say you’ll definitely do it. I think you'd want to see what they would offer. That is, it should be tied up with the continual development of the enhanced cooperation program with Papua New Guinea, not just granted to them.”

Original source: ABC Correspondents Report, 5 April 2008

The fascination of PNG’s 800 languages

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) has been doing fine work researching the 800 plus languages of Papua New Guinea for 52 years. PNG is linguistically the most complex nation of the world and the SIL website, which you can find here, is a rich repository of the 389 of these languages it has already researched. Right now there are over 300 SIL members actively researching 190 other languages.

The SIL website provides information on many of these and includes phonologies, grammars, dictionaries, literacy and other materials, as well as detailed language maps. The stories of the languages are fascinating. Unserdeutsch, for example, has about 100 speakers around Vunapope and is nearly extinct.

Unserdeutsch is the descendant of a pidginised form of Standard German, also known as Rabaul Creole German, which originated among the Catholic mixed-race community of the Gazelle Peninsula during German colonial times. With increased mobility and intermarriage, it’s been gradually disappearing over the last few decades.

Most speakers are older adults, although many younger members of the community can understand it. All speakers are fluent in at least two of Standard German, English or Tok Pisin. Some speak Kuanua.

Then there’s Rotokas, a language spoken by about 4,300 people in central Bougainville. With just eleven consonants and vowels, the fewest of any language (there are 44 in standard English). The Rotokas eleven are A, E, I, O, U, B, G, K, P, R, T.

PNG economy on strong growth path

The past five years has seen the longest period of uninterrupted growth in PNG since Independence, according to the World Bank. In its half yearly assessment of Pacific economies, the Bank said PNG’s gross domestic product rose by 6% last year, the highest economic growth in the past decade. This has generated an increase in employment of about ten percent a year since 2005. The leading sectors are construction, telecommunications, mining and export-oriented agriculture (coffee, copra and palm oil).

While warm in its approval of PNG’s economic performance on most fronts, the World Bank said significant structural and policy challenges limit long term growth potential. Among “critical areas for improvement” are budget integrity, efficient service delivery, the performance of the public service, and transparency and accountability in financial management.

In order to stimulate private investment, particularly outside the mining sector, PNG’s priority was to improve the business climate, especially through encouraging more competition. There is also a need to reduce the regulatory and licensing burden, clarify property rights and maintain law and order.

Source: ‘World Bank: PNG enjoys best growth since independence’ by Brian Gomez, PNG National, 2 April 2008

Australian media is failing PNG

The Australian media has failed in its proclaimed watchdog role in PNG and the Pacific, says leading journalist, Sean Dorney, a long-term regional correspondent for the ABC. Speaking in Port Moresby, Mr Dorney said the Australian media does not take the Pacific seriously and, except for the ABC and AAP, no correspondents have been based in Port Moresby since the 1980s. He said this had resulted in the Australian media’s weak understanding of the region.

“There are one or two journalists who try to report on the region from Australia but they get little support and find there is virtually no funding for trips to the Pacific unless there is a coup or a burning down of Chinatown. I find this incredible considering the amount of money Australia now spends in PNG and Pacific – hundreds of millions a year.”

Dorney added that PNG does itself no favours in the way it treats Australian journalists. “Journalists wanting to come to PNG have to apply for a $220 journalist’s visa. This can take weeks to secure, if it is approved at all.

“Most Australian journalists, after being put through all these difficulties, are in no mood to write positive stories,” Mr Dorney said. He also remarked there are not many Australians who understand the diversity and differences within PNG.

Dorney lived and worked in PNG for almost 20 years and, in an unusual double, has been both deported and awarded honours by its Government.

Source: ‘Aust media failing as watchdog: Dorney’ by Harlyn Joku, The National [PNG], 17 March 2008

PNG – implementing a new beginning

The Australian newspaper’s foreign editor Greg Sheridan, who you might not always agree with except to agree that he’s an informed and perceptive observer, writes in his column today, and I select extracts:

Kevin Rudd wants a new beginning with the South Pacific, especially with Melanesia.

The four big nations of Melanesia - PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji - are each in a version of their own long-running crisis.

Rudd and his team believe they have a chance just now to make a difference in Melanesia. This is partly simply because they are a new Government. A harsh hostility had arisen between PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare and John Howard.

This was not a result of any particular mismanagement by Howard but because Somare was opposed to the Enhanced Co-operation Program through which Australia inserted personnel into PNG to try to improve the delivery of basic services and to bring some control to the endemic corruption in PNG.

As was evident in his effusive welcome, Somare doesn't have the same hostility towards Rudd. But whether the new goodwill amounts to anything, with Canberra's efforts to make aid to PNG accountable and to limit corruption, remains to be seen.

Rudd's speeches and press conferences in PNG and the Solomons were important and under-reported. They followed his policy in Opposition and begin the process of giving greater flesh to the Pacific Partnerships for Development that his Government will construct with the South Pacific nations.

Rudd deserves praise for recognising the urgency of the problem and giving it priority when no other part of Australian civil society is really doing likewise. However, there is scant prospect of Australian success in Melanesia.

This is not because of any particular weakness in the Rudd Government but because of the sheer, bloody intractability of the problems.

You can read the full article here.

Source: Melanesia on our radar by Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor, The Australian, 15 March 2008

Just one of Bomana’s 3,000 stories

Kevin Rudd walked to the giant cross at Bomana war cemetery’s to lay a wreath for the 3,376 Australians buried here. He was flanked by his entourage as he moved amongst the carefully trimmed rows of headstones. He chatted with Colonel Luke Foster, Australia's defence force commander in PNG.

Then Rudd separated briefly from the group and stood alone, staring at a single tombstone. The journalists hung back, respecting a moment in which he appeared to want some space.

Ten walked up to the Memorial to the Missing, a stone rotunda overlooking Bomana. He wrote In the visitors’ book: “For all the fallen, we honour them for their service to Australia, and to honour the personal memory of Lt George Parkinson.” He signed it, ‘Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister’.

The 25-year-old lieutenant was killed in action in August 1943 fighting the Japanese at Buna. The girlfriend he left behind in Australia would later marry and have children. One of them was Kevin Rudd.

Source: Tim Lester, Political Correspondent, National 9 News. With thanks to Paul Oates for drawing this poignant moment to our attention.

Leading PNG entrepreneur hits kickbacks

In an extraordinary attack on corruption in PNG, one of the country’s leading businessmen, Sir Ramon (Ray) Thurecht claims that a syndicate of bureaucrats and politicians demand a front-loaded payment of 30 percent of contracts before awarding work.

Thurecht told the PNG Post-Courier that business could not speak out because of fear of retaliation by bureaucrats and politicians.

“Our biggest challenge now is to work with the Government. Unfortunately, with the graft and corruption that permeates both the bureaucracy and political level, it is extremely difficult if you win a contract to get your money. This happened to us,” he said.

Thurecht is managing director of HR Holdings Limited and former chairman of the PNG Manufacturers’ Council. He has lived in PNG for 50 years and is the long-term owner of PNG Printing.

Thurecht fears the ’30 percent syndicate’ will curtail business growth. “We win the contract and they just stonewall the payment for whatever reason. They were asking for 30 percent. Some of the bureaucrats were asking me for that (so) they’d let the money flow through. This is just killing the initiative and incentive to work.”

He said this had happened to members of the Manufacturers’ Council: “Ya! It has happened to some of my members. But no-one wants to speak out about it because if you speak about it, then it would open up a mess of possible retaliation against your company. That happened to me when I was with the Chamber of Commerce. I found that if I said something that could be derogatory to government, all of a sudden my company was not getting any work from the government.”

He also noted that the syndicate was responsible for the collapse of Talair, the country’s flagship third-level airline which closed in the 1980s. “Why did Talair pull out? Because he (Sir Dennis Buchanan) hit the same stonewall that I told you about-not being able to get his money. The politicians were stonewalling him.”

Photo: Ray Thurecht is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in October last year.

PM on 1st official PNG visit in 11 years

Accompanied by a 20-member delegation, Kevin Rudd arrived in Port Moresby at 10 o’clock morning on an Australian Defence Force jet, the first official visit by an Australian prime minister in eleven years. He was welcomed by PNG Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Abal and singsing groups from the four regions of the country.

“The visit is an important statement by the Rudd government in terms of our relationship,” said Mr Abal. “It shows PNG is right back on the radar.”

Mr Rudd inspected a guard of honour before heading to Government House to meet the Governor-General, Sir Paulias Matane. A planned protest by 500 Koiari landowners over the Kokoda Track issue was aborted when the National Security Advisory Committee warned them against it. Intelligence sources reported a foreigner was involved in instigating the protest, but the situation has been contained.

Mr Rudd is expected to canvass support from PNG to impose further sanctions against the Fijian military government, including a sports boycott to force rugby obsessed military leader Commodore Frank Bainamara to respect human rights and return the country to democratic rule.

This afternoon Mr Rudd has met Sir Michael Somare and his cabinet ministers and Opposition leader Sir Mekere Morauta and his deputy Bart Philemon. He will later visit Bomana War Cemetery to lay wreaths on the Cross of Sacrifice. Tomorrow Mr Rudd will fly to Goroka to visit the Institute of Medical Research and meet with representatives of the Save the Children and Appropriate Technology Projects.

He will also observe a coffee-tree-to-cup display, and view a traditional mumu before looking around Goroka Hospital and the Daulo district administration before returning to Port Moresby.

Sources: PNG National and PNG Post Courier. Photo: PNG National

A reminder for you to complete our ASOPA PEOPLE SURVEY [at left]

PNG looks to revive Australia relations

Kevin Rudd flies to PNG on Thursday, and Michael Somare wants to use the visit to erase bitter memories of the Howard years, when the relationship between Australia and PNG reached a new low, with some commentators expressing fear that Australia would impose sanctions against PNG.

The Somare Government now sees a new beginning.  Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Abal yesterday appealed to all Papua New Guineans to embrace the visit by Mr Rudd. He said the March 6-8 visit “has the potential to reshape the scope and spirit in which Australia and PNG conduct the existing bilateral relationship”.

“This visit builds on the momentum both our leaders started in Indonesia last December, so let’s give it the chance it deserves,” he said . More than 1,000 school children will form part of the welcome proceedings in Port Moresby and Goroka. On arrival, Mr Rudd will inspect a guard of honour at the airport, before paying a courtesy call on Governor-General Sir Paulias Matane. He then meets Sir Michael. The two prime ministers will then hold a joint media conference. Sir Michael will host an official dinner at Parliament House that night.

On Friday, Mr Rudd will be the guest of honour at a breakfast organised by the PNG Australia Business Council. He will lay a wreath at the Bomana War Cemetery before leaving for Goroka where he will visit two AusAID-funded projects. He overnights in Port Moresby before departing on Saturday for the Solomon Islands. Details of what is to be discussed between Mr Rudd and Sir Michael have not been released.

Source: PNG National

Rudd to visit PNG this week

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will make his first vsiit to PNG as prime minister starting Wednesday. The two-day visit will be a further step in restoring relations between the two countries, which have been distant in recent years.

Mr Rudd will be accompanied by parliamentary secretaries Duncan Kerr, who handles Pacific affairs, and Bob McMullan, in charge of development assistance. He will fly first to Port Moresby to meet Sir Michael Somare and other senior ministers.

“Australia has a strong and close relationship with PNG,” Mr Rudd said. “We want to see a strong, growing and stable neighbour to our north.”

A key focus of talks will be the future of the Kokoda Trail, where 600 Australian soldiers died in World War II. Australia wants the site listed on the World Heritage register. But an Australian mining company is seeking the renewal of an exploration licence to explore gold and copper deposits in the area.

Discussions will also be held on a range of bilateral issues including Australian aid, the Defence Cooperation Treaty and the Enhancement Cooperation Program.

Mr Rudd will also visit Goroka to inspect Australian-funded aid projects.

Prior to winning government, Labor pledged to work more co-operatively with its Pacific neighbours. Mr Rudd reaffirmed his commitment to make the relationship more of a partnership. “I will use the visit to underscore Australia's commitment to work in partnership with our friends and neighbours on regional challenges, including economic sustainability, effective development and climate change,” he said.

New Dawn: we invite you to wish it well

A group of ex PNG broadcasters – including Martin Hadlow and Phil Charley – has been working these past two years to identify funding and otherwise assist establish a community radio station to serve the people of north Bougainville.

New Dawn FM, as its progenitors have felicitously named the station, is moving rapidly towards going to air, thereby assisting to rebuild the shattered province through the dissemination of informational, educational and cultural programs.

The top photo shows New Dawn FM chairman Carolus (Charlie) Ketsimur, former news director with the National Broadcasting Corporation of PNG, signing an agreement to fund the new station’s transmitter. Alongside him is Germany's ambassador to Australia and the Pacific, Martin Lutz.

The lower photo shows the temporary studio at New Dawn FM, at present used for training. The old equipment shown here will soon be replaced by new gear purchased with funds provided by UNESCO.

I’m sure, through the ASOPA PEOPLE website, we can put together a collection of good wishes to launch New Dawn FM on its important mission. Why don’t you click the comment link below, type in a few words and give the people of Bougainville a boost. We’ll make sure your fine words get to their destination.

Photos: Aloysius Laukai

New Dawn’s light begins to shine bright

Aloysius Laukai

Unesco funds have finally reached us to purchase the equipment to start an alternate voice on Bougainville’s airwaves. The first $US16,000 was received through our bank and the transmitter and its components have been packed and will be loaded on to ABG's new boat that will leave Port Moresby next week on its maiden voyage from the Philippines.

Thank you indeed for all the hard work to persuade Unesco to approve funds to get New Dawn FM off the ground. We will definitely need your continued support as we move forward with this project. Chairman Carolus Ketsimur will write to you personally but I wish to sincerely thank you for coming this far with us.

We hope to test the new signal on 95.3MHZ as soon as the equipment arrives in Buka. In due course we would like to invite both Martin Hadlow and Keith Jackson to visit and assist us with some broadcasting training.

I have already secured a lot of companies to sponsor programs. As 2008 is Weapons Disposal and Reconciliation year, we will also be carrying out a lot of awareness announcements funded by UNDP and other non-government organisations.

I am fully committed to see that what we have started grow from this very humble beginning continues to grow. Our intention is to get an experienced overseas manager to work with us so, as we begin this journey and start raising funds, we will need your help to find somebody suitable for our radio station.

Aloysius Laukai is a director and acting manager of New Dawn FM, a community radio station being established to assist north Bougainville recover from the ravages of the recent civil war.

Photo: Dawn over the Buka Passage

Lynn claims golden staircase discovery

A gruelling section of the Kokoda Trail, dubbed by sardonic Australian troops as the ‘golden  staircase’, has been rediscovered. NSW Liberal politician Charlie Lynn [right] says he and a team of PNG locals made the discovery with the aid of global positioning satellite technology, World War II survey maps and local knowledge.

Time has destroyed the 3,000 metre-wide wooden steps that presented exhausted soldiers with a final obstacle before heading into battle at Imita Ridge, where commanders ordered them to repel the Japanese or die trying.

“This is a very significant find,” Lynn said. “The staircase was the last stand for the Aussies, where they prepared to fight to the death. When you see the terrain, it’s just incredible stuff.”

But Kokoda Trail historian Soc Kienzle – whose father Bert helped organise and maintain the lifeline provided by the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels – said he’d heard similar claims before. There’s been all sorts of varying claims, about varying tracks. I’ll check this out with my maps,” he said. “But I welcome anything Charlie does to reopen the original war trail.”

“The golden stairs consisted of steps varying from ten to eighteen inches in height. The front edge of the step was a small log held by stakes. Behind the log was a puddle of mud and water. Some of the stakes had worked loose, leaving the logs slightly tilted. Anyone who stood on one of these skidded and fell with a whack in the mud, probably banging his head against a tree or being hit on the head with his own rifle. Those who had no sticks soon acquired them, not only to prevent falls, but allow the arms to help the legs, especially with the higher steps. After the first half dozen steps, it became a matter of sheer determination forcing the body to achieve the impossible. It was probably the weight more than the climb, though the climb would have been enough to tire even a lightly loaded man. The rear companies, where the going is always hardest, took twelve hours to complete nine miles” - WB Russell, 2/14th Battalion

Rudd plans early visit to PNG

PNG prime minister Sir Michael Somare has spoken enthusiastically about his initial meeting in Bali with the new Australian prime minister. He said the meeting was significant in renewing and building diplomatic and trade relations.

“This was my first meeting with Mr Rudd and I am confident that under his leadership PNG - Australia relations will once again be constructive for both countries,” Sir Michael said. He extended an invitation to Mr Rudd to visit PNG in the near future, which the Australian leader accepted.

The pic that should warm all our hearts

Is this a sign a relationship is strengthening? [Left click on the photo for the full image] Michael Somare and Kevin Rudd sharing a joke at the Bali climate conference indicates a thaw in the icy atmosphere that has marked PNG-Australia affairs in recent times. Let's hope it's also a precursor to more personal political re-engagement between the two neighbours.

Australia’s neglect of the Pacific region was alluded to this week in a paper presented to the 9^th Pacific Parliamentary Dialogue in Goroka. Prof Benjamin Reilly [below right] of the Centre for Democratic Institutions at the Australian National University told the conference that younger Australian parliamentarians lacked sufficient knowledge of PNG.

Prof Reilly told Pacific Islands parliamentarians that, despite the close proximity of Australia and PNG and the traditional ties they share, younger generation Australian politicians had no appreciation of the many issues facing PNG. Older generation parliamentarians understood PNG better and had closer relationship with the country, its people and culture.

Dr Reilly added that the dialogue should foster closer working relationship between Australia,  PNG and other Pacific Island countries. “We need to acknowledge the reality that democracy in the Pacific region had often not worked well as it could,” he said. But democracy across the Pacific region nevertheless remains resilient.

Source: PNG National - ‘Young Aust politicians ignorant of PNG’ by James Kila

Photos: Sydney Morning Herald; Australian National University

Mining Kokoda Track a problem for PNG

PNG’s Minister for Culture and Tourism, Charles Abel, has expressed concern over potential damage to the Kokoda Track if mining activities by Frontier Resources Ltd proceed.

He has urged other government departments including Mining, Forestry, Inter-Government Relations, and Environment and Conservation to take a holistic approach towards developing the 96km track, a PNG tourism icon.

“I cannot stress enough the significance of the Kokoda Track in terms of the historical ties between our country and Australia and its long term economic values as a world class track. It must be preserved for future generations,” Mr Abel said.

The Australian government has offered to inject $15 million to support initiatives to protect the track and improve its management.

Beaches shrink as warming hits Pacific

Richard Jones

Squealing pigs headed for the bush on the east coast of New Britain as the sturdy Filomena Taroa herded her grandchildren to higher ground last week as the sea moved inland further than anyone had ever seen. A similar situation confronted the people of the Carteret atolls north-east of Bougainville. “I don’t know what’s happening,” Filomena told a reporter. “I’ve never experienced it before.”

Scientists at the current United Nations climate change conference in Bali have regularly warned of the world’s seas rising as a consequence of global warming. More and more reports come in virtually every day of flooding from unprecedented high tides in the Pacific Ocean microstates.

It’s happening not only to low lying atolls but to island shorelines from India to Alaska. Scientists project that seas expanding from warmth and from the run-off created by melting land ice in Antarctica could displace millions of coastal inhabitants worldwide this century.

Ursula Rakova from the Carteret atoll knows her beach has been shrinking for the past two decades. “We don’t have vehicles. We don’t have an airport. We’re victims of what is happening with the industrialised nations constantly emitting greenhouse gases.”

The PNG Government has allocated $911,000 to resettle some Carteret families in Bougainville. “It’s not enough. The islands are getting smaller and basically everybody will eventually have to leave,” said Rakova.

Source: Associated Press

Photos: Carteret Islands [Starr TV and Google Earth]

One-third of PNG's annual budget stolen

PNG’s corruption watchdog says more than a third of the government's funds are stolen each year by corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. An anti-corruption conference in Port Moresby has been told by Transparency International that an estimated 2.5 billion of the six billion kina budget is being pilfered.

“Think of how we treat people who are corrupt, we elect them to parliament,” said Transparency International chairman Mike Manning [right]. “Until we impose on people a sense of shame for doing wrong, we are never going to stop corruption.”

Mr Manning said PNG's government systems had gradually broken down since independence in 1975 to the point where “grand corruption” was now rife. Despite inquiries into large-scale corruption cases, no big player had been jailed, he said. A recent inquiry into corruption within the finance department was shut down when it started making progress.

Corrupt diversion of funds to private pockets meant medicines did not get to health posts, schools went without desks and books, and roads became impassable. PNG's chief ombudsman Ila Geno said corruption led to an increase in poverty and denied support to those who needed it most.

Photo: Mike Manning [Australian Broadcasting Corporation]

Source: ‘Corruption rife in PNG government system, Australian Associated Press, 6 December 2007

Bali: Somare – Rudd to meet for first time

PNG prime minister Sir Michael Somare and the new Australian prime minister will meet officially for the first time at the forthcoming global leaders’ meeting on climate change in Bali. It is likely their discussion will extend beyond Kyoto issues and into other matters of pressing concern between the two countries.

Sir Michael has commended Kevin Rudd for having Australia sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change. “Being aware of the relative importance of the fossil fuel use in Australia’s economy, I applaud the courage of the new prime minister’s action,’’ Sir Michael said. “It is encouraging to know that Australia has finally joined the party.”

He said the timing of the Australian government’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol couldn’t have been more appropriate with world leaders are preparing to meet in Bali to discuss post-Kyoto climate policy.

Sir Michael has maintained for many years that big regional players like Australia, PNG and New Zealand have an obligation to the Pacific people, especially when global warming is responsible for drastic weather changes and sinking atolls.

“Australia’s accession to Kyoto places the Pacific region on a higher moral ground to advocate for clean development and clean energy initiatives,’’ Sir Michael said. “PNG has already done a lot of work on climate change and I look forward to engaging with the Australian prime minister and his ministers in Bali.”

PNG ponders the Rudd ascendancy

PNG prime minister Sir Michael Somare has congratulated Kevin Rudd on his election victory saying he’s looking forward to an early meeting with Mr Rudd to establish some understanding on the way forward for the two countries. “PNG has had a close and fruitful association with the ALP, dating back to former prime ministers Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating and I’m confident we will progress this even further under Mr Rudd’s leadership,” Sir Michael said.

Meanwhile, the PNG Post-Courier has editorialised that Kevin Rudd is still largely an unknown quantity to his people and Papua New Guineans. “We are largely in the dark as to what Mr Rudd thinks about PNG. He has achieved fame in Asia and the Pacific for his fluency in the main Chinese language, Mandarin.”

“It will be something for Waigani bureaucrats and politicians to work out how focused the new Australian prime minister is on things Asian and how much time and attention he will give to our part of the world. In recent years, people like Mr Downer and the correspondents who shadow his footsteps have lavished words and money on the Indonesians especially and to some extent, the Chinese.

“Perhaps we have a small advantage though. Mr Rudd, while still an Opposition frontbencher, came to PNG and walked the Kokoda Track with Government Minister Joe Hockey. We hope that their down-to-earth experience of us, through the trek, will have given them a more sympathetic backgrounding than they would have received if they had gone the traditional VIP route at Waigani. Perhaps Mr Rudd will have something to say about the plans for mining next to the Kokoda Track by an Australian company. And the prospect of Papua New Guineans going to work on short-term visas to relieve Australian labour shortages.”

Labor’s new deal for the South Pacific

Foreign policy didn’t get much attention during the election campaign that ended with a decisive win to the Labor Party on Saturday, yet the new government has firm plans for improving relationships in a part of the world in which Australia has real influence, the South Pacific.

Since 2003 Australia has spent $1 billion on the security mission in the Solomons, yet relations are at an all time low. There have been four coups in Fiji in the last 20 years. The PNG relationship is worse than it has ever been, and there has been a ban on ministerial dialogue with Australia. An $800 million cooperation program with PNG is still not up and running.

“Civil unrest and lack of respect for the rule of law in East Timor, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga and Papua New Guinea shows how unstable our neighbourhood is,” says Labor’s foreign affairs spokesman, Robert McClelland. “These fragile states don’t just constitute an arc of instability – this is our arc of responsibility. We need to focus our security and foreign policy resources on our region.”

McClelland believes Australia needs a major revision of strategy for how we deal with these fragile states. “They can quickly become economic basket cases, a haven for organised crime, terrorist training or influenced by other countries that don’t share Australia’s interests,” he says.

Now it’s in government, Labor will implement an Asia Pacific Partnership for Development and Security. The partnership will address the collapse in primary education and healthcare; provide aid for basic economic infrastructure including roads, telecommunications and clean water; address the problem of urban male youth unemployment through targeted public works; focus on good governance by training regional leaders and public servants; and provide security assistance to local police forces.

“As much as any other country we have the ability to make our region and the world a more secure, more affluent and fairer place,” says McClelland. “By donning the guernsey of a good international citizen we can once again play first grade - and deliver real outcomes that are in our own interests and in the interests of the world community.”

The first rays of a new dawn

I’ve written here previously of the efforts of some Bougainvillean media people - including former journalists Aloysius Laukai and Carolus (Charlie) Ketsimur and a small group of Australians with a background in PNG broadcasting, Martin Hadlow, Phil Charley and me - to establish a radio station on Buka Island in the north of Bougainville.

The gestation period of New Dawn FM, as the station is called, has been elephantine but, with funds now flowing from UNESCO (for studio equipment) and from the German government (for the transmitter), all is ready for the station to be established.

The name New Dawn really says it all. When the 10-year Bougainville war ended in 1998, 20,000 people had died and there were 40,000 internal refugees in a population of 160,000. Due to PNG’s own economic problems, there has been very limited progress in infrastructure renewal in the years since hostilities ended.

As Bougainville slowly regenerates, it’s vital that its citizens have access to the mass media. That’s why we’ve been working to establish this commercial community FM station, which will provide an independent voice for a population trying to rebuild its livelihood and its sense of community.

Photo: Aloysius Laukai signs the memorandum of understanding at New Dawn’s new studios watched by the German ambassador and consul.