Where Does New Guinea

Go From Here ?

By Stuart Inder

When will Australia make some announcement about the political future of Papua-New Guinea? When will it outline its thinking on what it would like to see Papua-New Guinea be come?

THESE aren’t new questions. But the time has come when they require answers. They must not be avoided any longer if we are to retain the initiative in Papua-New Guinea against increasing world pressures, including the pressures from within.

Yet there is evidence that the question of the Territory’s political future is being avoided by the Aus tralian Government in the belief that although a system of social gradualism in the Territory has been unsuccessful, political gradualism will continue to work.

The official view is, “What right have we to name any dates or to act as spokesmen for the New Guinea people? We will negotiate with the New Guineans on indepen dence when there are some New Guineans with whom to negotiate”.

Problem Of Defence This view came out clearly in Sydney in December at a seminar on New Guinea’s future sponsored by the Council on New Guinea Affairs. The seminar was attended by a wide representation of people concerned with the Territory’s future, including top Commonwealth public servants.

Although the main theme was the military defence of the Territory, it was obvious to everybody that there was no such thing as defence without political security within the Territory.

The West New Guinea-P-NG border cannot be held by Australia against a determined “confrontation” from Indonesia or any other power so long as that power is able to accuse us of “colonialism”, and thus obtain the support that that dirty word is able to bring. Nobody likes to be associated with a “colonial war”.

The Dutch found this out.

Although they were pouring millions into the Territory, and for the first time in their long ownership really making an effort—an effort that ap peared to be succeeding—to produce

a nation, it was the catch phrases of the anti-colonial forces that beat them.

The Dutch made a bid to coun teract this war of words by announc ing a plan for self-determination to take effect within a few years.

The Dutch lost West New Guinea, and the West New Guineans lost their right to a national iden tity, merely because it was easier for Indonesia’s friends, and even her enemies, to cry “colonialism”! from the background than to visit the territory and see the real pic ture for themselves. The poisonous words had been shouted abroad for too long.

For how long will the Australian Government ignore the lessons of West New Guinea? Will we wait, too, until it is too late?

Nobody who knows anything of Papua-New Guinea could fail to realise that there is there a great reservoir of goodwill towards Aus tralia, at this moment. The wish of New Guineans to gain Australian protection is overwhelmingly clear, at this moment, and this is despite the fact that there is “nobody to negotiate with”.

When the time comes to negotiate,

will the negotiators really represent the New Guineans, or will they be the mouthpiece of forces which are both anti-Australian and anti-New Guinean?

Are we to wait for organised agi tation from outside?

Or are we to tell the New Guineans what they want to be told —that is, that we really are con cerned with their future and that we are able to suggest some poli tical ideas to prove it.

The position could hardly have been put better than it was at the seminar by Associate Professor Brian Beddie, of the Department of Poli tical Science at the Australian National University, Canberra.

“It is, of course, quite unreal to suggest that there are [many poli tical options] open to the New Guinea people,” he said. “What they can choose will be largely de termined by what is acceptable to the Australian Government.

"Make It Clear!"

“And if the Government took fully seriously its partnership with the New Guinea people it would surely at this stage seek to make clear what for it are the possible and desirable limits within which the right of self determination can be exercised.”

And experienced Territorian Harry Jackman, speaking from the body of the hall, stressed it: “We hear a lot of talk about the possibility of subversion in New Guinea, but this is closing the stable door after the horse is out. Build New Guinea up and you won’t get a subversive climate. We must build up the economy. We must give them a date for self-determination”.