Inside New

Guinea

With John Ryan

Tropical New Guinea is a very chilly place when one is off-side with the government. And when elected Members of Parliament turn on the heat as well, New Guinea is definitely sub-zero.

All because of the Warmaram affair ... a political debacle sparked off by publication of a confidential government letter showing how a substantial group of Tolais, with help from Kone dobu and Canberra, are trying to reduce the effectiveness at Rabaul of Tolai, John Kaputin, and his aggressive Mataungan Association.

Abominable Snowman in the latest government snap-freeze is the New Guinea News Service and yours truly.

In warmer, more comfortable days, when I was gathering news for the ABC, there were a few cool periods: They followed a journalistic “sneak preview” in 1964 of the government decision to reduce native public service salaries; the discovery of plans to establish a police special branch; Canberra’s secret decision to give political asylum to the first im portant refugee from West Irian —Joni Jakadewa; details of the huge military expansion project; stories about the Public Service Association’s strongly anti-govern ment activity, leading to arbitra tion of native salaries; the ‘dis covery’ (on foot patrol) of refugees hiding on our side of the border; first independent eye-witness account of the Nomad (Western Papua) cannibals in 1968; etc.

Each time a story broke, Kone dobu and Canberra reacted as though the publishing of these, and other public-interest stories, had no place in print; that the public had no right to be told of such things.

Konedobu paid the supreme

compliment in 1968: Reacting to a story about a border security conference at Konedobu, it built a chain-wire fence around the Administrator’s Department to keep nosey journalists out of the ‘secret’ backrooms.

The Australian Journalists’ As sociation code of ethics requires journalists to not reveal their sources of information . . . other wise one could throw the cat among the pigeons by naming the man who leaked the security story, and the man who built the security fence so as to cover his tracks with his government employers.

There could be many such ex amples of deliberate ‘leaks’ to journalists by public servants who, when the witch hunts start, throw up their hands in righteous horror that such a leak should have occurred.

Why do some public servants ‘leak’ news to journalists?

In nine years in New Guinea, Tve met some who leak stories simply to embarrass their em employers. Most, however, leak news because (as individuals) they hold certain principles and are angered when they see their em ployer breaking them . . . secretly, politically, and for what sometimes are the most obscure reasons.

The confidential letter sparking off the Warmaram crisis was leaked to the New Guinea News Service by a public servant who risks his substantial career by trusting journalists to ‘forget’ his name: And there’s no way in the world anybody is going to get his name. It’s a question of ethics.

The background; The emotional, angry Rabaul situation has been bubbling over for more than a year now, with the 70,000 Tolai people split (apparently) between the pro-government Gazelle Coun

cil, the anti-council and anti- gov ernment Mataungan Association (reputedly 20,000 supporters) and the old (1934) Kivung Group.

Early in May, Acting Director of Lands, Tolai, Paulias Matane, told Administrator D. O. Hay he was desperately worried over the psychological civil war among his Tolai people. With an influential group of other ‘expatriate’ and senior Tolai, he wanted time off to go to Rabaul to try to mediate.

So Warmaram (the mediation group) was bora, and chaired by the manager of the government’s radio station on Bougainville, Tolai, Sam Piniau.

Others in the group: Robin Kumaina, of the Reserve Bank Savings and Loans Society, Lae; John Vue, of the Department of Agriculture, Lae; Dr. Himson Mulas (Rabaul), Dr, Alan Tarutia (based at Kavieng), Stanley Vuai (Rabaul), the Rev. I. Puipui (Rabaul), Father Paivu (Rabaul), Alkan Tololo (Public Service Board, Port Moresby).

Warmaram was a fine idea, get ting the immediate green light from Konedobu and Canberra.

Kaputin’s breakaway Mataungan group at Rabaul had been seri ously affecting existing and potential investment, had split the Tolai community, and had set village groups in other parts of New Guinea thinking along the same lines.

With nation-building and unity, the keynote in the march towards 1972 self-government, breakaway thinking like Rabaul and Bougain ville were disastrous portents.

Anything mediated at Rabaul would be worthwhile. Konedobu and Canberra felt compelled to bend the rules a little, to give Warmaram a fighting chance.

Then the balloon went up.

A public servant unhappy with the way his government-employer was involving itself, presented to New Guinea News Service an ex act copy of a letter written by the government’s Director of Infor mation and Extension Services, L. R, Newby, to his radio station manager at Rabaul, and others.

From the letter: “. . . . it was mentioned [during a conference between Newby, one of his senior officers, and the Administration on May 8] that Warmaram could be regarded as a scheme devised by Robin Kumaina to improve his position if he should wish to

stand for the next House of As sembly election (in 1972). The Administrator said this was a risk to be taken. He said a major concern of the Warmaram Group was to reduce and destroy Kaputin’s standing.”

And later. “Warmaram was not to be regarded as a political party ... while we (Department of Information) might allow War maram members to speak on the radio (Rabaul) and give maxi mum publicity to their statements, this is not to be taken as a pre cedent for other groups who might want time on air ... . the position with regard to Mataungan was unchanged; as a group with political ambitions, the normal re strictions (about time on air) applied to them.

“If Mataungan or any other group approached the manager (of Radio Rabaul) he should refer to headquarters ... our policy for political groups is clear: activities and (Press) releases would be dealt with in news bulletins according to news value ... Warmaram was in a different category in that it wasn’t a political organisation,”

Administrator Hay was aghast when he learned Newby’s letter had found its way out of Kone dobu. Aghast that government thinking should have been com mitted to paper, aghast (It’s re ported) that the real government thinking had been misinterpreted by Newby. . . .

The letter was published be cause Mataungan asd Warmaram and the associated politics stretch right back to ministerial level in Canberra, and because the man who pays the bills—the ordinary man in the villages—should know what part his government is play ing in domestic politics—and why.

Konedobu and Canberra dis agree vehemently with this line of journalistic thinking: They believe still that New Guinea should be told only what Konedobu and Canberra believe New Guinea should know. This sort of think ing (with big constitutional changes just around the comer) appears in need of urgent overhaul.

In Canberra, Minister Barnes explained that Warmaram had full government support in trying to bring peace to the Tolai. In Port Moresby, the Public Service Asso ciation demanded to know why the government was paying senior native public servants to go to

Rabaul (on public money for three months) to play politics, when for years all public servants had been told to stay out of politics.

In the House of Assembly, the debate on the Warmaram sortie (and the ‘scurrilous’ publishing of the confidential government letter) reached a tirade of abuse against yours truly and, unfairly, against the Press in general. Outcome was a motion commending the govern ment for supporting Warmaram ... and a very reasonable out come, because Warmaram was and remains a good idea.

Clearly through the debate came the message: John Kaputin is to be destroyed ... his Mataungan followers are to be ‘educated’ to realise (as one gov ernment man explained carefully to me in private) that there are much better Tolai leaders avail able, if the Tolai really want to go out on their own.

One can well understand the government’s distraction that the letter found its way into the Press; one can understand the dismay among Warmaram members; the current security purge is more than reasonable.

But it’s hard to understand why the government’s extraordinary political thinking was ever put on paper; why it was misinterpreted by Newby (if it was misinter preted); why the government de cided so blantantly to break its own public service regulations by allowing (and paying) senior native public servants to play politics.

And throughout the long public and parliamentary debate on the Warmaram affair, the government studiously avoided any confirma tion that such a letter existed, or that the New Guinea News Service copy was anything like the “non existent” original.

Whichever way you look at it, the Rabaul situation is largely unchanged by the fuss. Mataungan knew exactly what Warmaram was, how it was financed, and what its aims were, long before the gov ernment’s confidential letter was published. In a nutshell, it means that Mataungan and Warmaram have the Australian Government by the nose.

A Sydney journalist once told me he was convinced there was no politics at village level in New Guinea. Sometimes, the govern ment seems to think the same way.

How wrong they are.