'Our lives in danger'

)• What you’re going to get is another Australian administration; you’re going to keep a strong line directly open to Canberra in the event of your in dependence. You’re not going to be governed by Michael Somare, are you?

No, no. i« You won’t be governed by Michael Somare?

And we won’t be governed by Australia. What we want is our own independence. • Would it have been different if Dr John Guise had achieved leadership?

Well, Dr Guise is a skilled politician. He. too, just at the moment . . . most of our politicians, including Dr Guise, are keeping very quiet. • You have said that Mr Somare was a plant put there by the Australian government and that his job is not to rock the boat. If the boat was rocked, I wonder what the cost would be?

At the moment he is trying everything possible to get people to accept what the Australian policy is.

That when we get our independence we must go in union with these people. Now it doesn’t matter to Somare — but it does matter to Papuan people—that if one colonial master is removed we would be placed under another one, which is New Guinea at the moment. And they have dominated many things. You see, as I said pre viously, all the infrastructure for development is there in New Guinea. We have the land, they have the in frastructure for development in which money may be generated. Now the fear at the moment is that the Papuan people do not want to be bought. You know what poverty can do to one. • What’s wrong with a federation? An independent republic federation, such as the United States of America, with its massive differences, culturally and intellectually?

No, we still prefer to go independent alone. • Is it feasible, Josephine Abaijah, is it feasible in to day’s economically pressured world? Is it feasible?

You see, I feel that lives at the moment, lives of the Papuan people, are in danger. There’s no doubt about that. • From whom?

I suppose the Australian people would not know this.

At the moment the Papuan people are not even allowed

to be employed in their own country. Our girls are stoned every day that they go to work. Our women are frightened. When there’s a riot it’s the Papuan people that are running away. Now I’m sure it’s the same with the Australian people who would not want to be domi nated by somebody else and you live in fear in your own society. • Do you see yourself in some future time as a leader

of Papua?

Well, that remains with the Papuan people. If they want me to remain there, I’ll remain there. If they don’t want me to remain there they can always get somebody else to represent them. • Another quote that came from you was that you want to avoid another Congo or another Bangladesh.

But aren’t you moving towards another Biafra?

I think if Australia has its way, and the Whitlam Government has its way, they will be the ones who will actually create this problem. What we are trying to do is avoid this situation because as I said we are living in fear in our own country, on our own soil. • You had two appointments to see Mr Morrison Minister for Territories in your own territory recently, and you elected not to appear on both occasions. Why?

Before Mr Morrison came up he said he was going to discuss the chip on my shoulder. Now what does he mean by that? • Did you find out?

If he wanted to talk about welfare and he’s interested in discussing people, I might be able to discuss these things with him but if he came up and said, “You naughty girl, you must do what we want you to do”, I’m not going to be in that! • But aren’t you also prepared to listen to what he has to say, directly, rather than through press reports?

Well, as far as Mr Morrison goes, I think he is not interested in what happens to Papuan people. He’s got only one thing in mind, and that is to dump us.

He’s just waiting to get rid of the country.

Footnote: Unknown to Miss Abaijah at the time, Dr Guise, a Papuan and PNG Minister for the Interior, had commented on the Papuan independence movement. He said in Port Moresby that to advocate bloodshed and rebellion was “very damaging and dangerous, to say the least. For anyone to make such a statement, that person must remember that those who carry the sword may also perish by it”.

See also Percy Chatterton’s comment on p 26.