He faces the moment of truth

Chief Minister Michael Somare faces the PNG House of Assembly in late June-early July to ask for independence for PNG on December 1. He has been touring the country in recent weeks explaining independence to the masses (he’s seen here addressing a crowd in the Morobe district), but it’s the members of the Assembly who will decide. Mr Somare seems confident the House will support the December 1 target, but there has been growing opposition against it. The opposition is probably best summed up by Mr Somare himself when he said at the end of one of his tours that people were unsure about indepen dence because they did not understand it, and his task of winning acceptance for it this year would have been easy if his campaign of explanation had begun six months earlier. Assembly members will probably insist on thrashing out the details of an other date, and it’s on these details that the Decem ber 1 target date may founder.