dagger on

Cloak and dagger on the campus

Australia’s relations with Papua New Guinea were under strain in October with the revelation that an officer of Australia’s Joint In telligence Organisation had ap proached an Australian academic at the University of Papua New Guinea asking him to provide a flow of in formation about students and staff at the university, especially in con nection with political activity re lated to Irian Jaya.

The academic, Professor Brian Brogan, who is dean of the universi ty’s faculty of arts, refused the re quest and issued a public statement lifting the lid off the whole affair.

In subsequent fast-moving

developments:

• The Australian High Com missioner, Mr Tom Critchley, ex pressed formal diplomatic regrets to PNG’s Acting Prime Minister, Mr Julius Chan, saying that “an Australian official had committed a serious indiscretion”. Mr Chan ac cepted the explanation, along with an assurance that Australia had not established, and did not intend to establish, a spy network in PNG. • Protesting students from the university damaged the garden of the Australian High Commission, and three cars belonging to the com mission and staff members. A feature of the protests was that in cases the demonstrators’ attack on

“foreign spies” was widened to in clude not only Australia but In donesia and the United States as well. • The PNG parliamentary op position demanded the withdrawal from PNG of the offending official, Mr Lindsay Burridge, a JIO officer attached to the commission with the knowledge of the PNG Govern ment. (It was later announced that Mr Burridge would be returning to Canberra.) • The executive of the universi ty’s Academic Staff Association (Overseas), which represents ex patriate staff members, adopted a resolution stating that information on student files must be regarded as completely confidential, that the op eration of intelligence organisations on campus was “abhorrent”, and that it shared Professor Brogan’s concern in the matter.

Nz Medical Check-Up

For Tonga's King

King Taufa’ahau Tupou, of Tonga, went to Auckland late in Oc tober for an examination by a New Zealand heart specialist. The king suffered from mild congestive heart failure in June because of hyperten sion. He had a series of medical examinations by two heart specialists recently, with satisfactory results. These specialists, one Japanese and the other Taiwanese, advised him to have a further check up by another heart specialist.

Queen Halaevalu Mata’aho accom panied the king to Auckland.