Islands
p. 21 · Read in the full issue
From the
Press
“A holiday for the elite?” asks Bishop Henry van Lieshout in a message in the Lae Nius.
So, Friday we all will have a holiday to celebrate the introduction of Provincial Government in the Morobe Province. Great!!! But business people will have to pay the bill.
And who will benefit from this free day? Mostly people in the towns and the school children in the rural areas. The sad thing is that the majority of the people in the Morobe Province are not aware of this new form of government or what it means ...
From an interview by the Cook Islands News with the
Premier, Sir Albert Henry:
... Sir Albert concluded by saying, “I love this country of ours and everything I have ever done has been to try and make it better, though I’ll admit that sometimes it might not have seemed that way on the surface ...
From a letter from the Asaro Mudmen Group in the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier: We, the true fathers of the Asaro mudmen of Goroka would like to air our views to the Government. These Asaro Mudmen do not belong to anyone else but are unique to the Asaro area only .. . We would like to know who gave permission for men to make mudmen in Port Moresby. We, the true people behind Asaro Mudmen never heard anything about it. We would like to ask the government to stop mudmen performances in Port Moresby because the tourists come to Port Moresby and see mudmen there instead of coming to Gomunuie and Genetisaro village in Goroka.
From an interview in the Micronesian Independent with traditional navigator 78-year-old Tarkwon: “ ... We sailed not with compass or sextant. We sailed by the waves. The waves tell me where I am at all times,” Tarkwon explained. “Each island sends back a different wave, and a different swell. Waves bend around islands and atolls like the whorls in fingerprints. Waves bounce off landfalls,” Tarkwon said. “We navigators know every wave pattern, know every island by the waves of each island. Put me anywhere on any ocean as far from land as you can get and I will find land on the quickest, shortest path.”
A letter in The Norfolk Islander from Jack Hayes commenting on the Australian “takeover” of the island: With the word “violence” being bandied about the island, I would like to say that if a matter is important enough and no other way seems possible, then fight for it. I consider myself a peaceful man and in the sixty years of my life, the last ten on Norfolk, I have found that if you do not stick up for yourself and if need be fight for your rights, you will be trampled on. Big countries do it, including Australia, so why should Norfolk Island be any different? In nine cases out of ten the very fact that one is willing to fight for their rights is enough, but if it comes to the crunch, then fight violence or not.
From Tohi Tala Niue: When the Public Works Department failed to scrape up $BOO to renovate and repair a house for the new manager of the Niue Development Board, the government put the manager and his wife in the hotel. An arrangement which kept the Public Works
accounts tidy, Harold Stretton and his wife comfortable and seemed to solve the problem for the government. However, the bill the government will now have to pay for over two months accommodation for the couple will be three times the cost of doing up the vacant house in Aliluki.
From the Fiji Times: Cop-bashing is a particularly stupid crime. Violence, brawling and street-fighting are to be abhorred in any circumstances.
People in Fiji accept it far too casually, condoning fist fights and similar demonstrations as an almost normal part of living.
From Hailans Nius: The people of Kuli area in the South Wahgi Anglimp Electorate are preparing for the Moge (a big pig-killing feast) which is planned for later this year. This is a festival which is held once every 10 or 20 years. 11 has taken the people more than 10 years to prepare for this feast, as they first started planning it back in 1968. As part of the preparation the people had to build long singsing houses (some 200 metres long) raise pigs to kill and collect Bird of Paradise feathers to dress themselves. So that the feast will run smoothly, the Village Court officials in the area announced that anyone found intoxicated or in possession of any type of alcohol during the singsings and feasts will be
charged.
From the Lae Nius: Villagers from Yanga near Lae in the Morobe Province have called on the National Government and the leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea to pay compensation for the land on which Malahang Plantation is situated. The leader of the village, Mr Mambob Bumalum, said the early German Missionaries to Lae gave four cows as payment for the land. Mr Bumalum claimed that the Yanga people could not eat the four cows because they had to flee into the mountains when World War II broke out' “We could not eat the cows because the Japanese occupied Lae and used our cows for food”, he said . ..
From an editorial in The Fiji Times on a judgment by the Chief Justice quashing a court order for the destruction of a dog which had bitten a girl: The fact that even a dog can have a fair hearing in our highest court of law, and by none other than the Chief Justice, speaks volumes for our system of justice and the learned men who are its guardians. Today, we salute the Chief Justice, Sir Clifford Grant, who, in keeping with the highest and noblest traditions of British justice, gave Sandy and its devoted owners a fair trial and justice tempered with mercy and compassion.
From the report of a house fire in the Tonga Chronicle: . . . When the fire engine first arrived it took 10 minutes or so before it ran dry. On its way to be refilled the fire engine’s wheels got stuck in a mud pool near the burning house and onlookers had to help it out. Half an hour later the firemen returned to the burning house which left little to be extinguished.
From an editorial in the Norfolk Island News: ... Australia has no clear title to ownership of Norfolk Island, only the authority to administer it. In 1975, R. J. Ellicott QC studied Australia’s position and pronounced, in a signed legal opinion, that Norfolk is a separate and distinct settlement, which could be annexed into Australia only by an Act of the British Parliament. He said that Australia’s position is not that of owner, but is akin to that of a trustee who should administer only for the benefit of the Island and its people. In October, 1977, R. J.
Ellicott, QC, MP, told Norfolk Island councillors that he had no objection to their making the fullest use of his signed legal opinion in their effort to prevent the Island being taken by Australia. In March, 1978, Hon R. J. Ellicott, Minister for Home Affairs, abandoned those principles. “This is Australia,” he told the people of Norfolk. He alluded to his personal power over here.
His very presence demonstrated Australia’s authority... “a Minister of State is here .. .” he said. The people of the Island who had placed their last, best hopes on this man of principle felt their hearts sink.