Letters
pp. 4-5 · Read in the full issue
Simple questions
for US
My questions may be very simplistic and naive but never theless have bothered me for some time. As a member of the Micronesian community for four years and also a US citi zen, I feel the right to ask them of the US and particularly the Department of Interior.
Was the ‘trust’ of Micronesia in the hands of the US under the United Nations to guide and assist them from the end of World War II to economic and
political self-determination?
If so, why is it that the US
has been continually increasing
economic aid, social welfare programmes particularly, with no apparent concern for the lack of tangible economic
development until the begin
ning of the issue of transition and termination of that ‘trust’?
Why has the US built up a bureaucratic monster that em ploys 61% of the employed in Micronesia and then under taken a fiscal restraint and budget cut programme two years prior to the opening rounds of status talks with
these peoples?
Why does the ‘free feeding’ programme, so generously volunteered by the US, sud denly have a price tag of SUSI 7 million?
Why was it initiated in the
first place without explanation
that it was a welfare pro gramme only as long as the
people stayed politically
dependent upon the US, or they would have to pay for it out of their own funds?
Does the US feel any re sponsibility for the divisive re percussions of the withdrawal of the programme, or the ‘strings’ now attached, among the Micronesian people toward their leaders who have opposed it?
How well have we handled our ‘trust’ if the peoples of
Micronesia are economically crippled and must seek foreign investment after termination of the trusteeship to begin econ
omic self-sufficiency?
How politically developed
are these people if the leaders’ credibility and wisdom are
being challenged by their own
who have no idea of the state of their economy and blame their leaders for the withdrawal of the US ‘generosity’?
I feel the people of America do believe in human rights and are moral and people of con science. The actions of our Department of Interior and the US Congress are another mat ter. A person responds from the heart. A politician or bureau crat is sensitive to votes and
public opinion.
Ask the average American where Micronesia is and he’ll say: ‘Mike who?’ I pray for Micronesia and her people. I pray for America.
Saipan Northern Marianas
Jon D. Kawika
A man before
his time
Re the article on Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna which I submitted last year and which was published in PIM January.
Recently I have been work ing in the Fiji National Ar chives in Suva. While working through the Methodist collec tion I came across a file con
taining the same speech given
by Ratu Sukuna to the Defence Club but the date was 1934.
Mention is made to 60 years of British rule. As Fiji ceded to Britain in 1874, this would mean the paper was delivered in 1934 which makes it an even more interesting state ment.
Camberwell Victoria Australia
Ken James
A good point, Percy
Percy Chatterton is to be con gratulated for his criticism of
the condom-pushing campaign
in Papua New Guinea (PIM February). He has said what many other people are think
ing.
There is one other aspect which has not been discussed
publicly. The condoms being
sold by Family Planning As
sociation pedlars in PNG are, I assure you, uncomfortable and very difficult to use. There must by now have been many
pregnancies directly attribu
table to this FPA campaign. I wonder whether members of the FPA executive have tried
using the wretched things
themselves?
This misguided FPA cam paign has surely set back the cause of birth control by many years in PNG. The public has now come to associate birth control with the selling of third rate condoms by self-interested
pedlars.
Upng
Papua New Guinea
T.E.S.
No ‘lapse of taste’
My attention has been drawn to your comments on the report in Nabanga of my farewell interview with Jean Massias and Mr Laffont (PIM
January).
In fairness to them and
Nabanga they should be
acquitted of any ‘lapse of taste’ on their part. The quotation in their report of what, to a Frenchman reading my French, might have been taken as a rather colourful and amus
ing Anglicism, was certainly
with affectionate rather than any malicious intent.
Equally certainly, I took no offence, where none was intended very much the re verse in fact. Nor should you.
Callow
J. S. Champion
Hereford ( latel y British England Resident Commissioner in the New Hebrides) PIM is relieved that Mr Cham pion was not offended and that he took the matter in the spirit in which Mr Massias says it was intended.
PNG the lucky
country?
I read your Tropicalities item about the three Mekeo men back from the United States (PIM January). I met all the nationals who were in the PNG dance group while they were here in New York City. It was good to talk with them, some in Pidgin, others in Motu. I was a missionary in New Guinea in the 1950 s and early 19605. I love New Guinea, both the people and the land.
Andy Supeke says; ‘As usual these people ... discovered, as do so many Papua New Guineans, that foreigners know so little about their country not even where it is.’
I am a school teacher here in
John Champion... no offence taken
I New York City and would like * to say that many of the children I have taught from year to year [ have parents who fought in [ World War II and were in New r Guinea. These parents have [ told their children of their ex periences in New Guinea so the younger generation do know where it is.
During the 14 years I have been teaching since my return from Papua New Guinea I have taught class sizes on the average of 35 children. So, 35
multiplied by 14 equals 490.
Those 490 children have seen my slides and heard all my ex periences.
There are so few Papua New Guineans who have visited the States (I can think of only seven to date outside of the Raun Raun dance team) that they have not confronted enough people to come to the conclusion that foreigners know so little.
Most Christian church con gregations know where New Guinea is if they are at all missionary-minded. Most well established Christian schools and colleges inform their students as to where New Guinea is so that they may con sider it as a place to go to preach the gospel where Christ has never been named. That’s where I heard about the second largest island in the world .. .
The Mekeo people said ‘America is not good .. . our place good ...’ I think this shows a lack of education on their part as to interdepen dence of nations on one another. New Guinea is ‘good’
and free today because
Americans helped defend it
from a dominion which would not have been good for them.
Perhaps New Guineans today
would be working in their gar dens to produce food for the government instead of their
awn individual families. They
night not be free today to ravel to the USA to see the \mericans ‘hustling to make a iving’. But they should be educated to the fact that if it veren’t for the earnings (de
lations of hustling American
Christians), there would be no
nissionaries there in Papua
'Jew Guinea offering the bread )f life, eternal life, for easy
taking. Because of our Good American Way of Life, the gos pel has been free to be preached, sinners converted, and lives changed to serve the Lord . . .
America is good. We are free here to worship God as we see fit. The word of God is not bound as it is in some coun tries. I am glad I was born here for it was here that I heard and received the good news of sal vation in Christ and through him shall ‘never hunger nor thirst’.
Because of the entrance of foreign missionaries into New Guinea, the nationals there need ‘never hunger or never thirst’. The word of life is there for the taking. They don’t even have to dirty their hands. Just reach out .. .
Every evening that there was a showing of the PNG dancing at the Museum of Natural His tory there were hundreds of people who could not get inside due to lack of seats. If New Guinea was not well known I’m sure the Americans wouldn’t have been interested enough to show up ... I have
pictures of Aisaga Opu in a
new blue suit I bought him in Macy’s. He had a good time shopping for himself and his
son.
Queens Village
New York
Usa
Lois F. James
Perhaps a Papua New Guinean would like to agree or disagree with Ms James. Editor.
Misplaced ‘no
confidence 7
In your January issue I read with interest your Port Moresby correspondent Angus Smales’ articles on the topic ‘Somare, the Great Survivor’.
On page 17 Mr Smales reported that I introduced a motion of no confidence in the Somare administration in the
November-December sitting
of the Papua New Guinea Par liament.
I wish to correct that. It was the Honorable Member for New Ireland Province Mr Noel Levi who moved a motion of no confidence in the Somare Government under the spon sorship of the ‘Loyal Oppo sition’.
May I be allowed to suggest,
Sir, that in future your cor respondents spare no effort to ensure that what is reported is as accurate as possible.
J. C. Noel
Member for Kiriwina- Goodenough and Minister Boroko for Housing and Urban Papua New Guinea Management PIM apologises for its error, to both Mr John Noel and Mr Noel Levi.
Style even depth
Congratulations on PIM for December and January. For a while I thought it was going to be all tits and bums but now PIM has suddenly become a paper of style and even depth which makes it worth buying
again.
Upng
Papua New Guinea
Ross Stevens
Is all forgiven?
Apparently the governments of New Zealand and France are working toward closer ties. A New Zealand Herald news item on February 2 stated that a ‘high-powered French naval visit in two weeks’ time may herald a new era of entente cor diale between New Zealand and France . .. Since dif ferences over nuclear testing at Mururoa have been resolved there has been greater contact 9 So, apparently, all is for
given, and underground nu
clear tests are a worry of the past. However, according to the NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research geo physics division, in a letter dated December 15, 1978, two underground tests were con ducted in November 1978 at Mururoa, a small one on
November 3 and the other, quite large, ‘possibly 100 kilo tons or more’, on November 30.
And, according to many scientists, underground nuclear tests are equally as dangerous as atmospheric ones, so the
silencing by such dubious
means, of anyone who opposes them, must be viewed with alarm.
Elaine Shaw
Auckland New Zealand
They know who
they are
Thank you and congratulations for your coverage of Norfolk Island in February. It was fair on the whole and in some parts it was generous.
Your headline stating we have an ‘identity crisis’ is very misleading. We do not have an identity crisis. We know exactly who we are and what we be lieve.
There is a crisis, but it is in Australia, not on Norfolk. Aus tralia wants to lay hands on Norfolk as its own property but it suddenly has doubts and wonders whether Norfolk might be entitled to its own ideas.
So the crisis is whether Aus tralia should live up to its com mitments to let Norfolk people decide their own future or whether it should go on making all the important decisions and, incidentally, grab off 350 000 square kilometres of ocean for itself while the Norfolk Islanders aren’t looking.
No matter which way the crisis is settled, Norfolk Islanders will go on knowing we are very different people from Australians, and that we are entitled to this island and the sea around. Australia can take its usual attitude of ‘the islands don’t count’ and take our sea, and suffer the con sequences. Or it can decide to go along at last with England and the US and NZ and let a small island have its own fair g°- That is the crisis. Will Aus tralia honour its commitments or will it take what it thinks it might get away with?
John Pearson
Society of Descendants Secretary of the Pitcairn Settlers Norfolk Island
John Noel... no ‘no con fidence’ motion