People

‘The Martin Luther of the Pa cific or a fly-by-night cult fig ure?’ asks the Auckland Star about former Methodist minis ter, Senitulu Koloi, 53. Mr Koloi has led a breakaway independent fellowship in pro test at the burden of annual offerings of money and Sunday feasting imposed by the Ton gan Methodist Church in Auckland.

The Star comments: ‘Like the sixteenth-century Prot estant reformer, Mr Koloi has denounced from the pulpit what he considers abuses of the Christian teachings. ‘At issue is the church prac tice of setting annual amounts of money as targets for the con gregation to achieve. ‘Last year, Auckland’s 2000 Tongans gave about $2OO 000 in offerings. The money was used largely to pay expenses. In Tonga, where work is hard to get, the effect is even worse. ‘ “People are given $5O to pay but end up paying $lOOO in the competitive spirit to outdo each other,” says a Koloi sup porter. Equally “evil” is the

regular Tongan Sunday feast

ing “when families can hardly afford meat during the week”.

Some ministers, says Mr Koloi, are preaching “the more you to the church the more slessings you get”. Mr Koloi las about 200 followers in ~nd and his message is ;hat work comes after sal tation.’

Cook Islands bantamweight aoxer Richard Pittman was the )nly gold medallist from a Pa cific Island country at the

Oceania Boxing Champion

hips held at Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia, in May.

Jis three wins over opponents rom New Zealand and the Australian states of Victoria ind Queensland clinched his )lace in the Oceania team vhich will compete at the

vorld championships in New

fork in October.

Relating his experiences at Oubbo to the Cook Islands

News, Richard said ‘lt was cold’. When he arrived for the

weigh-in nobody could believe

he was a bantamweight he looked too big. Then he started taking off his tracksuit, three sweatshirts and three T-shirts.

Everybody laughed as the

Cook Islands representative

visilby shrank.

Toughest bout for Richard was the third and final one

against Queensland champion

Gordon Willis. He said; ‘I just managed to “psych” him out to win on points. But I don’t mind telling you I’d had it I was gone by the end.’

He added: ‘After the fight I

felt happy. Many people

cheered for me New Zealanders, other Islanders but they weren’t my own people ... I wish some of my own people could have been there to see it.’

As for the future, Richard’s only definite venture will be the World Cup in October. The Queensland and Tahitian

champions want to challenge

him, though nothing has been decided yet. There’s this month’s South Pacific Games, and possibly even the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. ‘But we’ll have to wait and see,’ says Richard.

Whatever happens, the Cook Islands News says, ‘our cham pion boxer has already won the pride and admiration of his people, and it’s certain that Richard, and other local boxers, will be able to count on their help and support’.

Margaret Thatcher’s elec tion as Britain’s first woman prime minister appealed as an

omen to Fetaui Mata’afa, well known member of Western Samoa’s parliament. The New Zealand Herald reports her ju bilant reaction to the news in an interview at Auckland’s Samoa House. ‘I am so happy for Maragaret Thatcher and for Britain,’ she said, beaming. ‘Perhaps the day is not so far away when a woman will head the Samoan Government. I might even win the post my self.’

Elected to parliament in February, Mrs Mata’afa known to her constituents as La’ulu Fetauimalemau is the only woman among 46 men.

When her husband, Fiame Mata’afa, a former Samoan prime minister, died in office in 1975, she won the by election in his rural constitu ency, but lost the seat in the general election a year later.

Now back in the house, she stands firmly behind the idea of an opposition party in Samoa.

As only the second Samoan woman to win a seat in parlia ment, she is keen to encourage others of her sex. ‘lt was not so long ago that Samoan women

were content to leave politics to men,’ she said. ‘Now they are becoming more aware of their

political responsibility. In the

last election I was impressed with the large number who, though not candidates, were

lobbying and campaigning for

husbands or relatives.’ She says

Samoan women have yet to reach their full strength, but sees no obstacles in their path.

It would certainly encourage their advance if she were ever to achieve the prime minis terial mantle on which she’s set

her sights.

Father George Kester, the Dutch-born priest who has befriended thousands of visit ing yachties over his 32 years in the Cook Islands, is having a holiday in Holland, but expects to be back in the Cooks

by Christmas.

Wes Guy DFC, has been

appointed general manager of

Norfolk Island Airways. A for mer flying instructor in the Royal Australian Air Force, Mr Guy has also served as chief examiner for Australia’s Department of Civil Aviation, conducted his own flying train ing school in Papua New Guinea, and worked with

Douglas Airways in PNG.

A new face in the Marshall Islands is that of New Zealand law graduate Tony Johns, 29, who has just taken up duty as secretary to the cabinet of the Marshall Islands Govern ment.

Bonnie Anne Quintal, of Nor folk Island, received an MBE ‘for service to health and the community’, in the 1979 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Godwin Ligo, 33, chief news re porter for Radio New Hebrides, has returned home after a three-weeks familiaris ation visit to Australia.

Philip Rating, the New Hebrides’ first professional boxer, had another victory when he outboxed New Zealand Viti Patterson in a 10-round professional middle weight bout in Auckland’s town hall.

In Australia at the invitation of the government in June was Tu’a Taumoepeau, deputy sec retary to government in Tonga.

On a courtesy visit to PI M’s Sydney office, Mr Tua was not

Senitulu Koloi ... ‘Martin Luther of the Pacific’, or ‘fly-by-night cult operator’? Time alone will tell

Mrs Fetaui Mata’afa - La’ula Fetauimealemau to friends ... in her sights, a prime minister’s mantle

only interested to find out how the magazine is produced, but was also keen to talk about his crowded programme. At the time of his call, he had already been engaged in visits and talks concerned with fisheries, tour

ism, and agricultural training.

Ahead of him were talks with the Bank of New South Wales on questions of industrial de centralisation, and three days with Australian Government officials in Canberra. Of the home front Mr Tua reported that the attempt to revive Ton ga’s ill-starred Bank of the South Pacific appeared to have failed, and that Taiwanese engineers are hard at work

studying the problems of

upgrading Nukualofa’s

Fuaamotu airport, a venture which, it is hoped, will be financed by funds from

Libya.

Daryl Cross, 37, Australian athletics coach, spent two weeks in the New Hebrides training the country’s athletes for this month’s South Pacific Games in Suva.

Old friends met in Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in May when World War II Japanese gunner, Goshi Inuzuka. met up again with Yading of Hasini village. They had first met at Wagang village in 1943 when Mr Yading gave the Japanese soldier pawpaws and other fruit. They were firm friends from then on. They’ve met on one other occasion since the war. In 1962 Mr Inuzuka was visiting Lae with other Japanese ex-soldiers to see World War II relics, and looked up his old Papua New Guinean mate.

Fiji’s Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara is on three months leave on orders from his doctors. An official state ment from Ratu Mara’s office said there was nothing organically wrong with the PM, who was 59 in May. But after almost 12 years in office the strain on his physical resources was such that he should take the recuperative leave. Deputy Prime Minister Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau is the acting prime minister.

Inspector Merewalesi Mataika is to head the newly-formed Juvenile Bureau in Fiji to deal with minor offenders. She will be assisted by four other police officers including one woman.

Her appointment comes four years after a royal commission into crime reported a need for

a specialist police youth section

to work in with the social wel

fare department in dealing

with juvenile offenders. One function will be to provide counsel to young offenders rather than prosecute them.

Tonga’s Prince Ula Valu went

west recently, visiting

Queensland, Australia, for five days. On his travels he took the opportunity to address the rotary club at Mackay which is roughly on the same latitude as Tonga. When he left Australia, the prince was talking of the possibility of sheep and ginger industries on Tonga, having studied ginger projects at Buderim and inspected the Queensland Government’s re search station at Coolum which specialises in tropical grasses

and legumes.

Sergeant Henri Geoffrey, 47, of the Vila French police force, has jogged around the island of Efate in 17 hours. He left Vila at 6 pm on a Saturday and arrived back at 2.30 pm on Sunday. His average speed for

the cross-country run was 7.78 km per hour.

Bernard Tzilu has qualifed as an architect the first Bougainvillean to do so. He graduated from the Lae

University of Technology in

Papua New Guinea.

Doing a two-months training

course at Fontainebleau, France, is policewoman Con stable Diana Jimmys of Santo, New Hebrides. Besides study ing typing and switchboard op eration, she also is studying self-defence techniques, and how to conduct investi

gations.

Alan Familton, an officer in the New Zealand forest service, is nothing if not persistent. The New Zealand High Commiss ioner in Fiji, David McDowell, wants to import kauri trees from his country to give a New Zealand flavour to the grounds of his official residence. But, as kauri is classed as a dangerous

exotic by the Fijian agricultural

authorities, he has been told he can’t.

Fijians want to protect their own strain of kauri from dis eases or pests another species might bfing in. So Mr Familton had to take out three kauris and some kahikateas from a gift of 40 native trees for the high commission just before he boarded an aircraft for Suva at Auckland’s international air port. The other tiees - pohu tukawas, karakas, karaires and lucebarks travelled on a first class ticket as cabin baggage.

Mr Familton told the Auck land Star: ‘Believe me, I had

my problems with quarantine

officials when I got there it took an hour-and-a-half to get out of the airport.’ Mr Famil ton then went to a scheduled meeting of the Fijian Pine Commission, while the high commissioner drove to his resi dence with his trees to plant out healthy ones and pot the others to be nursed back to health. But Mr Familton and his service did not give up. They were quick to take another tack in the matter of the kauri trees.

They finally persuaded the

Fijian conservator of forests to let kauri seeds into the country to grow into trees.

Tu’a Taumoepau relaxes in PIM’s Sydney office ... the sun of the Bank of the South Pacific seems to have set in the west

Sergeant Henri Geoffrey, Vate’s one-man conqueror of distance, in full flight on his around-the-island run. Nabanga photo.