Islands

From the

Press

From The Fiji Times The commander of Fiji’s 23-man contingent in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, Major Aca Soqosoqo, told yesterday how they lived side-by-side with simmering violence and death. But the Fiji soldiers’ diplomacy, tact and untold patience ‘saved the day’, he said. T told my boys to act just like Fijians and that’s how we pulled off the job,’ he said .. . Major Soqosoqo said he was the first black man ever to join an all-white club in Rhodesia...

From Cook Islands News, Rarotonga A dramatic incident interrupted the usually long and tedious Sunday afternoon for the CIBNC announcer yesterday. An anonymous telephone caller with an apparent grudge against banks demanded that an announcement be made over the air that all paper money be taken to the local tip and burnt. If his demand was not complied with the caller threatened to come into the studio and kill the announcer. He also insisted that any new paper money to be issued should be printed with a Queen’s head on it, this new Queen to be chosen by the people of

Rarotonga...

From a letter to the PNG Post-Courier, Port Moresby I am a typical Southern Highlander and would like to ask the government why they are wasting their money on prisoners. I don’t know why the Justice Department is making the prison camps a better place to dwell in, wasting money buying expensive food like rice, meat, wheat, etc, and also providing better services like transport, shower blocks and clothing. In my opinion, the government and the Justice Department are funding unnecessary services. Prisoners should be locked up all day. They should be fed with pure brown rice, or kaukau where there is a place where kaukau is grown, made to work in public where the public can mock and joke at them and even laugh at those criminals who break the law. In the last few years killing was going on when people just committed crime in public, thinking that if they went to prison they would go and eat food and even grow fat sitting doing nothing. The state-of-emergency that was released last year was due to this thinking of the citizens of this country. At the moment I have seen and heard many citizens of this country saying ‘Mi go kalabus and mi go kaikai brown rice tasol’ and they just start creating all sorts of crime. The Southern Highlands Province is really and totally attracted by this phrase and villagers are attacking their neighbours or their enemies that they hate.

Southern Highlands used to be a very peaceful province apart from the other highlands provinces, but they don’t seem to take any notice of law and order for the country. Their goal is the prison camp, so I suggest the government do something about this existing behaviour by cutting the food supply ...

From The Fiji Times The Western Regional Library lost more than $5500 worth of library books last year, according to acting assistant librarian Mrs Pushpa Naresh. Mrs Naresh said thousands of books had not been

returned over the past three years and after issuing three notices to the people concerned without getting a reply, the library assumed the books were lost. She said the Government allocated $20,000 each year for the library to buy books. Of that amount, the library lost one quarter in unreturned books.

Solomon Islands News Drum The father of a man convicted of murder has been ordered to pay $ 1,000 compensation to the dead man’s family. The Magistrate who heard the case in the civil court at Auki, explained the claim was made under Malaita custom laws for compensation, which in this case were allowed under the Constitution of the Solomon Islands. He said in 1978 Ruruka, of North Malaita, was found guilty of murdering Alick Waio of South Malaita, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. The dead man’s family was represented by John Siho, who summoned Ruruka’s father Isake Tosika, to pay $1,400 compensation. Mr Tosika agreed that it was custom to pay compensation if a man from one tribe killed a man from another tribe. Because his son was jailed by law no compensation was payable, and he would not pay unless his son was released. He said even if compensation was payable, $1,400 was too much. It should be $lOO. The Magistrate said that because Ruruka was in prison did not prevent compensation payment.

Allowing for Ruruka’s imprisonment and considering all the evidence, he decided the compensation should be $ 1,000. He also ordered Mr Tosika to pay $75 costs claimed by the plaintiff (dead

man’s family).

Uni Tavur, Papua New Guinea student paper An Enga student leader has called on the government to stop foreign scholars studying village life to complete their degree courses. The president of Enga Pressure Group, Mike Mapusia, has said that ‘the Enga people have been made use of by writers and researchers from other countries who are in search of material for their personal doctoral or master degree courses. Previous researchers have raped the wealthy virgin culture of the Enga people.’ Mr Mapusia said. ‘Not only do the researchers benefit personally but the research papers create and present bad images of PNG traditional culture,’ he said. Mr Mapusia said this was because the writers were unfamiliar with their subjects. He said there were enough people in the country’s two universities who could write about PNG’s cultures. The Enga Provincial Government has also been asked to look into this matter...

From Pitcairn Miscellany, Pitcairn Island extract from article by German social scientist Birgit Groth, who is writing a thesis on Pitcairn society I am aware that some of the local people may feel a bit apprehensive of someone snooping around and then writing halftruths. But I shall sincerely attempt to do neither one nor the other. After all, a doctoral thesis is hardly an attempt at a bestseller, and a scientist’s ethics are hopefully a cut above those of the average journalist... I have been asked already about my first impressions. Certainly I came here too well prepared to expect grass skirts and the like. Even so, Pitcairn surprised me by being much less ‘backward’ than I thought it must be due to its isolation. The Pitcairners are much more educated and world-wise than I had expected, and the lifestyle in general, apart from the climate, the exotic surroundings and the mosquitoes to me resembles astonishingly the one I experienced as a child in my grandparents’ village in Germany. Maybe that’s why I already feel so much at home on Pitcairn Island!

From Marshall Islands Journal, Majuro There is a well known story of a married couple blessed with two sons, one an extreme optimist, the other a dour pessimist.

To cure their offspring of their respective imbalances, it was decided to give the pessimist a pony for Christmas, and the optimist a stable full of horse manure. The pessimist, of course, fretted when he saw his new pony: ‘lt will probably get sick and