People

Judging from the contents of the memoranda coming from the Micronesian Seminar in Truk on the negotiations be tween the United States and the Micronesians on the Compact of Free Association PIM May p 29, there’s not much likely to escape the expert eagle eye of Jesuit laybrother Henry M.

Schwalbenberg.

He was called in last year to help the seminar’s director, Father Francis X. Hezel, also of the Society of Jesus, who has been in Micronesia since 1963 less three years off to do a theological course. Brother Schwalbenberg, a US citizen born in February, 1955, has an impressive academic record, es pecially in the way of the odd things sometimes encountered behind the woodwork in the corridors of power. He mas tered in International Affairs at Columbia University in the School of International Affairs working on international and development economics. At the same time, 1978, he got a BSc in electrical engineering. He holds three academic honours Columbia University Inter national Fellow, School of In ternational Affairs Fellow, and Prentis Scholar in Engineering.

Before being called to Micronesia, he ranged over a whole gamut of economic and sociological subjects, monitor ing a special United Nations session on economic issues, re searching US foreign policy towards the Third World that would be a sticky assign ment researching Haitian economic development options and then doing the same job in Brazil, preparing a case study for the UN’s World Conference on Technical Co-operation among Developing Countries, and completing an economic survey and analysis for local business and church leaders in a small Peruvian coastal town. He also found time to make a sabbatical study in theology and social ethics at the Weston School of Theology in Cam

bridge (Mass). He entered the Jesuit order in 1978.

The Micronesian Seminar, called Mic Sem on Truk, is a pastoral-research institute es tablished by the RC Diocese of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in 1972 with Fr Hezel as its director. One of Mic Sem’s major tasks is to try to stimulate socio-theological reflection on contemporary issues in Micronesia, including the whole range of social, economic and political issues of importance to the islands today. In that con nection they have run several conferences for government leaders, churchmen and others on such themes as ‘Education for what?’, ‘Human develop ment’, and ‘Youth in Micronesia’.

Fr Hezel has also been work ing over the last six years on a study of suicide in Micronesia and, this year, Mic Sem ran a study on ‘Youth Drinking in Micronesia’. It also assists missionaries in training pro grammes, the media and other educational facets of their work among the people. Fr Hezel is also director of Xavier High School, but will shed that hat at the end of this term. He’s also making a name for himself as a historian with some articles in the Journal of Pacific History and others and has done three books on local history Foreign Ships in Micronesia (reviewed in January PIM), Winds of Change (in collabor ation with Mark Berg) and The First Taint of Civilisation, which should be published any time now by the University of Hawaii Press. John Carter Papua New Guinea’s first holder of a doctorate degree in scentific research is David Linge, 34, who won this distinc tion with a 344-page thesis on root knot nematode (a parasitic worm) which infects PNG’s traditional nutritious plant, wing bean.

Dr Linge gained an outstand ing BSc from the University of PNG in 1974, then did an honours degree, and in 1977 was awarded a Commonwealth post-graduate scholarship in the Department of Zoology and Applied Entomology at the Imperial College, London. In 1978 he was awarded the de gree of Master of Science and the Imperial College Diploma.

He was then invited to enrol for studies leading to a PhD on a scientific research work. The wing bean thesis is the result.

Dr Linge belongs to a family well known on the Gazelle Peninsula and in New Ireland.

His father, the late Rev Hosea Linge, better known as Talatala Hosea Linge was the first ordained minister of the Methodist Church from the New Guinea islands, and is also regarded as the first Papua New Guinean ever to write an autobi ography. He died in 1973, aged about 75.

There are still six Papua New Guineans pursuing doctoral studies at overseas universities.

Lindsay Watt has taken up duties as New Zealand high commissioner to Fiji. He will live in Suva and will also be accredited to Tuvalu, Naurau and Kiribati.

Mr Watt succeeds Michael Powles, who has been appointed New Zealand’s ambassador to Indonesia.

Sister Mary Berchmans was 25 when she arrived in Fiji in October 1915. Since that time, she has never left the country.

Today she lives in a Suva convent, and, at 92, is the oldest nun in Fiji and the longest serving missionary sister.

On her arrival as a young French sister who had just taken her final vows, Sister Berchmans joined five other sisters at the leper hospital on the island of Makogai. There she nursed the patients and cared for their needs, both spiritual and physical, before continuing her work in other centres around Fiji.

Her story is more or less

Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara (left), prime minister of Fiji, met Malcolm Fraser, prime minister of Australia, during a recent visit to the Australian capital, Canberra. Ratu Mara, who held talks on Fiji-Australia relation ships, is this month facing a general election at home.

Malcolm Lindsay picture for

Ais.

synonymous with the order to which she belongs: the Mission ary Sisters of the Society of Mary, which in May celebrated 100 years work in Fiji.

The pioneers of the order in Fiji were four sisters who ar rived from France in May, 1882.

Since then, the tireless work of its members has led to the establishment of about 12 schools around Fiji, including the Yat Sen Primary School and Stella Maris Primary School, the St Elizabeth’s Home at Korovou and Ra Maternity Hospital.

The Indian High Commissioner to Fiji, Mrs Soonu Kochar, left Fiji in April after completing her term.

She has been succeeded by Mr Chitilenchery Pathiyil Ravindranathan. who has worked as counsellor in the Indian Embassy in Paris.

A Fiji citizen, Ross McDonald, has been appointed the new managing director of Burns Philp (Vanuatu) Ltd.

Mr McDonald has been named to the post by Philip Best, chief executive of the Burns Philp group of companies in Sydney.

Mr McDonald, who is at present manager of the Manu-

facturing Group of the South Sea Company, will assume his new position in August.

In addition to Vanuatu, Mr McDonald will have the res ponsibility for Burns Philp’s operations in Solomon Islands.

Mr McDonald will be in charge of six divisions with nearly 400 employees in

Vanuatu alone. He will also be responsible for nearly 280 staff in the Solomons operations.

Ex-champion jockey in his native Panama, Manuel Ycaza and his intended bride, model and actress Jeanne Detwiler, had such romantic ideas about Fiji that they decided they would get married there. And they did. They tied the knot at the District Registry Office in Lautoka, spent their honey moon at the Fijian Resort Hotel, and had a four-day cruise through the Yasawa Islands.

After spending several days in French Polynesia they returned to the United States where Manuel has a real estate com pany. Bride Jeanne is with Columbia film studio.

Said the new Mrs Ycaza, looking through rose-coloured glasses while on her honey moon: ‘We always wanted to get married in Fiji because it is the most romantic island (sic) of all’

American Samoa High Court Chief Justice Richard Miyamoto has been ordered to transfer ‘or else’ to Micronesia as an associate jus tice. The ‘or else’ was contained in a letter to him from Acting Personnel Officer Mary D. Ellis in the US Department of the Interior. She wrote: T feel obligated to advise you that if you do not accept the reassign ment, resign from your position, or transfer to another Federal agency by April 15, 1982, it will be necessary for me to propose your removal from your position and the Federal Service for failure to accept a directed geographic reassignment.’

The Samoans are upset by the judge’s transfer as his six years in the territory, first as an associate judge and then as chief justice, have been out standing, say the locals. Judge Miyamoto’s judgments in cluded an important ruling on individual land ownership, and he has just completed a full revision of High Court Rules.

American Samoa’s Represen tative in the US Congress, Fofo Sunia, was upset at news of the transfer, of which he had not been informed. He said the excuse given for the transfer that the Trust Territory High

Court was ‘faced with an unre lenting caseload’ was a very poor one.

T think it is insulting to the Samoan people,’ said Fofo.

The judge is no stranger to Micronesia, having previously served as attorney-general of the Trust Territory.

There’s a consolation prize for the judge, which might smooth his ruffled feathers. The Pacific Army Reserve at Fort De Russy has awarded him the Civilian Service Medal. The award says the judge, a retired colonel of the Army Reserve, had represented the reserve in the territory and was instrumen tal in the acquisition of lands and training facilities during the initial establishment of the Reserve in American Samoa.

As liaison man between the government and the military, he had also made a substantial contribution to the expansion of the Army Reserve forces in the Pacific.

Two Dutch Roman Catholic priests in the Cook Islands, Father George Kester, of Aitutaki, and Father Nicholas Herdeman, of Arorangi, have been made Knights of the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Queen of the Netherlands for their work in the Cooks. Father Kester, who arrived from Holland in 1947, worked at Manihiki, Titikaveka, Matavera and Arorangi before going to his present ‘cure’ at Aitutaki. Father Herdeman, who now lives in retirement at Arorangi, came to the Cooks a year after Fr Kester and has worked on Manihiki, Mauke, Penrhyn, Aitutaki, and Rarotonga.

Ex-RAF officer (1944-47) George Norman Stanfield has been appointed British High Commissioner in Solomon Islands, succeeding Gordon Slater, who will return to Britain shortly. Mr Stanfield has served with the British Ministry of Food, Ministry of Supply, the War Office and in Commonwealth Relations Office.

Michael Schnetzer has arrived in Fiji from his native Switzerland to take up duties as food and beverage manager at

the Fijian Hotel Resort on Yanuca Island.

In his 15-year career in the hotel industry, Mr Schnetzer has piled up an impressive array of qualifications both through his work in Switzerland, and

with such other institutions as the Stratford-on-Avon Hilton in the United Kingdom, and Norway’s Royal Viking Line.

In 1976-79 he attended the Ecole Hoteliere (the Swiss Ho tel Management Institute) where he gained the institute’s diploma.

Tongan student Tevita P.

Ngaue, who is studying at Hawaii Loa College in Kaneohe, has been named in the latest edition of the Who's Who Among Students in American Universities and Col leges. He is one of 10 students honoured in this way, recognis ing them as among the country’s most outstanding campus leaders. Selections are made from nominations re ceived from more than 1300 institutions of higher learning.

Western Samoa’s 1982 Christmas postage stamps have been designed by three 16-year old students, an 11-year-old and a seven-year-old. They won a design competition which at tracted 127 entries, the prizes being $l5O for each winning design. Winners were Panapa Pouesi, Ralph Laban and Fetalaiga Fareni, all aged 16 and students at Leulumoega Fou College, Maria Falanai Tofaeono, 11, of St Mary’s

Ross McDonald

Michael Schnetzer

Savalalo, and Emma Dunlop, seven, of Apia Infants’ School, Malifa.

Dr Esika Macu Salato of Fiji, who has had a distinguished career as a medical doctor,

elected official, diplomat and international civil servant, has been selected to join the new

Diplomat-in-Residence pro

gramme at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

The programme, which be gan earlier this year, brings diplomats from Asia, the Pacific and Western countries to work with East-West Center institutes and to conduct sem inars and research.

Dr Salato will join Ambassa dor William Bodde Jr, the Center’s first diplomat-in residence, who served most recently as US ambassador to Fiji, Tonga and Tuvalu and as minister to Kiribati.

A graduate of the Fiji School of Medicine, Dr Salato did pioneer work in the eradication of tuberculosis in Fiji and Solomon Islands. During World War II he was medical officer in the Fiji Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. In 1960 he received the coveted Commonwealth Award for outstanding contri butions to the tuberculosis ser vice.

Dr Salato in 1970 became the first elected non-European mayor of Suva. He retired in 1972 as director of curative medical services after 36 years as a medical officer. He was

made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 1973.

From 1972 to 1973 he was Fiji’s acting high commissioner in London and ambassador to the European Economic Com munity in Brussels. In 1975 he became secretary-general of the South Pacific Commission, the most comprehensive regional organisation in the South Pacific. East-West Center News.

George Chand has been promoted to divisional market ing manager of Burns Philp manufacturing group, by div ision manager John Potts.

Mr Chand will be responsible for formulating and instituting overall sales policies for the

division which includes Wisco Furniture, Pacific Cabin Crackers, Union Soaps, Viti Plastics, Sunshine Products, and Righted Fiji Ltd.

In announcing the appoint ment, Mr Potts said that Mr Chand has shown a clear grasp of the scope of the job that includes exports of a wide range of products. ‘He has recently completed a tour of the South Pacific and the west coast of the United States and has returned with a clear understanding of the ex port potential in these markets.

He will make a major contri bution in his position,’ said Mr Potts.

Before his promotion, Mr Chand was sales manager for the division. He began work in the food and manufacturing industry in 1972 for Arnott’s Biscuits out of Australia. He left Arnott’s in 1975 to join the then Cope Allman Company as market development manager.

He stayed with the company in its changeover when Burns Philp purchased Cope Allman in 1978.

An Auckland-born New Zealander of Fiji Indian origin, Anand Satyanand, has taken up an appointment as a New Zea land District Court Judge. Mr Satyanand, 37, qualified in 1970 and worked for five years as a Crown Prosecutor before turning to private law practice with the Auckland law firm of Shieff Angland Dew & Co. In those years a number of legal matters took him for appear ances before courts in Fiji, the Cook Islands and Western Somoa. He took up duties in Palmerston North in June.

President Haruo Remeliik of the Republic of Palau has announced the confirmation by the country’s Senate of Lazarus E. Salii as the republic’s first ambassador.

Ambassador Salii’s mission will include Compact of Free Association negotiations with the US, and establishing diplo matic and trade relations with the various nations of the world.

The official proclamation said that Ambassador Salii ‘will be the sole official conduit for the republic’s international re lations, and will in the immedi

ate future be conducting Palau’s Pacific neighbours on the republic’s behalf’.

The appointment of the Most Rev George Bernarding as first Catholic Archbishop of the Papua New Guinea Highlands was warmly welcomed by the Deputy Prime Minister, lambakey Okuk.

Mr Okuk said the new arch bishop had served the people of Papua New Guinea well for 40 years, and his new appointment was a recognition by the church of his outststanding leadership during that long period.

Mr Okuk said that as one

who knew Archbishop Bernard ing personally, he regarded the appointment as not only added recognition for the new arch bishop, but for the Highlands as well. ‘Under the strong leadership of Archbishop Bernarding, the Catholic Church in the Hagen Diocese has contributed much to the development of the re gion in education and health services, as well as in Christian life,’ he said. ‘On behalf of all Highlanders I thank the Pope for the added recognition he has given to our region, and I congratulate the new archbishop on a well deserved honour,’ Mr Okuk

said.

The Times of Papua

New Guinea.

Robert Pfeiffer, radio broad caster and writer, who until his retirement last year worked in the communications section of the United Nations, has arrived in the Cook Islands as new manager of the Cook Islands

Dr Esika Macu Salato

William Bodde Jr

George Chand

Anand Satyanand

Newspaper and Broadcasting Corporation. A native of Detroit and a BA in political science and journalism, Mr Pfeiffer has been connected with radio for 38 years, begin ning with Columbia Broadcast ing System and ending with the United Nations. Between times, he travelled widely on radio news stories, ran his own com munications company, and, at the time of his retirement, he was Chief of the UN News and Central Programmes Section.

A two-hour visit to Aitutaki in 1955, while flying from Tahiti to Samoa on a TEAL seaplane, probably placed the Cooks in his files on ‘Places to return to when retired’.

Fiji’s High Commissoner in London, Ratu Josua Toganivalu, is now a double barrelled ambassador am bassador to Israel, a post he has held for some time, and am bassador to Egypt. Meanwhile, he still holds his post as high commissioner in London. Re cently, Ratu Josua presented his credentials to Egyptian

President Mubarak, who told him that he appreciated the Fiji Government’s decision to send peace-keeping troops to the Sinai.

Roger Barlthrop, much travelled career diplomat in the British service, is the successor to Viscount Dunrossil as British high commissioner to Fiji. Ex- Oxford University, ex-Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, he has served in missions in India, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Turkey, the West Indies, Ethiopia and, since 1978 to date, in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as head of the Common wealth co-ordination depart ment.

Lawrie Wickham, MP for Gizo and Kolombangara in the Solomons since 1976, has re signed for personal reasons. In the last government, he was minister of law and information, a ministry which is now abol ished.

The director of the Australian Development Assistance Bu

reau, James Ingram, has been appointed executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program (WFP). Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Tony Street, and Minister for Primary Industry Peter Nixon, said this was the first time an Australian has been appointed to head a major United Nations body and reflected recognition within the UN of the strong support Australia had given to that organisation over many years.

Mr Ingram was appointed director of ADAS in 1976.

The current level of contri butions from national govern ments to WFP is about $740 million for 1981 and 1982, of which the Australian Govern ment’s contribution is $24 million. The contributions are in the form of food grains, other food commodities, and cash and services to support rural devel opment and to relieve emerg ency food situations in the Third World.

Mr Ingram said he believed his appointment was also a reflection of ADAB’s high inter

national standing which was due to the tremendous dedi cation of the bureau’s staff.

Former Cook Islands Chief Justice Sir Gaven Donne has become the first Queen’s Rep resentative in the Cooks. The new post, replacing the old one of Governor-General, was cre ated in the framework of the recent constitutional changes in the Cooks.

His successor as chief justice is Mr Justice Speight, who retired from the New Zealand High Court at the end of May.

Mr Justice Speight will be the senior of two High Court judges in the Cooks. In addition to this work he will join a Court of Appeal in Fiji which already comprises three New Zealanders, Sir Trevor Gould, Sir Trevor Henry, and Mr B.C.

Spring.

In his capacity as Cook Islands chief justice, Sir Gaven unseated the government of the late Sir Albert Henry when he upheld opposition complaints of bribery of voters.