deaths

Prof. Harry Street.

In Windermere, England, on April 20, aged 64.

Professor Street served as chairman of the Royal Commis sion of Inquiry into the Fiji Electoral System in 1975 and 1976. He was professor of English Law at the University of Manchester from 1960. The report recommended the aboli tion of all 25 national cross voting seats in the Fiji parlia ment and their replacement with five large constituencies each of which would have five MPs elected on a common roll.

The government did not accept the recommendation.

Professor Street qualified as a solicitor in 1940, then served with the Royal Air Force in India, Burma and Sri Lanka.

After the war he taught at Columbia and Harvard Univer sities in the U.S. before going to the University of Nottingham and then Manchester. He was general editor of the Penguin Education Foundations of Law Series of textbooks, served on the British Committee on Racial Discrimination (1976), the Monopolies and Mergers Com mission (1973-80) and the re cent Bingham Committee on the workings of the Contempt Act in Britain.

“The Times,” said of him: “He was a quiet man whose interests ranged from a deep love of Shakespeare to the fortunes of Manchester United football team and the Lan cashire County Cricket Club.

Above all he loved walking in the hills of the Lake District,” which was what he was doing when he collapsed and died.

Justice Sir Trevor Gould.

In Auckland, on May 2, after a short illness, aged 78.

Sir Trevor was vice-president of the Fiji Court of Appeal, a position he had held for almost 20 years. Tributes were paid in the Supreme Court of Fiji by the Chief Justice Sir Timoci Tuivaga.

In 1938 Sir Trevor took up an appointment as Crown Counsel in Hong Kong and was there, serving as a member of the Volunteer Defence Force, when the Japanese invaded.

He spent four years as a prison er of war.

After the liberation of Hong Kong he was appointed to the High Court in that colony and later served as a Senior Puisne Judge and Acting Chief Justice.

He then joined the Court of Appeal for East Africa in 1958 and became its vice-president in 1963, a position he held for two years. He was knighted in 1961 for his services to the British legal system. He retired and returned to New Zealand in 1965 and was appointed to the Fiji Court of Appeal in the same year.

Prem Chandra Prasad In Suva on April 13, aged 45.

Dr Prasad was Reader in Geography in the School of Social and Economic Deve lopment of the University of the South Pacific. He was bom in Sigatoka, Fiji, and graduated with BSc in chemistry in 1964, and MSc (First Class Honors) in 1967, from Otago University, New Zealand. He then studied at the University of Hawaii where he obtained his PhD in 1971. He first joined USP as a lecturer in geography in 1971, was appointed senior lecturer in 1977 and this year was prom oted to the readership.

Baltazar Jerome Bordallo, Antonio Cruz Artero Two men one politically active, the other quietly heroic died on Guam in May.

Baltazar Jerome Bordallo, who led the effort to gain United States citizenship for the people of Guam, was laid to rest following a state funeral.

Antonio Cruz Artero, who re ceived the Medal of Freedom for hiding a U.S. serviceman during the Japanese occupation of Guam in World War 11, was buried with full military honors.

The efforts of Bordallo and Artero are connected with half a century of political and land rights issues on Guam.

Shortly after the U.S. took Guam from Spain in 1898, it set up a naval administration to govern the island. In 1936, Baltazar Bordallo, newly elected president of the Second

Guam Congress, and F. B.

Leon Guerrero, a fellow con gressman, went to Washington, D. C, to seek civilian govern ment for Guam and U.S. citi zenship for Guamanians.

The story goes that when Bordallo and Leon Guerrero met with President Franklin D.

Roosevelt, they talked mostly about fishing. Finally the presi dent, reminded by his staff of other appointments, asked the two Guam congressmen what they wanted. Bordallo said, “We’re here to get citizenship for Guam.” Roosevelt replied, “Well, I hope you get it. ” They did, finally, in 1950, with the passage of the Organic Act of Guam, which gave the island territory self-government and its residents U.S. citizenship.

Antonio Artero was a private, deeply religious man, devoted to his family and content with working his land. It was there on his property in northern Guam that he sheltered and fed George Tweed, a U.S. Navy radioman, during the Japanese occupation. Tweed, hidden and cared for by many Guamanians some of whom were killed by the Japanese for refusing to reveal his whereabouts eluded the Japanese for more than two years. His last haven was on the Artero land, from where he was rescued by a U.S. military vessel in 1944.

Artero received the Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian award, for supplying information about the occupa tion forces and for sheltering Tweed at the risk of death to himself and his family.

Following World War II the Artero land, where Tweed had found security, was deemed necessary to U.S. military security. An air force base and a naval communication station now almost completely sur round the Artero family’s re maining property, entry to which is by permission of the military.

Unable to develop their beach property because of ac cess restrictions, the Arteros hosted a widely publicised and well-attended picnic on their land earlier this year to call

attention to their plight. A fam ily member travelled to Washington, D.C., where he presented the Arteros’ story to officials and displayed the Me dal of Freedom, saying in effect that while Antonio Artero was proud of the medal, he would rather have the use of his land for his children and grandchil dren in recognition of his services to America.

The legacy of Baltazar Bor dallo and Antonio Artero con tinues in two areas of vital importance to the people of Guam. Bordallo laid the groundwork for political rights for Guamanians, a movement that is still in process as Guam works towards a possible com monwealth relationship with U.S. His son Ricardo Jerome Bordallo, governor of Guam, serves as chairman of the com mission on self-determination which is drafting the document for this proposed political status.

Artero can perhaps be re garded as symbolic of Guama nians who lost their land to U.S. military requirements. The rec ognition he gained as a reci pient of the Medal of Freedom who was denied the right to develop his property focuses attention on the efforts of other former landowners. This com plex land claims issue is now moving towards a climax as Guamanians seek fair monetary compensation in court for their property.

Neither Baltazar Bordallo nor Antonio Artero could have known of the ramifications of what they did back in the 1930 s and 19405. They just did what they knew was right. Phyllis Koontz on Guam.

Brother Leonard Baillie In Townsville, Australia, on Good Friday, April 20, aged 64.

Br. Baillie taught in Christian Brothers schools in Papua New Guinea for 20 years.

He arrived in 1962 and started teaching at Vuvu, East New Britain, Mongop, New Ire land, and Tari in the Southern Highlands Province.

He became the director of the St Michael’s Formation centre in Vuvu in 1969.