aim ‘misguided’

Letters

Collector’s

THE present Pacific news magazines do not seem to satisfactorily cover aspects of cultural and historic preser vation. In fact, we see much too little of it. Thus any coverage of such topics catches my eye, and with keen interest I have read the article on Stan Gajda and the collec tion of World War II artefacts he has been able to collect (PIM Nov. 91).

Reading the article and the captions (“Saved”) my inter est quickly turned into disbe lief and finally' into horror.

As laudable as Stan Gajda’s motives are, the methods de scribed in the article are not.

Any artefact, from small as in the case of ammunition, to large, as in the case of the 20-inch naval of Betio or the large AA gun in Mr Gajda’s y'ard, form an archaeological artefact and arc an integral part of a site. They are only important as long as they' are in place and in the setting in which they belong, as long as they can be interpreted and understood as part of a larger entity.

Once removed from that set ting they are reduced to the pure artefactual aspect they are y'et one more gun, one more of many Japanese shells scattered around the

world in numerous collec tions. Thus, the restoration of the Betio guns in place is very much a laudable and com mendable act, and an act of which several other Pacific governments with World War II sites in their countries should take note. That the TCSP has agreed to fund it is an indication of the tourism, and hence economic, poten tial of such sites.

Yet, it is an abominable

disgrace that Gadja goes

along with a metal detector and removes a great number of war relics from their orig inal location, taking only “the best preserved and most un usual example home”. Al though the individual artefact may be restored, i.e. de-rusted and the decay temporarily halted, this in fact is not “saving”, but plain though doubtlessly' well intentioned vandalism, as it takes out some of the artefacts without recording their location re lationship to the other artefacts. This in fact deprives us of a great deal of know ledge which we otherwise might have learned. Where does this collection stop? May be it is just luck that the 20-inch guns are too heavy to be easily moved from the sites?

The Republic of the Marshall Islands boasts a great number of World War II sites, such as Japanese airbases replete with

runways, aircraft, gun em

placements, barracks,

manshelters and entire sup port structures complete with vehicles and the like.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands philosophy, however, is to preserve as much as possible in place and to ensure that, before anything will be removed to a museum on that island where the material came from, all has been recorded in detail. The RMI does not entertain the idea that material should leave the island it came from, let alone the Republic. What will hap pen to Mr Gajda’s collection when his contract expires?

Work of the likes of Stan Gadja is basically laudable in its intent, but misguided in its actions. There is a strong need for the Kiribati government to establish a museum with a legal mandate to follow and with qualified and enthusi astic staff to execute the projects.

Culture and history, be it World War 11, be it tra ditional culture or even prehistory, has an appeal to the public, both local and international. But this re source is very limited and most of all unrenewable.

Once it’s gone, it’s gone for good. Hence its utilisation needs to be well controlled and managed.

Dr Dirk Spenneman

Chief Archaeologist

Republic of the Marshall Islands Historic Preservation Offici

Help for smaller

entrepreneurs

THANK you for your article on the South Pacific Projecl Facility by lan Williams, “Aid to reduce dependence on aid”, PIM, Novembei 1991. International Finance

Corporation (IFC), the pri

vate sector affiliate of The World Bank, initiated the establishment of the South Pacific Project Facility (SPPF) in August 1990 fol lowing the successful oper ation of similar facilities in the Caribbean and Africa. SPPF was set up to serve the seven Pacific Island members ol IFC (Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Western Samoa). SPPF’s office in Sydney opened in August 1991. SPPF’s budget for the initial five-year period is about US$7 million, ol which IFC will contribute US$l million. Other donors are Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand. IFCJ is the executing agency. As with the Caribbean and African facili ties, steps are under way to make SPPF a UNFP project to extend its reach to other South Pacific island countries which are not members of

Ifc.

Raymond Chid

South Pacific Project Facility Sydney