Pacific Islands Monthly

Vol. 50, No. 8 ( Aug. 1, 1979)
1979-08-01 · uncorrected OCR from NLA scans

Pacific Islands

Monthly Pim

AUGUST 1979 DUZA - , -■*...

CUSON PDA GUINEA American Samoa USsl.2s Australia.:....'. Asl.oo* Fiji ;.. FSt.OO Hawaii . US$l.5O Nauru 5A1.50 New Caledonia....; CFPI4O New Hebrides ASI.OO NZ, Cook Is. & Niue NZSI.OO Norfolk Island Asl.oo Papua New Guinea.....*. KI.OO 5010m0n5..... Ssl.oo Tahiti CFPISO Tonga PI.OO USTT & Guam USsl.2s Western<£amoa TI.OO ‘Recommended retail price only.

Registered (or posting as publication Category BT

How to find a REAL economy car* When you look at a car billed as an economy model, ask yourself a few questions.

What sort of fuel consumption can be expected?

Low? Good.

What about other operating costs? Oil, lubrication, that kind of thing. Low again? Great.

How about maintenance? The car has a low-breakdown record? You are definitely on the right track.

What is the average life of the car? Is it better than the average in your area? Super. That’s important in an economy car.

Mow. How is the after service? Buying a car is not all in the price you know. Plenty of service outlets?

One economy car coming up. All you have to do is check the price. Then you can tell if you are really getting an economy car.

You will probably find, after asking these questions about town, that REAL economy cars come down to Toyota, the world’s economy car builder.

See Toyota first. Then you won’t have to shop around.

Ihe Happy Economizer

Toyota Starlet

The car that says economy in every way And you will be happy for it. Big inside.

Small outside. Miserly with petrol.

Without sacrificing comfort. A good buy in an economy car even for Toyota. k PAPUA NEW GUINEA: ELA MOTORS, Scratchley Rd., Badili, P.O. Box 675, Port Moresby.

U.S. TRUST

Territory: Microl

CORPORATION, P.O. Box 267, Saipan.

FIJI ISLANDS: AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLIES CO., LTD., G.P.O. Box 355, Suva.

AMERICAN SAMOA:

Burns Philp

(SOUTHSEA) CO., LTD., P.O. 1057, Pago Pago.

WESTERN SAMOA:

Burns Philp

(SOUTHSEA) CO., LTD., P.O. Box 188, Apia.

Tonga: Burns Philp

(SOUTHSEA) CO., LTD., P.O. Box 55, Nukualofa.

Guam: Atkins, Kroll

(GUAM) LTD., P.O. Box TOYOTA SERVICE 6248, Tamuning.

NEW HEBRIDES:

New Hebrides

MOTORS, P.O. Box 18, Vila.

TOYOTA SOLOMON ISLANDS: MENDANA ENTERPRISES (5.1.) LTD., P.O. Box 174, Honiara.

Tahiti: Nippon

AUTOMOTO, B.P. 342, Papeete.

COOK ISLANDS:

Cook Islands

TRADING CORPORATION LTD., P.O. Box 92, Rarotonga.

NAURU ISLAND:

Nauru Cooperative

SOCIETY.

GILBERT ISLANDS: TARAWA MOTORS, Box 36, Bairiki Tarawa.

NORFOLK ISLAND;

Mount Pitt

(ENTERPRISES) LTD., P.O. Box 169 NEW CALEDONIA:

Societe Importation

Automobile De

PACIFIQUE, Rond-Point du Pacific (Station Total) B.P. 438, Noumea.

The Toyota range includes: Toyota 1000, Toyota Starlet, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Celica, Toyota Corona, Toyota Cressida, Toyota Crown

SUBSCRIPTIONS PIM is airfreighted to most subscribers and agents in the Pacific Islands and the United States.

Aust.

Other American Samoa $13 $US16 Australia $12 Canada $14 $US18 Cook Islands $13 Fiji $12 $F12 French Polynesia $14 CFP 1700 Guam $13 $US16 Gilbert Islands $13 Hawaii $13 $US16 Japan $16 Y4500 Micronesia $13 $US16 Nauru $18 New Caledonia $14 CFP 1700 New Hebrides $13 New Zealand $12 $NZ13.50 Niue $13 Norfolk Island $12 Northern Marianas $13 $US16 Papua New Guinea $13 K12 Solomon Islands $13 Tonga $13 Tuvalu $13 United Kingdom $15 £10 US Mainland $14 $US18 Western Samoa $13 Elsewhere: $A16 Cover: Sir Jacob Vouza of Solomon Islands the knighthood may have come but he’ll still be remembered as Sergeant-Major. (See Pacific Report.) Photo: Bruce Adams PIM

Pacific Islands Monthly

Vol. 50 No. 8 Ahughĥst 1979 (USPS 952480) Payment by personal cheque is accepted in Australian, US, New Zealand, UK and Fiji currency. For other remittances please obtain a bank draft in Australian dollars made payable to the ANZ Banking Group, 88 Wentworth Avenue, Sydney, Australia.

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FIJI: Distribution and subscriptions Desai Bookshops, PO Box 160, Suva, Fiji, telephone Suva 23036 Advertising - Fiji Times & Herald Ltd, 20 Gordon St, Suva, telephone 312 111, telex FJ2124.

FRENCH POLYNESIA: Distribution - Hachette Pacifique, 10 Ave Bruat, Papeete, telephone 25610.

HAWAII, UNITED STATES: Distribution PIM, Hawaii PO Box 22250, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.

JAPAN: Advertising and subscriptions Universal Media Corporation, CPO Box 46, Tokyo, telephone 666 3036.

NEW CALEDONIA: Distribution Depot Centre de Presse Michel Pentecost, CBP2, Noumea, telephone 27 2434, 27 4729.

NEW ZEALAND: Distribution - Gordon &-Gotch, PO Box 584, 2 Carr Road, Mt. Roskill, Auckland 4. Advertising - International Media Representatives Ltd, PO Box 2313 Auckland, telephone 795 487; 493 389, cables Intereps, Auckland. Subscriptions - Ross Haines & Son Ltd PO Box 1289, Auckland, telephone 769 042 PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Distribution - Robert Brown & Assoc., PO Box 3395, Port Moresby, telephone 25855.

Advertising - PNG Post-Courier, PO Box 85 Port Moresby, telephone 21 2577.

UNITED KINGDOM: The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, 8-10 Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4A IBU, telephone 01 831 6041, telex London 21989.

UNITED STATES MAINLAND: Advertising Joshua B Powers Jr, Powers International Inc., 551 Fifth Ave, New York, New York 100017, telephone 867 9580, telex 236514 Subscriptions - PIM, Hawaii, 2812 Kahawai St Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, Published monthly by Pacific Publications (Aust.) Pty Ltd and printed in Australia by Paramac, Alexandria, NSW, Australian cover price is recommended retail only. Registered at the GPO Sydney for transmission by post as a publication category B. Second class postage paid at Honolulu, Hawaii. Copyright § 1978 Pacific Publications (Aust.) Pty Ltd.

Postmaster Honolulu: Send address changes to PIM Hawaii, PO Box 22250 Honolulu, Hawaii 96822.

This Month

• Bikini-Enewetak The tragic sequence of events since 1947 in these H-bomb-test-devastated Micronesian islands is traced by American freelance writer Gifford Johnson 11 • The Region This month’s Sixth South Pacific Games in Suva previewed 18 • New Hebrides Vital new progress in sorting out the country’s political problems as it moves to independence 31 • USA in the Pacific President Carter’s personal representative to the future status talks with Micronesia speaks in Hawaii of a ‘new constellation of relations in the Pacific’ 33 • Papua New Guinea A 15-page review by PlM’s Port Moresby correspondent Angus Smales of the state of the nation as it prepares for the fourth anniversary of its independence 41 •Fiji Sir Vijay Singh, attorney-general and one of his country’s most prominent politicians, seems to be fighting for his political life 31 • Western Samoa - Head of State Malietola Tanumafili II had some reassuring words for his countrymen when he spoke at the celebrations for the 17th anniversary of independence 31 • Oil Fiji’s oil search is about to get under way in earnest 39 • Cook Islands Big hopes are pinned on plans to ‘reshape’ the Cooks’ agricultural production 91 INDEX Afterthoughts 40 Books 77,78,80 Cook Islands 91 Deaths 99 FIJI 31,85,89,93 Guam 36 Hawaii 80 Islands Press 83 Letters 5 Micronesia 11,33 New Caledonia 38 New Hebrides 31,36 Norfolk Island 77 Pacific Report.. 7 Papua New Guinea 25,26,40,41-69 People 21 Political Currents 31 Rotuma 80 Shipping 100 South Pacific Games 18 Tahiti 38, 73 Tonga 29, 71 Tradewlnds 89 Tradewlnds Intelligence 94 Travel 71 Troplcallties 25 Western Samoa 31 Yachts 95 Yesterday 85 Gerard Leymang, New Hebrides chief minister ... straight talking in an interview with Nabanga Head of State of Western Samoa Malietoa Tanumafili ll ... saying a word for fa’a Samoa 3 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 Founded 1930 by R. W. Robson Publisher Stuart Inder Editor Bob Hawkins Editorial Adviser John Carter Manager John Berry Advertising Steve Gray, Peter Bedwell A Pacific Publications production 76 Clarence Street, Sydney 2000 GPO Box 3408 Sydney 2001 Cables: PACPUB Sydney Telex; Pacpub 21242 Telephone: Sydney 29 6693

A-** ' 4» <s* i AN S

Do Business Wl

When the time next comes for you to fly out to do business fly Polynesian Airlines. Polynesian really understands the businessman’s requirements for a quick and efficient service between all Polynesian countries.

In fact, part of the reason we established our first service (Apia Pago Pago) back in 1959 was to meet the business sector’s demand for a fast and frequent service between the Samoas.

Since then Polynesian Airlines has spread its wings. Today our extensive route network covers the whole of Polynesia east of Fiji and now extends down to Auckland, New Zealand. And, as in ‘59 a lot of the people we’re carrying today are professional people. People who know that when it comes to flying anywhere in Polynesia on business there is only one airline. Polynesian Airlines, Fly Polynesian. It’s a pleasure doing business with us.

Offices in: Auckland, Tonga, Niue, Rarotonga.

Box 599 Apia, Western Samoa, Ph 21261

Western Samoa

AMERICAN SAMOA Y NIUE ~

(Tj Polynesian/Airlines

Nandi Airport Nandi Ph 72733 We are Polynesia. 4 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

LETTERS Dictionaries and the scent of gardenias I read with interest Carolus Ketsimur’s excellent and perceptive review of Robert Stuart’s book Nuts to You (an unfortunate title: I think the book deserved a better one). I also read with affection and amusement the reference to my dear late Paul. I thought a few comments might clear up one or two points (though I can hear Paul saying: ‘What does it matter, dear?’).

I quote first from the biographical notes Paul himself was preparing at the time of his death: ‘Bob Stuart and I were about the same age, we may even have been born on the same day. But what a different background! Stuart was a tall dark handsome young man, born in India and sent to school in England when he was nine years old, to a preparatory school, and then on to the English public school of Tunbridge. From there it was intended that he go to Sandhurst, but he did not make the grade, and was sent to Hawkesbury Agricultural College in New South Wales ... ‘Bob proved to be the best assistant I ever had and he took over Inus after I left. We had a hard battle together getting the place cleaned up and in order.’ It is to be remembered that the previous manager had been murdered on the beach front at Inus, and Paul had been asked to come and ‘clean up’ more than literally. The plantation work line was a rabble. Bob was always concerned that Paul walked innocently amongst these tough specimens and not on a horse as he preferred. It is nice that Bob is here to take the bow or perhaps, more rightly, give a bow.

I also read with interest his reference to Paul’s affection for the dictionary. He always wrote with one beside him: he loved the right nuance of a word. Paul had left school at the age of 14 to help support his parents’ large family.

Though I had had the good fortune of a university education I was always humble (as I was in my father’s presence) at Paul’s extraordinary wealth of learning. (I don’t note here his tremendous and inventive mechanical and engineering skills; someone else may be able to write of that and its postwar contribution to Papua New Guinea.) We all loved the dictionary: some of my fondest memories are of us as a family sitting around the Inus breakfast table, the scent of Cape Jasmin gardenias outside (Paul always put the first of the larger gardenias beside my breakfast plate) and, in turn, choosing words while the others guessed at the origin and derivation of the word.

As I wrote to Bob thanking him for his suitably inscribed copy of the book: ‘lt is a simple story of achievement well told.

Paul I think might have told some of the stories a little differently. But then he was on a plane above us poor ordinary mortals.’

Noelle Mason

Kundiawa PNG A choice cut on Solomons’ beef I refer to ‘Pitfalls in a promising Solomons scene’ (PIM Tradewinds May). Your Honiara correspondent was quite wrong in stating that ‘while Solomon Islands looks like becoming a sizable rice exporter, it is not likely to become a major beef exporter as was envisaged until recently’. It has never been the intention that Solomon Islands becomes a major beef exporter for although it was envisaged that in the early 1980 s the necessity may arise to seek markets in adjacent countries for superior cuts surplus to demand here, the primary intention is to become self-sufficient in beef.

This point was recognised by the author later on in the article but it hardly reconciles with previous observations.

I am especially dismayed by the statement which claims that ‘the government has failed to provide adequate transport, stockholding and marketing facilities’. This again is quite wrong in every respect for these functions fall to the Cattle Development Authority which has done an excellent job in fostering the cattle smallholder and developing a reliable and regular marketing system. The authority is funded by overseas aid donors and I am very disturbed indeed by the thought that they will read these damaging and totally inaccurate statements in your magazine.

WAETA BEN Minister of Agriculture and Lands Honiara Solomon Islands Questions about French nuclear tests What a pleasant surprise to read in the May issue of PIM the Moruroa newsletter by the French charge d’affaires in Fiji, Bernard Malandain, heralding a complete reversal of the long-standing French information policy in the nuclear weapons field.

As a matter of fact, for 13 years ever since nuclear testing began at Moruroa all French cabinet ministers, governors, admirals, generals, ambassadors and other diplomats have stubbornly refused to furnish any information whatsoever about the health hazards resulting from 41 explosions of A and H bombs in the atmosphere and about 20 underwater blasts.

To ensure complete secrecy, the French Government has even forbidden the French National Radiation Laboratory to send observers to the islands and entrusted the radiation control to the very people who explode the bombs the French army. Not very surprisingly, the admirals and generals have never publicly critised their own undertakings.

Only once in the past has a high-ranking French official deigned to depart from this strictly enforced hush-up policy. This was in 1973, when the then deputy for French Polynesia, Francis Sanford, sent in the following question to Minister for Health Michel Poniatowski: ‘Mr Sanford asks the minister for public health and social security (1) if he is able to indicate the exact number of deaths due to cancer that have occurred in French Polynesia during the last 10 years, and (2) if he can undertake an evaluation of the amount of radioactive contamination existing in the following three French Polynesian islands: Hao, Tureia and Mangareva.

To everybody’s surprise, Mr Poniatowski on this occasion took time off to answer although not in a very satisfactory manner. This is the complete reply, dated September 15, 1973: ‘The minister for public health and social security informs the honourable member of parliament that he has no direct responsibility for the territory of Polynesia. He is nevertheless able to state (i) that the frequency of cancer and leukemia has remained unchanged in Polynesia during the last 10 years, and (ii) that the radioactivity in the islands of Polynesia, taken as a whole, has stayed within the limits of the fluctuations of the natural radioactivity.’

Since then, however, all French officials, both civilian and military, have maintained the traditional stony silence.

That is until Mr Malandain showed by his letter to PIM that he knows perfectly well what is going on at Moruroa, and that he is ready to publish the facts.

Incidentally, it is very sad to hear that some ‘residents’ at Moruroa have been hit by a viral hepatitis, probably caused by seafood poisoning that had nothing to do with the radioactivity produced by the tests, and I sincerely hope that they will soon be back again at their peaceful tasks.

But what about us other 150 000 inhabitants of French Polynesia who seriously fear that the long-lived radioactive fallout from all these bombs may have affected our health and that of our children? All we have heard so far are flat denials that French bombs are harmful. Which is exactly what 5 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

the American officials said in Micronesia until the Bikinians, all severely contaminated, had to be evacuated in a great hurry last year. It is therefore a great relief to discover at long last there is at least one French official willing to tear asunder the veil of secrecy surrounding the French tests.

So I trust that Mr Malandain will answer the following simple questions that countless anguished men and women here in the islands have hitherto asked in vain: • When was the last health survey made in French Polynesia to ascertain the radioactive body contents of the inhabitants, and what were the results? • It is a well-known fact that certain marine and land animals absorb unusually high quantities of radioactivity, and among these are the following, commonly eaten especially in the Tuamotu islands: turbo shells, tridacna clams, squid, sea turtles and coconut crabs?

What are the doses measured in the samples studied, group by group and year by year? • What studies have been made of the amount of rain water, collected and preserved over long periods in concrete cisterns and regularly consumed by the inhabitants of the Tuamotu Islands, because there is no other drinking water? • What is the annual incidence of cancer and leukemia in French Polynesia since 1966? (The only paper published so far is a short list of cases discovered by chance, solely because the patient came to the Papeete hospital and asked to be examined.) • On certain islands, like Mangareva and Pukarua, the population has on several occasions been locked up in huge atomic shelters. On others, like Tureia, all inhabitants were evacuated for several months in 1968.

According to official statements, in between the blasts, these islands were decontaminated. How was this difficult task that the Americans never mastered in Micronesia accomplished, and what is the present environmental radioactivity? • Where can I find a copy of the geological survey of Moruroa, allegedly showing that it will take 1500 years for the radioactivity, produced by each explosion, to leak out into the ocean?

As a French citizen, ashamed of these deceitful and disgraceful tactics, used in the past by my government, I sincerely hope that this is the starting point for a steady flow of useful information from Mr Malandain’s office in answer to the great number of similar questions that have accumulated over the years.

Marie-Therese Danielsson

Co-author of Moruroa, Mon Amour Papehue Paea Tahiti Chatterton and ‘My Reluctant Missionary’

Undoubtedly Dr Chatterton considers his review of John Kolia’s My Reluctant Missionary (PIM June), to be lively and tolerant, coming, as he does, from the establishment side of missionary circles. But it is a pity that he could not perceive the wit and sympathy with which Kolia handles both his character Judy and the contexts she finds herself uncomfortably placed in.

For a start, Dr Chatterton ignores two-thirds of the novel’s title the ‘My’ and the ‘Reluctant’. To be unaware of the disguised autobiographical elements in the novel is forgivable, but to judge Judy as a missionary of the ordinary sort is inappropriate to the book’s intentions.

She, like many who make wrong choices, finds that her best intentions for others lead to the worst situation for herself. Judy’s saving grace, her honesty with respect to her own passions, is the cause and cure for her dissatisfaction with the missionary life. Dr Chatterton likes the ‘evangelical ring’ of the chapter title ‘Saved’, but he cannot concede that saving oneself from a life of dishonesty and hypocrisy is as good a personal solution as undergoing an orthodox conversion.

Paralleling his inability to comprehend the vacillations of the half-devoted Christian, Reverend Chatterton’s amazement at Judy’s flaunting of ‘the nursing profession’s code of conduct’ stems from his apparent faith in people’s ability to wholly commit themselves to an elected cause. A nubile nurse’s manner has been known to go further than the bedside more than once before.

As for his assertion that Kolia’s novel peters out with a whimper, Dr Chatterton here shows a surprising lack of sympathy for distraught humanity.

The story’s close is a most painful affair. Judy’s achievement of devotion to a house full of mixed-race orphans provides her with not a sense of triumph but of suffering martyrdom.

Neither the Christian nor the hedonist in Judy is ultimately satisfied. She remains doomed to a surburban limbo.

Thus puzzled by the novel itself, it is not surprising that Dr Chatterton found its Coda (the ‘Memo on Missionaires’) ‘negtive and defeatist’. Here, unfortunately, Dr Chatterton’s sense of humour has let him down.

It is no good being upset by a satirist’s barbs, for that is exactly what the satirist wishes to achieve. Kolia’s wry look at the Old and New Testaments, supposedly from an unconverted Papuan point of view, was meant to embarrass the foreign faith. Apparently it has.

Dr Chatterton ends by attacking Kolia’s English and the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies’ publishing policy. I agree that Kolia would benefit from a tough editor, and I am sure Kolia would agree too, but there is a homegrown rawness and honesty about his books which reflects exactly the way things are done in many areas of endeavour in Papua New Guinea today.

Hopefully, the interest of professional editors will return to Papua New Guinea soon.

Meanwhile, a perusal of other publications from the Institute will show Dr Chatterton that Kolia’s novel is consistent with past publishing policy, an aspect of which is the airing of topics relevant to the contemporary scene. I don’t believe any blame lies with the Institute for refusing to concentrate on the past, and refusing to bury its findings in mouldy archives. Creating discussion on topical issues through publication in various styles and media has allowed the Institute to produce, as part of one of its roles, a vitalising effect on the intellectual life of the Papua New Guinean community.

Nigel Krauth

Brisbane Australia Lieutenant Bell, coastwatcher I am seeking information concerning events during the World War II period in the Southwest Pacific.

During the war I was a cot respondent and for a time wa. in Emirau, in the St Mathias group, where there was a PT boat base. I occasionally went down on a PT boat to cover the raids on New Ireland. On one such raid we were to pick up a Lieutenant Bell, formerly of a family of planters on New Ireland.

The US PT boat skippers seemed to keep in touch with Bell, who was on the island, hidden by the locals, picking him up, then dropping him off later, after he had delivered intelligence information.

On one trip, we were supposed to pick him up for delivery of intelligence reports, but he failed to show.

The June 1946 issue of PIM reported that the Australian Department of External Territories was making investigations into the fate of 68 civilians missing in New Britain and other islands. Among the names of the missing was J. W. Bell, planter, Penipol Plantation, Kavieng. Much later, in the October 1971 issue of your magazine, there was a reference to ‘coastwatcher Stan Bell, brother of Lincoln Bell’, telling of wartime occupation intelligence activities by Australians in New Ireland.

I wonder if any readers can help me to find out more about the Lieutenant Bell whom we dropped off and picked up by PT boat off New Ireland so many years ago?

Wilmon Menard

PO Box M Honolulu Hawaii 6 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 LETTERS

Pacific Report

Welcome To Independent Kiribati!

Armed with a pledge of ample but tied aid from Britain, Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati) began their independent career on July 12 in front of a capacity crowd of 7000 people in the sports stadium on Tarawa. Princess Anne, representing Her Majesty the Queen, handed the instruments giving Kiribati its freedom to Chief Minister leremia Tabai, and less than two hours later had flown out of the country. Kiribati is one of only two republics in full association with the commonwealth. Its chief minister becomes its first president. (Full report in PIM September by John Carter, who was in Tarawa for the occasion.)

France, Usa In Forum Sights

French secretary of state for foreign affairs, Olivier Stirn, did his work well during his July Pacific whistle-stop tour, particularly so in Wellington where he seemed to have put the fear of death into Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. But, for all the French outrage at the thought of any other nation interfering in French affairs in the Pacific, the South Pacific Forum, at its meeting in the same month in the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara, decided it would interfere: not as boldly as Papua New Guinea advocated, not as mildly as Mr Muldoon would have liked. The final resolution, noting the desire of Pacific Island peoples, including those in French territories, to determine their own future and calling on ‘the metropolitan powers concerned to work with the peoples of their Pacific territories to this end’, did not live up to the hopes of the four Melanesian New Caledonian Independence Front representatives who went to Honiara to put their case to Forum delegates. But they took hope from indications that individual Forum nations might make representations to the UN Committee of 24 (on decolonisation) to get New Caledonia and French Polynesia back on the committee’s list of ‘non-autonomous territories’. The ‘French territories’ question occupied more than half of the Forum’s business time this year a one-day-only sitting. Another international issue was aired when the Cook Islands sponsored a motion calling upon the United States to abandon plans to use a Pacific island (Palmyra atoll is the latest candidate to be mentioned) for storage of spent nuclear fuel. The motion, adopted by the Forum meeting, expressed ‘grave concern at the possible environmental hazards’ involved in the plan. The Forum adopted the convention establishing the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) but left the matter of a wider fisheries agency, which could embrace distant water fishing nations in its membership, to be resolved by its administrative arm, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC). Dr Gabriel Gris, secretary of Papua New Guinea’s Department of Decentralisation and a former vice-chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea, is to succeed Tonga’s Mahe Tupouniua who is returning to ministerial duties in Nukualofa after seven years as SPEC’s first director.

New Caledonia Votes

Almost 74% of the 68 289 registered voters turned out for New Caledonia’s July 1 poll to elect a new 36-member territorial assembly. The election was made necessary by the March dissolution of the old by French High Commissioner Claude Charbonniaud. The Gaullist RPCR (Rally for Caledonia and the Republic) and the Centrist FNSC (Federation for a New Society in Caledonia) between them got 32 841 votes (65.5%), and won 22 seats (RPCR 15, FNSC 7). The coalition of pro-independence parties got 17 243 votes (34.4%), and won 14 seats. Largest of the pro-independence parties is the Union Caledonienne, which won nine seats, the same number as it held in the old assembly. Generally speaking, the poll appears to have achieved the results desired by Paris: consilidation of the old profusion of small groups into a few larger formations, and emergence of a stable majority favouring continued association with France.

Unifil Fijians; Woundings, Kidnapping

Two Fijian soldiers were wounded in June when Palestinians attacked a position held by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) south of Tyre. UN headquarters in Jerusalem said one was hit in the arm and the other had leg wounds. But the condition of both was described as ‘satisfactory’. Two Fijian soldiers were killed by Palestinian guerrillas in February (PIM March). In mid-June, in what appeared to be a propaganda exercise by Rightwing Israeli-backed Lebanese forces, a Fijian lance-corporal, Waqa Vakaloloma, 21, was kidnapped and held for several days. He managed to escape. According to Fiji army sources, the Rightists had sought to use him to exploit Fijian feelings about the February killings by Palestinians.

It’S Sunshine Again In New Hebrides

A new and positive turn in New Hebrides affairs: at a June meeting in Noumea, French and British representatives agreed with Chief Minister Gerard Leymang and Deputy Chief Minister Walter Lini that the condominium powers would drop their earlier controversial requirement that there must be a referendum on the constitution and independence before elections. They accepted an alternative three-stage plan proposed by the New Hebridean leaders. At the same time, it was agreed that the New Hebridean constitutional committee, whose work has been stalled by internal wrangles, would get back to the job. (Political Currents.) ‘ARISE, SIR JACOB...’

Sergeant-Major Sir Jacob Vouza, Solomon Islands’ legendary hero of World War 11, received a knighthood in the 1979 Queen’s birthday honours. Sir Jacob, a former police sergeant-major now in his seventies, served with the Solomon Islands Defence Force and the US Marines during the battle of Guadalcanal. By refusing under torture to give information to the enemy he saved the lives of many allied soldiers. Britain decorated him with the George Medal and the US with the Silver Star. He was made a Member of the British Empire (MBE) in 1957 for his postwar community service activities. Sir Jacob has also been active in keeping alive the friendship with American war veterans, especially on their pilgrimages to the old battlefields.

Banabans Reject London Ruling

Leaders of the Banaban community have rejected the June decision of the British Government not to allow their Ocean Island homeland to be separated from the new nation of Kiribati.

Spokesman Tebaiti Tawaka said Britain had once again cheated the Banabans out of their birthright. ‘Britain and her partners ripped the Banabans off for years. Now the British Government has committed the final betrayal . . . We cannot give up the struggle now.’

Finbar Kenny For Rarotonga

American millionaire Finbar Kenny will appear voluntarily to face conspiracy charges in the Cook Islands (PIM June). The Cook Islands Government had earlier started extradition proceedings in the USA against Mr Kenny. Along with former Premier Sir Albert Henry and other defendants, he faces charges connected with the flying-in of voters from New Zealand in the Cook Islands’ elections in March 1978. Mr Kenny is the financial power behind the Cook Islands Philatelic Bureau. Meanwhile, a group in Melbourne, Australia, known as ‘The Friends from Rarotonga Association’, has been raising money to help pay Sir Albert’s legal costs in the case. The group is appealing for money from families of people who went to Rarotonga for cancer treatment while Mylan Byrch was there. It claims to have raised $3OOO so far. 7

3 Acific Islands Monthly - August Iq7Q

Radio Australia Beefs Up Its Pidgin

Radio Australia has increased the strength of the transmission used for its Pidgin service from 10 kW to 100 kW.

‘Get The Hell Out Of Islands’ (I)

New Zealand journalist Mike Field, editor of the Apia-based Western Samoa Government newspaper Savali, whose freewheeling journalistic ways have more than once tried the patience of his mentors in the prime minister’s department, has resigned and, for good measure, been ordered to quit the country. The crunch came when, after receiving instructions not to publish a report of a court hearing of bribery charges against a former MR (Political Currents), Field brought out the June 5 issue of Savali with a blank column on the front page and a blank page two (PIM July). The large white spaces were accompanied by a short note from Field saying the report, of which all that appeared was the headline ‘Ex-MP Fined $1550 in Bribery Case;’ was ‘ordered removed by the government only a few hours before it was due to be printed’.

Get The Hell Out Of Islands’ (Ii)

The Papua New Guinea Government has ordered Dr Ralph Premdas, head of the politics department at the University of PNG, and a US citizen hailing originally from Guyana, to leave the country. There were suggestions the reason was his involvement in the recent damaging five-week student strike at the university (PIM July), but this has been denied by Dr Premdas.

He was told to go but last minute recourse to the National Court won him time to make a legal appeal.

Now Neave Runs ‘Soviet Weapons’

The New Caledonian newspaper France Australe carried a fourcolumn front-page banner headline in June ’Soviet Weapons off Noumea Dropped off by the Australian Gun-runner Arrested in the New Hebrides’. On page two, the paper carried practically the same headline, with a report of the opening of the court hearing in vila of charges against Australian David Neave (PIM July). The small print in the court report took much of the steam and sensationalism out of the headlines.

• Liberal-Minded Norfolk Administrator

Peter Coleman, 51, former leader of the NSW state parliamentary opposition, takes over as administrator of the Australian territory of Norfolk Island in September from D. V. O’Leary. Mr Coleman lost his Liberal seat at the NSW state elections last October, and his appointment by the federal Liberal government brought criticism of ‘jobs for the boys’. Nevertheless, most people who know anything about Mr Coleman see his appointment as a good one. He’s a trained lawyer, a former chief secretary of NSW and minister for revenue, author of several books on Australian history (including censorship laws), and genuinely liberal-minded, with wide-ranging interests. His arrival will follow establishment in August of an elected Norfolk Island legislative assembly which will give the Islanders a greater measure of selfgovernment.

Petition To Oust Tupuola

Western Samoa’s opposition party headed by Vaai Kolone in late June handed to the head of state a petition asking him to ask Tupuola Efi to stand down as prime minister and to appoint Vaai in his place. The reasons given were that the country had lost confidence in the present government, who were in any case in a minority, and that the country, in view of its economic crisis, needed a government with a mandate from the people.

Death Link With Arawa

F. R. ‘Kip’ McKillop, the man whose Arawa plantation on Bougainville was forcibly resumed by the Papua New Guinea Administration in 1969 as the site of the town of Arawa that today services the activities of the giant Panguna copper mine, died at Teresopolis, Brazil, on July 2, aged 63. Kip McKillop, who died from a heart attack, built up Arawa plantation during 17 years on Bougainville, and bitterly fought acquisition of the property. Arawa, among other things, was noted for its magnificent collection of orchids and native plants, and McKillop was one of the founders of the New Guinea Biological Foundation. He bought and developed planting property in Brazil, with his wife Mary, following the loss of Arawa. About 50 old PNG friends attended a memorial service to him in Sydney on July 11.

Tonga’S ‘Sea’ Of Pumice

A ‘sea’ of pumice covering almost 200 km by 10 km of ocean north of Tonga s main island of Tongatapu was baffling geologists in June. Among a number of clues as to its origin, Ron Richmond, Fiji’s director of mineral development, told the Fiji Times that on May 10 an orbiting satellite had detected steam coming from Tonga’s Fonualei volcano.

Getting Closer To Karkar

The Papua New Guinea Government will spend Kl2B 000 to make volcanic Karkar Island, north of Madang, more accessible to emergency services. Among measures planned are upgrading of airstrip and wharf facilities to take bigger planes and ships, installing radio and communications equipment and placing a television monitor near the volcano mouth. The volcano’s activity increased late last year, but has been reported stable since the deaths of two volcanologists in an explosion in March (PIM May).

A New Franco-Tongan Pact?

In his June speech from the throne opening the session of Tonga’s legislative assembly, King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV spoke of planned celebrations of the 125th anniversary of Tonga’s treaty with the French Government, and foreshadowed possible renewal of the treaty in January 1980.

Oscar Temaru Touches Sore Spot

Oscar Temaru, outspoken leader of the pro-independence Front de la Liberation de la Polynesia has raised a matter generally regarded as tabu by pointing at a press conference to the problem posed in French Polynesia by the economically powerful Chinese community. Affirming ‘We are not racists, we are patriots’, Mr Temaru spoke of ‘the non-integration into French Polynesia of an ethnic group of Asiatic origin who still refer to China as their mother country’.

They’Ll Fly Noumea-Norfolk-Nz

The Aero Club of New Caledonia has organised a New Caledonia—Norfolk Island—New Zealand aerial rally for November-December. A dozen Caledonian and one Australian aircraft had already entered by early June. Decision to stage the rally was based on the success of the 1978 Coral Sea rally organised by the club.

Six Months Ban On Moving War Relics

Effective from July 1, the Papua New Guinea Government declared a six-months moratorium on the removal of human remains and other relics of World War 11. The moratorium will allow the government to devise a new policy covering the collection and export of relics, particularly weapons, aircraft and utensils, some of which, it is believed, have been taken out illegally.

Timing of the moratorium allowed the Japanese mission which had been diving for remains of Japanese war dead (PIM July) just enough time to finish its work.

Giant Man-Eating Croc Caught In Png

A government wildlife and fisheries team has caught and killed a five-metre man-eating crocodile near Madang in Papua New Guinea. The remains of a man, taken six days earlier while his children watched, were cut from the stomach of the crocodile.

The victim was 34-year-old Gabriel Solop, a plantation inspector, who was seized by the leg and dragged into a river while checking fishing lines. 8 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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MICRONESIA

Bikini Enewetak

On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the first of two atomic bombs that would kill over 200 000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Within months the United States began searching for sites far from American population centres for further development and testing of nuclear weapons. The Defense Department looked to Micronesia in the western Pacific, whose 2000 remote islands have only onehalf the land area of the state of Rhode Island.

Easternmost in Micronesia lie the Marshall Islands, about 3500 km southwest of Hawaii.

Up to the 1940 s the Marshall [slanders, like most other Micronesians, were selfsufficient, living off the ocean md land. Though covering a >reat expanse of ocean, the Marshalls’ 28 multi-islet atolls md five single islands com- 3rise only about 180 square km. The atolls are rings }f 15 to as many as 97 islets xmnected by a coral reef that mcircles a clear blue lagoon.

Dut of necessity, the Marshallese are traditionally expert fishermen, deriving nost of their protein from the ich lagoons, while the land )rovides coconuts, breadfruit, )andanus and taro.

The most isolated and least vestemised of the Marshallese ived on the northern atolls of Bikini and Enewetak. Having ittle contact with foreigners not even with the Japanese luring their 25-year occu- >ation), they relied on the outide world for almost nothing, ronically, this very isolation hrust the Bikini and Enewetak )eople into the nuclear age.

In January 1946, Navy )fficials in Washington, DC, mnounced that Bikini Atoll itted all requirements for Opration Crossroads , designed to est the destructive power of mclear weapons on naval vessels. When the US military governor of the Marshalls went o Bikini in February, he told he people that American ■dentists were experimenting vith nuclear weapons ‘for the In July 1947 the United States of America gave its word to the United Nations, when it signed the UN Trusteeship Agreement for the US Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia) to *. . .protect the inhabitants against the loss of their land and resources’. The Micronesians of Bikini and Enewetak Atolls have good reason to doubt the United States’ sincerity as they survey the devastation of their homelands for the good of mankind and to end all world wars’. Gifford Johnson, a freelance writer, traces the tragic sequence of events since 1947 in this article which first appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientests. PIM reprints it in the hope of widening public discussion on a problem which shows no sign of going away. It is not a question of digging up an old story. The future for the Bikinians and the Enewetakese is as bleak now as it was, without their knowing, in the middle forties. good of mankind and to end all world wars’. He promised that their atoll would be returned after the tests were finished, and asked that they consent to being moved to another island.

With more than 42 000 military, scientific and technical personnel, 250 naval ships and more than 150 observation aircraft poised to enter Bikini Atoll for Operation Crossroads, the 166 Bikinians had little choice but to leave their island.

Less than two years later, in December 1947, the Navy decided to use another atoll, Enewetak, for a second series of atomic tests. The Enewetakese, like the Bikinians, were relocated by the United States quickly and with little planning to small, uninhabited atolls.

Even while the United States was removing the Marshallese from their islands, in July 1947 it was signing the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement for the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia). This agreement stated: 7« discharging its obligations, the administering authority (US) shall: promote the economic advancement and selfsufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end shall ... encourage the development of fisheries, agriculture and industries; and protect the inhabitants against the loss of their land and resources. ’

In addition, this agreement bound the United States to ‘promote the social advancement of the inhabitants, and to this end .. . protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of all elements of the population without discrimination; and protect the health of the inhabitants. . .

After the relocation of the Marshallese, however, what happened during the next 12 years was that about 70 atomic and hydrogen bomb blasts devastated the islands and irreversibly changed the lives of the people.

The Bikinians first moved about 160 km east to Rongerik, an uninhabited atoll consisting of barely 1.25 square km of land. Within two months, they expressed anxiety over the atoll’s meagre resources and made the first of many requests to return home. Within a year, the people faced starvation; a visiting American medical officer reported that the Bikinians were ‘visibly suffering from malnutrition’. In 1948 the Bikinians were evacuated to a temporary tent city at the Navy base on Kwajalein.

Kili Island in the southern Marshalls was selected for their next home. Kili, a single island, has no lagoon or protected anchorage; heavy surf from November until late spring halts fishing and isolates the island. On the other hand, Kili had once supported a Japanese copra plantation, and US authorities hoped that, while the Bikinians were not a farming people, the island’s agricultural possibilities would overcome its drawbacks. Thus, the Bikinians were forced to adapt to a completely alien environment.

In early December 1947, Washington officials announced without preliminaries, that Enewetak was to be used for the next series of bomb tests. In less than three weeks, the people of Enewetak were relocated to Ujelang, the westernmost atoll in the Marshalls. Like Rongerik and Kili it was also uninhabited, and for good reason. Ujelang has only a quarter of the land area of Enewetak and its 65 Bikini family waits for evacuation ... ahead on Kili, a completely different environment. Photo: Mike Malone 11 ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

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square km lagoon is less than 1/15 the size of Enewetak’s 1000 square km fish-filled lagoon.

Because the islands could not support the growing Marshallese populations, critical shortages of food and water occurred. More than once air drops of emergency food rations were needed to prevent starvation.

In 1952, the first hydrogen device was tested at Enewetak.

The blast, estimated at 10.4 megatons, completely vaporised one island in the atoll and left a crater 1.6 km in diameter and 50 m deep in the coral reef.

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated Bravo, the first test of a deliverable hydrogen bomb, at Bikini Atoll attd severely contaminated fishermen aboard the Lucky Dragon, a Japanese fishing vessel that had strayed into nearby waters. More than 200 Marshallese on the neighbouring atolls of Rongelap and Utirik, and some 28 Americans monitoring the explosion were also contaminated.

The US Atomic Energy Commission called Bravo a ‘routine atomic test.’ But it was far from routine.

Despite an incomplete and alarming weather report indicating that winds from sea level to 17 000 m were blowing in an easterly direction toward Rongelap and Utirik, the test proceeded.

The Lucky Dragon, illegally fishing near Bikini, was the first hit by the radioactive fallout. Returning to Japan quickly, unaware that they had been exposed to nuclear fallout, the 22 fishermen began to feel the effects of acute radiation exposure: itching of the skin, nausea and vomiting.

Within two years the Japanese government received SUS 2 million in compensation for the fishermen’s suffering.

In the AEC’s Nevada Nuclear Proving Grounds in the United States, prior to an atomic test series, a public information programme, including films and discussions on the forthcoming tests, was implemented. No such programme had been conducted in the Marshalls, although the United States did inform the chief of Rongelap that a hydrogen test would soon occur.

What the chief was told about the test and what his reactions were is not clear; that he knew nothing of the radiation disaster soon to befall his people is certain. Indeed, the Marshallese on Rongelap and Utirik were not even warned of precautionary measures they might take in the event of radiation exposure.

Instead, the Marshallese were astonished observers of the snowlike fallout that covered them and their islands.

On Rongelap the white ash soon formed a layer 3.75 cm thick on the ground and fell into the drinking water tanks.

Children played in the radioactive powder and an old man with vision problems rubbed the ash into his eyes to see if this might somehow cure his ailment.

The 28 Rad Safe (radiation monitoring) personnel on Rongerik Atoll intensified their observations following news of the nuclear cloud’s erratic behaviour. About seven hours after Bravo’s detonation, radiation levels on Rongerik exceeded their monitoring instrument’s maximum scale of 100 millirads per hour.

Instructed to take strict radiation precautions, the Rad Safe team put on extra clothing and remained inside the tightly shut building until their evacuation 34 hours after the test.

Medical reports on these men are still unpublished.

Utirik’s 157 men, women and children were the last to experience Bravo’s fallout 22 hours after the explosion.

The Rongelap people were exposed to 175 rems of gamma radiation, considered a high dose of radiation. (A lethal dose is estimated at 300 to 500 rems in the absence of intensive medical care.) Nevertheless, they were not evacuated from the island for more than 24 hours after the Americans left Rongerik, which is only about 40 km away. The Utirik population was not removed by the United States until more than three days after the Bravo test.

After their evacuation to the Navy base at Kwajalein, many of the exposed Marshallese began to experience the effects of severe radiation poisoning: itching and burning of the skin, eyes and mouth; nausea; vomiting and diarrhea. Later in the month, in the second stage of acute radiation exposure, many of the people began to wholly or partially lose their hair, and skin burns began appearing on the necks, shoulders, arms and feet of those most heavily exposed.

The Utirik people were told by the Atomic Energy Commission that ‘their island was only slightly contaminated and considered safe for habitation,’ and they were moved back in May 1954.

Three years later the Rongelapese were permitted to return home after a July 1957 radiological survey stated that ‘in spite of slight lingering radioactivity’ Rongelap Atoll was safe for rehabitation, the Rongelapese returned.

Brookhaven National Laboratory (on contract to the AEC) reported that: ‘ Even though . . . the radioactive contamination of Rongelap Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habitation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on human beings.’

Even at the outset of its medical treatment programme, the AEC seemed willing to experiment with the exposed Marshallese islanders. Up to 1958 the incidence of stillbirths and miscarriages in the exposed Rongelap women was more than twice the rate of unexposed Marshallese women.

In 1961, a Brookhaven National Laboratory report (prepared for the AEC) showed that after the exposed Rongelap people returned to their island in 1957 their body burden of radioactivity rapidly Air base on Enewetak Atoll... out of the blue, they chose Enewetak for testing and the people were removed within three weeks 13 MICRONESIA PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST 1979

Bikini-Enewetak

increased. In 1961 their body levels of radioactive cesium had risen 60-fold, zinc rose 8-fold and strontium-90 rose 6-fold.

In 1964, the first thyroid tumours and cancers appeared.

Since that time, more than 90% of the Rongelap children who were under 12 years old in 1954 have developed thyroid tumours. Forty percent of all the exposed Marshallese have developed thyroid problems, as compared to an average of 3-4% among Americans.

Some people who returned to Rongelap in 1957 had been away from the island when the bomb exploded and therefore had not been exposed to radiation.

Brookhaven’s 1960 medical survey showed little difference in radioactivity levels among exposed and unexposed people living on Rongelap. However, as late as 1969, the body radioactivity levels of previously unexposed Rongelap people was 10 times that of Marshallese living on a noncontaminated island.

In 1971, Marshall Islands leaders invited a Japanese medical team to perform an independent survey of the Rongelap and Utirik people.

Barred by the United States from actually going to Rongelap and Utirik, the team examined exposed people in the district centre of Majuro.

The Japanese report stated: ‘The people of Rongelap who were not exposed to fallout, received a considerable amount of radioactive nuclides from the environment. Consequently, the “unexposed” group actually became an “ exposed” group ... it was a great mistake to permit the people of Rongelap to return to their island in July 1957 without sufficient work having been done to remove radioactive pollution from the island . ’

In 1972, Lekoj Anjain, who had been only a year old at the time of his exposure in 1954, died of myelogenous leukemia at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

The Atomic Energy Commission has consistently obscured information about the irradiation of the people and their high incidence of thyroid disease and cancer. In 1975 Nelson Anjain, Rongelap’s magistrate, wrote to Dr Robert Conard of Brookhaven: ‘For me and the people on Rongelap, it is life which matters most. For you it is facts and figures. We want our life and our health. In all the years you’ve come to our island you’ve never once treated us as people. You’ve never sat down among us and really helped us honestly with our problems.

You have told the people that the “worst is over,” then Lekoj and this was quite unpredicted and we had some of the best experts in the United States, said Dr Conard, who has headed the Atomic Energy Commission and now ERDA (Energy Research and Development Administration) medical programme in the Marshalls since 1954. ‘The theory was put forth that Utirik received low radiation so a detailed follow-up was not necessary,’ said Dr Konrad Kotrady, a former Brookhaven resident physician in the Marshalls. ‘Now the facts of the thyroid cancer of Utirik have strongly shown that the theory was wrong,’ Kotrady Anjain died. I am very worried that we will suffer again and again.’

The Utirik people were suffering as well. Because their exposure was considered small, tests on genetic and second generation effects were not conducted on them. The Atomic Energy Commission had always told the Utirik people that the 14 rads of radiation they had experienced was too insignificant to be harmful.

Nevertheless, in 23 years the Atomic Energy Commission treated 11 reported cases of thyroid tumours, three of them malignant, out of a population of only 157.

But suddenly in 1977 the cancer and thyroid disease rate among the Utirikese rose so sharply that it equalled that of the much more heavily exposed Rongelap population.

This unexpected increase has forced government scientists to revise theories on which radiation dose rate will lead to adverse human effects. ‘Thyroid nodules have been increasing in the Utirik people wrote in a stinging critique of the ERDA medical programme. ‘The people ask if this thyroid problem has suddenly occurred is it not possible that the experts have been wrong for so many years and more problems will occur in the future?

Despite the inability of the AEC’s ‘experts’ to predict the thyroid cancers among the Utirik population, they have adamantly barred outside medical teams from the islands. Not until the Rongelapese and others refused to undergo the 1972 AEC medical examinations unless independent doctors participated were two doctors added to the AEC team for that examination.

Every year since 1954, the AEC and later ERDA medical teams have examined the Marshallese people, and every year they reassure them of their good health. When the people eventually began asking ‘lf nothing is wrong with us, why do you keep coming back every year to examine us? ERDA replied that it was a precautionary measure.

A study by a special committee of the Congress of Micronesia stated: ‘Time and again the committee found that the people did not understand anything about their exposure, the possible effects on themselves and to their children and on their environment.”

Protesting at what they considered inadequate medical care and, to underline the monumental cultural clash between the US medical personnel and the islanders, the Utirikese refused a quarterly ERDA medical checkup on December 1976, and the ERDA physician was recalled. ‘The people of Utirik are very distressed and angry as a result of the radiation,’ the chiefs of the atoll wrote in a letter to the Energy Research and Development Association in 1977. ‘The people feel that the ERDA programme is in need of vast changes.’

While the Utirik and Rongelap populations were experiencing the effects of direct fallout exposure, the peoples of Bikini and Enewetak were attempting to survive in their US-imposed exile on tiny, inhospitable islands.

Because living conditions on both Kili and Ujelang deteriorated further during the late 1950 s and early 19605, the United States instituted small trust funds in an effort to alleviate some of the problems.

For the Enewetak people the trust fund was $150,000 and for the Bikinians it was $300,000, both yielding semiannual interest payments (about $l5 per capita for the Bikinians).

By the mid-1960s the people were demanding a return to their home islands. Because the Bikinians and Enewetakese began to receive extensive international publicity for their plight, the pressure increased on the United States to return them to Bikini and Enewetak.

In addition, the Atomic Energy Commission, which had been increasingly criticised for advocating that there were permissible levels of radiation Forty houses like this have been built on Bikini for returnees ... but still the atoll is unfit for human habitation 14 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Bikini-Enewetak

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exposure, was eager to demonstrate that low levels of radiation were not harmful to people.

In 1968, 10 years after the Marshalls’ nuclear test programme had ended, President Lyndon Johnson promised the 540 Bikini people a permanent return to their home; the radiation had dropped below the danger level, according to the Atomic Energy Commission.

In 1969, an AEC radiological survey stated: ‘There’s virtually no radiation left and we can find no discernible effect on plant or animal life (on Bikini).’

In the early 1970 s the Bikinians began slowly returning to their atoll to help in the massive rehabilitation programme, which included the replanting of more then 50,000 coconut trees and many other local crops, as well as construction of a new village.

About 100 Bikinians were on the atoll when the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory conducted a radiation assessment in June 1975. The study, Dose Assessment at Bikini Atoll, not released until mid-1977, stated clearly: ‘All living patterns involving Bikini Island exceed federal (radiation) guidelines for 30-year population doses.’

A preliminary report issued by the Engergy Research and Development Association in August 1975 pointed to the need to restrict completely the use of pandanus, breadfruit and conconut crabs ( a dietary mainstay in the Marshalls).

Despite these and other warnings. Energy Research and Development Association’s Dr Conard stated a short time earlier; ‘Our medical team has evaluated the radiation exposure in the people who have been working on Bikini the past two years.

There is some low level radiation remaining on the island of Bikini and measures have been taken to reduce these levels . . . The internal absorption of radioactive materials will be . . . only slight from terrestrial food plant sources.

Therefore, we do not expect to see any ill effects in the Bikini people or in their offspring from the small amounts of radiation to which they will be exposed.’

Caught in the middle of these conflicting statements, in late 1975 the Bikinians filed a federal law suit against the US government demanding a complete scientific survey of Bikini to determine if the island was indeed safe for habitation.

In late 1977, ERDA monitoring of the Bikinians who had returned earlier showed a marked increase in the amount of radioactive nuclides in the people’s bodies. These tests show that the Bikinians were ingesting higher than acceptable concentrations of cancercausing radiation from the water and from food grown in the island’s contaminated soil.

The US government then began importing all food (except local fish, which was declared safe) and drink to Bikini. This food programme has compounded the Bikini dilemma; while the Bikinians have been told that the island is radioactive and potentially dangerous, the prospect of free food and housing and a chance to move from Kili called the ‘prison’ by resident has encouraged people to return.

In early 1978, the Energy Research and Development Association considered moving the people to another island in Bikini Atoll Eneu and was growing fruits and vegetables in an experimental gardens to test radioactivity levels there.

Results from these experiments, however, weren’t expected for about a year.

According to a careful report in the Los Angeles Times, by February 1978 it was official government policy: Bikini was unfit for people to live on.

Nevertheless, In April, Trust Territory officials, testifying at a congressional hearing on funding for re-establishing the Bikinians on Eneu Island, insisted that the people could remain on Bikini without harm until the experiments on Eneu were completed in January 1979 provided that they didn’t eat any coconuts, and that the coming medical tests showed, as was expected, no large increases in internal radiation levels.

In the April 1978 medical examinations, however, the Bikinians’ internal radiation levels ranged up to 0.980, or nearly twice the US maximum safety standard of 0.5 rems. At the same time, the preliminary results from the experimental garden at Eneu Island showed that radioactivity levels were 5-6 times higher than expected.

Throughout the rehabilitation of Bikini, the Energy Research and Development Association and the Department of Energy (DOE) had conducted countless radiological surveys of the island many of which suggest the

Bikinians Look To

Hawaii For Help

In late May, six Bikini Atoll representatives visited Honolulu to ask if a temporary home could be found for their people on the island of Hawaii. Talks with Hawaii officials were attended by Trust Territory High Commissioner Adrian Winkel who is reported as saying it was hoped to find a new home for Bikini people, now living on the ‘prison island’ of Kill in the Marshall group, before the end of the northern summer.

Left: Exodus from Bikini; above: Andrew Jakeo (69) ... he refused to leave his homeland

Bikini-Enewetak

MICRONESIA

Bikinians were unwitting subjects for scientific radiation tests. A recent study for the Department of Energy concluded that ‘Bikini Atoll may be the only global source of data on humans where intake via ingestion is thought to contribute the major fraction of plutonium body burden’.

A 1976 Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist stated that Bikini ‘is possibly the best available source of data for evaluating the transfer of plutonium across the gut wall after being incorporated into biological systems.’

Government scientists vehemently deny they have used the Marshallese for experimentation. A DOE official explained: ‘lt was done by technical types anxious to know about the transfer of radioactive elements.’

Interior Department officials announced in May 1978 that the atoll would be evacuated within 90 days, and the people returned to Kill Island. In late August, Interior representatives went to Bikini to supervise the evacuation, in many ways reminiscent of the 1946 removal. ‘There are some things we didn’t feel good about,’ said Taro Lokebal, who serves as liaison between the Bikini Council and the United States. ‘The high commissioner made the people rush ... Some things were left behind pigs, chickens, lumber. We had to have our ceremony on the ship.

It was supposed to be on the shore but we had no time.’

Though the Bikinians, like the Enewetakese, suffered the devastating physical and psychological effects of relocation and, at times, even near starvation, they had never suffered radiation exposure until they returned to their radioactive island after 25 years. Now the Bikinians are an exposed population, too. And who knows what the future holds for the Enewetak people many of whom have now returned to their home atoll to work with thousands of US army soldiers in the massive nuclear debris cleanup.

Until the scientific community and independent organisations begin critically to monitor US government agencies’ treatment of the Marshallese, their situation is not apt to change.

From the nuclear bomb tests at Bikini and Enewetak to the medical treatment of the irradiated islanders, the 30 years of American trusteeship has brought the Marshallese anything but the conditions promised in the UN trust agreement.

Reprinted by permission of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a magazine of science and public affairs. Copyright 1979 by the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Chicago, Illinois.

Plea for independent check on radiation Gifford Johnson, in an updater, filed from Majuro, reports on a document which, it seems, the US Government would have preferred to have kept under wraps.

The US Government at first suppressed a Government Accounting Office (GAO) report of May 8 which said it was not ‘in the best interests of the US Government to inform people living on Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands that they may be exposed to excessive doses of radiation.’

Enewetak, site of 43 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests from 1948 to 1958, is now undergoing a $ 100-million nuclear clean-up by the Department of Energy (DOE) to make the islands safe for rehabitation by the Enewetak people who have lived in exile since 1947.

But, the GAO says, there is no guarantee that the islands will be safe for habitation at the completion of the radiation clean-up late this year. The GAO report indicates the jncertainty surrounding the unprecedented project among the government agencies involved. In spite of this uncerainty, ‘the government has consistently told us that the islands are safe,’ said Ismael John, a member of the Marshalls’ legislature from Enewetak.

The GAO attempted to prevent public release of the ‘sensitive’ report because negotiations are in progress between the US and the Marshall Islands Political Status Commission to end the United Nations trusteeship agreement which governs the islands. ‘The issue of post-trusteeship liability and claims are a part of the status negotiations,’ said the report, adding that for this reason ‘release of this report. .. would not be in the best interest of the government’.

The government eventually released the GAO report under pressure in late May, following an anonymous phone call to representatives of the Marshalls Status Commission informing them of the study.

When the clean-up started in early 1977, the DOE said ‘it could not assure that the radiation doses would not significantly exceed the proposed Environmental Protection Agency guidelines’ for population safety. From the outset, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) in charge of the clean-up operations said it was impossible to reduce the contamination to pre-test levels, but Ridded that the southern islands are ‘relatively free’ of contamination and are safe for habitation. Enewetak’s northern islands are still dangerously radioactive but, following the clean-up, only one island, Runit - where plutonium-contaminated earth * from other islands is to be dumped in an atomic bomb crater and capped with cement will be off limits. In addition, living and food gathering restrictions will be placed on many islands.

But even if the Enewetak people ‘adhere to living pattern restrictions’, states the GAO report, ‘they could receive radiation doses in excess of current standards’, Tony Debrum, spokesman for the Marshalls Status Commission, said even the living restrictions placed on the islands were unrealistic. ‘lslands on either side and within five kilometres of Runit which must be quarantined for at least 24 000 years are designated for “picnics and food gathering’’,’ Mr Debrum said.

The GAO questioned the safety of entombing the plutonium-saturated debris in cement in a bomb crater.

The high levels of radioactivity on the northern islands and the problems that developed at Bikini Atoll during a similar clean-up, have delayed, since 1974, the planting of coconut trees at Enewetak.

In 1969 the Atomic Energy Commission declared that there was ‘virtually no radiation left’ on Bikini. Then in 1978, after 130 people returned, medical tests showed the Bikinians’ body levels of radiation were, in some cases, more than twice the maximum considered a safe level in the US. So they were re-evacuated.

The GAO is concerned that the same problems could occur at Enewetak and strongly criticised the DNA and the Interior Department for their opposition to any independent scientific assessment of radiation levels at Enewetak. ‘This situation could raise questions on the objectivity of the project,’ the report suggested.

The GAO report found that the ‘radiological assessments are being made by employees of DOE and the Department of Defense or contractors working for these agencies’. The GAO’s concern centred on recent exposure of an Atomic Energy Commission/DOE cover-up of the dangers of radiation from nuclear tests in the 1950 s and the unsatisfactory AEG handling of the Bikini nuclear clean-up, informed sources said.

The report concluded that independent scientists should perform an assessment of the ‘post-clean-up hazards’ before resettlement of the Enewetak people begins. The report failed to mention that 55 Enewetak people are now living on one of the islands and that many others have lived there since part of the population was allowed to return in early 1977. 17 MICRONESIA 'ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

The participants Nations and territories taking part in the games (team numbers in parentheses) are: American Samoa (104) Cook Islands (139) Fiji (389) French Polynesia (241) Guam (185) Kiribati (29) Nauru (44) New Caledonia (278) New Hebrides (130) Niue (42) Norfolk Island (12) Papua New Guinea (287) Solomon Islands (142) Tokelau (3) Tonga (175) US Trust Territory (93) Tuvalu (36) Wallis and Futuna (84) Western Samoa (291) Total, 2672 including 715 officials.

Sports A thletics Basketball Boxing Cricket Golf Hockey Judo Lawn bowls Lawn tennis Netball Rugby Soccer Squash Swimming Table tennis Volleyball Weightlifting Yachting

All Systems

‘GO’ FOR THE GAMES The suggestion by an organiser of the sixth South Pacific Games in Suva that he didn’t think any other country in the region could handle them, probably wouldn’t go over too well with some of the Pacific’s more affluent countries say Papua New Guinea or New Caledonia. But it did clearly indicate that, unless some limitations are placed on future games, they are only going to be possible to stage in places like Suva, Port Moresby and Noumea. No other centre, without massive outside financial assistance, could contemplate the prospect.

The statistics for the Suva games, beginning on August 28 and running through to September 8, are daunting enough: 19 competing nations, 18 sports, and a theoretical 2672 competitors a figure which is likely to shrink a little as competing nations find cost factors forcing them to pare their teams.

The bill? Probably at lot more than Fiji thought it was going to be when it agreed to host this year’s games. When the organising committee first got together it set a fundraising target of $F 100 000.

Now there’s talk in Suva of a bill exceeding $3OO 000. Even more frightening is the knowledge that the SP Games lottery tickets at $2 each, are not selling well, and that there are now doubts about the amount of revenue from spectator ticket sales. And there’s little chance of pruning costs Fiji and the games organising committee are committed to a sporting spectacular, the like of which has never been seen in the Pacific and which, in terms of competitors, will be bigger than last year’s Commonwealth Games at Edmonton, Canada.

Not only bigger but probably faster, much faster on the athletics track. At the heart of Suva’s Buckhurst Park national sports complex funded to the tune of $3.5 million by the Fiji Government, a surprisingly generous splurge by a cabinet which normally keeps a tight hand on the national pursestrings is an all-weather Canadian ‘tartan’ track. Some of New Zealand’s top runners, including world record miler John Walker, have already tried it out. Said long-distance star Rod Dixon: ‘That track would be one of the best in the world.’ This was music to local ears. Dixon continued: ‘That’s something I’ve never said about our two top venues in Christchurch and at Mount Smart .. . The new track .. . would be one of the fastest I’ve ever run on and certainly faster than anything in New Zealand and Australia.’

With that accolade. South Pacific records should be run ragged. Athletes will surprise even themselves, their own previous best times having, in many instances, been achieved under pretty rough circumstances.

Fifteen teams will be competing on the athletics scene, 13 at tennis and soccer, 12 in volleyball, 11 in boxing and golf, 10 in yachting, rugby and basketball, nine in table tennis, eight in weightlifting and judo, seven in netball and cricket, six in squash and swimming, five in lawn bowls and four in hockey. Fiji and Papua New Guinea will contest all 18 sports and Western Samoa all but basketball.

Marshall Islands made a late bid to put in a team but entries had closed and the games committee saw no way of accommodating them. However one team in the games line-up, which Australia probably wonders about, is Norfolk Island.

Some see political overtones in its participation including

The Region

some Norfolk Islanders. But basically it’s a question of philosophy. No matter how legally Norfolk Island may be tied to Australia, as the recent Norfolk Island Act passed through the Australian Parliament in Canberra emphasises, Norfolk Islanders see themselves as part of the South Pacific community. Why shouldn’t they be there? Another change is Tuvalu and Kiribati entering as separate teams. In the past they have always competed as the ‘Gilbert and Ellice Islands’.

French-governed New Caledonia is challenging the ‘Britishness’ of cricket and both New Caledonia and French Polynesia will be doing battle on the rugby field for the first time.

Fiji, as host country, is fielding the largest squad but it will be closely followed by Pacific champions New Caledonia who will be fighting to maintain their overall medals superiority, Western Samoa, who have high hopes this year, and Papua New Guinea who, by sheer size, always rank high in the final medal count.

Apart from the Hobie catamaran sailing and two soccer matches at the sugar town of Lautoka on Viti Levu’s west coast, all events, in every sport, will take place at Buckhurst Park or within four kilometres of it.

If only sporting facilities had to be provided there’d be no problem. The big headaches come from accommodation and victualling logistics. ‘Villages’ are lined up for competitors and officials on the University of the South Pacific campus, at Corpus Christi College, about three kilometres away, and a third at the Derrick Technical Institute.

How much food is needed to cope with more than 2500 competitors and officials? The organising committee has decided that 12 tonnes of meat and fish, 15 000 kg of potatoes, cassava and taro, 11 700 kg of other vegetables, 2600 kg of butter, 2800 dozen eggs, 25 400 litres of soup, 31 000 litres of tea and coffee and 3800 kg of sugar, should be enough.

One of the big hitches is that the games have coincided with a peak in the Fiji tourist trade making it extremely difficult to find accommodation in Suva for the hundreds of supporters who would have liked to be there to egg on their teams.

However, anyone who does come from overseas to watch the games has been guaranteed the opportunity to buy a ticket to watch events. A season ticket, to watch everything in the stadium, has been set at $5O. There’s also a $35 ticket for slightly less than the best seats. Otherwise, it’s $1.50 a day to get into Buckhurst Park and that means queueing.

Princess Alexandra will be opening the games, flying from London specifically for the event, and the end-of-games party will be held in the old Sunderland flying boat hangar at the lower end of the USP campus near the bay.

When it’s all over, the organising committee will start cleaning up and counting the cost. The financial picture has already been painted. The inquest could well provide the message that future games will not allow participating countries to bring alongas many competitors as they can afford.

They might be told by future hosts that there will be a limit on the number they can send.

This projection might be somewhat gloomy. But don’t let it cast a shadow over this month’s sixth South Pacific Games. Last month, with organisation activities in full swing, committee members were confidently saying that preparations were ‘one month ahead of schedule’. Said Commander Stan Brown, chairman of the committee: ‘lt’s all systems go.’

RECORDS TUMBLE IN SUVA Some indication of improved performances anticipated at the Suva Games came in the June ‘quadrangular’ athletics meeting at Buckhurst Park when athletes from Fiji, New Hebrides, New Caledonia and Solomon Islands competed.

Three national and two allcomer Fiji records were smashed. Alena Waqasiwa set a national record of 59 seconds in the women’s 400 metres event; Rusila Radinibeqa broke two national records with 11 minutes 10.7 seconds in the 3000 metres and five minutes 11 seconds in the 1500 metres; Alain Lazare of New Caledonia broke the 5000 metres all-comers record with a time of 14 minutes 55 seconds (an improvement of 4.8 seconds); and Frederick Gassier, also of New Caledonia, set an all-comers record with a hammer throw of 47.3 metres.

Meanwhile in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby’s Titi Christian emerged as a top games hope with a convincing performance against Moses Aloysius of North Solomons in the national boxing championships. This light welterweight took only one round to flatten Aloysius.

Papua New Guinea has Mark Mandibi and Tony Aiam as medals hopefuls in the men’s 100 and 200 metre events.

From Papeete comes the news that French Polynesia’s big hopes are Jeanclaude Duhaze in shotput, discus and hammer, Dany Guyonnet in high and long jump, shotput and pentathlon, and Sandra Bordes in discus. French Polynesia also expects good team performances in table tennis and football.

Noumea reports suggest that the territory’s young athletes are determined not to be overshadowed by their former champions. They plan to be well among the medals in athletics, volleyball, judo, tennis, table tennis and football.

There’s no forecast on how New Caledonia’s cricketers (males) will go. It’s a game in New Caledonia which, hitherto, has been confined to the girls.

Games hopes, from left: Solomon Islands’ Matthew Hovaisuta, long distance, and Jim Marau, sprint; Fiji’s Usaia Sotutu, 800 to 3000 metres, and Samu Yavala, sprint; New Caledonia’s Brigitte Hardel, sprint and long jump, and Alain Lazare, long distance; Guam’s Peter Cruz, boxing; and PNG’s Nettie Elisha 19

The Region

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PEOPLE ‘The Martin Luther of the Pacific or a fly-by-night cult figure?’ asks the Auckland Star about former Methodist minister, Senitulu Koloi, 53. Mr Koloi has led a breakaway independent fellowship in protest at the burden of annual offerings of money and Sunday feasting imposed by the Tongan Methodist Church in Auckland.

The Star comments: ‘Like the sixteenth-century Protestant reformer, Mr Koloi has denounced from the pulpit what he considers abuses of the Christian teachings. ‘At issue is the church practice of setting annual amounts of money as targets for the congregation 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 supporter. Equally “evil” is the regular Tongan Sunday feasting “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 saltation.’

Cook Islands bantamweight aoxer Richard Pittman was the )nly gold medallist from a Pacific Island country at the Oceania Boxing Championhips 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 champion 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 election 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 jubilant 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 myself.’

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 byelection in his rural constituency, 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 parliament, 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 ministerial mantle on which she’s set her sights.

Father George Kester, the Dutch-born priest who has befriended thousands of visiting 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 former 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 training 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 Government.

Bonnie Anne Quintal, of Norfolk Island, received an MBE ‘for service to health and the community’, in the 1979 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Godwin Ligo, 33, chief news reporter for Radio New Hebrides, has returned home after a three-weeks familiarisation 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 middleweight bout in Auckland’s town hall.

In Australia at the invitation of the government in June was Tu’a Taumoepeau, deputy secretary 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 21 } ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

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, tourism, and agricultural training.

Ahead of him were talks with the Bank of New South Wales on questions of industrial decentralisation, and three days with Australian Government officials in Canberra. Of the home front Mr Tua reported that the attempt to revive Tonga’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 statement 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 welfare 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 research 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 Constable Diana Jimmys of Santo, New Hebrides. Besides studying typing and switchboard operation, she also is studying self-defence techniques, and how to conduct investigations.

Alan Familton, an officer in the New Zealand forest service, is nothing if not persistent. The New Zealand High Commissioner 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 diseases 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 airport. The other tiees - pohutukawas, karakas, karaires and lucebarks travelled on a first class ticket as cabin baggage.

Mr Familton told the Auckland 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 Familton then went to a scheduled meeting of the Fijian Pine Commission, while the high commissioner drove to his residence 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. 22 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979 PEOPLE

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TROPICALITIES Cook painting for Canberra The National Library of Australia has announced the arrival at the library in Canberra of a painting it purchased at a London auction in March of items associated with Captain Cook.

The painting is a small (29cm x 40cm) oil sketch by William Hodges, the official artist on Cook’s second Pacific voyage. Painted in 1774, it depicts Point Venus in Matavai Bay, Tahiti. The library believes that it was from this original sketch that Hodges subsequently painted, in London, a larger version which now hangs in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, England.

Auctioned at Christie’s, the sketch was expected to fetch between $l7 000 and $24 000.

The Library’s successful bid was $l9 000.

The director-general of the library. Dr G. Chandler, said the library had not received the customary catalogue for the auction and was unaware of the auction until virtually the last minute. ‘Although our funds are limited, we had to be in the bidding.’ he said. ‘lt is our duty and determination to build up as comprehensive a collection of Australian library material as we can. Funds allowing, we would have hoped to bid for any item relating to Australia not already in our collection.

As it happens, the Hodges painting was the only one. We already hold the originals or copies of the other items that were offered. ‘The painting is very relevant,’ Dr Chandler said. ‘Point Venus was the place where the transit of Venus across the sun’s face was observed. As this was the ostensible purpose of Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific, which brought him to Australia, the painting must be regarded as an important visual record in his story. ‘We were anxious to get it because of this historical significance and also because there are few works of its kind outside Britain. Most of the art originals from Cook’s voyages are in the maritime museum or the British Museum of Natural History.’

Gatecrash for Suharto A member of the Papua New Guinea National Parliament has boasted of how he gatecrashed a Port Moresby reception for Indonesian President Suharto in June.

Angus Smales reports from Port Moresby that the member, James Mopio, told parliament; ‘That just shows we have no real security.’ Mr Mopio, a flamboyant figure who smokes a huge bamboo-tube pipe, had introduced a ‘motion of public importance’ to debate aspects of the president’s visit. He said he had indulged ‘a well-known Mopio habit by crashing the party’. ‘We Papuans have got to do this or we get left out,’ he said. (Officially all citizens of Papua New Guinea are Papua New Guineans, but some from the original territory of Papua, and Mr Mopio is one of them, still claim a Papuan entity. They claim that New Guineans, because of greater numbers, exercise excessive control.) Mr Mopio went on: ‘I had a little bet just how close I could get to the president. Then I just walked right up to him and said “Have a beer”. Well, I ask you, where is our security? I tell you, if anyone wanted to invade this country, it would be easy.’

Mr Mopio also criticised decorations put up in Port Moresby for President Suharto’s visit. ‘Things like women’s underpants flying on electric poles are just not good enough.’ he said.

The debate was gagged.

Of a lost cat, and ‘bust cream’ ‘Case 1702 Animal escaped from quarantine’ the dry title in the latest report of Fiji’s Ombudsman. Mr Justice Moti Tikaram, gives little hint of the tale of high drama and passion which is to follow.

The ombudsman reports: ‘Soon after her arrival in Fiji with her contract officer husband the complainant had her cat flown in from Australia. In accordance with the law it had to be held at the Vatuwaqa quarantine station for a period.

When the complainant went to pay the fees and collect her cat she was informed that it was missing. In fact the cat went missing on the very first day it arrived at the station. She wrote to me as follows: “... Upon arriving to pay all necessary fees I was informed for the first time my cat was missing had been for six days! No one had bothered to Oil sketch by William Hodges of Point Venus, Matavai Bay, Tahiti ... a $19 000 purchase by the National Library of Australia Gatecrasher James Mopio in conventional garb ... ‘invading PNG would be easy’

contact me. On questioning the cat’s disappearance the quarantine inspector admitted liability. I drove to the station and found the facilities for cat quarantine ridiculous. He had been placed in a pen, one of four in a block, with a dog only one pen away! I would like to state the complete neglect of cat facilities at this station and insist my cat be found or I should be compensated for the loss of my cat and the costs involved in bringing him to Suva. I have since learnt that the Agriculture Department placed an advertisement in Fiji Times on Wednesday 3rd only one advertisement and I do not feel enough effort is being made to find him. Would it alter the situation I wonder, if he had rabies!”

The complaint was referred to the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture. But before a substantive reply could be received from him, fortunately, the cat was found and delivered to its owner.’

Although pleased to have retrieved her wayward pussy, the irate cat-owner would not let the matter rest. She at once demanded (and eventually received) payment of an amount she herself had spent advertising for the lost pet.

Everyone seemed happy except for ‘a certain officer’ at the quarantine station who was found to have failed to carry out needed repairs to the cage from which the cat escaped, and was ‘surcharged’ for this failing.

The ombudsman himself, while closing his file with the notation ‘Justified grievance rectified’, had some doubts about the corrective course of action suggested in response to the affair by the secretary of finance. With admirable restraint, he wrote to the secretary that he was ‘wondering about the legal validity, wisdom and fairness of the directive given by the Secretary of Finance in his letter Fin. 26/1 of November 3 1977 that in future Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests officers obtain “no liability” undertakings from expatriates.’

It should be noted in passing that Fiji’s ombudsman is a man with a wide variety of concerns.

A little further on in his report he had to address the problem of whether ‘a cream used by women in the care of their busts’ was to be regarded as a ‘medical product’ or a ‘toilet cream’. The question was a vital one for the complainant, ‘Mrs X’. who was seeking to import the stuff but whose consignment had been officially held up. The ombudsman ruled that the cream was indeed a toilet and not a medical preparation, and ‘Mrs X’ got her goods. But the ombudsman could not sustain her complaints against the customs and health departments, who had, he said, ‘indeed .. . been very co-operative’. File closed, ‘Not justified’.

A close look at ‘Pandora’

A team of marine specialists has set out from Thursday Island, Torres Strait, in an attempt to identify one of Australia’s grimmest shipwrecks, that of HMS Pandora, according to the Australian Information Service. The 24-gun frigate was sent from England in 1791 to run down and arrest Fletcher Christian and his fellow Bounty mutineers.

Although Christian and the Bounty escaped, 14 mutineers were arrested on Tahiti and were being returned to England when the Pandora foundered on the Great Barrier Reef on August 28 1791.

Thirty-one of the ship’s company and four mutineers were drowned in the wreck.

The remaining mutineers, having spent several months caged on the ship’s deck locked inside what the crew called ’Pandora’s Box’, owed their lives to the master-at-arms, who passed the keys to their chains through their prison bars as captain and crew abandoned ship.

Australian Minister for Home Affairs Bob Ellicott said that the government-sponsored expedition would not undertake any major excavation at the site of the wreck, found in November 1977 (PIM January 1978) and protected under the Historic Shipwreck Act. The minister said a survey of the wreck site would enable assessment of the feasibility of recovering artifacts for research and display and would determine the wreck’s archaeological significance.

New treasure from WWI ‘Psst... wanna buy a set of five German New Guinea notes printed at the start of World War I?’ writes Sydney journalist John Alexander in a June report in the newspaper The A ustralian.

Alexander goes on: ‘Once, you would have been battling.

No more than 10 of the notes of any denomination were known to have survived and all but two of those were in Australian and German museums. ‘Until the other day, that is, when a complete set turned up at the Wynyard Coin Centre in Sydney. Not only a full set, but the very first issued and one with a previously unknown note of 100 marks to boot.’

The lucky family who owned the set were surviving members of one of the two men associated with printing the money.

The story is as follows: When an Australian expeditionary force arrived to seize the colony in 1914, money of any sort was hard to come by in German New Guinea. So the Australian commander.

Colonel William Holmes, decided to print the markdenomination notes on some Kewal Chetty, Fiji sales representative for the Gillette company, demonstrates a new type of locking safety razor designed for use in prisons and other security institutions. The razors lock with the key Mr Chetty is holding so that the blade cannot be removed. He has presented samples of the razors to the Suva prison. 26 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 TROPICALITIES

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They are a unique part of our numismatic history.’ says Bob Roberts, of the Wynyard Coin Centre. ‘They represent the only time “foreign money” was legal tender in Australian territory.’

Bids were coming thick and fast for the newly discovered treasure. One New York doctor offered SASO 000 for the set.

But Mr Roberts was anxious to see them stay in Australia. ‘ln comparison with many other Australian coin rarities, this German New Guinea set is worth at least $lOO 000.’

Any buyer who donated the set to an Australian museum or public collection could claim their market value as a tax deduction against assessable income.

Haapai causeway rises again The islands of Lifuka and Foa in Tonga’s Haapai group are to be linked by a causeway built under a New Zealand aid scheme, writes Jimmy Cornell from the spot. One third of the 600 m gap separating the two islands has already been filled in. The work is being carried out by a team of 43 army engineers commanded by Lieut. John Kamp of the Ist Field Squadron. Papakura (Auckland).

Another causeway was attempted on the same spot more than 20 years ago but was not strong enough to withstand the rough weather conditions and only lasted a few weeks.

The present causeway is built solidly on a bedding of coral boulders of up to 10 tonnes weight laid over the shallow reef linking the two islands.

The causeway will be one lane wide with a concrete capping and will rise about one metre above the highest tide level. It will enable the islands to communicate more easily and also give access to the people of Foa to the Pangai market, on Lifuka, and the new 28-bed hospital, also built under a New Zealand aid scheme. The hospital is scheduled to be opened by King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV in September. No completion date has been set for the causeway, but Lieut. Kamp is confident that it will be a lasting job.

Now it’s Emma on the stage The islands around New Britain and New Ireland have their fair share of legendary characters, but perhaps none stands out more than the energetic Emma Forsayth ‘Queen Emma’ who established and ruled a copra and trading empire in the Duke of York Islands from 1878, writes Stephen Measday.

Emma Forsayth was born in 1850 of a Samoan mother, Le Utu, princess of the royal family of Samoa, and James Coe, an American agent and later American consul in Apia.

Her life has long attracted the interest and curiosity of historians and authors. It has already been the subject of at least two full-length books.

The first, by R. W. Robson, founder of PIM, was published in 1965, under the title Queen Emma: in 1976 this was followed by Queen Emma of the South Seas, by Australian author Geoffrey Dutton.

Now Troupe, an independent theatre ensemble based in Adelaide, has recreated Emma’s life on stage in a production entitled Missis (sic) Queen.

Written by Adelaide playwright Doreen Clarke, Missis Queen had its Australian premiere at the end of July, and was to run for a three-week season.

The production, with a cast of seven, was directed by David Allen, a playwright who had recent Australia-wide success with his play about Stan Laurel. Gone with Hardy.

With Missis Queen , Troupe has demonstrated a hardworking, innovative approach that has led to comparisons with the style of production in the early days of Sydney’s very successful Nimrod Theatre.

Church of Tonga is fifty years old The jubilee of the Church of Tonga, one of the branches of Methodism, was celebrated at Pangai, the capital of the Haapai group, where it was founded half a century ago by the Hon Ulukalala, its first president, writes Jimmy Cornell. A special ceremony was held at dawn on May 3, a plaque being unveiled by the fourth president of the Church of Tonga, Selu Pepelimafi. The plaque was erected ‘to commemorate the golden jubilee of the Church of Tonga which was founded in Haapai in May 1928 and was formally consecrated on May 3 1929’. The church has about 8000 followers in the kingdom, of whom about 3000 reside in the Haapai group.

Lieut Kamp with the Haapai causeway ... confident it will be a lasting job. Photo Jimmy Cornell.

Plaque for the 50th anniversary of the Church of Tonga. Selu Pepelimafi, president of the church (left), with the Reverend Fono, Pagai’s minister. Photo Jimmy Cornell. 29 TROPICALITIES PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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POLITICAL CURRENTS

Up And Away

Again In Nh

June saw new and vitally important progress in resolving the tangled political problems that have bedevilled almost every stage of the New Hebrides’ movement towards independence.

Key achievements were: a compromise between New Hebrides Government and the condominium powers on the procedures for elaboration and approval of the constitution Britain and France agreed that there need be no referendum, as previuosly insisted on by them, on the constitution (and independence), and in return the New Hebrides Government agreed to respect the procedure of devising the constitution before the elections and not, as the Vanuaaku Party ministers had previously insisted, handling matters the other way round; resumption of the work of the New Hebridean committee studying the constitution (which had previously been bogged down in wrangles over its composition and other questions), and an enlargement of the committee’s membership.

On the question of how the constitution should be adopted, there appeared what the French/Bislama weekly Nahanga described as ‘a truly new element’.

The paper wrote: ‘After long negotiations, the government reached agreement on a formula which was in line with the plan proposed by the governments of France and Great Britain. but departed from it on one essential point, the referendum. The fundamental order of factors was respected: no elections without a constitution ... ‘But the government proposed to dispense with an intermediate stage contained in the Dijoud plan, the adoption of the draft constitution by way of referendum. The government preferred instead a method comprising three stages: preparation of a draft by the enlarged constitutional committee, using consultation at the grassroots; final drafting of the constitution by the government; elaboration and adoption of the final text by a constitutional conference involving all members of the constitutional committee and the representatives of the trustee powers.. . ‘Paul Dijoud approved the ideas and thus agreed to abandon the idea of a referendum if asked to do so by the constitutional committee. It seems that in his view the procedure outlined contained adequate guarantees in that it involved broad participation by all trends of opinion and that consensus had been reached upon it within the government of national unity.’

The government, meanwhile, has set a still quite tentative date for elections: October 17. 1979. (See also ‘lnterview with Gerard Leymang’, Page 36.) REASSURANCE

By Malietoa

Speaking at the seventeenth anniversary celebrations of Western Samoa’s independence in June, Head of State Malietoa Tanumafili II appealed to his people not to pay too much homage to constitutional points.

The speech came as Samoa’s politicians tried to cope with increasing public concern at the implications of what appeared to be widespread electoral corruption.

During the previous week three men, including a former member of parliament, had been convicted on charges of electoral bribery. Five other men, including a sitting MP and three former members, were to appear in the magistrate’s court the following week for hearings on similar charges.

The four former members lost their seats in May when the electoral court declared their elections void (PIM July).

Western Samoa’s Chief Justice Nicholson, a New Zealander, ruled that their actions had crossed the dividing line between what was acceptable under the traditional Samoan system of making gifts, and electoral bribery.

The head of state acknowledged that the domestic political situation had been causing concern to many people, but said they need not be apprehensive. ‘What we are seeing now is a normal flow of the democratic process. Or, put another way, the normal cut and thrust of politics.’

He went on: ‘People should not pay too much homage to a constitutional point because the inherent genius in any country is that in the final analysis the people will take a commonsense view of things.’

The problems’ should be faced from the point of view of finding a solution acceptable to ‘normal men and women’.

In his only specific reference to the constitution, Malietoa quoted the preamble which describes Western Samoa as an independent state based on Samoan custom and tradition.

He said the people would decide what would be best for Samoa. ‘And what is best for our country must be based on Samoa’s heritage and the heritage that the Samoan people bring to the present. We are working for the future more than we are working for today.’

In what appeared to be a comment on Chief Justice Nicholson’s decisions, the head of state said: ‘Short-term precedents could provide only a guideline and should not be allowed to restrict progress.’

The New Zealand Herald correspondent in Apia noted that the speech was ‘unusual in that the head of state does not usually enter into live political issues’.

The speech, presented to a large crowd at the historic Tiafau Malae where the legislative assembly building is situated, was written by the prime minister’s department.

Vijay Singh

AT BAY Sir Vijay Singh, attorneygeneral and regarded as capable of running rings Western Samoa’s Head of State Malietoa Tanumafili II ... saying a word for fa’a Samoa 31 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

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around most other Fiji politicians. has ridden out several onslaughts on his career and character. But by mid-June he was battling grimly for political survival, writes Robert Keith- Reid in Suva.

Sir Vijay’s critics were saying he had been involved in events which put into question his continued occupation of one of the highest cabinet posts.

Toward the end of June it seemed the attorney-general had the support that counted a prime minister ready to put his own job on the line. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Fiji’s prime minister and leader for the past 12 years, it appeared, was ready to resign rather than bow to pressure for Sir Vijay’s sacking.

The crisis began in May after a sensational 30-day trial in which Flour Mills of Fiji Limited was convicted on charges of trying to defraud the government and the company’s shareholders. Sir Vijay appeared as a defence witness.

As minister for commerce in 1972. Sir Vijay gave Flour Mills a 10-year flour milling monopoly. Three years later, practising privately as a lawyer, he became the company’s consultant in negotiations with the government for renewal of a flour prices fixing formula.

He took a retainer for three months after being made attorney-general in 1977 and a little later advised Parliament to publish a report which he knew could prejudice the government case against Flour Mills.

Sir Vijay had explanations for the court but. at the end of cross-examination, he was called a liar by the crown prosecutor. Robert Lindsay, and the judge. Mr Justice Dyke, commented that his appearance was one of the strange features of a bizarre trial.

Howls for Sir Vijay’s head came straight after the trial from political foes within the government’s Alliance grouping of which he is a founder member. His Flour Mills connections had ‘tarnished’ the Alliance image, they said.

Some cabinet ministers, among them Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau (standing in as acting prime minister for Ratu Maru who was on three months’ leave on medical advice), were believed to be threatening to resign over Ratu Mara’s refusal to get rid of his attorneygeneral.

The Fiji press had no option but to speculate. Not a word of comment came from Ratu Mara. Ratu Penaia. Sir Vijay or the Alliance.

It was three weeks before a minister spoke up publicly. ’I would like to see Sir Vijay go.’ said Minister for Education Semesa Sikivou. But he denied a leadership crisis had arisen.

But. from well-informed sources, it was being suggested that the real motive for the campaign against Sir Vijay was to erode Ratu Mara’s position.

Meanwhile. Sir Vijay jetted off to the United Nations in New York and Ratu Mara flew in from his island home on Lakeba for a late night meeting with cabinet ministers. A bland statement next day denied press reports of a ‘ministerial clash’. Ministers had been given a chance to reaffirm their ‘personal loyalty’ to Ratu Mara and Sir Vijay would ‘respond to criticism’ when he got back in early July.

There was no attempt to answer the many questions posed about Sir Vijay or the reasons for the prime minister’s support for him.

Was it an attempt to win a month’s reprieve from a showdown over the attorneygeneral? Unlikely. Sir Vijay had too many enemies within his own party for the matter to rest.

A US LOOK

Into Future

‘A new constellation of relationships in the Pacific’ has been predicted by Peter R.

Rosenblatt. President Carter’s personal representative in the negotiations on the future status of Micronesia.

Speaking at a meeting of the Pacific Business Forum in Honolulu in June, Mr Rosenblatt declared: ‘lf our free association negotiations prove successful . . . three new Micronesian states enjoying full internal self-government and the power to manage their own foreign relations would emerge to replace an increasingly anachronistic UN trusteeship. The US would continue to exercise plenary defence rights. The Micronesian states would continue to work closely with the state of Hawaii and our Micronesian territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.

They would establish close working relations with the independent island nations to their south, transforming, one might hope, the regional institutions of the South Pacific into those of the Pacific. ‘The continued US presence, the Micronesian states’ close relationship with nearby US areas, and their growing links with the friendly nations of the South Pacific offer the prospect that the areas of the Pacific closest to the important nations of East Asia will remain free of Great Power rivalry and accompanying tensions for the foreseeable future.’

All this would constitute ‘a new constellation of Pacific relationships’.

Mr Rosenblatt said that, politically speaking, he believed the Micronesian states would prove ‘stable and democratic’. ‘The traditional Micronesian emphasis on consensus decisions harmonises with modern democratic practice and the new institutions of government seem to be taking firm root.’

He added that, economically, there was less cause for optimism. ‘lt saddens me to have to say that our own efforts at inducing economic development in Micronesia, while undertaken in good faith and at considerable cost to the US taxpayer, have had little result. To their credit, the emerging Micronesian governments are determined to work hard to achieve economic growth in the years to come.' Mr Rosenblatt said the US was mindful of the need ‘to strike a balance between meeting the needs of the people and inducing over-dependency on American largesse’. ‘We hope to make further progress in the rationalisation of federal expenditures in the trust territory in the remaining years of the trusteeship, so as to better prepare the Micronesian governments for free association. ‘But the problems facing small island economies in participating effectively in the inter-related world economy of today are, of course, formidable. ‘Underpinned by continuing US financial support and, in the Marshalls, by employment flowing from the operation of the Kwajalein missile range, there are modest but real prospects, in which the businessmen of Hawaii may reasonably hope to take an interest, in the fields of tourism, fisheries, and agriculture, and perhaps one day in the development of seabed resources.’

Mr. Rosenblatt’s ‘new constellation’ was not slow in beginning to take shape. In the same month of June as he spoke to the Honolulu gathering, President Tosiwo Nakayama of the newly formed Federated States of Micronesia announced that his government was seeking mem- Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau ... a threat to resign?

Education Minister Semesa Sikivou ... ‘Sir Vijay should go’ 33

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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bership of the South Pacific Forum - At the same time he sought details of the official US attitude to the move, since the US retains control of FSM foreign affairs until after the termination of the trusteeship, target date for which is 1981.

President Nakayama, in an explanatory telegram to trust territory High Commissioner Adrian P. Winkel, said the FSM hopes to ‘extend our Forum ad hoc participation into formalised membership of some sort’.

He said the most important reason for the move ‘is the hope of participating in Forum economic activities. particularly those of the South Pacific Bureau of Economic Co-operation (SPEC), and the Forum’s fisheries agency’. He said the FSM was also seeking regional recognition as a new government, and experience in the conduct of regional relations.

His telegram said he anticipated that some Forum members would ask for clarification from relevant US embassies concerning the FSM’s constitutional status and US policy concerning its membership.

GUAM: WHO

Runs Gaol?

Problems at Guam’s longtroubled prison (PIM July) boiled over in mid-June when the department of corrections director. James Miles, was fired by Lieutenant-Governor Joe Ada for insubordination and defiance of gubernatorial orders.

Paul Addison writes from Agana that after months of unrest at the overcrowded penitentiary, Miles received his marching orders on the same day that two persons escaped and a crime prevention crusader was arrested for trying to smuggle marihuana into the prison.

Interview With

Gerard Leymang

In an interview of unusual political interest. New Hebrides Chief Minister Gerard Leymang has spoken to Jean Massias, director of the French!Bislama weekly Nabanga, on the problems and perspectives of his country as it approaches independence, writes PIM staff writer Malcolm Salmon.

In the interview, appearing in the June 16 issue of the paper. Mr Leymang assured Mr Massias that France and Britain would remain the ‘privileged partners’ of an independent New Hebrides, saying it would be ‘the height of folly’ to reject close future ties with the two powers; stated that all New Hebrideans, irrespective of race, would have the right to vote in the forthcoming elections, provided they had lived in the country for a certain length of time (unspecified in the interview) ‘there are no more Melanesians and expatriates,’ he said; expressed his belief that, after the elections, ‘a new team’ would be in power in the country, a team which, he hoped.would not represent one tendency only, but would be ‘a reflection of the unity of the New Hebrides’.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the interview was the firmness of the positions taken by Mr Leymang on a number of other issues, a firmness far from matching the tag of ‘French puppet’ which some people would like to hang on him.

Extracts from Salmon’s translation of the interview follow.

Massias: I’ve just read this morning a few extracts from the Australian press which talk in rather dramatic terms of the eventual return of the Vanuaaku Party ministers to some new form of Provisional People’s Government. Is this sort of thing caused by the fact that the Australian press takes some time to reach the New Hebrides? Do you think that, at a time when we are experiencing a very clear relaxation in the political situation, the Australian press is ill-informed?

Leymang: I must say, as far as I’m concerned. I’m rather allergic to what is appearing in the Australian press these days. I’ve explained this at length to (the Noumea newspaper) France Australe. I took a very firm position in denying some things that are being said in the Australian press just now. I also have some criticisms to raise of what is sometimes written in the Caledonian press. It’s plain rubbish much of the time, as far as I’m concerned. It’s as if people got pleasure from painting a dark picture of things in the New Hebrides whereas, as you said a moment ago. the situation is in fact loosening up. These newspapers only undo the work for unity and the efforts we are undertaking. They are doing a job, in my view, of undermining the work that we are continually doing within the government, and among the New Hebridean people.

M: But what are their intentions?

L: Ah ... Go and ask them.

M: Don’t you think that from time to time some people feel their interests would be served if things didn’t go well in the New Hebrides?

L: Certainly! I think so . . .

M: Why do ydu think this is so? A taste for drama or financial interest?

L: Both. But speaking of the press, I don’t intend to spare Nabanga while I’m making criticisms.

M: Let’s get to it. What have we done?

L: I would like to warn you about the series you began in your last issue. I’m speaking of the reproductions from the old newspaper Le Neo- Hebhdais. You should be very careful in choosing extracts for publication.

Some articles it carried in the old days are pure dynamite.

In digging up the past, don’t give the impression that the past is something to be pined for. There is a great risk of arousing nostalgia in some people for the days of colonisation, and regret that these old days are gone for good.

M: We’ve thought of this and I believe I can offer in advance every reassurance you may desire . . .

M: Let’s talk about the elections, if you don’t mind.

The date of October 17 was recently announced. What about this?

L: I’ve already said on the radio that this is only an approximate date, a basis for discussion, becauseeverything now depends on the administrative and tec! nical process of preparing for the poll, as well as the material problems it raises. One of the first jobs is to prepare proper electoral rolls from the population census that’s just been completed, etc.

M: The idea of identity cards with photographs has aroused a lot of discussion . . .

L: Yes . . . Here again it’s a matter of finding a compromise. A photo is an almost perfect means of identification, but you can only get the kind of picture you need with a Polaroid camera.

We’ve got 478 polling booths in the country, remember.

Think of the expense of buying 478 Polaroid cameras.

Governor Paul Calvo ... first sacking 36 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Political Currents

According to the office of the governor. Miles was sacked for his unwillingness to support the efforts of a newly established board of inquiry into prison conditions. Miles branded the inquiry ‘a political move’ and said everyone connected with it was connected in some way to Governor Paul Calvo.

Miles became prison boss in January after a long search by Calvo to find a willing candidate to sort out chaotic prison affairs. A hard-liner on discipline. parole and prison escapes. Miles took a nononsense stance on prisoner troubles which brought a mixed reaction from Guam’s population. And the outspoken ex-Marine said he would not go along with a Calvo executive order barring Guam’s media from talking to prison officials about penitentiary conditions for two months, while the board of inquiry meets. Miles’ firing is the first dismissal by Calvo of any of his appointees since he was elected last November.

Prisoners charge they lack an adequate diet, good medical and dental care, and decent laundry facilities. The Inmates Council, a representative body of prisoners, has requested more visiting rights, and realistic and effective rehabilitation programs with more time for recreation.

According to officials, problems at the prison have become much worse over the past year since the conviction of numerous heroin dealers and murderers. In late May convicted murderer Johnny C. Dela Rosa, Anthony Santos, a reputed heroin dealer currently serving time for tax evasion, and three unnamed ‘John Does’ were indicted as coconspirators to murder eight prominent island officials. The ‘hit list’ included Superior Court Judge Paul Abbate, Attorney-General Ken North, Senator James Underwood, former senator Howard Trapp, and Miles.

Since the indictment, prison unrest has intensified. On June 11 prisoners set more than 50 mattresses ablaze causing damage of about SUS2O 000.

On June 15 armed police wielding batons and rifles were called to the prison late at night to quash the attempted escape of at least five prisoners, including three convicted murderers, who had broken out of And what use would they be later on? Don’t forget, either, the problem of keeping the unexposed film at a certain temperature. At our last cabinet meeting, which lasted nearly two days, we came to the view that the ink method would be the speediest and most economical.

M: The ink method?

L: Yes. We’d put a little ink mark on the thumb of the voter.

M: But don’t you think it’s a bit humiliating to brand human beings in that way, like a herd of animals?

L: That’s a Westerner’s reaction. It would be a tiny mark no bigger than the little fleck of white I’ve got here on my thumbnail. The Fijians, the Melanesians of Fiji, did it this way. The Indians too.

Personally, I’m neither for nor against the ink or the photographic method. But what are we trying to do. after all? We’re looking for a guarantee that the elections will be as clean and straightforward as possible, without any risk of their being rigged.

M: Another question, Mr Chief Minister. It seems that on your recent trip to Noumea Mr Dijoud reaffirmed the desire of the two powers insofar as he could speak in their names to see the New Hebrides achieve independence by the end of 1979 or the beginning of 1980.

There’s nothing new in this statement, as the minister put forward the same idea on his first visit to the archipelago.

So, we’re only a few months away from independence and yet it seems remarkable that there is no actual planning going on in terms of protocol, practical arrangements, official contacts, lodging for guests, the press no planning in short for the independence ceremonies.

L: It’s true . . . We haven’t yet thought about this. We’re so taken up with the job of preparing the constitution and the elections! On top of that, there’s the day-to-day business of administration.

We’ve no time to think of independence ceremonies.

But we'll get round to it.

Now let’s get back to the date of independence: we haven’t yet fixed it. I think this is my personal opinion that it is not up to the two metropolitan powers to decide this date. That’s for us here locally to decide.

But there’s another thing that I want to say very clearly: Mr Dijoud has said it and I also said it clearly in a communique I signed on June 8: ‘Having become independent, the New Hebrides Government will be the sole master and solely responsible for its policy; in particular, it will be free to reach agreements on co-operation with France and Great Britain or any partner it may have freely chosen.’ Only I want to say that in all this there is a big ‘but’.

You speak to me about independence ceremonies and, for my part, I want to speak to you on another level altogether, about our local administration (drumming of fingers on the table), our everyday life, how we are going to get there, to this independence. 1 regret to have to say to you that so far 1 have received no concrete proposal on these questions from France. And do you know why? Because the New Hebrides comes under the rue Oudinot (headquarters of the French Ministry for Overseas Departments and Territories PIM), while on the English side it comes under the Foreign Office. The officials in the British Residency here already belong to the Foreign Office in London. Your administrative structures, the way you shuffle things around between the rue Oudinot, the rue Monsieur (headquarters of the Ministry of Co-operation, responsible for overseas aid PIM), and the Quai d'Orsav (Foreign Ministry PIM), doesn’t interest me. I’ve said this in writing to Mr Dijoud and 1 spoke to him about it the other day in Noumea. As far as I’m concerned the important thing is that France should put its cards on the table and announce which ministry the New Hebrides will come under after independence.

The local repercussions of this lack of clarity are more important than people might think. In the two biggest services that are to be amalgamated. health and education, there’s a real uneasiness on the French side because nobody knows who’s going to have charge of them after independence. As far as I'm concerned. I hope as soon as possible to talk to the people from the ministry of co-operation to whom I have made a word-of-mouth request, to be passed on by Mr Dijoud, for the attachment to my services of a head of mission coming from the rue Monsieur. France has already followed this procedure, notably before Djibouti achieved independence. I am not afraid to repeat myself: it is very important for the administration of the New Hebrides to know with whom we will be dealing on the French side after independence ...

Chief Minister Leymang ... ‘France should put its cards on the table’ 37

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

their maximum confinement cells. No one was injured and the prisoners were contained.

But one prison guard told PIM: ‘These people didn’t want to escape. They just wanted to show they can get out any time they want to; they want to show they rule the prison. One man had an iron pipe he could have used to kill me anytime. But he didn’t. They just are telling us they’re in charge.’

POLYNESIA’S JUNE 10 June 10 saw one of the strangest elections ever held in French Polynesia and a heavy setback for the majority autonomist parties of Francis Sanford and John Teariki, writes Marie-Therese Danielsson from Papeete.

Local voters were asked to cast their ballots for a confusing array of 243 mostly unknown candidates for the future parliament of the European Common Market.

The list of President Giscard d’Estaing candidates, incongruously supported by the local autonomists, got 16 496 votes, or 40.8% of the total, while the list headed by Right wing Gaullist Jaques Chirac, and supported by local opposition leader Gaston Flosse, got 18 074 votes, or 44.5%.

The French Socialist Party, represented locally by the fiveyear-old and steadily growing pro-independence la Mana te Nunaa party, made a good showing, bettering its share of the vote from 7.1% in the 1978 legislative elections (3398 votes) to 10.4% (4137 votes).

This was achieved despite an official ban on radio and television appearances by party representatives, and was the result of their reaching out, through personal appearances, to the voters of Tahiti and Moorea.

Some of their speakers were impudent enough to point out that Polynesia is not in Europe, and to suggest that the best common market and international parliament would be those made up of the peoples and nations of the South Pacific.

In every respect the elections reflected the long-standing and absurd policy of the Paris government which has always considered it a patriotic duty and right for the Polynesians to participate in all French elections and referenda, no matter how futile or meaningless they may be to them. They were thus, in 1958, asked to vote for or against de Gaulle’s new French constitution, in 1962 for or against negotiations with the nationalists of Algeria, in 1969 for or against the suppression of the French senate and reestablishment of the old French provincial governments, and in 1973 for or against the admission of Great Britain, Ireland and Denmark to the Common Market!

All in all it is not surprising that on June 10 the quietest polling day for many years only 56.4% of registered voters bothered to go to the polls, most of them delivered there by the major political parties in hired trucks and motor cars.

DIJOUD IN NOUMEA In New Caledonia, the visits of Paul Dijoud, minister of overseas territories, are becoming so frequent that his arrival in June caused hardly a ripple, writes Andre Chaville from Noumea. But plenty was said after his departure.

It is not an easy job to pacify and satisfy everybody, but the minister seemed reasonably confident he had done so. He said he was pleased to receive criticism both from the far Left and the far Right, as this generally meant the policies concerned had the approval of the ‘silent majority’.

When New Caledonia went to the polls on June 10 to vote for the French representatives in the Common Market parliament, they turned in a result very similar to that in France: a majority for the list supporting President Giscard d’Estaing, who were closely followed by the Socialists.

The conservative, Gaullist party, supported by the traditional Rightwing parties in New Caledonia, obtained very poor results, both in France and in the territory.

The most important aspect of Mr Dijoud’s visit was his appearance live on television, with viewers invited to telephone in their questions.

The minister talked frankly of the need to increase Melanesian land-holdings, particularly the tribal reserves.

He also admitted that some changes in Melanesian ‘customs’ were unavoidable, and that the rural population would only find peace of mind when freehold farmers ‘of all racial origins’ lived side by side. If he spoke of a redistribution of land between ‘Caledonians’, he also added that a Caledonian was any person of French nationality who freely chose to take up permanent residence in the territory.

His main argument was the fact that claims for land could be easily satisfied, both by using the state’s reserves, and also by breaking up ‘the enormous properties belonging to a rich minority’, where the only land improvement had been the installation of barbed wire.

But he warned the Melanesians that ‘land-grabbing’ was not the purpose of the programme, and that if ritual land was to be returned to the clans, pastoral and agricultural holdings would only be granted to those who could prove their need and demonstrate their capacity to use the land productively.

An improvement of rural production would necessitate outlets what Mr Dijoud called ‘potential export markets’. Placed between Australia and New Zealand, it is hard to imagine New Caledonia competing successfully on the international market, unless its agriculture concentrated on specialised tropical produce.

The only alternative would be a substantial increase in the territory’s population, which is very small. Here, other problems arise, as the current natural increase could create future racial frictions, the fastest growing section of the population being the Polynesians.

Immigration, another alternative, would increase the number of Europeans, Asians or people from the French West Indies.

Undoubtedly, the territory can go further to satisfy its own needs. But with such a small population the margin between potential consumption and surplus is small.

Mr Dijoud’s plan, in its initial stages at least, seems therefore to be motivated more by philosophical than economic factors.

The minister refused to accept suggestions that the July election could be interpreted as a referendum to approve or disapprove of his plan.

But the fact remains that the moderate coalition, fighting against both Left and Right wing parties, made acceptance of the plan its main campaign point.

The other coalition, grouping those in favour of independence, harboured some confusing elements. Some of its members were practically forced to declare themselves in favour of independence, although many really consider independence more as a longterm, inevitable and natural outcome, for which the status of overseas territory was created. For many of these people, the Dijoud plan could indeed be interpreted as a ‘democratic revolution’, designed to prepare New Caledonia’s transformation into a more equitable, multi-racial, independent country but in 10 years’ time.

Polynesia’s Francis Sanford ... ‘incongruous’ support for Giscard? 38 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Political Currents

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Afterthoughts With Percy Chatterton

Student strife: it's time to look at those free handouts Like the old grey mare in the song, the University of Papua New Guinea ain’t what it used to be. At least, that’s what so many of us who watched its birth and early growth think.

In 1972 the university did me the very great honour of conferring an honorary doctorate on me. In my speech of thanks I said, among other things: ‘lt is my earnest hope that from this university will emerge leaders who are not only knowledgeable and highly skilled, but also wise, tolerant and humane.’

The events of the past two years have made a considerable dent in that hope. For whatever justification there may have been for student unhappiness and unrest in 1978 and again in 1979, the manner in which the students pursued their objectives had little in it that was either wise, tolerant or humane. It seems beyond reasonable doubt that these periods of student unrest were accompanied by acts of intimidation, violence and vandalism; by wild ultimata and threats of national disruption; and by an arrogant assumption that the laws of the land and the authority of the courts do not extend to the university campus.

There can be little doubt that these acts and attitudes militated against rather than for the success of the student cause and deprived it of a good deal of public sympathy which it might otherwise have received.

I think that it is a pity that these student activities have been emotionalised by the use of the word ‘strike’. A strike is a withdrawal of labour from employers by employees. Students may boycott lectures and tutorials, and in certain circumstances may be justified in doing so, but to use the word ‘strike’ in this connection is a misuse of language and a harmful one at that.

What has gone wrong at UPNG since the early days of John Gunther’s vice-chancellorship? Some may blame what they would regard as the too-early localisation of that position. Others may consider that some not-too-wisely chosen academic staff members have promulgated ideas which, whatever their validity in their countries of origin, are inappropriate to Papua New Guinea.

While there may be some substance in these points of view, I think that the main cause has been a change in student attitudes.

What was in the early days of the university regarded as a privilege to be appreciated has come, by imperceptible degrees, to be thought of as a right to be demanded.

There can be few, if any, countries in the world where tertiary students have had it as good as PNG students have had it over the past decade. Everything has been for free. To fees paid in full, board and lodging and a book allowance has been added a ‘pocket money’ allowance, the smallness of which was one of the causes of the recent unrest.

This generous treatment was justified 10 years ago by the circumstances of the time and the needs of the country. Is it justified today?

The fact is that the affluent sector of the community is becoming steadily larger and more affluent. At primary and secondary levels of schooling, even in the mainstream of community schools and provincial and national high schools, the parents of pupils are required to pay fees. Parents who choose to send their children to Australian curriculum (now dubbed ‘international’) schools have to pay very substantial fees.

It seems to me anomalous that parents who have been able and willing to pay up to K6OO a year to secure an Australian type primary and secondary schooling for their sons and daughters should suddenly be relieved of all financial responsibility for their tertiary education. It seems to me even more anomalous that warring Highlands clansmen who, according to recent news reports, are destroying one another’s houses, stores, vehicles and coffee trees at a rate of up to K2OO 000 worth in a single fight, and in some parts of the Highlands these fights are practically endemic, should expect to have their sons and daughters put through the university at the expense of taxpayers, the majority of whom are low level wage-earners with little prospect of ever achieving even a modest affluence. This seems to me to be all wrong.

By all means let us have a system by which the children of the poor can go all the way to the top if they have the ability to do so. But let us ensure that the new rich, currently flaunting their wealth through the ownership of luxury items like prestige cars and videotape machines, or through the wanton destruction of one another’s property, are made to pay for the education of their sons and daughters at the university.

This implies some sort of means test, which I know is repugnant to some. To me it is far more repugnant that base grade clerks and artisans should be fleeced to pay for the education of rich men’s children in a society which, regrettably, is becoming more and more non-egalitarian all the time.

As to the need for graduates, it is still great, but not as great as it was 10 years ago; and perhaps the time has come when the granting of a national scholarship should take into account not only the need for assistance but the kind of course on which the applicant proposes to embark.

If the recent period of university unrest provokes the government into taking a hard look at the present free hand-out system, it will have been worth going through. ‘Striking’ students on UPNG campus ... their actions militated against their cause. Photo: PNG Post-Courier 40 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Pim Pacific Islands Monthly

FOCUS ON Papua New Guinea Four years old next month , the independent nation of Papua New Guinea has a record of overall stability matched in the third world by few nations with a colonial history. PIM correspondent in Port Moresby , Angus Sma/es, takes a ‘ wide-angle ’ look at where Papua New Guinea has come from and where it's going to.

Background Papua New Guinea, north of Australia and bordering on Indonesia and the equator, is an independent nation and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.

It achieved independence from Australia on September 16, 1975 after 70 years of external administration and after a brief transient period of selfgovernment to prepare for independence.

PNG recognises the Queen as head of state and her representative is a governorgeneral whose appointment comes from an election within the PNG National Parliament.

Under an eleborate and extensive constitution all power is internal with no legal or constitutional appeals being possible outside PNG’s own parliamentary and judicial structures.

The legal emphasis in national management rests with the Parliament rather than with the government a fine point, but one which has significance.

A prime minister is head of government, and he too is elected directly by Parliament.

This is another fine point which theoretically could give the position to a powerful independent personality rather than the leader of the biggest party.

The National Parliament of 109 members operates on Westminster lines with a formal opposition, and its members are elected by full adult franchise in first-past-the-post voting.

Although a party system exists, it is very fluid. Party loyalties are not always sacrosanct, affiliations frequently change and there are no real doctrinal differences between the factions.

The present governorgeneral is Sir Tore Lokoloko and the prime minister is Michael Somare who has held the office since independence.

PNG’s principal revenueearner is the export of copper ore, and about one-third of its budget revenue comes from direct Australian financial aid.

The aid is in the form of untied grants.

Australia is still heavily involved in the PNG economy but successive Australian governments have not allowed this to shape aid considerations. PNG itself lays down the terms of investment and economic involvement of Australia and other overseas countries.

PNG has an estimated population of three million although a census is now overdue and it is the biggest Third World country in size, population and economy in the South Pacific.

The people PNG has not had a full national census since 1971 and is about to embark on one with assistance from UN agency funds. Current figures are taken from surveys, assessments and some urban census projects. The total population

Focus Contents

Aid 49 Background 41 Defence force 67 Diplomacy 45 Economy 49 Foreign policy 45 Hydro-power 65 Investment 53 Law and order 67 Media 69 Minerals 53 Neighbours 47 People 41 Police 67 Politics 43 Primary industry 55 Region 49 Tourism 61 Trade unions 61 Transport 61 PNG’s sporting Prime Minister Michael Somare ... first, and still, national leader 41 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHI V Al im I.QT -iqvq

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is estimated at three million and the annual rate of increase is a shade under 3%. The population includes about 30 000 non-citizens of whom most are Australians and New Zealanders.

There are indications however that the proportion of Australians and New Zealanders in the non-citizen population is declining as PNG becomes more cosmopolitan.

This is due to international recruiting for some sections of the public service and to the establishment of new development industries backed by countries other than Australian and New Zealand.

The Philippines, UK and Japan are the major newlyrepresented countries in the non-citizen workforce. Since independence there have been 815 naturalisations of longterm residents, most in the first 18 months. Of these, 310 formerly held Australian citizenship. PNG keeps no records of the ethnic background of its residents.

Citizenship by naturalisation has become a contentious issue, with public allegations that some citizenship applications have been moves of financial convenience.

The attacks have been levelled particularly at married couples in which one partner has taken out citizenship and the other hasn’t. Some Papua New Guineans see this as an attempt to make money with the advantage of citizenship and to ship it out with the advantages of foreign nationality.

The basis for these allegations is open to question for a variety of reasons but the situation has moved Migration Minister Ebia Olewale, to announce that he will not approve any application unless citizenship involves all members of an applicant’s family.

Most non-citizens live in the urban areas where the number of non-citizens has become fairly stable, showing only a very small growth rate.

Estimates indicate there is a decline in the non-citizen population of rural areas.

The populations of the main urban areas are: Port Moresby 107 000 (11 000 non-citizens) Lae 45 000 (4 000 non-citizens) Madang 20 000 (1600 non-citizens) Rabaul 14 000 (1800 non-citizens) The combined urban complexes in the Bougainville copper mine area (Kieta, Arawa and Panguna) have a population of 16 000.

Urban drift continues to be a major problem with unskilled workers, who have little hope of employment, swelling town populations. This has worsened employment situations and has created new social problems.

Provincial governments a second-tier of decentralised administrative control introduced by the central government have been particularly troubled by the drift to their towns.

They have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to send unemployed people back to their home provinces in chartered trucks, aircraft and workboats. But this has had political implications because it is a non-enforceable policy which conflicts with constitutional guarantees of freedom of movement.

Often, too, shipping people home has merely created an urban drift problem for another town because the people returned to their home provinces don’t necessarily return to their rural homes.

They stay instead in the provincial capital.

Politics Michael Somare’s Pangu Party has been the senior party in governing coalition since independence - and earlier, too, during the pre-independence self-government period.

But Mr Somare governs today with the support of the United Party which was once in opposition and was the biggest single party in parliament before wastage and a factional split took their toll.

The former government coalition partner, the Peoples Progress Party, now sits on the opposition benches following a row in which it claimed Mr Somare was leaving it out of consultation in national management.

The transposition of the two groups one from opposition to government and the other from government to opposition demonstrates effectively the lack of any real doctrinal differences between the political groupings in the PNG parliament.

The issues come down to leadership and the methods and mechanics of politics, allied to the normal processes of political power seeking, rather than to any inherent differences in political outlook.

All party policy outlooks in PNG could reasonably come under the general definition of ‘progressive’, aimed at the creation and maintenance of a society in which shared development is supreme, where a strong state presence exists, but where free enterprise is an essential element.

How to implement these goals, rather than the goals themselves, are the main points of contention in PNG politics.

The opposition’s stated role is to ‘expose and depose’ the government and it offers what it calls an alternative plan of government in the national interest. But here again the alternatives tend to emerge as processes and methods rather than as new goals.

The only real differences of doctrine which have ever marked the national politics of PNG were the Pangu Party’s foundation call for immediate home rule and Papua Besena’s call for an independent and separate Papua free of union with New Guinea.

The first is now a part of his- Above: fishing at Vanimo, West Sepik; right: coconut treat in the market place ... provincial governments worried by a drift to the towns 43 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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tory and the second has become symbolic of a Papuan insistence for full involvement in national management rather than for secession.

The two party leaders in government are Michael Somare (Pangu Party) and Sir Tei Abal (United Party), with Pangu holding the top posts of prime minister, deputy prime minister and finance. Sir Tei, as minister for public utilities, is in a service rather than a policy portfolio.

The two principal figures across the floor of parliament are the Opposition Leader lambakey Okuk, leader of the loosely-linked Okuk group, and Julius Chan, leader of the Peoples Progress Party and who was once deputy prime minister.

In numbers which are not always significant in isolation because day-to-day issues affect them the government has a narrow majority but the opposition’s minority is widened because of the presence of about 10 effective independents.

Mr Somare and his deputy, Ebia Olewale another longtime Pangu man are both secure in their group leadership.

Their government also appears immediately secure after withstanding a number of challenges last year.

Mr Somare has no plan to step down at the next election despite occasional speculation over the past 12 months and despite a statement attributed to him in Australia which he later described as not accurately reflecting what he meant.

In the opposition ranks some dissatisfaction is known to exist over leadership matters. A Peoples Progress Party move to establish Julius Chan as opposition leader was tipped in May and June but there were no immediate developments and Mr Chan refuses to discuss the issues.

Diplomacy PNG has established diplomatic relations with 53 countries, and seven of these have established resident embassies in Port Moresby. PNG itself has six missions overseas. including ambassadors to the United Nations and to the European Economic Community.

PNG is one of 57 developing countries, mainly members of the ACP States (Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific), which have links with the EEC through membership of the Lome Convention.

The main benefits of this membership for PNG are dutyfree access to EEC markets, a potential for development loans, and an opportunity for commodity price stabilisation protection. This is of particular value to PNG’s rubber industry. although rubber is a comparatively small PNG export.

However, the Lome Convention ends its five-year run early next year, and PNG is now one of the ACP States actively campaigning for the best possible terms under new arrangements which the nine EEC countries are investigating.

Foreign policy Papua New Guinea defines its foreign policy as ‘Universalism’, first laid down by the foundation foreign minister, Sir Maori Kiki, and carried on by the present minister, Ebia Olewale.

The basic definition of PNG political leaders, clockwise from above: Oppostion Leader lambakey Okuk, Peoples Progress Party Chief Julius Chan, Minister for Public Utilities Sir Tei Abal, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale with Australia’s Andrew Peacock 45 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST 1979

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Universalism is ‘Friends of all, enemies of none’. Under this policy PNG refuses to align itself with any power bloc on the grounds that its size would make it subservient.

The policy believes that a comparatively small country can actually turn size to advantage and co-exist with all blocs.

In a theorectical way the system was demonstrated when PNG established diplomatic relations with China, becoming the first country not asked by China to declare nonrecognition of Taiwan.

In practice however the policy has at times appeared naive, and the government is known to have reconsidered its stand on a number of recent occasions.

There are also increasing political pressures inside PNG to rethink the policy. ‘We should come out and say who our friends are,’ was the comment of Vincent Eri, until recently PNG high commissioner in Australia. Mr Eri claimed that, in any event, membership of the Commonwealth was a negation of Universalism.

Universalism has so far prevented the signing of any defence agreement with Australia because of the ‘political’ overtones, but vague ‘cultural’ agreements have been entered into in the South Pacific and South-East Asia.

The most recent questioning of the policy came from the prime minister himself, when Mr Somare spoke in Australia to the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Confirming a review of foreign policy, Mr Somare said: ‘The policies which have served us since independence are now due for close examination. Universalism ... made sense for a new democracy.

Now for the first time since we became independent in 1975 our foreign policy is undergoing a complete review.’

Mr Somare said that in its foreign policy his country wanted to ensure security but the sort of security he meant was not protection from attack, but protection for trade relations and prospects.

Neighbours PNG has three immediate neighbours Solomon Islands, Australia and Indonesia.

Of the three, the Solomons link is both the most serene and the least technical. A reasonably common ethnic heritage, an identical background and an unquestionable brotherhood have made formal diplomacy almost unnecessary.

The border is something of a question mark but no one particularly cares, and the biggest argument of recent years was over a claim that Solomons mosquitoes were flying to the PNG island of Bougainville.

The two countries established formal links at Solomons independence last year, but their strongest link is mutual membership of the South Pacific Forum.

The Australian link is far too complex today to be described in a few lines, but geography and events and attitudes have created a surprisingly healthy bond from what was once a straight colonial situation.

It would be idle to suggest there are no anti-Australian attitudes in PNG society, but the formal diplomacy is firm and real.

Sir John Guise, PNG’s governor-general at independence, said on that occasion: ‘We are hauling down the Australian flag, not tearing it down.’ The attitude displayed in that statement continues to hold generally true.

The Indonesian link is an ambivalent one. Formal diplomatic links are strong, and PNG unhesitatingly accepts Indonesian sovereignty in adjoining Irian Jaya.

But a significant sector of public opinion defines Indonesia as a neo-colonial power in Irian Jaya and, despite protestations of friendship, is uneasy at the Indonesian proximity.

President Suharto, who visited PNG in June, drew a bigger crowd than Australia’s Gough Whitlam or Malcolm Fraser has ever managed (although the Queen won hands down), but curiosity rather than Former PNG high commissioner to Australia, Vincent Eri ... call to rethink ‘universalism’ policy Torres Treaty signing ... seated from left: Australia’s Foreign Minister Peacock and Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser; PNG’s Prime Minister Somare and Foreign Minister Olewale Former governor-general, Sir John Guise ... independence day statement still holds true 47 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST 1979

f 0/7 • • • %>• * You can get all your needs from one supply source: water taps, valves, copper tube, tools and a host of other fittings and related plumbing equipment for domestic, industrial and multi-storey buildings.

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Years of experience in handling and shipping right throughout the South Pacific add up to another big reason for you to deal with Watson & Crane Pty Ltd.

Representatives call regularly at Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, New Hebrides and Fiji Islands to personally discuss your requirements and appropriate credit arrangements.

Write, cable or telephone today for complete plumbers' supplies service. r*c Watson & Crane Pty. Ltd. 1037 Bourke Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017.

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are organised to fulfil your needs wherever you are in the South Pacific 48 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

togetherness stood out as the motive.

The PNG and Indonesian governments have formal agreements on border definition and management (with a renegotiation in the offing), on cultural exchanges, sharing of expertise, mutual aid and mutual regional attitudes.

Apart from the border, however, the agreements are of a very general nature so far, defining attitudes rather than specifics.

The Region PNG is the only South Pacific country which has a land border with an Asian country.

The border is with Indonesia, one of three with other countries, and was the first to be properly formalised. (The other two, both sea borders, are with Australia and Solomon Islands. Also, there is a high seas border to the north.) Because of its Indonesian border, PNG sees itself as occupying a special diplomatic ‘bridging’ role between Asia and the South Pacific. This has led PNG to obtain observer status in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), largely with the support of Indonesia.

PNG has no wish to extend its ASEAN links beyond observer status, because it sees its direct regional role in the South Pacific.

As a result PNG has become one of the principal members of the South Pacific Forum countries - an association of the independent island countries of the South Pacific but it has worked for closer ties between Forum and ASEAN countries.

Any hard material benefits in trade and development from these links have yet to be realised, but PNG has been active in bringing together the two regions in a common conservation role.

This has included a common line towards the banning of nuclear tests and in campaigning to keep the Indian and South Pacific Oceans free of superpower rivalries.

Aid PNG’s principal source of aid is an annual untied grant from Australia which this year is worth about SA2IS million about one-third of the PNG budget.

This is the third year of a five-year committed aid program from Australia.

Under the program Australia has guaranteed an annual grant of $lBO million, to be supplemented by an additional amount agreed to by annual negotiation.

Under the scheme the first annual supplementary grant was $lO million, the second $2O million, and this year’s was $35 million.

Despite the progressive increase, the real value of Australian aid in terms of purchasing power is estimated to have dropped by 7.6% over the period because of international economic factors including Australian currency movements.

On general principles PNG does not quarrel with this tapering-off which is part of its own process of increasing selfreliance. From the start of the aid agreement PNG adopted a strict policy to use the grant as little as possible for ongoing public expenditure. Where possible the money is applied to capital development of a type which will eventually generate national revenue, or will at least reduce avenues of recurring expenditure.

The policy, piloted by the first finance minister, Julius Chan and later by the present minister, Barry Holloway, is progressively reducing dependence on outside aid.

In addition to Australian aid, PNG is also receiving grants from the United Nations Development Program and from the New Zealand Government to a total this year of more than $6 million.

PNG as a developing country also has access to special concessional loans made available by overseas governments and international agencies.

This type of aid at present totals an annual content of about $26 million, with the principal sources being Japan.

West Germany, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Development Association.

Other sources involved or likely to be involved are the European Investment Bank, the Kuwait Fund and agencies in UK and the UN.

The economy PNG has what economists define as an extremely open economy the value of its exports and imports is very large in relation to the value of its gross domestic product.

This makes any economy highly susceptible to world economic fluctuations, and in PNG the susceptibility is accentuated by the ‘commodity’ nature of the exports.

PNG exports, particularly the significant ones of copper ore, coffee, cocoa and copra, are sold on markets which swing wildly according to world conditions as well as according to supply and demand.

Unlike most developing countries, PNG does not have balance of payment problems and its inflation rate is lower than average. This situation is partly fortuitous for several reasons. One is the efficient running of the Conzinc Riotinto-backed Bougainville Copper mine, the biggest single government revenue earner in PNG and in which the government has a 20% share. The mine’s economy enabled it to continue profitably when other major world mines couldn't counter a recent recession in copper.

Another reason is the bolstering presence of the Australian grant in aid. contributing about one-third of the national budget. But. more significantly. PNG’s own policies of financial management have contributed to the more favoured position which the country holds in balancing its books and financing long-term development.

PNG is passing through a period in which lack of home Bougainville Copper's Panguna mine ... PNG’s single biggest revenue earner PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

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WISA Regular customer card index To further increase out efficiency we have introduced the AVISA customer card Index. This system is designed to make it even easier for customers who use our vehicles more than 4 times a year. Your name and details are registered at all our branches so a quick phone call assures a minimum of delay when you pick up your vehicle. Write to AVIS P.O. Box 3533 Port Moresby for further details.

AVIS -smiles ahead M ATIHMXA/inC in Do m in Klou/

I

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Write for details to: Expressive Arts Department Sogeri National High School Private Bag Boroko P. 0., P.N.G. skills is creating the utmost difficulty in staffing and operating its institutions.

Inefficiencies and problems are rife and a source of constant management frustrations.

But these are largely mechanical problems which should gradually recede. The important areas of policy and strategy in national finances have followed sound principles.

A hard currency exchange policy, an extensive back-up of export market stabilisation schemes, emphasis on development projects when committing major expenditure, and the deliberate cultivation of a high international credit rating are the four cornerstones of the structure.

Details of the cornerstones are: Hard currency: A hard currency policy is used in which the curency unit, the kina (named after a traditional tribal symbol of wealth, a type of seashell), is not manipulated for short-term advantages.

Instead, the kina is measured against an average value of currencies from the main overseas countries which are involved in transactions with PNG. Its value is then adjusted up or down according to the average of this relationship.

The aim is to keep the real value of the kina as a purchasing unit as constant as possible.

The kina started life at par with the Australian dollar, but since January 1976 it has been dropped in value against the Japanese yen and the West German mark and it has been raised in value against the Australian dollar and the US dollar. The effective net movement has been an upward revaluation of about 7%. (Kl.oo is now worth $A1.25).

The upward movement has not been an altogether popular measure at home because it has lowered the return (in figures, anyway) from exports. But in terms of financial management of the entire economy, as reflected in cost of living indicators and the assessed inflation rate, the policy has been successful. This has been particularly so as a hedge against ‘imported’ inflation.

Export market stabilisation: Two years ago when commodity prices boomed and producers looked for bigger returns the government again risked some unpopularity by holding down the returns and building up stabilisation buffers. Stabilisation formulas were applied to copper ore exports as well as to agricultural products. The policies were soon vindicated in more recent slumps. The coffee situation was particularly interesting where PNG producers experienced the least fall in prices of producers anywhere in the world.

The slump in copper, coffee and cocoa naturally enough had its effect on national finances. The gross domestic product, for instance, increased that year by less than 2% and overseas reserves went up a mere $3 million.

As a comparison, the earlier Gathering cocoa pods ... slump before recovery 51 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979

Pacific Islands Monthly August Iq7Q

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Relax in big jet luxury aboard the world’s only all 7478 fleet, flying from Sydney and Brisbane to Port Moresby and return, every Thursday and Sunday. % I I QFPO7SO 52 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

1977 boom year had seen an 11% increase in the gross domestic product and a $l5O million lift in overseas reserves.

The important point, however, was that PNG weathered the depressed period without hardship and spending power remained reasonably constant.

With copper now improving and coffee and cocoa firming, funds available for stabilisation and overseas reserves are now moving up again.

Emphasis on developmenttype spending: PNG has resisted a temptation to pour its available funds in electoratepleasing expenditure of a recurrent type and on glamour capital projects. Where possible it has attempted to use its own direct revenue for recurrent public expenditures, applying its Australian and loan aid to long-term development projects particularly in the rural sector which will eventually provide new revenue bases.

From time to time there is public and political argument about the appropriateness of some of the schemes the government chooses to establish. But the thrust of any controversy is not against the principle involved, and mainly concerns the degree of success which different projects are likely to achieve.

International credit rating: As a developing country with a guaranteed aid input from Australia, PNG had an easy initial access to international borrowings at concessional rates.

At first there was a tacit stipulation that Australia should guarantee the loans, and this was the basis of early arrangements. PNG made a point of maintaining absolute integrity in how it applied the loans and in how it met its loan commitments.

This policy, together with import management to ensure an overall favourable balance of payments, has also paid off.

PNG now has a surprisingly wide access, on its own guarantee, to international money at nominal or low rates. The only factor today which would inhibit any development loan application by PNG would be disagreement over the viability of a project under consideration.

Investment Since independence, a series of policy statements, many of them complex and sometimes emotional, have been made regarding general investment and foreign investment in PNG. There has never been any basic change in policy attitudes which in itself is a stabilising element in the economy but the processes relating to investment tend to be in a constant state of flux.

This has produced some mcertainties for the investor, often not realised by the bureaucracy which defines the situation as ‘refinement’. In essence, PNG investment policy makes the following points: • Too much capital and control is in the hands of non-nationals particularly resident and nonresident Australians. • But. . . this will be tolerated if certain guidelines are followed to phase in local partnerships, capital and management. • Investment will be actively encouraged from outside, and even sought, if it is of a developmental or highlycapitalised nature which is obviously beyond the country’s present resources. • Where the above requirements are met a foreign investor will be guaranteed freedom from expropriation and discriminatory sanctions, and will be free to repatriate earnings, interest payments and capital.

These four guidelines have stood fairly strongly from the start of PNG nationhood, but where investors run into some uncertainty is in the continual replanning and rethinking of the processes involved, in the creation of new institutions and the re-aligning of older ones, in re-interpretations of situations, and in differing methods of applying the rules.

For foreigh investors the situation has created two somewhat conflicting reactions. One is an optimism bred by an acceptance that PNG genuinely wants certain types of investment and will provide a fair deal to those who qualify.

The other is caution bred from the uncertainties of dayto-day processes, and the sensitivities of fluctuating national politics.

The net result is that PNG is still attractive to some types of investment, but the capital carries a much higher speculative component than it would for a similar venture in many other countries.

If the PNG planners have any blind spot, it is a failure to realise that foreign investors need just as much concessional treatment as Papua New Guinean investors (although of different types) if ultimate stability is to be assured.

NIDA (National Investment and Development Authority) masterminds the investment and employment scene, recommending to the government what employment and what investment is being progressively closed to non-nationals.

There has never been any significant questioning of the genuine nature of what PNG is offering. However the process of making, applying and maintaining the rules is frequently a source of investment insecurity.

Planning schemes, too, have sometimes been accused of failing to see the wood for the trees. Don Harvey, managing director of the big multiinterest group Steamships Trading Company, recently pointed out that the shares of his company, all publicly listed, are mainly held in Australia only because of the historical accident of how the firm was financed at its establishment.

He could see no reason why Papua New Guineans who wanted part of the show (or all of it for that matter) couldn’t start buying up the shares on the open market. But PNG groups had been prevented by their own government from doing this, he said, under the emotional restrictive tag of ‘foreign business’.

Meanwhile, elaborate and expensive planning went on in the government to determine how Papua New Guineans could gain a greater share of their country’s economy. ‘All they have to do in some instances is put their money where their mouth is,' he commented.

Minerals Bougainville Copper mine is PNG’s biggest engineering project, a giant open-pit mine in the Crown Prince Range on Bougainville Island. It has a annual net sales revenue exceeding $270 million.

The mine, operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd. is majority owned (over 60 percent) by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd, and the PNG Government (with more than Picking coffee ... with prices firming overseas reserves are moving up again 53 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST 1979

Ve don’t live in the past ..but we are proud of it *% - & : il . nr > i ■V I ■ m mob * *■: !*• ’ «r r r^TT i'Mf: Burns Philp set the pace in business in Papua New Guinea when the company commenced trading in Port Moresby in 1891. Long before the former colony became independant. Burns Philp took the lead in trade, plantation development, shipping, stevedoring and many other enterprises. As the Nation grows. Burns Philp is still in front. For example, a new multi-million kina arcade project is planned just a few metres from the site of the original Burns Philp office in downtown Port Moresby. Burns Phi Ip's experience and local knowledge is available for you if you've come to talk business. Burns Phi Ip's head office is in Champion Parade Port Moresby, Telex NE22116.

Burns Philp

Burns Philp (New Guinea) Limited, Box 75 Port Moresby. Ph. 21 2233

20 percent) is the other major shareholder. The mine is PNG’s major export earnings producer, and the return from shareholdings is only a small part of what the government derives from the venture.

Company tax alone which the government received from the mine last year was $27.5 million and royalties produced another $3.5 million. The operation also provides employment in PNG for more than 4000 men and women, of whom 3300 are Papua New Guineans.

Through scholarships, apprenticeships and on-site training the mine is a major contributor to developing skilled professionals, technicians, tradesmen and operators in the PNG workforce.

The mine is expected to operate for at least another 30 years on proven reserves, but in the meantime extensive new exploration is being carried out within the mining reserve.

Gold and silver as well as copper are recovered from the Bougainville ore. Gold sales last year amounted to $l2O million and silver to more than $6 million.

The present agreement under which the mine operates was negotiated by the PNG Government at independence, reopening an agreement which Australia had made several years earlier as the then administering country in PNG.

PNG gained some important advantages from the renegotiations particularly a surplus earnings tax but the newlyindependent country was criticised abroad for what was seen as repudiating an international agreement, and criticised at home for fear it would lose confidence on the international investment market.

The government defended its action on the grounds that it had not been party to the original agreement between CRA and Australia, and gave an assurance that its own future agreements would be firm.

The government then launched into a major planning inquiry which eventually produced its formal attitudes and policies towards any future mining operations involving major multinational investment. The guidelines do not insist that a major government equity should necessarily be a prime consideration. More important aspects are seen as the best possible guaranteed financial returns, a graded surtax on unexpectedly high profits, contributions to national development and the provision of wider economic Five months has yet to run before the final feasibility study is completed, but there seems little doubt that the country will get its second major copper venture, and that the new mine will be about three-quarters the size of Bougainville.

The US Kennecott group carried out the original Ok Tedi exploration, dating back to 1968. But Kennecott pulled opportunities for people and their communities.

The test of PNG’s mining policy expertise and negotiating ability will come soon when arrangements begin for the construction and commissioning phases of the proposed new copper mine at Ok Tedi in the central western Star Mountains of the PNG mainland. out in 1975 when it couldn’t get the assurances it wanted for its share in any eventual mining venture.

PNG then took a bold step for a new country, forming its own exploration company. Ok Tedi Development, and employing or contracting the skills it wanted.

Then in November 1976 the government made a deal with the big Australian miner BHP. under which BHP formed a consortium to push ahead a feasibility study without delay.

The consortium represents Australian, US and West German interests, and the project partners are: PNG Government 20%, BHP through its subsidiary Dampier Mining 30%, Standard Oil of Indiana through its subsidiary Mount Fubilan Development 30%, and Kupfer Explorations, representing three West German industrials, 20%.

These percentages will be the relative share options available to the parent companies when the mining phase starts.

Extraction and transport problems will be major hurdles in the Ok Tedi venture. The site is in rugged remote country, high in the mountains near the Indonesian border and 640 km from the Gulf of Papua coastline.

The feasibility study should have been completed by the middle of this year but the consortium was granted an extension and expects to present its report in November.

Primary industry Agriculture, except for major developmental projects involving joint estates and process plants, is no longer an attractive investment for outside money because of deliberate government policies.

The industry, particularly where individual ownership is involved, is gradually being closed to all but Papua New Guinean nationals. The process includes the expropriation of foreign-owned properties at government valuation for redistribution to Papua New Guineans living in the areas involved.

In general, the system has worked fairly smoothly with the government willing to renegotiate some valuations, and with only a handful of deep-seated disputes involving the displaced owners.

The government is not buying every foreign-owned property on principle, but is selecting those in areas where acute local land shortages have developed.

The expropriations have Apprentice at work at Bougainville Copper’s workshop ... a duty to develop skilled Papua New Guineans 55 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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Coffee has replaced cocoa as the boom glamour crop in PNG and heads the list of exports in agriculture and fisheries production. The value of agriculture and fisheries exports in 1978 was: coffee sl34m, cocoa s7Bm, coconut products s46m, tuna s2sm. timber and ply s24m, palm oil sl3m. tea slom. prawns ssm. rubber s3m. (For comparison, PNG’s biggest export, copper ore, was valued for the same period at $271m.) Coffee: Frosts which almost wiped out crops in Brazil, together with the development of a reputation for providing a special flavouring coffee, have boosted PNG’s coffee earnings considerably in the past four years. The boom is expected to last for at least another two years, despite a temporary setback last season.

The industry is protected by a stabilisation scheme. The crop comes solely from the Highlands and has injected huge amounts of cash income into a relatively primitive community which previously had only a sustenance economy.

Sociologically, there is some concern at squandering of incomes by producers and in the emergence of coffee industry crime, mainly stealing beans from properties or during trucking.

Cocoa: Once a booming industry near the top, cocoa is the export earner which is most reflecting the departure of many white planters. Production has fallen off through a running down of some properties although many of the former owners themselves have been accused of allowing this to happen when they knew their time was short.

World market situations, the economies of the industry and the breaking down of some properties into small units have all taken their toll of the industry but the general prospects remain good provided PNG can maintain quality and grade accurately.

The centres of production are East New Britain (Rabaul and Kokopo areas), Bougainville and New Ireland.

Foreign-owned cocoa properties were among the first properties to come under intense pressures for expropriation. but more recently there have been calls to ensure that experienced planters are allowed to remain at least in limited numbers in the general interests of the industry.

Coconut products: PNG exports raw copra and has a coconut oil expressing mill which is operated in Rabaul by the Australian-based W. R.

Husking coconuts near Rabaul ... reasonably trouble-free industry 57 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

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The mill sells oil on world markets, particularly to Europe, and the by-product, copra cake, is sold to the US as a cattle feed. Coconut production remains a steady and reasonably trouble-free industry for thousands of small holder growers.

Tuna: The 1978 figure of $25 million in tuna exports partly represents experimental programmes in conjunction with Japanese interests. Meanwhile, Japanese rights to fish for tuna in PNG waters on a licence and royalty basis have ended with the expiry of a government-togovernment agreement.

Negotiations to reach a new agreement have come to a stalemate mainly over PNG’s firm demands that the $1.25 million paid for the initial rights should be continued annually.

PNG is not anxious to sell any rights cheaply because it sees tuna fishing as a means of building a brand-new industry of its own, boosted by the newly-declared 200-mile marine resource limits.

Timber and plywood: Plywood production at Bulolo, once an Australian venture but now backed by Japanese interests, continues as a steady industry and, as a minor byproduct, the factory has started exporting chopsticks to Japan.

Logging and timber milling, ofte-n troubled industries in PNG because of shoestring capitalisation, are going through a series of reorganisations with political presssures to ensure greater equity for PNG nationals.

The industry continues to be critical of government policies towards it but the indications are that it has a sound future.

Japanese interests continue to operate a successful woodchip industry and reafforestation programme at Madang on the north coast of the PNG Mainland.

Palm oil: This is one of the newest and fastest-developing of PNG industries, growing and harvesting the palms and expressing the oil at central mills. The industry is centred on West New Britain.

It is mainly backed by UK investment and expertise with government involvement.

Japanese interest attempted to become involved in the industry but lacked the expertise and the PNG government terminated the agreement.

Palm oil has been the basis of PNG’s most ambitious programme in agricultural settlement. Applications were called from all parts of the country, settlers and their families were flown into newly-acquired land, and there they built their houses and planted their crops in a self-help development venture.

The experiment has not been without social problems, mainly caused by frictions between groups from different home areas, but financially it is successful.

Among the minor industries of PNG, special attention is being given to crocodile farming and crocodile skin exporting. The industry is particularly Planting out the seedlings at Hoskins palm oil project, West New Britain ... one of PNG’s fastest developing industries PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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Crocodile trade . . . exemption from world ban on export of saltwater skins valuable to the relatively depressed areas of the southwest.

Australia and the US recently supported moves for PNG to be exempted from a proposed world ban on the export of saltwater crocodile skins. The ban is wanted by the International Union of Conservation of Nature which claims saltwater crocodiles are in danger of extinction.

US and Australian officials are satisfied that the crocodiles are not endangered in PNG because of numbers and existing conservation measures.

Tourism ‘Papua New Guinea like every other place you’ve never been’ is the advertising slogan which has become synonymous with the PNG tourist industry.

But the industry itself is still settling down and it has become the focus of several conflicting attitudes at home and from visitors. Despite the effort going into it, the industry is not yet a major revenueearner for PNG.

Foreign exchange earnings from tourism (not counting fares in and out but counting internal fare spending) is running at just under $lO million a year, and increasing. This makes tourism PNG’s seventhhighest foreign exchange earner. There is little doubt that the earnings will increase sharply under the present promotional moves by the Office of Tourism a statutory body and by travel and accommodation interests involved in the industry. This includes the promotional work of the national airline. Air Niugini.

However the position of tourism in the scale of earnings is not likely to change because the two revenue-earners just ahead of it timber and fish - are also on the threshold of an expansion.

As part of a Pacific-wide trend, tourism is officially accepted and tacitly seen as something which must be promoted. From time to time, however, and recently with some increasing frequency, the 61 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST 1979

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overall value of tourism has been questioned. How much can we really earn and are the problems really worth it? are the questions being asked.

There are fears that tourism could promote the destruction of existing cultures and the emergence of‘sham’ cultures in the traditional tribal areas which are the main tourist drawcard. Tourists themselves criticise the comparatively high cost of transport and accommodation, accentuated now by cheap international airfares which do not extend to PNG.

Human nature itself has created another problem. With charming honesty, PNG tourism is sold partly as a visit to one of the last remaining links with ancient tribal cultures. But the very people who lap this up as bait are often the first to complain if the hot water is lukewarm or if the cooking is not up to their standards.

Migration statistics show that 56% of all short-term visitors to PNG are tourists, and the most recent figures show an annual intake of 20 000 tourists travelling by air.

Nearly the same number pass through in cruise ships in some years, but these visits are only one-day stopovers in single ports and do not involve significant tourist expenditure.

In 1974, just before political independence, there was a 13% drop in the number of shortterm visitors, including tourists. The decline continued for three years and then the trend was reversed but it was not until last year that the figures returned to 1973 levels. The Office of Tourism believes that real fears about the political future of PNG, later allayed, were the reasons for the decline. Australia, Japan and the US are the three main sources of visitors to PNG.

Recent figures show that 62.5% of the visitors were from Australia, 7.8% from Japan and 7.6% from the US. (These proportions are for all short-term visitors, not merely tourists, but they are considered to reflect the tourist situation fairly closely.) South Pacific countries, including New Zealand but excluding Australia, provided 6.6% of the visitors, UK 3.6% and West Germany 2.1%.

As a side issue, a tourism survey disclosed that New Zealanders were the biggest individual spenders once they hit PNG, and visitors from UK and West Germany the most frugal (perhaps the fare from Europe left them little change.) Australians as spenders were in the middle of the list, a shade ahead of Americans but when it came to spending money on souvenir artifacts the Americans won hands down over visitors from all countries.

Transport Land: The biggest revolution in PNG transport today is in the ownership of freight haulage companies using the roads or what some operators describe as ‘the strips of ground joining the towns to each other’.

The revolution comes from a policy decision by Transport Minister Paias Wingti that all foreign-owned trucking companies must release at least 50% of their shares to Papua New Guineans by next year and be out of the business altogether by 1981. ‘Foreign-owned’ means ownership by non-citizens, even if the owners have been long established and resident in PNG. Mr Wingti’s portfolio covers land, sea and air transport, and he believes that of all three, complete ‘localisation’ of ownership and control is now possible in the road transport business.

The move is causing concern among a number of operators, particularly in the truck capital of Lae, the coastal gateway to the highway which serves the PNG Highlands.

Operators claim that although they accept the principle involved they believe the timetable is too rapid.

Taxi and public motor vehicle licences are already confined to Papua New Guineans.

Sea: The PNG Government has conducted a major reorganisation of shipping services, including involving itself directly as a partner in coastal and overseas shipping lines.

The coastal shipping programme was largely forced on the government by the large numbers of aging and often unsuitable ships which were in service until recently.

In conjunction with the reequipment and reorganisation programme the government has also set up or extended formal training schemes to develop Papua New Guineans as ships officers and seamen.

Air: Air services remain the backbone of passenger travel throughout PNG because of the lack of a continuous trunk road system.

The government is an 83% owner of the national airline Air Niugini (the Australian Ansett group holds the remaining shares) and the airline operates as an international and domestic trunk carrier.

Its fleet consists of two Boeing 707 jets on lease, three F2B Fokker Fellowship jets (with a fourth due soon) and nine F 27 Fokker Friendships.

International routes are to Australia, Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore and Solomon Islands.

An extensive network of light aircraft charter operations provides feeder services and has also been instrumental in opening up many isolated communities by flying produce to markets and bringing in supplies (see PIM July).

Trade unions In its original form trade unionism did not rise spontaneously from the workforce in PNG a surprising fact because there was once cause enough - but it was ‘established’ by the former Australian administration of the country.

The move arose from United Nations insistence that unionism was an essential protective element in society and should be created as part of the nationbuilding exercise in PNG.

Since then, PNG unionism has become more spontaneous Lae’s new airport at Nadzab in the Markham Valley ... flying is the backbone of passenger travel because of lack of roads PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979

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The Energy Savers & co PTY LTD Turumu St., Boroko. Phone 25 5411. but it still lacks much of the coherence evident in more developed countries. The only consistent militancy so far has come from the waterfront and to a smaller extent from the mining operation on Bougainville Island.

The same lack of coherence which marks the union scene is also partly evident in the single organisation the PNG Employers Federation which balances the unions under PNG’s quite extensive labour, industrial, arbitration and conciliation structure.

This is because individual employers as much as individual workers have a history of independent orientation in PNG. This has left the industrial scene very fluid and often without hard precedents on either side of the negotiating table. Some observers claim this will lead ultimately to major shakedowns and confrontations on the industrial scene.

A complicating issue has been the white employer/black employee situation inherited by PNG, and which has sometimes clouded real industrial issues. This aspect is becoming less significant as PNG policies force an increasing degree of local equity and control into the economy.

There are about 60 organisations in PNG which call themselves unions but the number properly registered is considerably less.

Most of the unregistered unions have forfeited their right to registration because of failure to meet certain requirements, but some have simply never applied.

Unregistered unions are permitted to operate but they have no legal standing and an increasing body of political opinion is agitating for the present situation to be put into order.

The biggest single union in PNG is the Public Service Association with a membership of about 15,000.

Lae has the best-organised overall union structure with the PNG Trade Union Congress, the Lae Waterside Workers and Seamen’s Union and the Lae Miscellaneous Workers Union. Other centres with active union organisation are Port Moresby, Rabaul. the Bougainville copper mine and Madang.

An organised union structure is only just emerging in Kavieng on New Ireland and in Wewak on the north coast of the PNG mainland.

Hydro-power One of the greatest sources of relatively untapped power in PNG is in its river systems which drain away tropical rainfalls of up to 200 centimetres a year.

Port Moresby has been supplied by a hydro scheme generating its electricity and supplying its water for nearly 20 years, and there is another major hydro-electric scheme in the Eastern Highlands. Several local schemes are either in service or under construction and planning.

But one of the world’s great- Waterfall near Sogeri, Central Province ... hydro-power barely tapped so far 65 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

South Pacific Festival of Arts Invitation to tender for franchise use of Festival Trademark The Third South Pacific Festival of Arts will be held between June 29 and July 12, 1980, in Port Moresby and seven other regional centres in Papua New Guinea.

The Festival will feature exciting and colourful performances of dance, music, song, drama, craft skills, etc., drawn from over 20 Pacific nations, and will include over 1,000 participants from overseas and at least 600 representatives of the wide range of Papua New Guinean cultures. A large number of visitors from all over the world are expected to join some of Papua New Guinea's nearly three million inhabitants as spectators.

The Festival Logotype shown is the Registered Trademark of the Third South Pacific Festival of Arts, and the Festival Board (a Statutory Authority of the Government of Papua New Guinea) hereby invites tenders for the use of the Trademark on souvenir items on sale before, during and after the Festival both in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific countries who are member nations of the South Pacific Commission.

Applications are therefore invited from principals only for the manufacture and/or distribution of suitable items bearing the Festival Logotype (either in monochrome or four colours), or the words: "South Pacific Festival of Arts", on an exclusive or semi-exclusive basis. The Festival Board would prefer to negotiate on the basis of an outright fee rather than on a royalty formula. All revenue derived will be put towards Festival Funds.

Tenders will close at 4pm on August 31, 1979, and the Festival Board reserves the right to accept or reject any tender. For further information, and the submission of tenders, please write to: The Director, Third South Pacific Festival of Arts, P.O. Box 6918, Boroko, Papua New Guinea.

Cables: "RESTART", Boroko. Telephone: 21 2244.

Telex: NE22248, marking your envelope "Franchise Tender".

SOUTH PACIFIC FESTIVAL OF ARTS rm 'xsm

Papua Iieui

GUINEA 1980 66 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

est potentials for cheap electric power is in the Purari and Aure rivers which rise in the central spine of the mainland and flow into the Gulf of Papua. Projection surveys have shown a potential exceeding that of the big Snowy Mountains scheme in Australia.

The Purari is an ideal river for tapping and its huge flow drops 4500 metres over its 740kilometre course.

Australian, Japanese and PNG interests last year completed a $9 million survey to assess the potential and viability of a stage one hydroelectric scheme on the Purari.

A dam at Wabo, towards the headwaters, was selected as the site for any initial development. The position now is that PNG knows it has the possibility for mass-produced power at one of the cheapest rates in the world. But it can’t reticulate or use the power itself and needs a wholesale industrial customer prepared to establish an industry.

Port sites and town sites have been surveyed in the Gulf of Papua, and tentative interest has been shown by international smelting groups in West Germany, Japan and Australia. So far however nothing firm has come from any of the approaches and inquiries.

Minerals and Energy Minister Karl Stack, has been investigating the possibility of an undersea cable to carry power to northern Australia for consumption at Gove and Weipa where power for smelting is at present expensive.

Talks have yet to be held in Australia on the suggestion and Mr Kitchens describes the situation as ‘very tentative so far’.

Defence force The PNG Defence Force has maritime, army and air elements, and is responsible through its commander to the defence minister and government of the day. The former defence presence in PNG was Papua New Guinea Command of the Australian Military Forces, which included two battalions of Papua New Guinean soldiers and mainly Australian officers.

When the Australian presence was withdrawn, facilities, installations and equipment were handed over to the new government. Some Australians still serve in the force on secondment for special duties, but the numbers are being reduced annually.

The main elements of the force are two battalions of infantry, an engineer and support battalions, a transport and patrol air unit (with Nomad and Dakota aircraft), a water transport section and a maritime fast patrol boat squadron.

PNG has no defence treaty with Australia but there is extensive training and general co-operation between the forces of the two countries, and under an ‘agreement of understanding’ Australia extends support and aid directly to the defence establishment.

Police The police force in PNG is incorporated under royal charter as the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary.

It is responsible for civil law and order through the police minister to the government and is a single national force established in urban and rural areas. The service itself is under the control of a commissioner.

Its present strength is about 4000 officers and men, but this is almost 1000 below authorised and required strength and the force is engaged in an extensive recruiting campaign.

The force has almost completely phased out Australians and other non-nationals who served with it before PNG became independent. However it is still bringing in experts from overseas as instructors or advisers in special or technical fields.

Under this arrangement it is at present using the services of a New Zealand police officer for prosecutions training, four officers from the South Australian police force for a survey of sector patrol work and three Australian military personnel for aid in communications and catering services.

In conjunction with the defence force the police service maintains a joint officers training college in Lae and it has its own police college near Port Moresby and a mobile force training centre near Rabaul.

The force has come under a considerable testing period in recent years following sweeping changes in PNG society which have included increases in crowd violence situations and a rise in petty crime and law and order problems.

The suitability or otherwise of the force for the work it is called on to do is a continuing cause of controversy in the force itself and as a political issue. It is still undergoing a period of extreme change in methods and outlook.

Law and order Law and order is probably the most serious national issue facing PNG at present, not merely in social terms but because of the heavy financial cost and the wastage and disruption it causes to the economy. It falls into two types urban crime and inter-tribal fightings.

The urban situation has improved slightly in recent months, and the improvement is attributed to more efficient police patrolling and to tighter restrictions on the availability of alcohol. There is only 30 hours bar trading a week, and in Port Moresby all bottle sales are banned three days a week.

Officialdom sometimes tries to play down the urban crime situation with claims that it is symptomatic of a world urban condition, and that it is highlighted in PNG only by comparison with sleepier days which are close enough to remember.

For their size, however. Port Moresby in particular and other PNG centres to a lesser degree are indeed badly troubled by urban crime despite what statistical comparison might be introduced.

In any event, they are not big cities and towns in the absolute sense which complicates statistical comparison.

Stoning of vehicles almost as a night-time sport, theft of vehicles, street fights, knifing of householders during burglar- Queen Elizabeth II, nominally head of state of PNG, inspects PNG Defence Force infantry guard of honour ... no treaties but extensive co-operation with Australia 67 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979 PACIFIC ISLANDS MDNTHI Y _ ai iqt -iqtq

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Architecturally impressive, the hotel offers you the highest international standards in accommodation. 176 comfortable, airconditioned rooms and suites, each with private bathroom facilities and personal balcony. A fine restaurant serving both national and overseas dishes cooked to perfection, with a very good cellar to complement your meal. The shopping mezzanine will delight you with its large range of goods and the Papua New Guinean artifacts available are a ‘must’. Combine all this with excellent service from the cheerful, friendly staff and you have the Port Moresby Travelodge a mixture of traditional and up-to-the-minute hospitality. ■ \ A (£ r J<h.

On the other side of the mainland is situated the beautiful island of East New Britain. Here in the town of Rabaul is Papua New Guinea’s second Travelodge.

Smaller than its Port Moresby counterpart with a correspondingly more intimate atmosphere, it offers exactly the same high standards of accommodation and friendly service.

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O Australia 9 New Zealand O Fiji 9 Tahiti 9 Cook Islands O Papua New Guinea 9 New Caledonia 9 Western Samoa 9 68 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

ies, vandalism, break and enters, gang attacks and wanton property damage all have a high incidence.

Factory-type wire fences round suburban houses, jaillike bars on the windows and privately-employed security guards for houses and residential streets are all part of the picture.

Opposition Leader lambakey Okuk spoke recently of ‘people living in fear behind high wire fences’.

Alcohol (getting it and the effects of drinking it) is seen as a major factor in the urban crime scene, and one of the biggest housebreaking targets is the drinks cupboard. Unemployment is another, and with younger offenders this is often not so much lack of a job as lack of something to do.

The presence in a single society of huge extremes of income, including highly-paid foreigners and low-paid locals, is quoted as another factor but it does not appear to be as significant today as it once might have been. Certainly rank and file Papua New Guineans as much as any one else are among the victims.

A number of surveys, private and statutory, have been made into urban crime and drinking problems but the problem remains a very real one.

Far more embarrassing to the government and to the nation in general is the current tribal fighting situation which has intensified this year and which is mainly a problem of the Highland regions.

More than 50 people have died this year at the end of an arrow, an axe or a spear, hundreds of acres of food and commercial crops have been torn ap and several hundred houses lave been destroyed.

This has been the direct cost if tribal fighting in the Highlands, but the indirect costs in lolice, government and court ictivity, in loss of production, lisruption of society, and Jiversion of funds cannot be :ounted.

Payback feuds, which the ights represent, have always leen a part of traditional Highlands society and neither the ormer Australian administrators nor the PNG leaders themselves ever believed that the payback system could be ended easily. It was assumed, however, that the problem would recede as a new organised society developed.

Modern developments however - roads, vehicles, cash incomes, freedom of movement, consumer goods and improved farming methods have had exactly the reverse effect in some areas.

Now there are more issues on which a feud can flare up. more means of carrying it on, and more means of entrenching it. Modern fights start over road accidents, pigs, women, land and farming expansion, disputes over crops, and the results of formal court cases.

One payback leads simply to another, and an aggrieved person sees an entire clan as fair game for his own revenge.

In a submission to cabinet a few weeks ago Police Minister Lukas Waka said bluntly that PNG was on the verge of anarchy if the tribal fighting situation could not be contained.

In political theory tribal fighting is a form of anarchy because it represents a system where the only law is a clan’s right to take the law into its own hands.

One of the worst aspects of the situation is that the effects of a tribal dispute spread to the trained workforce, often in offices or workshops far away, creating personal fears and undermining national unity.

Not only the government but the entire leadership of PNG has now accepted that the tribal fighting situation with its drain on resources and its disruptions represents a major national problem. It is also seen as a dangerous element towards weakening the normal rule of law. This has been shown in a number of instances when men actually on trial have been seized from court or police station by tribal lynch gangs and killed.

In another recent incident tribesmen burnt down a court building because they disagreed with a magistrate’s decision.

Media PNG has two newspapers, the Post-Courier and the Niugini Nius, and two widely distributed national periodicals, Wantok and New Nation, several regional publications and about 60 special interest and generally non-commercial publications of a more or less regular nature.

The Post-Courier, published five days a week in Port Moresby, is a subsidiary of the Australian newspaper group Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. but the PNG operation has just been opened to share subscriptions from PNG citizens.

The newly-launched fourdays-a-week Niugini Nius is published by a wholly-owned subsidiary of the locally-based PNG Printing Company Pty Ltd. This publication marks a merging of three publications, Lae Nius, Hail ans Nius and A Hans Nius.

Wantok and New Nation are also locally-owned, emerging from a joint churches commercial venture aimed at providing a service rather than making money.

A statutory broadcasting authority, the National Broadcasting Commission, operates more than 20 national and regional stations.

There is no television broadcasting or commerciallyowned radio, although the NBC supplements its government grant with advertising sales, a step taken by the NBC itself in the face of wide political and public opposition.

Full press freedoms exist under the national constitution, and the situation has never been seriously questioned. The same freedoms extend to radio but the practical situation there has been lessclear-cutthan in the privateenterprise-owned press.

This is because some politicians believe they should have control over broadcasting because the NBC is a statefunded authority. There is some public belief, too, that the government does in fact control the broadcast content a situation strongly denied by the government.

Generally speaking there is no political pressure to censor the broadcast content, but rather to guarantee the broadcast and form of statements which political leaders might want to air.

While present attitudes exist - and there is no indication that they are changing a free press and radio remains as a cornerstone of PNG policy.

The need for wider avenues of publication has consistently occupied the government and an inquiry on whether new newspapers were needed, possibly involving government financial support, has just been concluded. A final report from the inquiry is still awaited.

From time to time there is public concern over what the overseas press and radio, mainly in Australia, writes about PNG. Tribal fighting reports constitute a particularly sensitive issue and there are claims that the Australian press distorts PNG’s image.

At least three overseas journalists have been refused visas to visit PNG but there have been no incidents revoking the permits of resident representatives of the overseas press.

Western Highlands clan marches before making compensation payment to settle debts ... too often there’s fighting before friendship 69 PAPUA NEW GUINEA 1979

Pacific Islands Monthly August Iq7Q

I r is!

IP! :.r- -4*? m -V ;•: s*r>; g « * »« «£« % s *. #* ■ -> IN SM some of mr chiefs In Papua New Guinea there are 717 different cultures, each represented by its own language and its own "chief”. Few men know this country better than our chief pilot, Captain John Regan.

He's logged more than 16,000 hours flying, much of that in Papua New Guinea.

John Regan is one of ninety highly skilled Australian, New Zealand, British, and American pilots flying our aircraft to seventeen places in Papua New Guinea and eight destinations overseas.

AIRNIUGINI

The Na Tional Airline Of Papua New Guineam

TRAVEL Now it’s 'hire a yacht and sail the islands of Vavau’

An interesting commercial development involving bareboat yacht hire is underway in Vavau in northern Tonga. Jimmy Cornell, who reports on this venture from Neiafu, also raises the question of Islands reaction to irresponsible yacht crews whose actions are helping to make the going tough for all those others willing to play the Pacific voyaging game by the rules.

Three yachts arrived recently at Vavau to establish a bareboat charter operation. Owned by South Pacific Yacht Charters (SPYC) Limited, a company based in Springfields, Utah, USA, the yachts, Stargazer, Fantasy and Omoo all CSY 44 types were brought out by delivery crews who left Florida in December last year.

The 13.2 m cutters are sturdy vessels, well equipped on deck and below, a perfect choice for vessels to be handled by ever-changing crews.

Equally inspired was the choice of Vavau as a base, one of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the Pacific. There are dozens of islands, excellent anchorages and relatively few dangers. Charterers will also find here the relaxed pace of a small community, a colourful market with precious little to offer to the palangi taste, but plenty of locals offering Tongan feasts on their private beaches at $5 a head.

The lack of European-type vegetables and the poor selection of food in the local shops have prompted the charter company to include in their package a complete menu.for the duration of the trip ($lO a person a day). Each boat has a fully stocked freezer, a Tongan cook being optional. Also optional is the hire of a local skipper or guide ($25 per day) to take less confident sailors to some of the more exciting places.

So far only the Vavau group is allowed for cruising but trips to Haapai will be possible soon provided a Tongan skipper is taken along.

The cost of chartering a boat, which can sleep up to eight persons in comfort, works out at about $l3OO a week, food, drinks and local crew not ineluded. Also available are reduced air fares from Los Angeles to Pago Pago with a quick transfer to Vavau.

SPYC has already built its own marina facilities in Neiafu. Manager of the operation, American Don Coleman, who arrived in Vavau accompanied by his wife and two children at the beginning of May, is an old Pacific voyager. The Colemans left Australia in 1970 on board their yacht Alandseer, cruising through PNG and the Caroline, Gilbert and Marshall Islands. For five years they were in the Marshalls, running a tourist operation on Arno, a small atoll close to Majuro.

Don looks forward to the not very distant day when the charter fleet will be increased to 10 yachts, this being the minimum number required for the operation to pay.

In spite of a recent clampdown on the freedom of movement of cruising yachts wishing to explore the area, no cruising restrictions apply to the three yachts owned by SPYC.

Vavau’s police chief. Inspector Lavaki. explained that current restrictions on the movement of foreign yachts were imposed on orders from Nukualofa. Apparently several of the 127 yachts which called at Vavau in 1978 have misbehaved in one way or another.

Cruising in Vavau has never been easy, with skippers being forced to report regularly to the police. This year’s order does not allow yachts to leave the anchorage at Neiafu at all. Fortunately the Governor of Vavau, Ma’afu Tupou. is a reasonable man and he has granted special permission to several yachts to visit the outlying islands of the groups.

Trying to get to the bottom of this ‘yachtie phobia’, I was quoted an old case of a ‘yachtie’ having been apprehended planting marijuana on one of the outer islands. In fact, the culprit, caught in Vavau, was a ‘landlubbing’ Peace Corps volunteer.

What seems to have annoyed the Tongan authorities even more are reports from Fiji, the New Hebrides and New Calendonia of yachts arriving from Vavau loaded with black coral.

According to Tongan law, everything under the sea belongs to the crown and the Tongan people, so it is a crime even to pick up a shell or spear a fish, although Inspector Lavaki assured me he had no intention of applying the law in such cases. In fact, he could only think of three serious offences committed by yachts last year. Hardly enough to justify such stern measures.

Over the past 10 years, small boat cruising in the Pacific has become an accepted phenomenon. Cruising yachts bring not only a welcome change into the daily lives of many islanders but also make an important contribution to their incomes.

Carvings, baskets, tapa cloth and shells are bought by the crews, not to speak oflocal produce.

The yachts which visited Vavau last year spent an average of $lOO each, which amounts to well over $lO,OOO, a significant sum in a country in which a clerk earns only $ll a week.

And yachts don’t cost much to cope with in relation to other forms of tourism. Capital outlay on yachts is nil. no aircraft runways or hotels being necessary to handle the yachtie trade.

What then is the reason for this increasing unfriendliness encountered, not only in Tonga but in French Polynesia, Fiji, the New Hebrides and Solomons Islands, a feeling so untypical of Pacific hospitality?

As a journalist first and yachtie second, who has cruised in over 40 countries over the past four years, I can only call it shortsightedness.

There are, of course, yachts and crews which pose problems, but local authorities must learn to separate the sheep from the goats and get away from the present tendency to treat all visiting yachtsmen as undesirables.

One of the three CSY 44s ... a sturdy choice. Photo: Jimmy Cornell 71 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

Fly the birds of paradise _ to PilDUrl Air Niugini Adventures in Paradise Shop is in the y Tank Stream Arcade, King George Tower, New Guinea Cnr King and George Streets. and on to Asia. Information and Sales: Phone 232 8900.

Getting To The

Heart Of Png

One of the greatest barriers to people discovering the incredible beauty of Papua New Guinea is that so many tend to get as far as Port Moresby and say to themselves: ‘Well, I've done it.' How wrong they are. As an advert for Papua New Guinea, some regard Port Moresby as a liability. In fact, if you've only seen the national capital you certainly haven't seen Papua New Guinea. Iris Langdon recently got away from the big city and went up in the world to the country west of Highland Mount Hagen.

The scenery, as we climbed over the pass out of Mount Hagen on the way to Kompiam was out of any world I had ever known. A chilling wind whistled through the stunted vegetation. It was no man’s land. They told me the only permanent residents were cuscus (possums); they were welcome to the swirling mists which enveloped this eerie landscape.

Mount Hagen, at 1600 metres had seemed high to me after the heat of coastal Port Moresby. But now, at 2460 metres, I was ready to come down again. Soon we did, winding, dropping along the mountainside into the Minamba Valley. It was a spirit world. No one had to tell me that. But they wanted to: a pointed finger took my gaze back up to the towering cliffs.

You would have sworn some ingenious construction company had been at work.

But it was nature which had carved a stoney escarpment until the image was of a giant, man-made fence. Legend. I was told, had it that the masalai (spirits), who lived there long ago, had carved themselves a defensive barricade.

In the rare mountain air. the trip from Mount Hagen, the Western Highlands Province capital, to Kompiam, in neighbouring Enga Province, was a breathtaker. I found myself without a care and foolishly climbing out onto precarious perches to take pictures. It was a photographer’s paradise.

Every turn in the road presented views of indescribable beauty. I shot mountain tops wreathed in clouds: fast flowing streams forcing their way between rocks and bursting through in frothy miniature falls; and rivers thundering down mountainsides in capricious cascades.

As we drew closer to Kompiam, where I was to attend its first cultural show, it became something of a road show.

Although a remote area, it seemed as if every Highlander in the province had decided to use this road to Kompiam.

Women, their breasts exposed to the elements, looked a hardy lot. The image may be of liberation to the casual onlooker, but their life is chained to a demanding role mother / gardener, the fruits of their labours literally making the difference between full and empty bellies.

The men swung along in their asgras (bunches of green tankert leaves fore and aft), most with a ‘Hagen’ axe slipped into their bark belts.

Some were fortunate enough to have cuscus fur hats. Others wore their human hair wig hats protected by cloth dust covers. (These headpieces are constructed from the hair of friends and family.) Everyone with a free hand gave us a wave; all offered at least a smile.

That night I was invited to a tanim het (literally ‘turning head’) courtship ceremony.

Men and women alike glistened with tree resin. The girls smelled lovely, having rubbed their skins with a scented herb. They proudly displayed their wealth in the form of kina shells, beads and cuscus fur pieces. Men wore short pieces of thin bamboo, one for each pig they owned, and crowned the lot with those fantastic wig hats.

The men and women sat opposite each other about four metres apart. The males wooed with songs until they received some sort of encouragement sometimes a smile, perhaps a whispered phrase. Having received the ‘come on', a warrior would move across and sit next to the woman who had chosen him. And make no mistake, the ladies do the choosing. The man would nestle up ever closer to his woman and finally start stroking her cheek with his nose. As if prearranged. they would start swaying back and forth in unison, cheek to cheek. Eventually in an upright position they stroked their noses across each other’s face.

Next day. almost before the sun had a chance to show its face, preparations for the singsing began. A group of people milled happily close to a dozen pigs tied to stakes along the roadside. It was payday for the bride’s family. Kina shells and cash were also given by the groom-to-be. There would be Warriers of the Highlands ... the earth vibrated as hundreds of bare feet marched. 72 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 TRAVEL

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y more gifts and ceremonies over the next week or so and then, when both families were satisfied with the arrangements, the marriage would take place. I had to work to get a smile from the bride but was assured that if I came back after the couple had been together as man and wife she’d be all smiles.

Warriors gathered in small groups, each dancer with an entourage of helpers arranging fantastic arrays of birds of paradise plumes into headpieces. Often some of the attire was lent to the performer who would donate a pig for the lender’s culinary pleasure. As proof of payment, the warrior would wear the inflated pig’s bladder on the back of his headdress.

Gradually the throngs of people built up. Warriors and a handful of meris (women) formed into rows as the official show began. I positioned myself so that they would be marching straight toward me.

Shoulder to shoulder, warriors pounded the ground as they advanced in rhythm, kundu (drums) in hand. My pulse raced. A kaleidoscope of every imaginable colour shimmered before my eyes. Strong, broad chests some clay coated, others shining with oil supported gleaming kina shells and beads. Pitch black charcoaled faces and necks were accented by white ochre around the eyes. All were crowned with wig hats enhanced by red, blue and golden feathers. Only men who actually live in and are part of this lofty environment could have produced creations which displayed nature’s beauty to such advantage.

The earth vibrated as hundreds of bare feet marched toward me. An advance guard wielded spears and arrows at onlookers who got too close. I was down on my knees snapping away. Time seemed to stop. I was unaware of the light rain and completely entranced by the approaching swaying body of Highlanders.

Suddenly they stopped, marking time on the spot, only a few metres away. Men kindled fire by rapidly drawing strands of bamboo back and forth across the bottom of their bare feet. Leaves beneath them smouldered and burst into flames.

Later, as I leaned back in the comfort of a jet, I turned over in my mind all that I had just experienced. No superlative was adequate to explain that truly magnificent. unique, spectacle. And then came the relisation that these people do not revert to a Western lifestyle or attire after the show. What I had seen was their way of life.

While in their village, the difference between their world and mine was so very apparent.

It was difficult to realise that an hour or so on an aircraft would return me to the twentieth century, complete with electricity, computers and all mod cons. I was both eager and reluctant to get home.

Magnificent Moorea beckons from across the Sea of the Moon Travellers lucky enough to find themselves on the sleek w hite vacht Keke II are bound for one of the greatest travel thrills in the entire Pacific, writes Captain Ned A vary who provides us with this romantic view> of a voyage across the Sea of the Moon from bustling Papeete to the fabled Bali Ha'i island of Moorea.

Getting underway, about 9.30 am. the Keke sails past the end of the jet runway which changed Tahiti from a hard-toget-to corner of the Pacific into a tourist rendezvous. Then it is through the pass in Tahiti’s encircling reef into the Sea of the Moon. The blue Pacific is smooth and gentle now, but in the late afternoon this 18 km stretch of open sea can become a nightmare of physical discomfort when the trade winds pick up. So the tourists will fly back to Tahiti when they return.

The tourists relax on the Keke , their eyes feasting lazily on the green majesty of Moorea’s cloud-piercing peaks.

Moorea is close now. The skipper eases the Keke into the turquoise lagoon, then cruises along wonderful white sand beaches and palm-fringed shores. Soon the captain turns to port. A churchlike silence descends on the craft as it enters the most wildlybeautiful blue body of water on earth. Pao Pao Bay. Somerset Maugham’s description comes to mind: ‘Pao Pao Bay has too much beauty for the beholder who, dazed by its impact, fumbles for phrases to describe it then concedes defeat.’

The Keke's diesels die down as it slides alongside the tiny Hotel Aimeo jetty, where the tourists are warmly welcomed with gay greetings and fresh frangipani leis. No fussy, formal ‘signing-in’ here at what is for my money the grandest hotel in the South Pacific. The tourists are led to their bungalows by pareu- clad girls. Their bags are already there as is a much-needed, thirstquenching drink, the glorious maita 7 (rum punch-de-luxe).

After relaxing a little, some of the visitors dive into the cool, quiet lagoon. Modern carbon-14 dating tells us that this beautiful bay also refreshed plunging Polynesians way back in 1500 BC. Here is Pao Pao Bay ... too much beauty for the beholder 73 TRAVEL PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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Air New Zealand or direct to Aggie Grey's, Apia. Western Samoa. Cables: ‘AGGIES' Apia. the secret of Moorea. So little has changed since Polynesians first arrived. Even the two ‘civilised centuries’ since Captain Cook sighted this green jewel have been kind to Moorea.

It being a Wednesday, that night the tourists will enjoy the sumptuous Polynesian feast of the tamaraa, followed by a performance by temae dancers.

Their performance is unique to the Aimeo.

Moorea is rather heartshaped. There are two routes to attract the tourist, one west, one east. We won’t go clear round the island. This is a hot, dusty waste of time. We’ll concentrate on the north coast, where there are many attractions.

The hotel provides pushbikes free of charge. For the less active, jeeps can be rented across the road.

First of all let’s head south alongside Pao Pao Bay (also called Cook's Bay) to the minimetropolis of Pao Pao village.

Right out of a Maugham novel! Two Chinese shops peddling everything from bikinis to beer. A tiny clinic, lovely tropical-style school, a rusty old petrol pump, and a couple of slow-moving local characters. That’s Pao Pao village, except for the one and only Pao Pao Hotel, locally and lovingly known as One Chicken Inn.

Since the deplorable destruction of the world-famous Quinn’s Tahitian Hut on Papeete’s waterfront, the One Chicken Inn on Saturday night steals the South Pacific show for sheer, uninhibited entertainment. Only then does sleepy Moorea really wake up, as all hell breaks loose at the One Chicken Inn.

Now we press on around the western shore of Pao Pao Bay.

On our right is a lovely, coralwhite Catholic chapel. You’ll be charmed by this delightful little house of God. Pierre Heyman’s marvellous murals, with brown-skinned Polynesians portraying the nativity scene, are world-renowned.

It’s hot now. We pause at our nearest oasis, the Moorea Lagoon Hotel. It’s a lovely place, with a pool and lagoonside setting. Its maita’is hit the spot.

Westward again. The island road gently curves into another deep bay. We stare in wonder, for this Opunohu Bay is as staggeringly beautiful as Pao Pao which we have just left.

On the shores of Opunohu Bay we now discover the tiny, storybook village of Papetoai.

Here are the rebuilt ruins of the first (1813) Protestant church in the South Pacific. Here also the Temae dancers came to entertain the first royalty, the Maramas of Moorea, and later the powerful Pomare, who conquered all the Society Islands.

At the head of Opunohu Bay we see a wooden sign in the heart-shape of Moorea. It says that this is the inland road to the lovely lookout park of Belvedere. After checking our Moorea map we also spot this as the forested area of ancient marae (sacred temples).

Up into the green mountains we go on a wonderful, winding road. At the lookout we take in one of the world’s grandest views, of both Pao Pao and Opunohu bays, the lovely lagoon with its rough reef and the distant Pacific.

Later, visiting one of the several ancient marae in the area, the gloom surrounding these semi-restored ruins hauntingly recalls savage spectacles of human sacrifice, royal weddings, wild and weird religious rites, and the crowning of ancient kings.

Soon we are back home at our Aimeo, ready for a lagoon dip, and, of course, another maita V.

Do the things that I’ve described, and also visit the village of Temae, and the Shangri-La of Kia Ora Moorea, and you’ll have seen ‘the best’ of this glorious island.

Moorea numbers about 5 000 uninhibited inhabitants.

They are scattered over the lush lowlands of the island’s 130 square km area. The island road covers 70 memorable kilometres, and the highest cloud-piercing peak is about 1220 metres closer to heaven than you.

Tourists who come to Moorea to be with their own nationals will be more than satisfied with the Club Med with its rollicking, regimented regime at the western tip of Moorea. But remember, prices at the Bali Ha’i and the Club Med are not cheap.

For the budget-minded here is a highly-unpublicised pair of Moorea secrets: there are two modest, yet very comfortable, fully-furnished housekeeping ‘motels’ right here. Same view, same setting, same everything, except the price. They’re called Chez Albert and Chez Jacqueline.

A word about food: all meals are expensive in French Polynesia. For budgeteers; stay at one of the ‘motels’ mentioned, shop at your local Chinese store, cook your own food. You’ll save a bundle. 74 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 TRAVEL

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BOOKS A long drawn-out 'conquest' of the Islands Pacific Islanders under German Rule: a study in the meaning of colonial resistance by Peter Hempensta/l. Published by A ustralian National University Press, Canberra, 1978. $A 19.50.

By the 19705, German business interests working out of Apia, the coconut oil trade their main objective, had penetrated much of the Pacific. Plantations, a cheaper and more reliable source of coconut oil than buying it from islanders, were being developed and trading stations had been established on many islands. It was, however, not until 1884 in north-eastern New Guinea, the following year in the Marshall Islands, 1899 in the Mariana and Caroline Islands, and 1900 in Western Samoa that German sovereignty was imposed.

The reasons for this drawn-out ‘conquest’ were mainly commercial (local and global) and political (rivalries in imperialism by Britain, its Australasian colonies, and the In Pacific Islanders under German Rule, Dr Peter Hempenstall looks at instances of physical resistance by Samoans, Micronesians and New Guineans to German zin people and by the Bainings; and the Sokehs rebellion on Ponape in each case opposition to foreign acquisition of land was the underlying, if not the main, cause.

Hundreds of resisters and many Europeans and their supporters lost their lives. ‘ lnta puain inta’ (blood buys blood), says the Ponapeans. The islanders yielded to no one when it came to bravery. On June 25, 1890, for instance, 40 Spanish soldiers were massacred by the Madolenihmw on Ponape.

The most important aspect dealt with in this scholarly and readable book is the emergence of leadership of the kind needed for the islanders to gain optimum advantage from circumstances imposed upon them and, so it seemed, of permanence. On Samoa, men such as Malietoa Tanumafili I and Mata’afa Josefo took their followers into temporary alliances with the Germans or Americans, as did the Wasai Sokehs and Henry Nanpei with the Spaniards or Germans on Ponape. They did not merely seek territorial and status advantages for their people but amelioration of the foreignimposed overall conditions as well. Lauaki Namula’ulu Mamoe on Samoa and Nanpei on Ponape stood out by their success in getting the best of two worlds. The Samoans and Ponapeans of to-day rightly revere their memory.

Of great interest, too, are the overlordship. Compared with. say, the Herero-Nama war of 1904 in South-West Africa and the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905 in East Africa, warfare in Samoa (a mixture of traditional rivalries, their apex the claim to paramount clieftaincy. and competing European imperalisms), resistance on Ponape (with concurrent traditional inter-district struggles for dominance), and uprisings in New Guinea (by temporary alliances of clans or villages) were of minor significance, Only the Samoan wars made some impact on international politics, and that impact was slight and fleeting, In retrospect, almost a century later, those early struggles for independence are nevertheless important because they were the first indicators of the vigour and adaptability of Pacific cultures under threat of continuing foreign dominance and possible extermination, They show the vital importance of land, a saleable commodity to Europeans but an integral part of the Islanders’ religiosecular universe. The continuing struggle for the Ali’i Sili title, the Oloa Movement and its Cumpani, etc, in Samoa; the uprisings on the Gazelle Peninsula (New Guinea) by the Varauthor’s brief but lucid account of the convoluted social systems which underlay the shaping of events, and his explanation of the emergence of German colonial policy for the Pacific. In those days as, indeed, throughout most of the years of European political dominance, the government official on the spot had a larger share of policymaking than his superiors at home.

Harry Jackman.

'HELL ON EARTH- IN DETAIL Convicts and Commandants of Norfolk Island 1788-1855 by Margaret Hazzard. 58pp, 1978.

Distributed by Book People of Australia, Sydney.

In Convicts and Commandants, a meticulously researched account of Norfolk Island’s history as a penal settlement, Margaret Hazzard illuminates the characters of its several commandants, describes with fascinating attention to detail the preparation for, and implementation of, settlement plans for an island home to be pioneered by convicts, and recounts many of the welldocumented instances of both the interesting formations and changes of power-structure on the island, and the harsh brutality of convict discipline.

The first governor of the new ‘prison colonies’ of the southern hemisphere, Captain Arthur Phillip, was instructed that ‘Norfolk Island, being represented as a spot which may become useful, you are ... to send a small establishment thither to secure the same to us and prevent it being occupied by subjects of any other European power’. There would be the added benefit to the British Navy of securing a supply Bainings massacre leaders before firing squad in 1904 ..

Islanders did not take the Europeans’ coming lying down 77 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST 1979

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HOLT T8L363 of the much-needed flax plant, which Captain James Cook reported to be plentiful when he visited Norfolk in 1774.

The absorbing account of the personalities, male and female, involved in the fornTation of the penal settlement, whose crimes as convicts were of such moment as stealing cows and prostitution, gives evidence of an unusually supportive formation of relationships in the initial period of the settlement.

Lieutenant Philip Gidley King, the island’s first commandant, took with him from Sydney’s Port Jackson settlement a group of ‘first-fleeters’ eight free men, nine male convicts and six females. The free men, who included a volunteer surgeon, a seamanadventurer and a few ‘police’ and general order men, worked with convicts, all as servants of the crown. John Rice, a burglar from Devon, became Lieutenant King’s ‘right-hand man’.

Their situation was one of trust.

The worst punishment that could be handed out by Commandant King would be return to Port Jackson.

Rules for the ‘colony’ were stringent. Everyone had ‘to be at church on Sunday at 11am, clean, orderly and behave devoutly’. Each person had Saturday free to clear his own plot of land and plant seed supplied by Lieutenant King.

If ‘an affection’ arose between male and female settler, the surgeon was permitted to perform a ceremony which would be solemnised at some future time when a clergyman visited the settlement.

Between 1788 and 1814 the island saw the number of convicts increasing and a series of commandants whose personalities and systems of control ranged from the indecisive to the plainly sadistic. Foveaux (commandant from 1800-1804) regularly ordered that women be flogged and was known as the ‘Tyrant’.

During the administration of such commandants, men were sent from Australia’s mainland to be ‘broken’ on the island and it became known to convicts as ‘hell on earth’. Conversely, some commandants behaved like social reformers. Alexander Maconochie (commandant from 1840-1844) brought books, musical instruments, and a public holiday for convicts on the Queen’s Birthday to the island.

This account of Norfolk Island’s first 70 years is neither ambitious nor in any way pretentious. It is a valid historical document which, contrary to any impression of a ‘dry treatise’ which may be given by its cover design and title, gives an outstandingly perceptive and human picture of Norfolk Island’s origins not as a microcosm of Australia’s development, but as an attempt to form a community, albeit an enforced one, on a naturally hospitable Pacific Island.

Margaret Hazzard, as a longterm resident of the island, clearly evidences her interest in, and concern for the development of Norfolk Island in this record of its first 70 years.

Mary Dennis Convict boy and girl by Malaspina, 1793... illustration from Convicts and Commandants 78 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 BOOKS

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For Rotumans

Rotuma Split Island, ed Chris Plant. Published by the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific, in association with the South Pacific Social Sciences Association and the USP Fiji Extension Centre, 1977.

Rotuma is a remote island about 500 km north-west of Fiji. The only access is by ship from Suva although an airstrip is nearing completion. There are no hotels. The main source of income is copra.

Although linked politically with Fiji, Rotumans are racially and culturally different. The political links are strengthened by family ties, however, since today over 60% of Rotumans live in Fiji.

Rotuma is fairly close to the boundary between Melanesia, Polynesia Micronesia, and aspects of all three cultures can be found in Rotuman language and custom.

Rotuma Split Island is a timely reference work. It is a collection of material written by several authors over a period of years. Ten Rotumans and one European have contributed to the work. It points to some of the social forces at work in Rotuman culture, both in Rotuma and Fiji, as well as problems associated with the process of change in a remote island culture. These problems, although dealt with in detail in their Rotuman setting, don’t just apply to Rotuma and its people: they could apply to almost any remote culture.

Each chapter of Rotuma Split Island covers a specific subject: An introduction and geography; history, superstition and religion: mission influence on secular life; kinship, reciprocity and society; Rotuman marriage; the mamasa ceremony; decisionmaking in Rotuma; legal aspects of Rotuman land tenure; dance as a reflection of Rotuman culture; Rotuman chants, sports and pastimes; the emigration of Rotumans to Fiji; Rotuman communities in Fiji: Raiwai, Raiwaqa and Lomaivuna; and the development dilemma.

As well as writing the last chapter, Chris Plant edited the book.

As one who is married to a Rotuman, and who visited Rotuma during December 1977 and January 1978, I read Rotuma Split Island with great interest. For Rotumans it is an essential reference work, especially since many young Rotumans have never seen their homeland.

The book provides questions which must be answered if Rotumans are to adapt successfully to the changes with which they are faced today. Some of these questions are: What aspects of our culture shall we leave in the past? What changes should be made so our society does not stagnate?

What is needed to help advance the economic standing of our island? How are we to achieve our aims?

In reading this book, and observing and speaking with Rotumans, I have concluded that five important changes are needed before Rotuma can face the challenges of this age successfully: • Rotuman chiefs, politicians and decision-makers should encourage their people to speak out about what is needed. The merit of ideas put forward should be weighed carefully. • Rotumans should not be rubber stamp ‘yes men’ when given decision-making responsibilities. • The ideas of young Rotumans should be respected.

They dearly love and respect their fellow people and island culture. This is why they speak out and ‘criticise’ when they return home. • Rotuma needs representatives in both Houses of Parliament not just the Senate as at present. Rotuma should be one electorate with possibly all Rotumans, in Fiji and Rotuma, eligible to vote therein. • The economics of another crop, more lucrative than copra, should be examined in detail. I like Chris Plant’s idea about oranges, but a much better shipping service is essential before these can be exploited.

David McCarthy Pleasantly wealthy The Peopling of Hawaii by Eleanor C. Nordyke. Published for the East- West Center by the University Press of Hawaii, 1977. Paper SUS4.95; cloth $12.

To know Hawaii, one must begin by looking at its people.

When visiting the islands, the observer sees its multi-ethnic population immediately. If printed material is used, the reader swiftly learns that Hawaii’s population is a cosmopolitan one.

Thus, whatever subject is pursued a knowledge of the people of Hawaii is important.

Eleanor C. Nordyke’s The Peopling of Hawaii provides an excellent source on the subject.

A demographic study, the work has many figures and tables with technical information described. Age and sex characteristics, ethnic groups, immigration patterns and the like are included as well as such interesting facts as motor vehicle registration, water usage and social welfare costs per capita.

This book is written in a light and felicitous style and has a good selection of photographs to beguile the reader. Consequently the work is a useful one for the general reader. It is also good supplementary reading for courses in the liberal arts and the sciences. Rarely has such a wealth of material been presented in so pleasant a manner.

Pauline King Joerger.

Hofliu, or Split Island, from which the book takes its title 80 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 BOOKS

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From the ISLANDS PRESS Letter to Impulse, East-West Center, Hawaii One had only to hear the first paragraph of Vice President Mondale’s recent speech at the East-West Centre to realize how little currency events here in Honolulu have in Washington, DC.

The Vice President referred to Chancellor Kleinjans and to the EWC as a ‘centre of learning.’ The title “Chancellor” was dropped some fouryears ago at the time of incorporation. All the evidence suggests that the EWC ceased being a “center of learning” sometime prior to that. Name nit held on Request.

PNG Post-Courier When it comes to frankness, the Prime Minister. Mr Somare. has few peers. He admitted in Parliament this week that he was not happy with the public behaviour of some of his Ministers. Better still he told the House that he had made it clear to all Ministers that if anyone of them was convicted three times by a court he would be automatically sacked.

Letter by Ruai Timothy, New Hebrides News Probably some hear that announcers on Radio New Hebrides announce a programme but don’t follow it till the end. apart from power failure. When an announcer announces a programme, people switch their ears to it, but he/she plays just a moment then spends two to three minutes giving unnecessary stories not :onnected with the programme. An example of this is local string band every Saturday. Some of the things repeated are important but we don’t need it every five minutes as sometimes happens vith some of the announcers. This could only be done every half 3r an hour. As a whole the programmes are fantastic. r iji Times lotuma has been hit by a pig menace, the Senate heard yesterday.

Lotuman Senator Wilson Inia told the House that “there are pigs ill over the place” in the island, four hundred miles north of Viti evu.. .The senator said Rotumans had been misled about an ige limit for licences to handle guns to shoot the pigs. It was bought that men over 60 would not be issued licences because heir hands shook. But later Senator Inia found that this was not rue...

Letter to Cook Islands News I am concerned over the emphasis being placed on trying to get our children to pass NZ examinations like School Certificate or University Entrance . . . The average NZ student can do his homework whenever he feels like it either when he comes home, or before or after tea. The Cook Islands students are usually forced to do things like work around the home, go out into the plots, feed the pigs, etc girls have to wash clothes, and help around the house ... Too many kids are being pushed into academic courses when it would be more sensible to concentrate on agriculture or trade training elsewhere . . . Ex-A uckland Grammar Boy Fiji Times Since January 1. a total of 112 prisoners have escaped from prisons and from police custody.

The Bulletin, Nauru A Tennis Friendly Match was played ... at the Meneng Hotel Tennis Court, between the Cities and the Countries. The Cities completely thrashed the Countries, six wins to nil . . . Following their tragic defeat, the Countries declared and issued a return-bout on the Cities, immediately after their great loss ...

The date is being kept secret as a surprise attack by means of manoeuvres and tactics against the Cities.

Lae Nius, Papua New Guinea Mr G. Inuzuka, formerly a lieutenant in the Japanese army during World War 11, has revisited Lae after 37 years, and met an old friend, Mr Yanding, of Wagang village . . . When the Americans and Australians came and the Japanese retreated. Mr Inuzuka offered to take Mr Yanding with him by submarine to Japan, but Mr Yanding did not wish to go.

Pitcairn Miscellany The stork had been expected all January, but it didn’t finally land until February 10, when it arrived at the editor’s own home with a bundle of bouncing baby boy, weighing eight pounds nine ounces. Mrs Ferguson and Meralda, our nurse and assistant nurse, supervised at the delivery in our home. And so Simon James Pitcairn Cox was born. Proud mum and dad never thought they might have a mutineer in the family.

Unsigned letter, New Hebrides News Please allow me to space to express my concern regarding job opportunities offered to New Hebridean graduates from the University of the South Pacific (Fiji), University of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the University of Technology (PNG). It has become quite obvious that the output from these three universities, in terms of qualifications, is not recognised in the New Hebrides. . . After all, it is the government that sends us to these three universities. If our qualifications are not recognised then why on earth did you decide to send us there in the first place?

PNG Post-Courier comment on the constitution 83 ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

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YESTERDAY Davuilevu—'biggest educational town in the Pacific’

Sun, sand, sea and the easy life are present-day attractions advertised by Fiji's tourist industry. But, in years gone by, when visitors were fewer and pursuits were different, Davuilevu, centre of Methodist educational activities, was a big attraction. Ken James writes about yesterday's Davuilevu.

Davuilevu, showpiece of the Methodist mission’s work in the South Pacific, was built on 325 hectares of freehold land across the Rewa River from Nausori township, about 18 kilometres northeast of Suva.

Visitors would travel from Suva to first inspect the sugar mill and farms as well as the Methodist mission’s Navuso Agricultural College at Nausori. Then they would :ross the river to Davuilevu.

Visitors varied from groups )ff cruise ships to official quests from within or outside he colony. In the 1930 s there vas even a visit from the crew )f a Japanese cruiser. Demon- ;trations of mekes and dances vere given on the ratra, folowed by a guided tour of the :ducational institutions makng up the township.

The Reverend C.O. Lelean, uperintendent for 30 years, ;ave this description in 1932: There are about 600 people, ndians, Fijians and Rotumans. r here is a Teacher Training Intitution. Theological College, technical School for boys, three rimary schools for boys and iris, Indians and Fijians in dif- ?rent schools, and an orphange for Indian girls and a few ijian girls. We have three mis- 'onaries, one lay missionary, ve mission sisters, a native unister, two native sisters, a 'nail hospital and dispensary, ve boy scout troops, a power f ation . . . There are about 75 uildings at present... It is the iggest educational town in the ' acific.

Davuilevu’s origin goes back ) 1860 when land was sold by ie chiefs of Naitasiri and /aila to Charles Pickering Sr nd Robert Swanston. In the same year, the Reverend Joseph Waterhouse, resident minister in the Rewa circuit of the Wesleyan mission, asked Swanston if he could build a summer retreat on a small mound known as Davui Levu about 20-25 metres high on the edge of the Rewa river. This was agreed to and - after approaching and receiving permission from the inland tribes who used the hill from which to launch attacks on the village of Nausori he commenced his summer residence.

He was so pleased with the site that in 1864, 125 hectares of the land was purchased by the mission. Davuilevu was retained as a name for the property, and Waterhouse’s retreat appears to have become the site of a mission station under the direction of the Reverend Thomas Baker.

The mound overlooking the river was cleared, two residences, a church, school and dormitories being erected.

Following the murder of Baker and his party while on tour in the interior of Viti Levu in 1867, the estate was abandoned for more than 30 years until 1903 when the mission decided to start work among the Indian community in the Nausori district. The Reverend John Burton reopened the mission station and a school and orphanage quickly followed.

Then, in 1905, the newly established mission’s District Boys’ High School was transferred from Navuloa to Davuilevu. This particularly arduous task took more than two years to complete. First, food gardens and roads had to be cut out of the dense vegetation. Then hill and ridge tops had to be levelled-off to provide sites for new buildings.

The school was finally officially opened by Governor Sir Everard im Thurn in October 1907. One of the main reasons for establishing the school had been to counter the threat to the mission’s edu- A gala opening for Baker Hall, Davuilevu, Fiji, 1913 ... preservation Is the problem today 85

Acific Islands Monthly August Iq7Q

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cational work from two Catholic English-medium schools for Fijian boys.

The future of the estate as an education town was assured in 1908 when the mission resolved to transfer their pastor-training insititution from Navuloa, and at the same time to establish a theological college, the first in the colony. The transfer was completed the following year, an additional 200 hectares of land having been purchased.

The Lomovata was used to facilitate the transfer.

The importance of the town was summed up in 1909 by the superintendent: It would be hard to overestimate the strategic importance of this institution. It is to the educational work of our mission in Fiji what the heart is to the body . . . the centre from which a constant stream of life is poured out to the remotest member whose arteries beat in perfect proportion to the central organ.

The Davuilevu estate is made up of high ridges, hills, and deep valleys. Most buildings were and still are sited on the levelled tops of the hills and ridges. The central point of the whole area is Baker Hall. An impressive concrete building, used today as classrooms and as a church, it was erected between 1910 and 1913. The official opening in 1913 was a grand occasion: There was a high gala appearance about the pretty Davuilevu station on the Rewa on Tuesday last when the Baker Memorial Hall or College was opened by His Excellency the Goveror.

The landing stage was a scene of great animation and the river was thronged with cutters and motor launches of all sorts and sizes. Motor cars and horsed vehicles were in serried array in front of the stables and every now and then great squads of Fijians in meke panoply were to be seen making for the mission rara, a most perfect and picturesque amphitheatre.

The walls of the hall were covered with photographs and portraits of past and present mission workers. The building was named in memory of the murdered Thomas Baker and. later, an armbone, the only remains of the missionary, was buried in a casket under the building. From the time of opening the building has been used for church services, students from the different institutions marching from their respective ridges to the services. Today, Baker Hall is falling into disrepair, and there is some talk of approaching the Fiji National Trust in the hope of having the building declared worthy of preservation.

A large number of educational institutions have existed on the estate since the turn of the century. The boys’ high school, which opened in 1905, soon had an agricultural and industrial institution attached to it. From 1909-1911, under the headmastership of W.L. Waterhouse, later professor of agriculture at Sydney University, basic technical and agricultural training of a theoretical as well as practical nature was offered to limited numbers of students. The mission’s annual meeting of 1910 resolved to expand the work but a destructive cyclone in the same year forced these plans to be abandoned. It was not until 1923, with the establishment of the Navuso Agricultural College, that agricultural education was again attempted on an ambitious scale in the colony.

The pastor-teacher training institution, known as the Yuli Levu, was assisted in its work by the establishment in 1915 of a primary school which served as a practising school for teacher training. Then, three years later, a teacher training institution was commenced to provide higher teacher preparation than that offered in the Yuli Levu. For many decades this establishment provided many of the trained teachers in the colony. It was closed in the 19405.

In 1919, the new headmaster at the high school, R. A. Derrick (known today as the historian of Fiji), started changes which transformed the school into an institution which provided well thought out and executed courses of study in technical and commercial areas. Derrick remained at Davuilevu for 30 years. The school closed in 1942, being replaced by the Lelean Memorial School, a multi-racial, coeducational secondary school.

Today there are three institutions remaining at Davuilevu: the theological college, a Yuli Levu or lay training centre, and the high school. At Dilkusha, the part of the estate which traditionally contained the ‘lndian’ work of the mission, there are two primary schools, a youth centre, orphanage and church.

Davuilevu was indeed a male dominated town. Not until the late thirties were women students admitted into the teacher training institution.

In common with other mission stations throughout the Pacific, the town was run by European staff members with a clear demarcation in status between the clerical and lay expatriate missionaries. It is only in recent years that localisation of all the key positions has taken place.

Today the Davuilevu- Dilkusha complex is still a sizable educational town, even though its importance within Fiji’s educational system has diminished as the services it once singularly offered to the country have been matched elsewhere. Likewise, with the expansion of the tourist industry and its multitude of attractions, Davuilevu has lost its place as one of the showpieces in Fiji.

A question which must be faced in the immediate future is how a building of such historic importance as Baker Hall can be preserved.

A formal welcome for a mission delegation from Sydney, 1917 87 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHI Y ai mi ict iqtq YESTERDAY

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Fiji’s search for oil so far has been confined to seismic and geological surveys but early next year a drilling rig will begin boring into the seabed of the shallow, reef-strewn area north of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island, writes Robert Keith- Reid in Suva.

Chances of a commercial strike of oil or gas are rated good. The reason, says San Francisco-based Pacific Energy and Minerals Limited (PEML), is that seabed geology around and between Viti Levu and the second largest island, Vanua Levu, is extraordinarily like that of rich oil-bearing areas of Indonesia.

The company says it has the same kind of subterranean temperature gradients which indicate conditions for oil formation. Things are so hot, in fact, that PEML reckons that Viti Levu itself is a reservoir of geo-thermal energy worth tapping commercially in its own right.

PEML’s chairman is Jonathan Stoen who was formerly with a US company which ran seismic checks for oil in Fiji in the early seventies but abandoned work when prospects elsewhere became more attractive.

Mr Stoen, however, was so sure of Fiji’s possibilities that he set PEML up to find out.

Now, working in partnership with Mapco Incorporated of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Chevron Overseas Petroleum Corporation, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of California, PEML is exploring 8000 square kilometre concessions covering Bligh Water, immediately north of Viti Levu; the Yasawa Islands, west of Viti Levu; and the Great Sea Reef area west of Vanua Levu.

Another US company, Dakota Exploration, is at work in an 8000 square kilometre concession covering the Lomaiviti Islands which lie between the two big islands.

So far PEML has spent around SF3 million and this figure will be bumped up considerably when drilling, to which it is committed under an agreement with the Fiji Government, begins next year.

At least six, possibly nine, exploratory wells are being talked about.

A commercial strike would transform Fiji’s sugar and tourism dependent economy almost overnight, relieving it of the need to buy oil and petroleum now costing about $2O million a year and bringing the government revenue conservatively estimated at $lOO,OOO a day.

But and despite all the optimism it’s still a very big but there’s really no knowing whether PEML and government dreams will come true until those exploratory wells are drilled.

Fiji’s Director of Mines Ronald Richmond, who had much to do with reviving exploration interest in Fiji after the the first phase of it waned in the early 19705, says: ‘My own feeling is that we will find something, probably gas and oil. But will it be commercially viable?’ Even a modest find would do wonders for the Fiji economy. PEML thinks oil will be found in small pockets that, while amounting to no Saudi Arabian bonanza, will yield a very nice living. The government and companies have already signed detailed agreements on how oil profits, if any, will be shared.

In May the then minister for minerals, Militoni Leweniqila, went to the US to look at offshore oil rigs at work in the Gulf of Mexico. In June his successor, Bill Clark, left for British Columbia, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea to look at open pit copper mines. The reason for the second trip is that Fiji’s other great mineral hope, a copper deposit at Namosi, about 40 km north west of Suva, looks a goer as a major mine and the government wants to know how to handle the situation if mining starts.

America’s Amax group, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia, Anglo American of South Africa and West Germany’s Preusagg, are the Namosi exploration partners. They’ve spent $l4 million testing the prospects and are now talking of putting $6OO million into a mine.

However it will be another 18 months or so before a final decision is made on whether to proceed with this project.

PUDS at work in the Islands New Zealand’s Department of Trade and Industry, by March this year, had received 249 enquiries about PUDS, including 48 applications for assistance. PUDS ventures so far include: • Western Samoa: Wisemans South Pacific Ltd makes vinyl bags and considering manufacturing airline bags for the United States including Hawaii.

Shannon Marketing International (New Zealand Export Promotions Ltd) has an annato processing venture to produce dye from the seeds for the dairy industry. The department of scientific and industrial research rates the Western Samoan dye as high quality.

NZ Industrial Gases is helping to expand a carbolic ice plant and industrial training programme.

Rothmans Industries manufactures cigarettes. This scheme created such a furore in Western Samoa and New Zealand that Trevor Lloyd of the Department of Trade and Industry admitted that before any similar scheme was approved elsewhere there would be discussion in New Zealand and the Islands first.

Brugger Industries has established a light engineering operation that provides import substitution for some products, SMI Biscuits has been offered assistance to make sweet biscuits. • Tonga: Tonga Wire Company makes the island’s entire chain link fencing requirements.

Dolphin Tanks Ltd makes concrete storage tanks and septic tanks in Vavau, an area affected by water shortages.

F. C. Matthews and Sons Ltd make leather soccer balls.

Associated Confectioners/ Oasis Industries have a soft drink bottling operation. • Fiji: Butland Industries Ltd processes ginger with a Fijian company, Balthan International Ltd.

W. F. Tucker and Co. Ltd has a food processing operation in Suva which produces peanut butter at present from imported peanuts, eventually from island peanuts.

J. A. Bolt has been offered help to open a sausage casing operation.

Timber and Building Supplies (Fiji) Ltd has expanded its timber processing operation and is to treat timber locally.

Fiji Steel Industries has expanded its bucket-making operation from waste steel.

Allen E. Douglas Ltd has been offered help to manufacture jewelry. It found its island trainees picked up jewelry making skills quicker than New Zealanders. Eventually it plans to make and export wedding rings to Hawaii and the United States.

Bill Clark ... serving Fiji by looking at open pit copper mines around the world 89

Pacific Islands Monthly - August, 197

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Astrafine Leather has established a hand-sewn soccer ball operation.

In addition there has been approval for; • Potter Brown Ltd to open an adhesive manufacturing plant in Fiji. • Natural Energy Ltd to proceed with a solar heater manufacturing unit that may be based in Western Samoa or Tonga for the Islands and other markets. • Caxton Printing Works Ltd to proceed with a paper processing operation in Western Samoa. • Norsewear Industries Ltd to open a hand-operated knitting business in Tonga to market its products in North America.

Feasibility studies have been approved for storing and drying maize and processing ginger in Fiji; manufacturing chain-link fencing, paint and more cigarettes in Western Samoa; drying fruit and manufacturing parquet flooring from coconut palm stems in Tonga; and opening a sheepskin clothing operation in either Fiji or Samoa.

Ideas for the villagers ‘A business co-operative in the New Hebrides makes soap from coconut oil for home consumption. The Community Education Training Centre in Fiji is using borax and table salt to fix the brilliant colours from hibiscus flowers, wild ginger and marigolds for use as textile dyes. A common activity in Papua New Guinea is making wooden roofing shingles.

Niue is investigating the possibility of adding local fruit pulp to coconut cream to make a frozen dessert. Bananas, as well as being dried whole, can be made into sweet chips, powder, flakes, chips flour, pulp and vinegar..

So begins an enthusiastic review in the Cook Islands News of a new publication from the South Pacific Commission, T- Shirts and Tapa Cloth , by Alan Bollard.

The reviewer goes on; ‘This is a handbook, which looks at a number of small businesses designed for Pacific villages, but it is not a step-by-step “how-to” book for businessmen to follow. Rather, it is a collection of experiences in the Pacific to give ideas and introduce new possibilities. ‘The handbook has been designed for rural development workers, teachers and extension officers who are involved with rural economic activity, and for government planners who are selecting and financing rural projects ... ‘At a time when we are increasingly concerned with trying to achieve economic self-reliance we should be thinking about ways to meet our own consumer needs, substituting locally produced goods for imported ones.’

Copies may be obtained from the Secretariat, South Pacific Commission, Noumea. ‘WESPAC’ plan from Perth The Western Pacific should build its own economic bloc to counter the threat of the world’s established economic blocs.

That was the message of Dr Liu Yat-wing of the East Asian Studies Centre at the University of Western Australia to a Perth seminar on future political and economic development of the Pacific Basin region.

Dr Liu said that, ideally, the Western Pacific group would include Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the ASEAN countries with Hong Kong and Taiwan as associate members.

Calling the group WESPAC, Dr Liu said the economies in such a community ‘are complementary in character’ and, together, formed a group ‘which is not only wellendowed in natural resources but also one with a large population and the necessary capital and technology to become a powerful and prosperous economic bloc’. 90 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979 TRADEWINDS

‘Reshaping’ to spur Cooks’ producers The appointment of two New Zealanders to the Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture a chief advisory officer and an information officer may seem a little surprisng, writes Don Bryant from Wellington, considering the high level of local expertise already in the Cooks’; agricultural field.

However, the appointments, by the external aid division of the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, have come in response to the reshaping plan devised by the Cooks’ own planners and they are only temporary.

Things had got to the point where the Cooks experts were doing all the work, including fertiliser and spraying programmes, while many growers were doing very little. The nove is to encourage growers ;o work and produce and signs ire that this is already beginling to happen.

There’s plenty of air cargo ipace for Cooks produce to be ihipped to New Zealand and aapayas, capsicums and other vegetables have been attracting >ood prices at Auckland’s markets recently.

Cook Islands bananas have ilso been seen in Auckland for he first time in many years md even commanding a prenium over Ecuadorian batanas.

The overall message that >eing a good grower brings good rewards is not being lost but the urge to grow something different and strike a bonanza is always there. There were those who wanted to grow peanuts in spite of a lack of markets, and those who thought ginger was the answer. But official encouragement will tend to be directed toward bananas, pineapples, citrus and papayas which have assured markets in New Zealand.

Against that is politicianturned-grower Dr Joe Williams, who produces beans and has claimed that by airfreighting out of season to the Auckland markets he has made more in three months than he used to get as a year’s salary as a government minister.

As long as it’s only beans, which are not a significant hothouse crop in New Zealand. Dr Williams will make no waves.

Tomatoes and capsicums are another matter but unlike Tonga, there is nothing to stop Cooks growers consigning to New Zealand markets because import licences are not necessary in the case of the Cooks.

One slight hindrance can be quarantine provisions. For example, no kumara (or kumala) can enter New Zealand except Niue kumala which may be landed at points south of Timaru. The reason for this odd limitation is because Niue is not a high risk area for the sweet potato weevil and. south of Timaru, it cannot be expected to live, as New Zealand kumaras won’t grow there either.

Taro is a product with a big New Zealand sale to the Polynesian communities throughout the country, but Samoa supplies most taro requirements at the moment with Tonga also shipping plenty.

Western Samoa would like a higher price but must keep an eye on Tongan growers who might be content with less.

The new information officer in Rarotonga will have the job of giving this overall picture to growers all over the group. He is likely to produce pamphlets and instruction leaflets as well as use the established government communications organs.

His main communication, however, is expected to be radio, which is the only way to quickly reach the northern islands.

Inevitably, some of his information in this area will relate to subsistance growing rather than cash-cropping, but, given rising copra prices and rising demand for vegetable oils, he may yet find himself dealing with coconut planting.

PNG boost for forum services The Papua New Guinea Shipping Corporation’s contribution to the Pacific Forum Line, Forum Niugini , will enter service this month. The vessel, a modern German-built unit, will be capable of carrying more than 100 containers, 50 of which will eventually be refrigerated. This vessel, of 5100 tonnes deadweight, has a speed of 14 knots and will provide a 35-day liner service between New Zealand and PNG, with Noumea and Honiara as ports of call en route.

PNG Shipping Corporation has been appointed PFL managing agents in PNG.

Forum Niugini will be the first major PNG flag vessel to trade overseas, though PNG Shipping Corporation’s charter vessel Coral Chief has operated within the Chief Container Service to Australia for a year.

In May, the PNG Shipping Corporation’s coastal liner affiliate, Mainport Cargoes, commissioned its new flagship, Moresby Chief The 2900 tonne deadweight vessel, built in 1973, is capable of carrying 52 six metre boxes and 40 nine cubic metre boxes.

Facilities are provided for 14 reefer boxes. Two 20-tonne, one 12-tonne and a five-tonne derrick are capable of handling containers and general cargo.

The vessel will normally trade on the line’s weekly liner and container service from Port Moresby, through Lae, to Madang and Wewak. However, after its first coastal voyage, the vessel went to New Zealand for the Pacific Forum Line, pending the arrival of Forum Niugini.

With the arrival of Moresby Chief ‘ Mainport’s smaller container vessel Provincial Chief has started a Lae-to-outerislands 12-day container service.

In addition to commercial service, Moresby Chief is outfitted as the PNG Shipping Corporation’s officer cadet training vessel. The ship is crewed by 13 officer cadets who will receive basic training before completing their training on overseas vessels.

In Papeete, the formation of the Compagnie Tahitienne Cook Islanders and bananas... back on the NZ market Moresby Chief ... PNG Shipping Corporation’s new flagship 91 TRADEWINDS ’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

FindWeVe OnThe Ball atftorkshire Imperial Quality, reliability and economy are three standards Australian plumbers want most. Yorkshire Imperial knows this and is on the ball when it comes to meeting plumbers’ requests.

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Telex: 21517.

YORKSHIRE IMPERIAL See the experts for business anywhere in the South-West Pacific For comprehensive service and advice on trade, both inter-island and with Australia and New Zealand, see the experienced staff at your nearest ANZ branch or agency. We can help you with importing and exporting, business transactions and personal banking. Offices are located at: Suva 128 Victoria Parade and Waimanu Road. Lautoka Naviti Street. Nadi Queen’s Road. Nausori Kings Road. Boroko Hubert Murray Highway. Lae Cnr. Coronation Drive and 7th Street. Madang Lightfoot Arcade, Kasagten Road. Mount Hagen Hagen bKJ fmk Drive. Port Moresby ANG House, Hunter Street. Rabaul Mango Avenue. Waigani Honiara Mendana Avenue. Vila Rue Higginson.

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Fasfair Spares P.O. Box 54, Lutwyche, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 4030.

Phone: 57 7600 (3 Lines) Telex: AA 41239 Maritime, Tahiti’s first international shipping line, is expected to boost trade between Trench Polynesia and New Zealand. The company’s first vessel is the Capitaine La Perouse, from Sofrana Unilines, which has been renamed Bounty. Sofrana will be the company’s agents in New Zealand.

XT „ . .

The New Zealand Shipping Corporation which hitherto had provided the only service between NZ and Tahiti, has two vessels on the run, the Tiare Moana and the Fetu Moana which also call at the Moana which also call at the Cook Islands.

This service is run at a loss and has a government subsidy.

Tahitienne Maritime’s entry can only make life harder for the NZ Shipping Corporation.

The new service was expected to be in operation before mid- July.

Another Pacific shipping development recently was the introduction of the 1700-tonne freighter Fijian to the New Zealand-Fiji trade. The Fijian's big attraction is that it can carry up to 10 passengers in twin and single berth cabins.

Sailing mainly between Lau- ,oka and Suva m Fiji and Qnehunga in NZ the at times , wi || a i so call at other Fiji and a , wha arei D ’

Round trip passenger charges are S NZ63O (sharetwin basis) and $770 (single cabin). Return sailing time will be about eight days.

The Fijian, formerly the Shaw Savill Cotswold Prince , is owned by Reef Shipping Agencies, Auckland.

Government co-ordination worries Steamships boss The effectiveness of administrative government in Papua New Guinea is slipping, claims the managing director of the Australia-based Steamships Trading Company Limited, Don Harvey.

In a paper to the PNG Institute of Management, published in mid-June, Mr Harvey praises the orderly manner in which PNG assumed control of its affairs from Australia. But he expressed concern that the past five years have seen ‘coordination and effectiveness disappearing from the national administration’.

Steamships Trading Company is a major multiinterest group operating in PNG. It is engaged in retailing, service industries, agriculture, shipping and slipways, cargo handling, light industry, the automotive trades, hotels and tourism.

Because of the historical background to investment in PNG, most of the company’s shareholders are in Australia.

But all of its shares are listed on the public market and, unlike many other major enterprises in PNG, it is fully controlled in PNG and is not a subsidiary of an Australian company.

Mr Harvey said that despite the government’s expensive research into the need for development, investment and internal equity, there appeared to be a lack of overall co-ordination and a failure to apply consistent guidelines to the economy.

Referring to his own company, Mr Harvey said great concern was felt at the oft-quoted phrase ‘foreign enterprise’. The shares were freely available any day, he said, but the company had to smart under the tag of ‘foreign enterprise’, often used by people whom, he suspected, did not know what they were talking about. He said he had already told critics: ‘Put your money where your mouth is and you could take control today.’

He said he knew of companies owned by Papua New Guineans wanting to invest in Steamships but they were denied this opportunity by the government itself because some person in the government classified Steamships as ‘foreign’. ‘Surely with this attitude, the government’s policy of “buying back the farm” will never be fulfilled,’ said Mr Harvey. He said the stability of Steamships Trading Company shares on the Australian market was long established but there was a low rating out of context with the results.

He saw this not as a reflection on the company but on the investment climate of PNG, and this in turn stemmed from government and public attitudes on PNG itself.

On the wider sphere of general management in PNG, Mr Harvey said that the deterioration of law and order was a cause for great concern.

He said that staffing costs were escalating because employees whites or Papua New Guineans had to be protected from fear and apprehension. Shoplifting and theft were on the increase and social responsibility and social consciousness were disappearing.

Port Moresby, he said, had become a dirty, untidy city, and private enterprise was disheartened when its attempts to upgrade facilities created vandalism, destruction and graffiti.

The slipping of control, he said, was also noticeable in an increasing lack of discipline in the workforce. Government had to be looked at as a business, he said, but until all its arms and activities could be co-ordinated improvement could not be expected.

PNG’s tax man chasing s2om Former residents of Papua New Guinea, mainly Australians, have left the country owing $A7.5 million in back taxes. This sum, disclosed in the taxation office’s annual report, is part of a total overdue tax amounting to nearly $2O million.

The chief collector of taxes said that the amount owed by people living in Australia, mainly overdue personal tax, could not be recovered by any existing standard process because ‘our recovery rights do not extend beyond our territorial boundaries’. 93 TRADEWINDS ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST 1979

National Housing

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. . .Tradewinds Intelligence

DON Adams is Hawaiian Air’s new director of resident sales in Honolulu.

TIM Phillips is British Airways’ new manager in Australia. He is based in Sydney.

TOUA Vai of Hanuabada, Port Moresby, has been appointed company secretary of Burns Philp (New Guinea) Ltd. He joined Burns Philp in 1977.

UNION Steam Ship Co appointed Jackson St Julian to the new post of Pacific region manager. Mr St Julian, formerly manager for Fiji, will remain at Suva but his area of responsibilities will be extended to include the company’s overall shipping and marketing operations in the Fiji, Samoa and Tonga regions.

FIRST quarter 1979 visitor figure to Guam was 67 996 against 63 563 in the same period in 1978. Japanese visitors totalled 50 380 against 44 510 in the same quarter of 1978.

LANDING charges at Nadi International Airport, Fiji, have been cut by 20% which means a 360 tonnes Boeing 747 can now land for SFI9OB against a previous charge of $2124.

WARNER Shipping of Tonga has taken space on the new Sofrana-Uniline vessel Capitaine Cook (No 2) in a slot charter arrangement to carry freight from the major ports of eastern Australia to Tonga.

THE Asian Development Bank has made a concessional loan of SUS 2 million to the Development Bank of Solomon Islands and a concessional loan of $3.45 million to Western Samoa to cover foreign exchange financing of its $4.2 million hydro-electric runof-the-river project on the Vaisigano River near Apia.

LOMAIVUNA farmers in Fiji have recently harvested 90 tonnes of ginger, a 50% improvement on their performance the previous year. The National Marketing Authority buys their product at $F0.26 a kilo.

THE International Monetary Fund has made a soft loan of SSI 1.173 million dollars to Solomon Islands, qualification being the country’s $2 million balance of payments deficit last year.

SPECIALISTS who have studied the requirements for expansion of Papeete’s Faaa Airport have warned: ‘Nineteen-seventy-eight was the year of general planning; 1979 must be the year of the action plan so that 1980 may be the year of action. If not, 1982 could well be the year when it will be too late to do any of the things that ought to have been done before.’

NEW Caledonia’s major company, Societe le Nickel, showed a loss in 1978 of CFP9O9O million (SAI.2 million).

CLUB Mediterranee’s Noumea operation, based on the old Chateau Royal hotel and due to go into action before the year’s end, is already booked out for two years ahead, according to the Noumea paper France Australe. Tourists interested by the venture are mainly Australians (90%) and Japanese (10%). Key attractions, according to the paper, are the facilities offered for windsurfing and hobie-catting.

PACIFIC Energy and Minerals has entered into an agreement with Chevron Overseas Petroleum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of California’s Standard Oil Company, under which Chevron has exercised an option to earn the right to acquire 80% of Pacific’s interest in two offshore oil and gas licences in Fiji totalling about 1.6 million hectares.

RADEWINDS INTELLIGENCE...

Tim Phillips Toua Vai Jackson St Julian

Cocoa Growers

1 it "A.S.P. Mk 50/300/78 Cocoa Dryer for yearly production to 60 tonnes.”

Whether your production is 30 or 3000 tonnes, A.S.P. has a dryer for you , . . * Diesel or Electric Drive * Delivery ex stock Rabaul or Sydney * Design Service Available Write, phone, call or telex for details A.S.P. Dryers Pty. Ltd. 870 Pacific Highway, Gordon, N.S.W., Australia 2072.

Phone 498-4777. Telex AA23974.

Cables “CHATSPA” Sydney A.S.P. (N.G.) Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 166, Rabaul, P.N.G.

Phone 92-2411, 92-2649.

Cables “CHATSPA" Rabaul. 94 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

t ip® i f X \ M.V. "Komaiwai" 462 tons gross.

M.V. "Taoniu" 514 tons gross.

Well known inter-island cargo-passenger vessels "Komaiwai'' and "Taoniu" offered for individual tender as is, where is, Suva Harbour, Fiji.

Lloyds Class next survey Jan. 1980 Fiji Reg.

Recently withdrawn from service for repairs, overhaul and improvements. Over $lOO,OOO spent Main machinery, auxiliaries, winches, pipe-work, toilets, steel-work, tank-tops, electrics, freezerrooms, compressors, pumps, etc. Most work now completed.

Excellent capital investment due to expected shortage of shipping and high cost of similar replacement.

TENDERS CLOSE 30th AUGUST, 1979. Highest tender not necessarily accepted. Send to: WILLIAMS SHIPPING CO. LTD., 20 Matua St., Walu Bay, Suva. Cable "WILCO". Phone Suva 312 928, 313 928 or Sydney 98 7865, A.H. 98 8547. Solicitors Munro Leys & Co., Suva.

CRUISING YACHTS • APPLEDORE 20 m gaff rigged wooden schooner, registered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, US, arrived in Rarotonga in April bound for the Samoas, writes Susana Nia in Rarotonga. On board, with owner-skipper Herb Smith, with ages ranging from two to 64, were John Richards, Tom and Doris Smith, Alexandria Clark, Anne and Jack Williams, Maria and Jack Stiles, Donna and Alan Twombly, Sandy and Greg Wellstead and Maggie Gaeth.

T he Appledore, after cruising the Caribbean, had visited 3 anama, the Galapagos, the Marquesas, Societies and Fuamotus. Launched in last year, this is the maiden voyage.

Fwo days out of Rarotonga, he two-year-old boy on board /vas taken ill with bronchitis and high fever and the Appledore put back in for reatment. A crewman was noved to comment; ‘His probem has been taken care of hanks to your good medical acilities . . . It’s nice to be in he Cook Islands. They’re as beautiful as French Polynesia )ut without the inflated costs md language barrier • GLORIA MARIS, a 15 m unk, homeported in Guam, arrived in Rabaul with Delmer md Joyce Stone. Gloria Maris neans ‘Glory of the Sea’, a ieashell treasured by collecors the world over. Shell enhusiasts themselves, the >tones have improvised a Iredging system on board to ind shells in depths to 200 m, writes Roderica Laymon from labaul. Another arrival in labaul was FALCON, 17 m notorsailor ketch, Herreshoff lesign, homeported in Punarenas, Costa Rica. Morris lensen, owner-skipper, was iccompanied by Debbie Poe, ler son Shawn, age 6, and ’aul Sullivan. The engine is mder the mainmast, with the nast serving as exhaust. It’s a startling sight to see smoke puffing forth from the mast. • Radio messages reported by Laymon in Rabaul in April- May included: BANYANDAH in Brunei: GANDALF in Kagoshima, Japan, heading north; MILLROSE heading for Kobe, Japan; MOANA out of Manus for Madang; WAN- DERBIRD in Madang; SCOR- PIO in Kieta; SITISI 111 in Honiara: FREYJA in Singapore; APHRODITE in Palau; trimaran ALLEGRA in No 110, Panay Island in the Philippines; OCARINA out of Rabaul for Indonesia: SPINDRIFT heading for Queensland; DRAGONERA in Honiara, heading for Vila; WINDROSE in Samarai; INTERMEZZO in Darwin, proceeding to Bali WY WUR- RIE en route to Cairns; SUN FLOWER in Port Moresby: FREJA in Port Moresby; trimaran VALKYRIEN in Palau; THYME in Manila; EST in Cebu City, Philippines; ARION 111 out of the Hermit Islands in northern PNG heading for Indonesia SUNDAY MORNING in Port Moresby; DREAMTIME in Darwin; GILLAWA returning to Australia RIGADOON in Vanimo, northern PNG, heading for Indonesia: SVEA and WIND- SUN in Samarai WARLOCK in the southern Solomons; and THURLOO in the Marovo Lagoon, Solomons. • Other visitors to Rarotonga, reports Susana Nia, were BE- CAUSE. an 11 m cutter built by owner-skipper Dick Thuillier from Victoria, BC, Canada, which left for Pago Pago; OJALA (meaning ‘I hope so’), al2 m Mason ketch registered in Hawaii, with owner-skipper Jack Moseley and wife Sylvia, on its way to New Zealand after visiting French Polynesia; RIMU, 11 m Snowgoosecutter-rigged catamaran, London-registered, owner-skipper David Gilchrist and son James, on way to Pago Pago; KAMAWICK 14 m ketch, Papeete-registered, with Kermadec Islands next stop on way to New Zealand ALISA with Tonga next stop; and SPECTRA going to Pago Pago.

Jimmy Cornell on the AVEN- TURA on his way to Wallis Islands in May, reports: • SAVANNAH 12.60 m ferrocement Raiatea class cutter, is taking Brisbane's Watson family on a cruise around the southwestern Pacific. Skipper Barry, accompanied by wife Gail and two young sons, Kelly (2V2) and Casey (9 months), arrived in Nukualofa at the end of April after a rough but fast seven-day passage from Auckland. After cruising the Tongan islands, they left Vavau for Tongatapu and then Fiji, where they planned to spend several months before returning to Australia. • EOLO, 19 m cutter from Lahaina, Hawaii, arrived at the end of April in Tongatapu bound for New Zealand, with US owner-skipper Tim Gold and NZ mate Ross Lynch. The John Philips yacht was built in Australia for the 1947 Sydney Ross Lynch, five-year-old foulmouth Romeo, and Tim Gold on Eolo 95 ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Henry Gumines

PTY. LTD.

Exporters O General Merchants

428 GEORGE ST., SYDNEY CABLES: HENCO SYDNEY. G.P.O. Box 3949. PHONE; 232-5377 For specialised and personalised buying service throughout the Pacific Islands and the East.

• Local Agents And

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: RABAUL: M. & C. Seeto, P.O. Box 131, Rabaul.

Telephone 92-2919.

REPRESENTATION; •- FIJI: K. Witherington Ltd., P.O. Box 293, Suva.

Telephone 22-356.

MADANG: W. Double, P.O. Box 22, Madang.

Telephone 82-2696.

SOLOMON NEW HEBRIDES: John Lum & Associates, P.O. Box 65, Santo.

Telephone 329..

ISLANDS.

Mr, Tom Lo, P.O. Box 327, Honiara.

Telephone 399.

Resident Agents in other Pacific Territories.

The Brownbuilt

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For free expert advice and brochures contact: # • Registered Trade Mark .DlXllVllblUXt BROWNBUILT LTD., Cnr. Bath Rd. and Waratah St., Sutherland, N.S.W., Australia 2232.

AGENTS - SOLOMON ISLANDS: NCR Corporation, Honiara. NEW HEBR IDES: NCR Corporation, Vila NEW CALEDONIA: NCR Corporation. Noumea. PNG: Brownbuilt (PNG) Pty, Ltd., Port Moresby & Lae. FIJI: Lysaght Brownbuilt Ind. (Fiji) Ltd., Suva. HAWAII: Records Management Services Inc., Honolulu.

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Telex: AA 32165 Telephone: 602 1433 to Hobart Race. Over the past 30 years Eolo has taken part in several races out of Hawaii and California and has also undertaken two Pacific cruises under different ownership. On the present cruise, Eolo left Hawaii in June 1978 for the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society Islands. After a brief stopover in the Cooks, Eolo arrived in Nukualofa, her owner planning to sail on to New Zealand for a major refit before continuing to Japan and, hopefully, China. Ross, who describes himself as ‘multifunctional’ left home in 1977 on board the yacht SUN- SHINE. The last, but not least important member of the crew is five year old Romeo, a parrot with a wide repertoire of whistles and an even better supply of four letter words. • MORNING STAR, 21 m steel schooner from Santa Cruz, California, is cruising the Pacific with a mission. Its crew are members of the Global Youth Evangelism movement. President Reverend Al Lewis is accompanied by the skipper of Morning Star, Brendan Baer, his wife, Pat Baer, Mike and Susie Mclntosh.

They left California in July 1978 sailing to Hawaii, then sailing in at ports in American and Western Samoa before 'caching Tonga. The movement, which is based in Santa Sruz, has followers in Mexico, Canada and Samoa, the members of the organisation songregating in what are ermed as Assemblies of God.

Corning Star’s present mission, says Mr Lewis, is not >o much to attract new folowers as to encourage and strengthen the missionaries of he Christian faith in the Pacific area and to help revive he Christian church. So far, le says, they have had an excellent reception everyvhere. After Tonga, Morning Star's crew planned to sail to /licronesia, visiting the /larshall Islands, Yap and s alau. • KIANO. For more than 30 'ears Cliff Garvie has been isked by friends when he was joing on his dream cruise, iverytime he replied: ‘Not yet.’

So it’s not surprising he called his dreamboat Kiano, meaning ‘not yet’ in Maori. Not worried by the age-old superstition, Kiano left Auckland on Friday, May 13, bound for Tongatapu.

En route the crew stopped at Raoul Island, in the Kermadecs, diving for several hours among the huge number of fish and several two-metre sharks, intrigued by the strange intruders into their domain. On board the 10.70 m cutter are the skipper’s wife Mona and crew Peter Wilkinson, Peter Worley and Bernie Marshall. Only Bernie was staying on to cruise with the Garvies through Tonga from south to north before heading for Fiji. • NEW MORNING 13 m Philip 43 sloop from Dartmouth, England, arrived in Vavau in May from Tahiti. Skipper Philip Wade and wife Sue were delivering New Morning to its Australian owner in Melbourne. The 24 000 km job started in November in England, from where they sailed to the Canaries, West Indies and Panama. In the Pacific, New Morning has made stops in Cocos Island, Marquesas, Tuamotus and Society Islands. After Vavau the crew were planning to stop in Suva before the final leg to Australia. Skipper Phil is an old salt in the yacht delivery business having completed so far 12 trans-Atlantic deliveries (several from the UK to Brazil), one across the Indian Ocean and one other Pacific delivery. • CASTAWAY, 17 m staysail schooner, provisionally‘based in Suva, Fiji, spent May cruising the Tongan islands. On board were US owner Steve Humen, Connie Myers and Fijian crew Jack Wickham.

Steve bought the boat in Tahiti in 1976. During the past three years he has cruised in American Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. Steve Humen is a commercial diver working on the North Sea oilrigs off the British coast. He commutes regularly between the UK and Fiji, spending his long holidays aboard Castaway. He hopes to take more time off soon and sail to the New Hebrides. 97 YACHTS 'ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST, 1979

Captain W. L Kennedy Pty. Ltd

Brokers for the Sale & Charter of Fishing, Commercial and Pleasure Craft. (Established 1931) mmmm mmmm Licensed - Com. Dept. Transport - Carry Passengers Dimensions; 79 x 1 9 6 General Purpose Vessel “MAGUS”

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Saloon 25 xl5 with bar. Three refrigerators, including bar, three deep freeze units, incl. one of lOOcu.ft. Radar, SSB radio, (radphone), Depth recorder, Auto pilot and every required fitting.

Working Barrier Reef area, but Certificate permits if wanted, to work Australia wide or even overseas. This could be a sound financial proposition, or opportunity for a sea lover to earn a good return in relaxing surroundings.

Price: $425,000 Built of heavy steel to high standards. Completely Dimet treated. Main engine is Lister Blackstone, bridge controlled. 1 60 BMP @ 600 r.p.m. giving 9 kon consumption 4.5 g.p.h. Fuel cap. 5,000 gls. Water 2,000 gls. 3 cyl. Perkins driving refrig, compressor and hydraulic pump. 2 cyl Petters drives 12.5 KVA alternator and small Petters drives air compressor. Two large refrig, spray brine tanks for product, plus dry hold. Hydraulic winch and line hauler. 4 single cabins, two twin cabins, large galley mess plus large saloon. Equipment includes 48 ml Radar, Weather fascimilator, three depth recorders, SSB Radio and spare, Auto Pilot, Clear View screen. Fully equipped with large inventory.

The owner-builders of this fine vessel will negotiate to modify the vessel to suit the trade of prospective purchaser.

Price: $375,000 For further particulars and inspection, refer to: Phone; Sydney 27 3797 Captain W.L. Kennedy Pty. Ltd., 32 Bridge Street, Sydney.

Telex: AA22333 |Q|B|E offers expert insurance service throughout the Islands.

Qbe Insurance Limited

Central Office: 82 Pitt Street, Sydney.

NEW CALEDONIA - T.A. Hagen , Ste. I/V.A. Johnston, S.A.R.L. • Noumea.

NEW HEBRIDES - Manager: G.F. Donnelly, Vila; Santo Santr: Burns Philp (New Hebrides) Ltd.

TAHITI - Arthur Chung: Immeub/e 8.1., Front de Mer, Papeete.

NIUE, NORFOLK ISLAND, SAMOA, TONGA and other South Sea Islands - Burns Philp (South Sea) Company Ltd.

Queensland Insurance (Fiji) Limited

Head Office, 34 Usher St., SUVA, General Manager: L.G. Liddell. A.A.1.1.

Assistant Managers: Vijay Lal and J.T. Laidlaw. LAUTOKA Office, Burns Philp Bldg. District Manager: J. Dalton.

Queensland Insurance (Rn.C.) Limited

PAPUA NEW GUINEA - Head Office, PORT MORESBY. General Manager; J.M, Dawe. Assistant Manager: R.V. Maskell.

District Managers at; LAE; I.R. Martin. MOUNT HAGEN: D.F. Carroll, ARAWA: J Longbut. MADANG R.W.V. Collmgs. RABAUL: W.F. Tinker. 98 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

Pacific Navigation of Tonga Limited

Serving The Pacific From Australia And New Zealand

DEATHS of Islands People

Papaiya Naidu

President of Lautoka Soccer Association, Fiji, in a road accident, while returning from watching a game between Sigatoka and Tailevu Naitasiri, at Navo near Nadi. He had been president of the LSA since 1977.

Saraswati Devi

Miss Saraswati Devi, 64, a leading educationist and social worker in Fiji. A teacher for 40 years, she was a daughter of the late Badri Maharaj, the first Indian member of Fiji’s Legislative Council.

GEORGETTE

Des Granges

Mrs Georgette des Granges, after a short illness, in Vila, aged 75. Mrs des Granges spent 52 years in the New Hebrides, worked on her husband’s Bellevue plantation, was president, then honorary president, of the French Red Cross of the New Hebrides, and served for many years on the committee of management of Vila’s Cultural Centre.

P. MEHTA Dr Prakash Mehta, suddenly on March 7, in Suva, aged 42.

Dr Mehta emigrated from India to Fiji, returning to Bombay to train as a doctor before opening a practice in Suva. He was a member of the Fiji Medical Council and vice president of the Fiji Medical Association.

Wally Morgan

Walter Herbert Morgan in Brisbane, aged 67. Wally Morgan, bom in Levuka, joined the Fiji civil service in 1946, retiring six years ago as controller of prisons.

Reno Ainui

Tolai community leader on the Gazelle Peninsula of Papua New Guinea’s East New Britain Province. Reno Ainui, 69.

Two thousand mourners attended his funeral and burial at his home village of Karadui in the Raluana area. Mr Ainui played a major role in assessing the views of East New Britain people toward provincial government and also was chairman of the Tolai Warwagira festival organising committee.

D. SHARMA Deo Sharma, a Fiji-born lawyer who practised in Fiji and New Zealand, aged 51. Mr Sharma had just returned to New Zealand after visiting the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.

S. D. MAHARAJ Shree Dhar Maharaj, prominent in Fiji’s passenger transport industry for many years and chairman of several companies including Pacific Transport and Shreedhar Motors.

C. P. SHARMA Chandra Prakash Sharma, former Fiji MP, civil servant and trade union leader, aged about 50, in Melbourne. He won the Suva Rural seat for the National Federation Party at the 1977 election.

WIN RYAN At Mangakino, New Zealand, aged 68. Winton Henry Ryan, OBE, Order of King George I and Greek Silver Star, was a well-known figure in the Cook Islands where he served for 20 years in various posts, including that of superintendent of the Public Works Department.

During World War II he was with New Zealand forces in Greece and Crete. In the latter campaign he, and the platoon he commanded, were given the task of escorting the Greek King George from Crete to safety in Egypt. He was awarded the Order of King George I and Greek Silver Star for his success in the mission.

Only two other New Zealanders are believed to have received these awards.

Antonio Benavente

In Saipan, of a heart attack, aged 52. Saipan-born Antonio Benavente was a former chief of the Marianas Public Safety Department, and had a record of police and public service going back to 1944.

There is more time to rei i \ t V,- 4 K % For more information contact: • Kelvinator Australia Limited . . . Adelaide, South Australia • Truk Cooperative Association . .. Truk, Eastern Caroline Islands • Berm Inc. . . Yap District, Western Caroline Islands • Cook Islands Trading Corporation , Ltd.. . Rarotonga, Cook Islands • Carpenters Fiji Lin Enterprises .. . Majuro, Marshall Islands • Electric Radio Noumea .. . Noumea, New Caledonia • Pentecost Pacific SA. . . Port-Vila, 3 Pacific Traders , Inc. . . Pago Pago, American Samoa • Motor Distributors (Samoa) Ltd. . . Apia, Western Samoa • Guadalcanal Elec SHIPPING SERVICES These listings do not necessarily cover all services to Island ports.

Should any shipping company wish to have its services cargo and passenger included in these listings they should contact PIM.

SYDNEY - LORD HOWE IS - NOROLK IS Compagnie des Chargeurs Caledoniens operates four-weekly cargo service Sydney - Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

SYDNEY - NZ - FIJI - HAWAII -

Canada - Us

P & O liners call at Auckland. Suva, Honolulu and Vancouver on eastbound and westbound voyages between Sydney and the US.

Details from P & O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

AUSTRALIA - NZ - FIJI - TONGA - N. HEBRIDES - NOUMEA - PNG -

Solomons -Samoas

Sitmar Cruises operates a year-round cruise programme to include most of the above countries.

Details from Sitmar Cruises, 47 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (232-7511).

P & O liners call at Auckland, Bay of Islands, Honiara, Lautoka, Noumea, Nuku’alofa, Pago Pago, Papeete, Port Moresby, Santo, Savusavu, Suva, Vavau and Vila on cruises from Australia.

Details from P & O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

AUSTRALIA - FIJI - SAMOAS - NEW HEBRIDES - TONGA -

Norfolk Island

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a five-weekly refrigerated general cargo/container service from Sydney and Brisbane to Vila, Santo, Suva, Lautoka, Apia, Pago Pago, Nuku’alofa and Norfolk Island.

Details from Beaufort Shipping Agency Co, 2 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (239-1022).

Australia - New Caledonia

(And/Or) New Hebrides

Karlander operates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Sofrana-Unilines ships serve Noumea every three weeks from the main ports along the east Australian coast.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd. 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd. Brisbane (221-3116), Elders-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Compagnie des Chargeurs Caledonians operates a three-weekly containerised cargo service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea. Port Vila and Santo, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231 -3700).

Australia - Fiji

Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd operates monthly cargo services from Sydney to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), Dalgety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, Melbourne (60-0731), Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Sofrana-Unilines (Fiji Express Line) operates to Suva and Lautoka every three weeks from the main ports on the east coast of Australia and monthly to Lautoka from Melbourne and Sydney.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney, (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke Street. Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd, Brisbane (221-3116), Elder-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Australia • W. Samoa

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Apia, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Fiji - Tuvalu

• Samoas - Tonga

Pacific Forum Line operates a container, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Lautoka, Suva, Funafuti, Pago Pago, Apia and Nuku'alofa. Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from ANL Melbourne and Brisbane, Union Bulkships, Sydney, Hobart, Port Adelaide and Fremantle, Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777); Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nuku'alofa; PWD, Funafuti; or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W.

Samoa.

Australia - Northern

Marianas - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates a regular container service from Melbourne to Saipan. Truk, Ponape and Kosrai.

Details Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

AUSTRALIA - TONGA -

Samoas - Tahiti

Karlander operates a monthly cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Nuku’alofa, Apia, Pago Pago, Papeete.

US west coast.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Australia - Tahiti

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly service from Australia to Papeete.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx: AA25970.

Compagnie Generale Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Papeete using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Png

Containers Pacific Express (Burns Philp and AWP Line) and NGAL/PNGL Operate chief Container Service from Australia to PNG-Solomon Islands ports on joint slot sharing basis. Three container vessels operate on 28-day turn- 100 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

vhen you own a Kelvinator Refrigerators, Freezers, Gas and Electric Ranges, Air Conditioners, Automatic Washers and Dryers, Wringer Washers, Microwave Ovens, Humidifiers, Dehumidifiers, Water Coolers, Commercial Air Conditioners and Refrigerators.

QBQ 1 %sm mcam ■n

Mterjvat/Ojvalcom Pam S

Kelvinator International Company. P.O. Box 9200. Grand Rapids, Michigan 49509, U.S.A. rprises . . . Ponape, Eastern Caroline Islands • Western Carolines Trading Co. . . Palau, Western Caroline Islands • Family Chain Stores, iuva, Fiji • Pacific International Co., Inc. . . Agana, Guam • M.S. Villagomez Enterprises ... Saipan, Mariana Islands • Robert Reimers ides • Fisher & Paykel Ltd. . . Panmure, New Zealand • Bums Philp (New Guinea) Ltd. . . Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea • South . Honiara, Solomon Islands • Ets. Rene Solari etFils . . . Papeete, Tahiti • E.M. Jones . . . Nukualofa, Tonga ound from Melbourne, Sydney and risbane to Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, avieng, Wewak, Madang, Kieta and oniara.

Details from Burns Philp & Co Ltd, 51 tt Street, Sydney (2-0547) and terocean Swire, 8 Spring Street, Syd- -3y (2-0522).

New Guinea Express Lines operates ree-weekly conventional and coniner services Melbourne, Sydney, risbane, Port Moresby. Lae, Rabaul, lotau.

Details from New Guinea Express nes, PO Box R 73, Royal Exchange D, Sydney (241-3991) MacArthur lipping Agency Co, 82-92 Eagle reet, Brisbane (229-3777), New uinea Express Lines, 327 Collins reet, Melbourne (61-3053), Niugini (press Lines in Port Moresby 1-2466), Lae (42-1536), Rabtrad iugini Pty Ltd, Rabaul (92-2911), otau Stevedoring & T’sport 1-1318).

Karlander New Guinea Line’s cargo sssels call at Melbourne, Sydney, Port oresby, Lae, Madang, Wewak, anus, Kimbe, Rabaul, Popondetta.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, )-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), algetty Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, elbourne (60-0731).

AUSTRALIA-SOLOMONS- JORTHERN MARIANAS-TAIWAN- JAPAN Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly serze Sydney-Honiara-Guam-Taiwanipan with transhipment at Guam for aipan.

Details Meridian Shipping & Trans- )rt Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, rtJney 2001 (29-4987). Tlx. <\25970.

AUSTRALIA - SOLOMONS -

Gilbert Is - Micronesia

Daiwa Line operates a container ser- :e every 30 days from Sydney to Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa and Guam. Gizo cargoes transhipped at Honiara, Saipan, cargoes transhipped at Guam.

Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agancies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx.

AA25970.

AUSTRALIA - NAURU - MAJURO Nauru Pacific Line operates regular cargo/passenger service from Melbourne to Nauru and Majuro.

Details: Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Png ■ Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae to Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp, Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, ports.

PNG - US Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae direct to New Orleans; calls at other US and Gulf and East Coast ports on inducement.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports.

SOLOMONS - USA -

Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Honiara to New Orleans, Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd. 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Trading Co, Honiara (389).

Far East - Fiji - New

ZEALAND New Zealand Unit Express (CNC.

MNOL, Nedlloyd) operates a threeweekly cargo service from Hong Kong to Lautoka, Suva. NZ ports, Manila, Kaoshiung, Keelung, Hong Kong.

Details from Nedlloyd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Nedlloyd operates monthly cargo service with three ships from Surabaya, Jakarta, Bangkok, Port Keland and Singapore to Suva and NZ ports.

Details from Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801); Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

JAPAN - NZ - PNG China Navigation Co, with three ships operates a monthly service from Japan to New Zealand calling at Fiji and Noumea en route Details Carpenters Shipping, Suva (312-2441); P & O S. N. Co, Wellington (736-477),

Far East • Mid-S. Pacific

China Navigation Co’s vessels operate a regular cargo service from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manila, Port Kelang and Singapore to Wewak, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta, Lae, Port Moresby, Honiara, Santo, Vila, Noumea, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Tarawa and Nauru.

Details from Steamships Trading Co., Port Moresby (21-2000).

Kyowa Shipping Co Ltd, operates monthly services from Hong Kong, Taiwan, S. Korea and Japan, to Guam, Saipan, Solomons, New Caledonia, Fiji, Western and American Samoa, Tahiti, Cook Is., Tonga and New Hebrides.

Details: Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Daiwa Line operates 30-day service from Moji, Kobe, Nagoya and Yokohama to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva, Lautoka, Noumea, Sydney, Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa, Guam and Taiwan.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987) Tlx: AA25970.

NORTH EUROPE - TAHITI -

New Caledonia

Hamburg-Sued operates monthly cargo services from Hamburg, Dunkirk and Le Havre to Papeete, Noumea, via Panama.

Details from Columbus Overseas Services Pty Ltd, 333 George Street, Sydney (290-2966), Columbus Maritime Services, 17 Albert Street, Auckland (77-3460),

Europe - Pacific Islands

Compagnie Generate Maritime operates services from Europe and Mediterranean ports to Papeete and Noumea using three Ro-Ro and one multipurpose vessel thus ensuring a bimonthly sailing to and from.

Details Compagnie Generate Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

EUROPE - TAHITI - W. SAMOA -

Fiji - N. Caledonia

Nedlloyd offers regular cargo services from Northern Europe and UK to Papeete, Apia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Details Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street. Sydney (27-3801).

JAPAN - GUAM - FIJI - TAHITI - SAMOA - N. CALEDONIA -

Solomons - Gilberts

Daiwa Lines runs a monthly cargo service from Japan via Guam to Lautoka, Suva, Papeete, Pago Pago.'Apia, Sydney, Noumea, Honiara, Tarawa, Guam.

Details from Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva.

Nz - New Caledonia - Fiji

Pacific Forum Line operates a unitized /palletized and reefer cargo ser- 101 VCIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY AUGUST 1979

THE LINE Papua New Guinea & Solomon Islands USA- UK /Continent Service Regular direct monthly sailings

Papua New Guinea And Solomon Islands

to:

North America • United Kingdom & Continent

For particulars apply: THE BANK LINE (AUSTRALASIA) PTY. LTD. 18th Floor 1 York Street Sydney N.S.W. 2000 Australia Telephone; 272041 Telex: 24063 102 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST. 1979

/ Regular Monthly Liner Services from Australia and New Zealand to the South and Central Pacific

Owned By The People

Of The Pacific Islands

PACIFIC FORUm me FOR INFORMATION CONTACT AGENTS: AMERICAN SAMOA: Polynesian Shipping Services Inc. P.O. Box 1478. Pago Pago.

AUSTRALIA: The Australian National Line, 50 Queen Street, Melbourne.

Union Bulkships Pty.Ltd., 333-339 George Street, Sydney.

GILBERT ISLANDS: Gilbert Islands Shipping Corp. P.O. Box 495, Tarawa.

FIJI: Burns Philp South Sea Co. Ltd. GPO Box 355, Suva.

NEW CALEDONIA; ETS Ballande, BP. C 4, Noumea.

NEW HEBRIDES: Burns Philp New Hebrides Limited, Vila.

NEW ZEALAND: The Shipping Corp. of N.Z. Ltd. P.O. Box 3344, Wellington.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Steamships Trading Co. Ltd. P.O. Box 1, Port Moresby.

SOLOMON ISLANDS: Sullivans S.l. Ltd. GPO Box 3, Honiara.

TONGA: Union Steam Ship Co. P.O. Box 4, Nuku'alofa.

Daiwa Lime

Japan-South Pacific Regular Service

Australia South Pacific Container Service

Japan-Taiwan Guam-Saipan Regular Service

Daiwa Line Bridges South Pacific

With Ro/Ro Car & Container Carrier

JAPAN GUAM LAUTOKA—SUVA—PAPEETE—PAGO PAGO—APIA—NOUMEA—

Sydney Honiara—Kieta—Tarawa—Guam—Taiwan—Japan

Japan —Majuro—Rarotonga—Vila—Santo—Nauru—Japan

Japan—Taiwan—Guam—Saipan—Japan

m. m THE DAIWA MATIGATIOM CO.. LTD.

OSAKA: “DAILINE” TOKYO: “FUNEDAILINE” ,

Head Office

Daiichi Kyogyo Bldg

45. 2-CHOME. AWAZAMINAMi-DORI,

• Nishi-Ku, Osaka, Japan

TELEPHONE 05v 531-0471 '9 TELEX: 525-6324 & 525-6325

Tokyo Office

SHIN-DAIICHI BLDG., 4-13, NIHONBASHI 3 CHOME, CHUO- KU,

Tokyo. Japan

TELEPHONE: (03} 274-3251'8 TELEX: 222-3343. J 23559 vice from Lyttelton and Auckland to Napier, Noumea, Lautoka and Suva.

Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777); Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nukualofa or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

NZ-N. CALEDONIA-N. HEBRIDES-

Png-Solomons

Sofrana Unilines with three ships operates to Vila and Santo, to Honiara and Papua New Guinea and to Noumea.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, 18 Customs Street, Auckland (773-279), PO Box 3614, Telex NZ2313.

Nz - New Caledonia

- SOLOMONS - GILBERTS - MICRONESIA Union Co/Daiwa Line operates a container service from New Zealand through Sydney to Guam.

Details: Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, PO Box 12, Auckland..

Nz - Fiji - North America (Wc)

Blue Star Line Ltd Pacific Coast consider services. Only direct service to and from New Zealand. Blue Star /essels call at Suva and Honolulu on MZ-US-West Coast voyages.

Details from Blueport ACT (NZ) Ltd, 3 0 Box 192, Wellington (739-029) , Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd. GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777).

NZ • FIJI Reef operates a regular 18-day ser- 'ice from Auckland to Suva and Lauoka.

Details from Reef Shipping Agencies -td. PO Box 3382, Auckland. NZ 77-1221-3).

Pacific Line with one ship operates crtnightly roro cargo service New [ealand, Lautoka, Suva.

Details: Sofrana Unilines, 18 Customs Street, Auckland (773-279) PO Box 3614, Telex: NZ2313.

NZ - FIJI - GILBERTS -

Solomons - Png

Pacific Forum Line operates a container, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Lyttelton and Auckland to Suva, Port Moresby, Lae Honiara, Tarawa, Madang, Lae and Port Moresby. Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777) Sullivans, Honiara; Gilbert Islands Shipping Corporation, Tarawa; Steamships Trading in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

Union Steam Ship Co of NZ operates a roll-on, roll-of, container/unitised service from Auckland to Lautoka-Suva- Pago Pago-Apia-Nuku-alofa on a 14 day frequency.

Details from Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, PO Box 12, Auckland or from Branch offices/agents in Fiji, Tonga and the Samoas.

Nz - Samoa - Tonga

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a four-weekly cargo service, Auckland - Nuku’alofa - Pago Pago - Apia - Auckland.

Details from McKay Shipping Ltd, Downtown House, Queen Street, Auckland (30-229).

Warner Pacific Line services Auckland - Nuku’alofa/Vavau/ Apia fortnightly carrying general and freezer cargoes. Also Timaru - Nuku'alofa/Vavau/Apia every 21 days carrying freezer cargo.

Details from Air Marine Services (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 2505, Auckland (796-841), Telex NZ21555, NZ - COOK IS - NIUE - TAHITI Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd operates cargo services based on pallets 103 ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

The "South Seas Express"

Your Pipeline to the Pacific Every 14 days Union Company’s roll-on roll-off vessel “Marama” leaves Auckland for five key Pacific Island ports; Lautoka, Suva, Apia, Pago Pago and Nuku’alofa, and return to Auckland.

We call her The South Seas Express.

New Zealand exporters outside Auckland can take advantage of Union Company’s internal ‘Relay’ system to connect up with the “Marama” service.

The “Marama” provides a safe, fast, reliable service to the advantage of New Zealand and Pacific Island traders, as well as providing the essential link for trade between the Pacific Islands nations.

Island traders can take advantage of “Marama” service to link through New Zealand to other world markets, using Union Company’s international relay service.

Talk Pacific Island trading with Union Company at any New Zealand or Pacific Island office. union company M t * every day one of our ships is in one of your markets

Head Office

Wellington 729-699

New Zealand

BRANCHES Auckland 774-730 Bluff 8174 Dunedin 777-201 Lyttleton 7149 Mount Maunganui 53-199 Napier 58-788 Nelson 81-459 New Plymouth 75-459 Timaru 86-099 Wellington 850-799 Westport 7279 Whangarei 88-759

Pacific Island

BRANCHES Suva, Fiji 23861 Lautoka, Fiji 60577 Apia, Western Samoa 21781 Pago Pago, American Samoa C/oB.F. Kneubuhl Inc. (Agent) Nuku’alofa, Tonga 118 or 160 13495 104 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

PACIFIC ISLANDS TRANSPORT LINE

Ms Africanstars

Express Freight Service between Pacific Coast Ports of U.S.A. and...

Tahiti 6 Samoa

Papeete Apia Pago Pago

Full container service including reefers.

GENERAL STEAMSHIP CORPORATION LTD.

General Agents 400 California Street, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

APIA: Bums Philp (South Sea) Company Ltd.

PAPEETE: Agence Maritime Internationale, Tahiti PAGO PAGO: Polynesia Shipping Services Inc. q6E/?^ * A O * FOR;

In Our 85Th Year Selling ‘Service’

TO THE PACIFIC ISLANDS . . .

Nelson & Robertson PTY. LTD. (Established 1895) Plantation House, 197 Clarence Street, Sydney.

Cables: ‘IVANT, Sydney, Brisbane. Telex: AA22381, Sydney.

INDENTS - FROM AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND and OVERSEAS.

Foodstuffs • Hardware • Travel • Canned Fish

Machinery • Insurance • Softgoods • Jute Goods

• Real Estate •

BRANCH OFFICES: Nelson & Robertson Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 575, Brisbane, Qld., Australia.

P.O, Box 2092, Govt. Bldg., Suva, Fiji. P.O. Box 258, Lautoka, Fiji.

P.O. Box 2420, CPO Auckland 1, New Zealand.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA Rabtrad Niugini Pty. Ltd., P.O. Box 219, Rabaul, P.N.G.

REPRESENTATIVES: P.0.80x 1406, Lae, P.N.G. P.O. Box 711, Madang, P.N.G.

P.O. Box 253, Kieta, P.N.G. and similar units from Auckland to Niue, Cook Islands and Tahiti.

Details from the Shipping Corp of NZ Ltd, PO Box 3420, Auckland (797-210); Waterfront Commission, PO Box 61, Rarotonga, Lighterage and Stevedoring Co, Aitutaki, Niue Govt Offices, Niue Island Compagnie Maritime Polynesienne, B'P’ 368, Papeete, Tahiti.

Uk - N Continent - Fiji

The Bank Line operates a direct, fast monthly service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from the Bank Line (Australasia) Pty Ltd, 1 York St, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (South Sea) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

UK/N. CONTINENT - TAHITI -

N. Caledonia - N. Hebrides

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Papeete and Noumea.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Ets A M Fare UTE, Papeete; Ets Ballande, Noumea.

UK/N. CONTINENT - PNG - SOLOMONS Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta and Honiara and on inducement to Yandina.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports; Trading Co Honiara.

SAN FRANCISCO - HONOLULU -

Nauru - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates regular conventional/container service from Ban Francisco and Honolulu to Majuro, 3 onape, Truk and Saipan. Cargo is accepted for Nauru and Kosrai with Tanshipment at Majuro and Ponape.

Details from Nauru Pacific Line, Mauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709); North American Maritime Agencies, 100 California Street, San Francisco, California 9411 (981-0343).

US - FIJI - TAHITI - NZ - AUSTRALIA Bank and Savill Line Ltd, operates regular cargo services from US Gulf ports to Australia and NZ. Calls at Suva, Lautoka and Papeete on demand.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041) or Howard Smith Industries Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-5611).

Us - Tahiti - Samoa

Pacific Islands Transport operates a five weekly cargo service from North America west coast ports to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Services Inc, PO Box 1478 Pago Pago (9-6799).

Polynesia Line operates container and general cargo service from US west coast ports to Papeete and Pago Pago.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Services Inc., PO Box 1478, Pago Pago (9-6799).

US - TAHITI - SAMOA - NZ - AUST Farrell Lines Inc, operate a fast regular lash/container cargo service from west coast ports Canada/USA to Papeete and Pago Pago thence to NZ and Australia.

Details Wilh Wilhelmson Agency, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Tlx AA20136, Cable FARSHIPS Sydney; Dalgety (NZ) Ltd, Auckland and Wellington, Tlx NZ2445, Cable DALSHIP Auckland; Compagnie Maritime Polynesienne, Immeuble Franco Oceanienne, PO Box 368, Papeete, Tahiti, Tel 26393, Tlx 258. FP ANSB Taporo, Cable OCEAN Papeete; Kneubuhl Maritime Service, PO Box 39, Pago Pago, Telephone 633-5121; Tlx 782505. 105 ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

FOR SALE FLEETS 49 ft 6 inch x 17 ft x 6 ft PARTLY PLANKED HULL, Timbers frames, stringers fitted "AS IS", including balance planking timber, timber for decks, 3” Stainless Steel prop shaft, stern tube, $42,000 FLEETS 221 Esplanade, Wynnum Central, Brisbane. Cable “FLEETS BRISBANE".

Australian couple, in mid-thirties.

Interested Islands work. She managerial experience, he wide general experience, including yachting.

What offers? Reply Sean Lee, PO Box 74, Windsor, 2756, Australia.

Stamp Exchange

I have Australian stamps to exchange tor Island stamps in good condition Mrs B Moorhouse, 9 Banool Street Keiraville, Wollongong, 2500, NSW.

Australia ALuminium yachts y'y-K ■■

Light - Strong - Low Maintenance

>lB' LOA >2o' LOA >2l'6 LOA >24' LOA >2B' LOA

Kayfa Industries

13 Tarnard Drive, Braeside Vic. 3195. Tel: 900255 £ High reliability, totally marinised SOMA Windmills charge batteries to run lights, tools, water pumps, etc. o £ 200 watt 12 volt unit SNZBSO.

FOB Auckland. 500 watt 24 volt unit SNZIOOO.

FOB Auckland.

Send for free brochure and c.i.f. quotes or send SNZ3.SO for post-paid Installation Manual.

SOMA WINDMILLS LTD.

P.O. Box 94, Russell, New Zealand.

Advertisers’ Index

Office Suite 2 Mac Donnell Lane 26 Abbott St Cairns Phone (070) 514039 A/Hrs 93 7268 Telex QUMAR AA 48475 Mail PO. Box 1871, Cairns 4870 Director Captain Donald A. Hopper T. Eng (CEO ouggnsmnp mflmriE brokerage

Commercial Shipping Sales & Charters

Yacht, 52 ft, Queensland survey, world cruiser $lBO,OOO Dredge, 2 x 760 hp Caterpillars, 600 cu. yds pr. hr. capacity, harbour and reclamation work $200,000 Motor yacht, 80 ft, 2 x G.M. 671, sleeps 10 $70,000 Steel cargo vessel, 81 ft. capacity 150 cubic metres $65,000 Servicing Australia and the South West Pacific.

Servicing Australia and the South West Pacific.

MAPS and PRINTS of the OLD PACIFIC Regular catalogues issued listing a large stock of original antiquarian views and maps of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and all the island groups of the Pacific. Write today for your free copy: COLIN HINCHCLIFFE, 7 Royd Avenue, Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire, WFI6 9AL, UK.

Frostpak % * / V Koolatron INDUSTRIES Portable Electronic Solid State Refrigerators For people on the move Ideal for Campers & Caravans Indispensable for Travellers and Holidaymakers A must for Truckdrivers Popular with Yachts.

Aircraft and Fishermen For Medical & Technical purposes & Food Samples Big cooling performance No Gas - No Compressor Large 33 Litre capacity Unaffected by motion or level No nmse or vibration Low Battery Drain Low Weight - 7 KG I Virtually Indestructable l 2 Year Guarantee From 5199.00 incl. Sales Tax Connects to 12V Battery or Cigarette Lighter Operates on 240 V with Battery Charger 297 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne 3027 Phone 645 2068 Telex 32571

For People On The Move

The only newsletter that lists professional vacancies throughout Pacific and Middle East Reply Box 150, Canberra City, Australia.

RINE PACIFIC LTD.

Salvage - Towage

TUGS 500 -2700 b.h.p.

Ramped - Barges

250 - 500 d.w.t.

For charter throughout the South Pacific cable: TUGBOAT , SUVA, telex: FJ2202

Peter Fisher

TRADING Pty Ltd 321 PITT St., SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 2000 Telephone; 26 1109 Cables: "FISHE R ION” SYDNEY

Exporters To The

Pacific Islands

106 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - AUGUST, 1979

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S=—id? b!& o v>.

Kov r &S i £ * * *sZ •> w «v v . \ I • > * v '.

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Datsuns'temper'control, so you never lose yours! * w A.

Color coded rear axle shafts.

The rear axle shaft. It s vitally important and must be really tough to withstand the twisting forces and power that it transfers to the car's wheels, not to mention the shocks of hitting things on the road.

Datsun's high technology, mass production techniques and “extra” effort make sure you won’t get stranded with a breakdown. Each axle shaft is specially treated.

High frequency electrical waves are used to “temper” the shaft. This hardening process creates a hard outer surface for maximum wear resistance but allows the interior of the shaft to remain softer for toughness and shock absorption. This balance of properties provides exactly what is needed for troublefree motoring. In addition, each axle shaft is color coded and registered. If it doesn't meet Datsun's rigid standards or the unusual happens, the flaw is easily traceable. Through highly perfected quality control procedures Datsun has built a worldwide reputation for quality. Datsun knows how to deliver the best... and millions agree. m Datsun’s “extra” effort for total quality. datsun « Datsun Distributors: Boroko Motors Ltd. P.O. Box 1259, Boroko, Port Moresby. PN G /Carpenters Motors, Sales Division 61-63 Foster St Walu Bay, Suva, Fiji Islands Private Mail Bag/Morris Hedstrom Ltd. P.O. Box 189, Apia, Western Samoa/ United Enterprises Ltd. PO. Box 262, Honiara, Solomon Islands/ Sirius Motors PO. Box 34, Norfolk Island, South Pacific/ Jacob Enterprises P.O. Box 4, Republic of Nauru/Cook Islands Motor Center Ltd. P.O. Box 74, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, South Pacific/ Pentecost Pacific S.A. P.O. Box 119, Port Vila, New Hebrides/ Agence Alma S.A. B.P. A 3, Noumea Cedex, New Caledonia/ Tahitibull S.A.R.L. B.P. 359, Papeete, Tahiti / Gilbert Islands Government, Supply Division P.O. Box 71, Bairiki, Tarawa. Gilbert Islands