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Pacific Islands Monthly

Vol 51 No 5 May 1980 [USPS 952480] REPRESENTATIVES AUSTRALIA: Distribution: NSW & ACT: Allan Rodney Wright (Circulation) Pty Ltd, PO Box 907, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010; Elsewhere: Gordon & Gotch (A/asia) Ltd, Box 40, PO, Rosebery, NSW 2018 Advertising — Melbourne — Pacific Publications (Aust.) Pty Ltd. Newspaper House, 247 Collins Street, Melbourne 3000, telephone 63 0211, ext. 1565 Jeff Gates, ext. 1858 Ida Padgett; Brisbane - D.

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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.) Ptv Ltd.

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Pacific Islands

MONTHLY This Month’s Features • NEW GOVERNMENT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA - PIM Editor Angus Smales, a veteran of more than 20 years of journalism in PNG, outlines the hows and whys of the fall from power of Michael Somare and the rise of Sir Julius Chan 10 • TONGA There is strife at the top in Tonga’s Free Wesleyan Church. For some, the man in the eye of the storm is a man of the highest principle, for others an irresponsible boat-rocker 15 • TRAVEL Bob and Dinah Halstead share with us the exhilaration of a scuba diving safari in Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay, and David Robie takes us to a treasured ‘home away from home’ he has found on Tonga’s main island of Tongatapu 35 • BOOKS Reviews of new books on the career of the Cook Islands’ remarkable former leader Sir Albert Henry, the history of Samoa, and the century-long experience of the Indian population of Fiji 44 • PlM’s PACIFIC Judy Tudor continues her series on the 50th anniversary of PIM with an account of the 1950 s which, she says, came in like a ‘puling infant’ and made their exit like a ‘snarling tiger’. Read why on page 51 • NAURU Interpretations differ on how long it will be before Nauru’s crucial posphate reserves are exhausted 61 • SHIPS West Germany’s Columbus Line has announced a big extension of its services to the South Pacific, and the Pacific Forum Line has withdrawn from a recently formed shipowners’ association 68 Cover: Dinah Halstead explores the under-water glories of Milne Bay. Full report begins on p 35.

American Samoa 29 Books 44 Cook Islands 44 Deaths 81 Fifty Years of PIM 51 FIJI 17,47,63,65,69 French Polynesia 17,27,71 Island Press 49 Kiribati 29 Letters 5 Micronesia 63,71 Nauru 61 New Caledonia 19,29 New Hebrides 65 Pacific Report 9 Papua New Guinea 5,10,35,63,65,69,70 People 31 Political Currents 21 Samoa 45 Ships 68 Shipping Services 79 Tonga 15,19,41 Tradewinds 61 Tradewinds Intelligence 67 Travel 35 Tropicalities 17 Western Samoa 18 Yachts 73 Founded 1930 by R. W. Robson Publisher Stuart Inder Editor Angus Smales Associate Editor Malcolm Salmon Editorial Adviser John Carter Manager John Berry Advertising Sales Manager Steve Gray A Pacific Publications production 76 Clarence Street, Sydney 2000 GPO Box 3408 Sydney 2001 Cables: PACPUB Sydney Telex: 21242 (answers INTARAD) Telephone: Sydney 29 6693

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4 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

LETTERS Kevin Egan hits back Tired as I am of the ‘Rooney Affair’ and its whole distasteful aftermath, your editorial comment — ‘Strange ways of Mr Kevin Egan’ (PIM, Feb. p 9), forces me once again to raise my weary pen for the sake of your, and your readers’ enlightenment.

I sent you a copy of my annual report, with a short covering note, out of a sense of balance, everyone else with an interest in the Pacific having either requested or been sent one. I anticipated some criticism of either the viewpoint that I put forward or the fact that I put forward a viewpoint at all. I did not, however, expect the fatuous trivia that you dished out in February by way of substitute for genuine, red-blooded criticism.

You made two points. The first related to the paper on which the covering letter was typed, full of pregnant references to ‘xed’ out ‘Secretary For Law, Port Moresby’ headnotes and national crests. Let me put your tender sensitivities to rest. That paper, far from representing purloined national property (heaven forbid) was part of a stockpile of identical paper previously used by the last pre-independence secretary forjustice. The paper, just like the office which used it, ceased to have any relevance after mid-night on September 15 1975 (Independence Day)!

Rather than throw it away my officers and I have used it as scrap paper since then. So much for your first point.

Your second point related to Somare’s allegation, made after I left, that whilst overtly stating that I was leaving, covertly I was attempting to obtain a reappointment. What rot!! At the same time I believe he was also telling eager listeners ‘Egan wanted to stay but we didn’t want someone like him as Public Prosecutor’.

It is noteworthy that you neglected to tell your readers that in a letter to the editor, published in the PNG Post- Courier on January 28 1980, page 4, I accused Somare of misleading the public in respect of this matter, an allegation to which that gentleman has never replied. Nevertheless his statements and reactions to the release of my report and my departure, a departure which has coincided with a general exodus of long-serving expatriate lawyers in the country, are not without their significance.

For a start, my report contained 33 pages of trenchant, though objective, criticism related to PNG’s present, unquestionable, law and order crisis. To date Somare has not denied a single syllable of what I had to say. Rather predictably, the only comment that has emanated from him is the one that you reported in Pacific Report concerning my alleged quest for reappointment. Even were it true, the question that then immediately must spring forward is ‘Well, so what?’

Quite clearly, finding himself in a situation from which he could not extract himself with facts, the honourable gentleman has chosen to revert to a combination of two classic political manoeuvres the red herring and the smear tactic.

Secondly his reactions demonstrate quite clearly that ‘politically insensitive’ prosecutions in PNG, regardless of their legality and merit, may well lead to censure in the form, effectively, of dismissal, under the present regime. Fortunately, those responsible for drafting the Constitution foresaw the potential for such a cynical misuse of executive power, and for that reason the appointment of Judges and the Public Prosecutor is not the responsibility of the Executive but rather the Judicial and Legal Services Commission, consisting of the Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice, Chief Ombudsman, Minister for Justice and one other parliamentarian.

That Somare is not prepared to pay even lip service to this enshrined constitutional tenet became obvious however in November when he announced. in answer to a question in parliament that ‘the government (emphasis mine) intended to appoint two more National Judges in February’.

This was said when the Commission had not even considered the matter, and was a blatant attempt to coerce the Commission in futuro.

The truth concerning myself is quite simple. In May, whilst in Hong Kong, being concerned over recent trends in PNG, I raised the question of my appointment as Crown Counsel in the Colony with the Assistant Attorney-General, indicating then verbally, and a fortnight later in writing, that I would not be seeking reappointment as Public Prosecutor in PNG at the expulsion of my term on November 23.

After Rooney’s release from prison after serving only 24 hours I made a public statement to this effect. This was in September. On October 19 I confirmed this decision, in writing, to the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

Between September and October, however. I was approached by two members of the Judiciary, a number of senior police officers and others to reconsider my decision. I communicated the fact of this approach to the Secretary for Justice who offered to assist me if I wished to change my stance. I did not.

Having already resolved to go in May, is it at all likely that with the massive trauma caused after Mrs Rooney’s letter to the Chief Justice in July I would be still actively seeking reappointment in November?

Kevin B. Egan

(Former) Public Prosecutor of Papua New Guinea Brisbane, Qld, Australia •In April, PIM published the full text of the annual report to which Mr Egan refers in his letter. We made the space available because we considered the report to be of such importance. This decision was made before we received Mr Egan’s letter, but we are happy to publish his remarks. PIM apologises for the error in the published report in which Mr Egan’s name was given as Brian instead of Kevin.

Editor.

No ‘oddballs’ after all Write in haste, repent at leisure. Sorry, Yanks, for my reference to ‘oddball chicken farmers’ in my article (PIM Mar p 17) It is not my style to denigrate the efforts of any individual, and I don’t like it myself when my own achievements are denigrated.

Therefore I apologise most humbly to my Yank friends in Port-Vila who number among themselves 1) a manager of a very efficient frozen chicken operation 2) a manufacturer of household goods who is imparting his skills to New Hebridians 3) a new tourist complex operator 4) a superb agriculturalist 5) a four-ring Captain US Navy 6) an ex- Coastguard commander, etc.

All are doing their bit to develop the New Hebrides.

So to Hank, Hoff, Chuck, Guv, Gus, Tom and Mack I say let’s call the dogs off and begin again.

Ken Hutton

Santo New Hebrides Levuka: An exciting new project Levuka, the old capital of Fiji, is the centre of an exciting new South Pacific project. In the long term it is planned to dedicate the whole of Levuka, this fine historical gem, as an historic site. The town is ideal for this. It is unique in this part of the world with almost all of its buildings dating back to the 19th century and with its historical importance as the scene of the signing of the cession deed that joined Fiji with Great Britain. Here, the first school in Fiji began in 1879, the first town council was incorporated over 100 years ago and the first newspaper, the Fiji Times , began publication. The large Pacific business of Morris Hedstrom, now a part of the Carpenter chain, began here 100 years ago.

In the plans it is hoped that the original old governor’s residence will become part of the National Trust. The big and imposing building of the original Morris Hedstrom store, now also 100 years old, has been given to the National 5 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Trust of Fiji for the use of the residents of Levuka.

Efforts are currently in hand to convert this fine building into a cultural centre for Levuka. It will comprise a museum (as a Levuka branch of the Fiji Museum and housing old Levuka pieces), a library (to be a part of the western regional library system of Fiji), and a large meeting hall. Other parts of the building will be set aside for the youth of Levuka, the young women under the YMCA and a gymnasium for the young men and boys.

Although the building is structurally strong and in excellent shape, much work is needed to re-roof, partition the interior and paint and furnish the building to achieve this useful addition to the life of the people. The Levuka Historical and Cultural Society (a part of the National Trust of Fiji) is running a campaign to gather the funds necessary to achieve this end. The secretary is Adrian Anderson and the treasurer is Bhupendra Kumar, Box 17, Post Office, Levuka, Fiji.

I know there are many readers of your excellent magazine who have fond memories of Levuka. Many who have lived there or were born in Levuka and who went to school at the Levuka Public School, will be interested in these plans to preserve a wonderful cultural heritage.

Victor Carell

Northmead, NSW, Australia ‘Traitors’ in PNG It appears very much that Lawrence Kavavar (PIM Mar p 9), as a student he claims to be, has learned very little indeed except to represent his country with arrogance and ignorance. Perhaps Lawrence Kavavar, like many other Papua New Guineans, should get the facts straight before boasting and talking.

He would be well advised to check the records of the District Court in Daru, 1977/78, where he will find the conviction of three men found guilty of eating parts of their dead relative. The use of over 700 tribal languages in a total population of four million doesn’t particularly indicate national and cultural unity.

Indeed we all remember the PNG Deputy Prime Minister Ebia Olewale and his showoffs at the recent South Pacific Conference. Even more we remember him for sending hundreds of his own helpless brothers and sisters back across the border to his colonialist and imperialistic friends. We vividly remember Ebia Olewale and the Somare Government for betraying their Melanesian brothers Jacob Prai and Otto Ondawame.

And who is being spoonfed by whom? With all his talk of independence in PNG Lawrence Kavavar appears to forget that in spite of thousands of millions paid by Australian taxpayers since 1975, in spite of so-called ‘independence’, and in spite of all the royalties of Bougainville Copper, very little can be seen of general development particularly in rural areas and in education. In terms of PNG ‘independence’

Lawrence Kavavar should perhaps investigate some wings of the government buildings in Waigani and Konedobu in which hundreds of Australian ‘advisers’ instruct the government what to do and when. He cannot deny the fact that Burns Philp, Carpenters and Steamships still run the economic affairs of his ‘independent’ country. Consequently, Lawrence Kavavar, your ‘independence’ is just about as much as Australia and Indonesia allows you.

So next time before you ridicule and insult other South Pacific nations you had better get your records straight. The ‘independence’ you have, Lawrence Kavavar you can have it and keep it.

Dorothy Wakau

Cairns, Qld, Australia Of cannibals and anthropophagy As Lawrence F. Kavavar (PIM Mar p 9) was probably informed by one of his teachers, cannibalism does not exactly mean ‘eating human flesh’ but means ‘eating your own species’. A dog is a cannibal if it eats another dog. The proper word for humans eating humans is antropophagy.

As far as antropophagy is concerned, personally, after 20 years spent in PNG and patrolling the most primitive parts of the island (probably more than Mr Kavavar), I must mention that antropophagy cannot be considered, exactly, a practice ‘from the past’. However, I do not see why a modern Papua New Guinean should be ashamed of a mainly ritual custom of some tribes.

Only a few years ago, an Australian magistrate in Daru very wisely decided that it was unfair to charge some men from the Upper Strickland, under the Queensland Criminal Code, of ‘dealing indecently with a corpse’. In fact, generally, warriors consume part of the body of an enemy, not in contempt, but in the belief that doing so is to assimilate some of his virtues.

On the other hand, scientific research in PNG, which led Dr C. Gajdusek to the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1975, established that the main cause of the disease kuru was necrophagy - the traditional consuming of dead relatives by villagers of the Fore tribe in the Highlands.

I opposed, in articles and lectures, mainly in France, an unfortunate generalisation by some reporters about cannibalism and other spectacular practices, especially as far as PNG was concerned (my wife was bom in the country). Recently the publication by Jacques and Betty Villeminot, formerly visitors to PNG, of Nouvelle Guinee Les Papous Chasseurs de Tetes (head-hunting Papuans), although mainly on West Irian Asmats under Indonesian control but in the same island, should be more condemmed than the Tahitian reader of PIM. I criticised 13 years ago in Paris, with the support of a member of the PNG Assembly, a book by the same authors presenting the Trobriands as ‘island of love’.

JOHN HUON Atherton, Qld, Australia Of yachties and bad apples The two letters on ‘Yachties and Tonga’ (PIM Dec 1979 p 7) brought back memories of our passage through Tonga in 1975.

At that time Tongan authorities were said to be having trouble with a few yachties growing marijuana in an obscure corner of their islands and, as a result, yachts were being restricted in their movements about the islands.

Now the problem has surfaced again with regard to pirating of black coral. But I don’t think yachties as a group should be condemned because of the illegal acts of a few.

There will always be a few bad apples in any barrel. I learned as a kid to pick out the bad ones and save the rest rather than throw the whole lot away.

The issues of yachtie behav- Historic Levuka, near the waterfront. The former Morris Hedstrom store can be seen In the centre of the picture. 6 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980 LETTERS

iour, need for better communication between yachties and officials, and the question of how much yachties contribute to the local economy are not new. They are not much different from those we encountered when we enjoyed the hospitality of the Tongan islands five years ago. At that time (PIM Feb 1976 pp 23-25) I wrote to you explaining the yachties’ side, in hopes of promoting a better understanding of both sides of the issue cutting enclosed. Those observations are still valid.

I believe the general situation has now improved, and some long-term benefits of yachties’ visits are now evident.

I refer to the recently established yacht charter business at the Port of Refuge Hotel on Vavau.

If it hadn’t been for the many yachties bringing back home their true-life experiences of visiting and sailing the waters of Tonga, that charter business would not exist. The hundreds of people who now charter those boats would not spend their vacation dollars in Tonga but probably would stay home or sail the Caribbean waters instead.

We cannot kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Instead, let’s lower the boom on the miscreants who make life bad for all of us.

Earl R. Hinz

Huntington Beach, Calif. USA Suwarrow as she is I just read ‘Problems in Tom Neale’s Paradise’ (PIM Feb Pl 4). I was greatly surprised that Mr Syme interpreted what he saw there as a problem rather than a blessing.

As I was on one of the yachts referred to I feel responsible to set the story straight.

First of all both yachts sailed from Pago Pago, not Western Samoa as claimed. Both were en route to Hawaii, but due to an extensive calm they took anchorage at Suwarrow and were there three days, not two months as claimed.

The Cook Islands Premier Dr Tom Davis did not show annoyance about the yachts. On the contrary he wrote three pages in Tom Neale’s log book expressing gratitude and commending the yachters for ‘making Suwarrow a national park’.

Also Tom Neale’s son, who was with the visiting party, wrote his thanks to the yachters for preserving his father’s house and grounds.

This log book was left by Tom Neale for entries from visiting yachts and is a testimonial to the service they have done to his estate.

Premier Davis was so impressed with what he saw and read that he wrote in the back of the log book to send it to him when it was full of entries and he would put it in a museum as a tribute to Tom Neale. One of the girls on the yachts actually burst into tears after reading the eloquent message of Premier Davis. She had just spent three days dusting and keeping house for Tom Neale.

If one were to land on this tiny island (only a few hundred metres long) one would find a well manicured pathway leading up to a group of shacks.

Pots and pans are neatly stacked, a bookshelf has a selection of books and ornaments, the dinner table is practically set for guests, even the bed is made. You’d find the tool shed perfectly organised with a large variety of tools (not just junk). The yards look cleared, even the garden fence is repaired and standing upright. Yet you’d be the only person there.

Contrary to what Mr Syme appears to think, yachters would not steal Tom Neale’s cats, or chickens (it’s written in the log book ‘feed, don’t eat the chickens’), or anything from that place. If they did they’d be cast out by their own kind.

Is Mr Syme so naive as to think that if Tom Neale’s place was left to nature the buildings and water tanks would be in good repair, or that one could even find the path? As for the damaged trees, send a botanist and you’d get a different opinion.

Fortunately, Premier Davis is more perceptive. The proof is in the log book which is now at Tom Neale’s shack awaiting the next yachter’s entry. For it is they who are the caretakers of this unique museum.

Larry Potter

Pago Pago American Samoa Historic issue of Rabaul Times I have a copy of the singlesheet, special edition of The Rabaul Times dated Monday, September 4, 1939, which tells of the declaration of World War II the previous day. It is in good condition, though becoming brownish in colour because of its age of 40 years.

I bought it in Rabaul when I was a government clerk there.

I am wondering if PIM readers know of any other copies still in existence? There might be a few, but almost certainly not many. Most would have been destroyed during the invasion and occupation by the Japanese.

G B. BLACK Nambour, Qld A Pacific Maths, Logic contest I refer to PIM Pacific Report (Mar p 7) where you call on young mathematicians to participate in the 1980 Australian Mathematics Competition.

Readers may be interested to learn of another such competition in the Pacific region; the South Pacific Mathematics and Logic Competition which has been operating since 1972 (its Australian counterpart has been going for two years).

Our Maths and Logic Competition started in Lae, Papua New Guinea, in 1972 but rapidly spread throughout the Pacific. It is now operated from the University of the South Pacific in Suva and from the Ministry of Education and Training in Honiara. If readers would like to have further information about our competition they may contact either myself at the address below or Richard Wah at PO Box 2393, Suva, Fiji.

Colin Meek

(Co-organiser) PO Box 729 Honiara Solomon Islands Help with the Induna Star As a survivor of the ill-fated garrison at Rabaul in 1942, the Committee of Lark Force Association, have charged me with the task of raising a Memorial Book to all who were concerned in the operations in the area.

One chapter has been given over to that of the Ist Independent Company, stationed in Kavieng, with sections scattered north and south of that point. The company had as its seagoing transport the Induna Star of 81 tons, which on February 4 was captured by the Japanese off Gilingil, New Ireland; and from that time on lost sight of. Who the previous owner was we likewise do not know, and the Canberra War Museum is unable to help.

However, we have every reason to believe the vessel did operate out of Rabaul, and would have been fairly well known at the time; but with the passage of time there are fewer and fewer people to whom one can turn for the information.

Has anybody got a photograph of the Induna Star ? Could I also ask if somebody has a snap of Peter Harbour (Peterhafen) in the Witu Islands.

Douglas A. Aplin

17 Tyrall St, Box Hill N.

Victoria 3129 Tom Neale, in Rarotonga Hospital, a few weeks before his death from cancer in 1977. 7 LETTERS PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

IS s ' A': , 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.

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Nandi Airport, Nandi Ph 72733

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We are Polynesia. 8 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Pacific Report 27 INVITATIONS TO ARTS FESTIVAL . . .

Twenty-seven nations and territories have been invited to take part in the Third South Pacific Festival of Arts hosted by Papua New Guinea from June 29 to July 12. Contingents of as many as 200 are expected to fly in from some of the larger countries.

PNG will have teams from each of the nation’s 20 provinces.

Recent visitors to the area say about 600 local canoes from the Papuan coast are expected to take part in the ‘armada’ which will be a feature of the festival (PIM Apr p 24).

. . . But Cyclone-Hit Fiji Can’T Make It

Fiji, one of the main participants in the annual South Pacific Festival of Arts and host country for the first festival, has announced its withdrawal from this year’s arrangements. The reason given was a heavy strain on the country’s resources following Cyclone Wally (see pi 7). The announcement has come as a heavy blow to organisers of the festival, they had been banking on a Fiji contingent to provide a major content of the festival programme, and late last month tentative attempts were being made to obtain at least some representation from Fiji.

Political Heavies Huddle In Honolulu

One of the most impressive arrays of Pacific political leaders seen in years gathered in Honolulu at the end of March for a conference on problems of economic and social development in the Pacific. The conference was sponsored by the East-West Center. (Full report, Political Currents.)

Tahiti Politicians’ ‘U-Turn’

French Polynesia’s politics have been thrown into confusion by the announcement by the conservative opposition party of a sweeping new plan to expand the territory’s powers of selfgovernment (see p 27).

Protest Turns Pinochet Out Of Fiji

A widespread public protest in Fiji, claiming the repression of human rights in Chile, was instrumental in cutting short a visit to Fiji in April by the Chilean President, General Pinochet. Fiji had agreed to a two-day private stopover by General Pinochet on his way to the Philippines, although Chile announced the occasion as ‘accepting with pleasure an official invitation’. By the time General Pinochet arrived however a protest movement was in full swing including a peaceful demonstration and it was announced, too, that the Philippines had cancelled his planned six-day State visit. After a brief overnight stop in Suva it became obvious to General Pinochet and his party of nearly 40 that they were not welcome there and they turned round and went back to Chile without even making a call on Government House. The Suva protest movement, which was described by its organisers as ‘a triumph for human rights’, involved the Fiji Council of Trade Unions, the YWCA, university students, the Fiji Council of Churches, airlines staff, letters to newspapers and radio broadcasts.

Texas Land Subscriptions Frozen

Green Valley Acres, the land bubble in the US State of Texas into which Tuvaluans poured an estimated SUS7O 000, has burst. A statement issued in late March from the US Federal Trade Commission in Washington reports that the Federal Court in Texas has been asked to take control of money paid for land in West Texas. The statement lists three names of men involved in the land deals and gives details of alleged misrepresentations.

The men named include Sidney Gross, a Californian real estate dealer who had been involved in an abortive scheme to establish a fishing fleet for the Tuvalu government (PIM Apr p 56). The freezing of investments made in the land scheme suggests that some measure of repayment may eventually become available to islanders who put money into the scherne, but the full extent of the money now in trust was not known last month. Reports reaching Tuvalu suggest that people in Kiribati also put money into the Green Valley Acres scheme.

Tahiti Financier’S Son Murdered

Olivier Breaud, 26, son of French Polynesia’s wealthiest businessman, Jean Breaud, was kidnapped and murdered in Tahiti in March. His kidnappers had demanded a SUS 2 million ransom (see pl 7).

Australia To Get Png Aid Accounting

Sir Julius Chan’s new government in Papua New Guinea has undertaken to give Australia an annual report on how Australian aid is being spent. Australia at present provides about SA2OO million a year as a direct grant in aid to the PNG Budget, representing this year about one-third of PNG revenue. The grant is completely untied and Australia asks no questions about how it is spent, but Sir Julius is understood to believe that a general accounting will do much to promote a firm and continuing aid arrangement during the period in which his country consolidates its self-reliance. The former Somare government was attempting to reduce its aid dependence by 4% in real terms each year, but Sir Julius said last month that this target could be excessive and in the long term could delay the economic development of his country.

Moruroa N-Test: Minister Accused

French Polynesian anti-nuclear campaigners have accused French Defence Minister Yvon Bourges, who has just completed a tour of French Pacific territories, of deception and concealment from Tahitian people and politicians about the nuclear programme. In a statement in Papeete Mr Bourges had denied that France was about to conduct a nuclear test just before he flew off to Moruroa Atoll to witness France’s third underground blast there this year (on March 24). Eric Monod, a spokesman for the ecological movement la Ora Te Natura, described the episode as ‘another example of how the French authorities hide the truth from us’

Dengue Outbreak In Niue

Medical personnel from Fiji and New Zealand arrived in Niue late in March to help fight an outbreak of dengue fever, which posed a serious threat to the island’s 4000 people. One report said that four people had died of the disease of 600 who were affected

N-Free Pacific Meeting In Hawaii

An international conference for a nuclear-free Pacific is to be held in Hawaii this month. Delegates will include representatives from mainland US organisations, and others from Australia, Japan and a number of Island countries.

Banaba’S Economic Future Studied

A full-scale study of Banaba’s economic prospects will be undertaken following a two-week visit by experts who found that the island has economic potential. The study will be financed by Britain, which formerly administered Ocean Island.

Noumea Paper On Chan Government

The Noumea weekly Corail, which recently resumed publication after several years, has described the election of the new Papua New Guinea Government headed by Sir Julius Chan as ‘an unpleasant setback for supporters of New Caledonian independence’. The weekly added: ‘Up to now, Port Moresby has been their fiercest supporter.’

Rats Thrive On Radioactive Islet

A thriving population of rats has been found on the heavily radioactive islet of Runit, part of Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands. The rats have survived 40 atomic tests, which experts have said would leave Runit unsafe for humans for 25 000 years.

Hebrides Independence For July 30

The New Hebrides Government on April 10 ended speculation about the date of the country’s independence proclamation by announcing its choice of July 30 (see p2l).

Stuart Inder Leaves Executive Posts

Stuart Inder, Publisher and Chief Executive of Pacific Publications Pty Ltd, publishers of PIM and seven other national magazines, has relinquished those positions at his own request due to continuing ill-health. However he will remain with the company as an Associate Editor of all publications concerning the Pacific area. Mr John McDonald, Editor-in-Chief, and Mr John Berry, Manager, will be executives jointly responsible to the board of directors for the operations of the company. Mr Inder has resigned as a director, and Messrs McDonald and Berry have been appointed directors of the company. The Chairman of Pacific Publications, Mr R. H. Sampson, in April paid a tribute to Mr Inder for his contribution to the company over 23 years and, in particular, to the Pacific area. He said he was glad Mr Inder would remain with the company and continue to make these contributions without the pressures and strains of the Chief Executive position. 9 'ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

The government of Michael Somare, the man who led Papua New Guinea to independence and became its first Prime Minister, was voted out of office in March by 57 votes to 49 in the National Parliament in Port Moresby.

The new Prime Minister is Sir Julius Chan, parliamentary leader of the Peoples Progress Party. He was Somare’s Deputy Prime Minister for a period of 15 months before splitting from the government in 1978 and taking his party into opposition.

Mr Somare’s coalition his own Pangu Party and part of the troubled United Party went down to a new alliance made up of the Peoples Progress Party, Papua Besena, the National Party, part of the United Party and the newlyformed Melanesian Alliance.

Mr Somare had led his country for eight years, first as Chief Minister in the transitional period of self-government and then as Prime Minister after independence was achieved from Australia in 1975.

Much of the leadership which has replaced him consists of men he sacked or alienated in the past two years, including the new Deputy Prime Minister lambakey Okuk who was the major force in the move which unseated Mr Somare.

No significant policy shifts are expected to flow from the new government, although a more ‘open door ’ attitude may be taken to some investment from overseas and PNG may consolidate its foreign relations in the direction of countries it recognises as close friends.

Mr Somare has undertaken to lead ‘a responsible opposition’but has made it clear that he plans a comeback. Under the PNG constitution at least six months must elapse before he can mount a no-confidence motion of the type which unseated him. The first general election he could fight is nearly two years away.

How Somare lost his leadership in the political numbers game

By Angus Smales

In eight years leading his country Michael Somare fashioned a stability envied by a large part of the Third World and gave Papua New Guinea a reputation for political and economic integrity.

Until the vote of 57 to 49 which brought him down in March Mr Somare had earned the title of the Great Survivor, for easily withstanding three no-confidence motions in two years. The numbers game in the PNG National Parliament has always been vague because of an extremely fluid party sys- . . . / \ J J tern m which casual voting . across party lines is not unusual / r J . ... , , (or even reprehensible) and . y party affiliations are as uncerf J x-f o tain as a lottery. Mr Somare , , .1 .. knew how to play the game, , . .u u relying on people rather than J . ° r r P . * , e .

Only three weeks before the ..•u j r . j vote which defeated the ... government a senior public ser- ° , ~ t , r vant said you know what the , Chiefs like he sees the num- , , . bers come and go, he sees new . .. . 5 r , , parties and he hears of changed i w tu u . . ■ loyalties. Then he mst steps m, puts on a bit of a celebration, talks to a few people, and there he is - still in the chair’.

But this time it didn’t work.

What went wrong in a system which had demonitrated political stability and which had brought PNG from the heady days of independence to a respected position in the Pacific community?

To a large degree the change was wrought not by matters of policy but by matters of personality. Mr Somare’s opponents have made much of the need for a change in outlook, but their own attitudes since taking office do not suggest significant change.

PNG politics have never been steeped in marked divergences of doctrine and except for a few issues which are now largely historical all parties have shown remarkably similar outlooks and goals.

AliU , . ...

Although the politicians c v would never admit it them- , . selves it is hard to escape the , . K conclusion that the real div- . . ... , , 4 isions m PNG politics don t ... . . , , concern what tune should be . , , . . , , , „ .. played, but who should call it. £,, • r.u . , The irony of the recent change, too, is that the power figure , , , r „ who worked for the downfall r . u c of the Somare government was . n P X 4. . . c . not the new Prime Minister, Sir , , Julius Chan, but the new . n • . . , T Deputy Prime Minister, lum- U 1 rM 1 T . 1 . \A bakey Okuk. Late last year Mr .i .

Okuk resigned himself to the , , • , fact that , h f e ," ll g ht not have tha Pf rsonal followm S l u ° ca [ r >' ° ff the P nn \ e -"imstership but he co " tl " ued ‘° make the bullets \ nd bre the ammunition to shoot down Mr Somare ’

In earlier votes of noconfidence Mr Okuk had been named as the incoming prime minister (the naming of a suecessor is a constitutional requirement in any PNG vote of no-confidence), but for the March vote he courted the support of Sir Julius to take the top post. The reputation held by Sir Julius was undoubtedly a factor in the way the vote went, and it is doubtful if any other single figure could have commanded the appeal to defeat Mr Somare.

In assessing what went wrong with Mr Somare’s popular and parliamentary appeal many commentators have made much of the contentious Rooney affair last year and of the fact that early this year Mr Somare lost the support of two charismatic ministers, Father John Momis and John Kaputin. (In the Rooney affair Mr Somare backed his Justice Minister, Mrs Nahau Rooney, in a constitutional contempt of court situation which led to the resignation of five judges who said they could no longer serve with honour in a country contemptuous of its courts).

However the real turn in Mr Somare’s fortunes can be traced back much earlier, and the recent loss of Father Momis and Mr Kaputin was a symptom rather than a cause.

The two developments which started the train of events leading to Mr Somare’s eclipse were the departure from the government of Sir Julius Chan’s Peoples Progress Party in 1978 and the earlier sacking of Mr Okuk, Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation.

The full story of Mr Somare’s dissatisfaction with Mr Okuk will probably never be told, but officially Mr Okuk was accused of not heeding government policies in his management of the important transport portfolio at the sensitive time when Air Niugini, the national airline, was being consolidated.

In basic political terms Mr Somare’s action was probably unlucky rather than unwise, but the fact remains that the dismissal has rankled with Mr Okuk ever since. It led to the almost crusading manner in which Mr Okuk, normally an easy-going person with a dry sense of humour and a flexible approach to his politics, pursued his goal of trying to bring down the Somare government.

But even more significant was the situation which Mr Somare himself created in allowing Sir Julius and the Peoples Progress Party to split from the government on November 7, 1978.

The PPP had been a loyal partner to Mr Somare’s Pangu Party right back to selfgovernment days, and it was indeed only this support that had given Mr Somare the numbers to govern. Throughout 10 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

self-government and into independence this alliance ; continued although Sir Julius played very much second fiddle to the coalition heavies.

Press reports of the change of government made much of a claim that Sir Julius had been ‘Mr Somare’s deputy for seven I years’ but this was not so. The original Deputy Chief Minister [ was Sir John Guise who became Governor-General at independence, and the first Deputy Prime Minister was Sir Maori Kiki who lost his seat at the 1977 general election.

Not until after the 1977 election did Sir Julius negotiate a new coalition under Mr Somare and gain recognition as Deputy Prime Minister. The two leaders smiled and put their arms on each others shoulders as they made the announcement and posed for photographs on the lawns of the Prime Minister’s house.

The Chan breakaway came only 15 months later. After a series of late night emergency meetings with his party and in the wake of a spate of rumours he stood up in parliament and in a matter of fact statement with little apparent emotion announced the withdrawal of his party’s support. This took away 18 members from the government, including a handful of key ministers.

Sir Julius gave three main reasons for his move. He said his party was no longer being allowed to play a role in government, it was being denied a voice in helping to manage the coalition to which it belonged, and it was concerned at ‘a dangerous brand of personalised control which has taken national management out of the cabinet room’.

Taken in isolation the PPP attitude was not immediately branded as a condemnation of Mr Somare’s style of management. The attitude could well have stemmed from political jealousies or from an inflated idea of how much power the PPP believed it should exercise. Accordingly there was a general belief Mr Somare would strongly deny the accusations as a matter of political principle, no matter how well 3r how weakly the accusations night have been founded.

But Mr Somare astounded his interviewers by saying flatly that he had, indeed, kept the PPP out of some policy consultations. ‘l’m the Prime Minister and leader of the government, it’s my responsibility to make decisions when they have to be made, and I make them,’ he said. Exactly why Mr Somare, whose entire political career had been built on the principle of consensus, should suddenly have adopted this line is difficult to understand.

There is no doubt that he had been under pressure from an extraordinary degree of irritation, intrigue, fluctuating loyalties and political frustrations. The final issue was his contentious personal code proposition in which political leaders were expected to rid themselves of property, investment and commercial involvement. The PPP saw this as idealistic nonsense and believed that existing codes safeguarded political probity, but Mr Somare decided to push ahead. It may well be he felt himself so morally secure that dynamic unilateral action would entrench his leadership, but whatever the reason he acted out of character and made an error of judgment which in the long run was to cost him dearly.

Initially Mr Somare staved off the immediate challenge by enlisting the support of the United Party or more accurately by accepting a United Party offer to join him.

This was a flattering development at the time and in terms of numbers he lost nothing by the exchange. The PPP took 18 men into opposition, and the United Party brought 18 men into government. But in terms of quality and stability it became increasingly obvious in the ensuing months that for once in his political career Michael Somare had picked up the wrong end of the stick. In one way or another the mounting frustrations which plagued him until his defeat can all be traced to the situation in which he allowed the PPP to withdraw its support.

Despite its name the United Party was anything but united in the events which led to the final confrontation in parliament and it eventually consolidated itself into two distinct Papua New Guinea’s new Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan ... and Michael Somare, the man he succeeds. 11 ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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| groups, one aligned with the I opposition. The loyalty of I some United Party members I swung backwards and forwards \ and the sacking of a United Party minister, Roy Evara, [ entrenched the troubles.

Mr Somare reshuffled his [ cabinet and ran into new prob- I lems, estranging John Kaputin I and Father John Momis who \ didn’t like their new posts.

Mr Kaputin and Father ' Momis, both somewhat prickly politicians but wielding some influence, finally left cabinet in the mounting confrontation.

They claim to have resigned and Mr Somare claims to have sacked them but in terms of Mr Somare’s weakening position only a fine point was involved.

It was all fuel for the situation early in February when a new opposition alliance was formed, made up of a big section of the United Party, the PPP, the National Party, Papua Besena and the newly-created Kaputin-Momis Melanesian Alliance.

Mr Okuk, as Leader of the Opposition, then mounted his no-confidence campaign. He clinched its success in negotiations under which Sir Julius accepted nomination as prime minister. By the time the vote j came on March 12 it was I obvious that for the first time in his career Mr Somare lacked the numbers to survive. He and his supporters tried a series of delaying tactics based on technical and legal points, but the moves failed and the noconfidence vote was carried by 57 votes to 49 late in the afternoon.

In a simple statement immediately the vote was known.

Sir Julius told the house ‘I accept with humility the responsibility entrusted to me. I will do my best.’

Mr Somare received loud applause shortly afterwards when he congratulated the new government and said ‘I am proud to be able to stand in this parliament and say I was the first prime minister. They will never take that away from me.’

The extent to which the appointment of a new government will end the dissent which has plagued the PNG parliament is still very much open to question. The PPP itself, with a free hand, would be in a strong position to do this. But Sir Julius has had to pay a price to lead the government and his team is an odd assortment of factions with a history of fluctuating allegiances. Seven of the 25 members of cabinet are from the PPP.

The appointment of Mr Kaputin to the finance portfolio has led to particular comment because of the widely divergent attitudes to investment and foreign economic involvement shown between him and Sir Julius over a long period.

Already, too, the new government has lost the services of Mr Justice Wootten of New South Wales who had been due to take up an appointment as PNG Chief Justice in the wake of the resignation of five judges last year.

The new Minister for Justice, Mr Paul Torato, apparently acting on his own decision, approached the resigning Chief Justice, Mr Justice Prentice, to remain in office. But Judge Prentice, fresh from the impact of last year’s controversy, is no longer interested and neither is Judge Wootten as a result of Mr Torato’s intervention.

In the final analysis the operation of the new government will still rest heavily on how Mr Somare manages to organise his opposition forces. He has undertaken to lead a ‘responsible opposition’ but has made no secret of his intentions to work towards a return to office.

The Man Who

Is Sir Julius

CHAN, PM Sir Julius Chan, the new Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, sees his takeover as ‘a friendly and constitutional change of government at a time when our country needs new leaders and new ideas to keep moving ahead’.

He doesn’t plan any sudden switch in government policies, although he has indicated that the controversial issue of investment from overseas will come under scrutiny and could become less restrictive for the investor. But even under more liberalised investment policies, Eleven in new cabinet former Somare men Eleven members of the new PNG ministry were former ministers who served under Mr Somare when he was Prime Minister.

They include men who left him in the big split with the Peoples Progress Party in 1978, who were dismissed for various reasons, or who turned against him and resigned.

Sir Julius Chan, 40 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1968); Prime Minister. Former Somare minister. lambakey Okuk, 38 (National Party, elected 1972): Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation.

Former Somare minister.

John Kaputin, 39 (Melanesian Alliance, elected 1972): Minister for Finance. Former Somare minister.

Father John Momis, 39 (Melanesian Alliance, elected 1972): Minister for Decentralisation, the portfolio which deals with provincial government. Former Somare minister.

Galeva Kwarara, 42 (Papua Besena, elected 1977): Minister for National Planning and Development.

Noel Levi, 37 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1977): Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Gabriel Bakani, 32 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1977): Minister for Minerals and Energy, the portfolio directly involved in overseas negotiations to develop PNG’s extensive mineral resources. Former Somare minister.

Thomas Kavali, 36 (National Party, elected 1968): Minister for Lands. Former Somare minister.

Roy Evara, 31 (nominal United Party, elected 1977); Minister for Primary Industry. Former Somare minister.

Joseph Aoae. 39 (Papua Besena, elected 1978); Minister for Forests.

Ibne Kor, 39 (National Party, elected 1977): Minister for Environment and Conservation.

Opai Kunangel, 34 (nominal United Party, elected 1977): Minister for Commerce and Industry. Former Somare minister.

Jacob Lemeki, 39 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1977): Minister for Labor and Employment. Former Somare minister.

Gerega Pepera, 35 (Papua Besena, elected 1977): Minister for Defence.

Warren Dutton, 42 (Peoples Progress Party, elected first in 1968, lost seat and re-elected 1977); Minister for Police.

Sam Tulo, 34 (Melanesian Alliance, elected 1977): Minister for Education.

John Jaminan, 37 (nominal United Party, elected 1977): Minister for Health.

Stephen Tago, 41 (independent, elected 1972); Minister for Science, Culture and Tourism. Former Somare minister.

Dr Goasa Damena, 43 (Papua Besena, elected 1978): Minister for Urban Development.

Paul Torato, 29 (nominal United Party, elected 1977): Minister for Justice.

Zibang Zurenuoc, 51 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1977): Minister for Home Affairs.

Mark Ipuia, 32 (National Party, elected 1977); Minister for Works and Supply.

Wiwa Korowi, 35 (Peoples Progress Party, elected 1977): Minister for Public Utilities. Former Somare minister.

Clement Poye, 36 (National Party, elected 1977): Minister for the Media.

Akepa Miakwe, 41 (National Party, elected 1972): Minister for Liquor Licensing and Corrective Institutions. 13 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY MAY, 1980

he says the benefits likely to flow to the people as a whole will continue to be the main factor in regulatingrinvestment from outside. Observers of the PNG financial scene accept this as a genuinely-expressed attitude which suggests there will be little effective change from the investment policies of the Somare government.

It may be however, that the Chan government’s idea of what is good for the people as a whole is not necessarily the same as the Somare government’s idea. Sir Julius himself, product of a businessorientated family, would not be expected to have the same perspective as a Michael Somare, son of a policeman and product of civil service activism politics.

It has been argued that the chances for any major liberalisation of investment from overseas are watered down by the fact that Sir Julius has chosen John Kaputin as his Finance Minister, and Mr Kaputin has an avowed hatred of most patterns of capitalist investment in Third World countries. Frictions of an almost doctrinal nature could develop between these two men and could create one of the early internal testing points of the Chan cabinet.

Sir Julius has made two major announcements of economic importance since taking office. One involved his decision to close down the controversial scheme by which the government has been buying out non-national planters and redistributing the properties (at a price and on long term loans) to Papua New Guinea semicommunal ownership. The other indicated the acceptance in principle to proceed with a copper and gold mine at Ok Tedi near the Indonesian border, a scheme which will involve the government in financial partnership with Australian, West German and US interests.

Although both these announcements are significant in themselves, neither is particularly important in assessing the economic policies of the Chan government. The Ok Tedi scheme has clearly been a starter for some time, awaiting only formal acceptance by the government of the day, and the ailing plantation redistribution scheme had been under a sort of ‘terminal scrutiny’ by the Somare government for some time.

It’s the human rather than the political angles which, in the first few weeks, have been significant in assessing the new Prime Minister.

For a start, Sir Julius has undertaken to discuss with Mr Somare every major issue which comes up in the next six months or so and which appears to call for special attention. ‘Mr Somare is still my friend, and I know he will still talk to me’ Sir Julius said soon after taking office. And Mr Somare, for his part, is prepared to co-operate. With the hint of a smile he told one newsman T taught Sir Julius well in the early days he hasn’t forgotten’.

Forty-year-old Sir Julius is of Chinese and PNG extraction, born on Tanga Island in the islands region of northern PNG, and member of a family with plantation, shipping, trading and other commercial interests. Rabaul on New Britain and Namatanai on New Ireland have been the centres of the family’s interests.

He was educated at Marist Brothers College, Ashgrove, Queensland, and for a while held Australian citizenship under qualifications which Australia extended to PNG Asians, but at independence in PNG he took up his entitlement to PNG citizenship.

He is married with four children and was first elected to parliament then known as the Legislative Council and subject to final control by Australia in 1968 when he was 29 years old. Less than two years later he became parliamentary leader of the Peoples Progress Party, and at self-government he formed the first national coalition with Somare’s Pangu Party. This is the coalition which led PNG into independence in 1975, although Sir Julius had to wait until the 1977 elections before he became Somare’s deputy at the formation of the second national coalition.

Fifteen months later he split with Somare and led his party into opposition. He was knighted in January this year for his service to politics, and many saw this as a tacit suggestion of his relinquishment of active politics.

The man himself is slightlybuilt, quiet and friendly. His sombre face lights up when he smiles. Some measure of his competence is the fact that his party is the only one since independence which has continued to function as a tightly knit and properly organised group. He was a competent Minister for Primary Industry and an impressive Minister for Finance.

It was Sir Julius who established the financial guidelines which led to the basic economic outlook of the Somare government, an outlook which continues to be assured under the new government even if there may be differences in accent. The policies involved are regulated foreign investment on specified terms, the retention of a hard currency by continuously relating the value of the PNG kina to the average value of partner currencies, no discrimination against investment once accepted from overseas but incentives for local investment. and formal controls over wages and prices.

Asa minister under Somare (he was five years in Finance, 15 months in Primary Industry) Sir Julius earned a reputation for attention to detail, impeccable working habits something which not all PNG ministers have learnt and a habit of careful research before making decisions.

Sir Julius has successfully bucked the often expressed belief in PNG that there is no place at the top for a man with a part background in the Asian community. In his quiet, matter of fact manner, Sir Julius has long been piling up the ingredients which have made him one of the most trusted men on the PNG political scene.

As he said soon after taking office ‘We do not claim to be the possessors of all wisdom.

Our government will be one of consultation, by debate inside and outside parliament, by consultation with provincial governments, agencies, institutions and the senior public servants who administer the decisions of parliament.’

Somare: Home to the Sepik, a hero Parliament defeated him, some of his closest allies of earlier days deserted him, but Michael Somare went home to his electorate in Papua New Guinea to a hero’s welcome.

Obviously disappointed, perhaps bearing a trace of bitterness although he won’t admit it he flew home to Wewak a few days after the 57 to 49 vote in parliament which unseated his government. Two weeks earlier he had flown out of Wewak as Prime Minister, confident of defeating the challenge to his government.

He came home as Leader of the Opposition.

His electorate hadn’t forgotten him. The crowds at the airport were bigger than those which had greeted him five years earlier when he became Prime Minister. If ever an electorate decided to cheer up a defeated national leader, this was the occasion.

There were flowers, and back-slapping, and speeches, and cries of ‘You’ll go back.’

Closer to Mr Somare himself, as he moved slowly through the press of people there were brief exchanges of disappointment and regret from men and women who pushed forward to shake his hand.

An open car took him from the airport and flowers were piled around him. He was driven to a sports ground where provincial and local government officials spoke in his honour before another big crowd. Some almost pleaded with him to make an immediate bid to regain office, a process which is constitutionally impossible for at least six months. But the theme of the speeches was an acceptance that it was only a matter of time before a Somare government was in office again. (Continued on p77) K 14 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980 D

Strife at the top in Tonga’s FWC From Penny Hodgkinson in Nukualofa A power struggle within Tonga’s Free Wesleyan Church between the current president and the recently deposed secretary is assuming aspects f strongly reminiscent of the epic 19th-century confrontation starring Shirley Baker and the Rev James Egan Moulton.

At the centre of the present drama is Siupeli Taliai who, by presidential edict on January 18, was suspended from his ministerial function and simultaneously ousted from his longheld posts as elected ; conference secretary and appointed principal of Tupou College (one of the FWC’s many Tongan secondary schools).

The president, the Rev Dr Huluholo Mo’ungaloa, cited ‘unworthy behaviour, insubordination, and obstructing the work of the church’ as justification for his drastic action, which shocked much of the grassroots membership of the church.

Superficially, the president’s case hinges on Siupeli’s failure to take up a posting in the United Kingdom (to the Hammersmith Circuit in London), and his later refusal to vacate the Tupou College post when told to do so.

Siupeli denies the charges against him, claims that the Hammersmith posting and then a potential alternative fell through, originally because of administrative delays, then due to personal health problems.

He cites another conference resolution, reaffirming his college job for ’79-’BO, despite the UK posting. His stand is that Wesleyanism is essentially based on democratic principles and therefore approved conference resolutions outweigh overriding presidential directives a view which has profound implicationms coming from a presidential ‘heir apparent’.

However, due to the loose wording of the church constitution, these democratic principles appear to have been eroded over many years as successive presidents have taken upon themselves the right to govern by directives, which have been referred back to conference for retrospective ratification. A useful side-effect of this development has been the acquisition-by-custom of the right to remove thorns from the presidential flesh by banishing them to outer islands or, in more senior cases, ‘kicking them upstairs’ via plum overseas postings.

Observers within the church see the Hammersmith proposal as a case in point, designed to get a long-standing ‘radical’ in Tongan terms, any critic of the status quo out of the president’s hair, and a too strong-minded principal out of that of the conservative President of Education (Dr Cook).

When the Hammersmith job evaporated, the president adopted Course No 2, also hallowed by precedent, and claimed that the ’79 conference resolution confirming Siupeli in the college post for ’79-’BO really only meant, though it did not specifically say, ‘until the date in September when he was expected to leave for England’. Following this interpretation, Siupeli was given notice to vacate his post and house by September 1, ’79.

Armoured in the strong conviction that right was on his side, both morally and legally, he refused to budge, continued with his college duties, cited his case before various committees and meetings, and continued to sit tight until receipt of the January 18 letter with its unequivocal tripartite message of ‘Out out out’.

About the same time, another letter went to the minister appointed to be acting principal in his place, advising that the actions taken had the sanction of the King and of the church’s lawyer, Mr T. Finau MLA. Siupeli moved out of the college and into a house in Nukualofa, having lost the immediate battle but not, he believes, the war. ‘My purpose,’ he says, ‘was not to flout the president’s directives, however arbitrary, but to uphold the declared resolutions of conference, abide by the constitution, and bring subordinate powers and their rulings into conformity with those resolutions. ‘lnjustice and flouting a rule of law is a threat to justice everywhere because what affects one directly affects all indirectly. ‘I believe this case dramatises an issue which can no longer be ignored. And I hold that one who breaks an unjust law or stands out against an unjust directive, as directed by conscience, and who willingly accepts any penalty in order to arouse the conscience of the community over that injustice, is, in reality, expressing the highest respect for law.’

Squarely on Siupeli’s side (at least privately) are his right-orwrong personal admirers, and those who believe his stand is morally right and that the time is ripe for a searching reassessment of the constitution and clarification as to whether conference or the president is the decision-making power.

Dr Mo’ungaloa’s faction is said to be mainly made up of (a) those who give unquestioning respect to the presidential office, irrespective of the man, and (b) of ‘King’s men’ who could never bring themselves to vote against a president who is also the appointed Royal Chaplain. (Perhaps a reason for divorcing these two functions?) In the middle sits a sizeable group which does not wish to rock boats or foment divisions, and which hopes a spirit of Christian forbearance and conciliation will point the way to a peaceable solution. This can only be achieved, they say, if both sides can stop seeing the issue in simplistic terms of ‘white as the driven snow’ (us) and ‘black as pitch’ (them).

On April 1 Siupeli’s case was to be reviewed at the quarterly Tongatapu district meeting. If still unresolved, it would be passed on to the mid-year annual national conference.

Meanwhile, in the Tongan context, it is extremely difficult to predict the outcome. It must be borne in mind that Wesleyanism is, in Tonga, effectively the state religion, with the monarch since the time of King George Tupou I, as its titular head. For a century and a half it has wielded very significant political clout, because of its close links with Royalty and government, and its large numbers of devoted adherents.

After a period of eclipse during the Shirley Baker era, the FWC has for many years been by far the most powerful of the three independent Wesleyan sects in the Kingdom. Its widely diversified activities, secular as well as religious, offer broad paths of preferment for faifekaus (ministers), teachers and administrators, provided they avoid the pitfalls of boatrocking and strong possibilities of relegation to outer darkness if they don’t.

The $64 question therefore is: How many of Siupeli’s professed supporters will publicly stand firm when the official chips go down and the official numbers go up? That is undoubtedly a big step to take when one’s own advantage and one’s inherited, built-in tendency to obey those in authority both point the other way.

Which is why nobody in Tonga, not even his most confirmed opponents, would deny Siupeli his just label as a man of strong principle and very considerable moral courage.

At the eye of the storm: Siupeli Talial. He says: ‘I hold that one who breaks an unjust law, or stands out against an unjust directive, as directed by conscience, and who willingly accepts any penalty in order to arouse the conscience of the community ... is, in reality, expressing the htgest respect for law ...’ 15 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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TROPICALITIES Cyclone Wally slams Fiji A black Easter visitation to Fiji by Cyclone Wally brought torrential rain and accompanying floods and landslides that caused havoc in southern Viti Levu in a wide area around Ceva.

At least 16 people were killed, mainly in landslides, several others were reported missing, and thousands of people were left homeless or dependent on the government for food rations for several months until their food crops recover.

Torrential rain 33 inches in four days for Suvn alone became a deluge thj- -v .ed interior rivers io , 4- •• above their normal levels.

Flooding of the Rewa River near Suva and the Navua River. 20 miles west, along the coast, drove thousands of people from their homes to seek shelter on high ground for two to three days until the water receded.

The floods were the worst in at least 15 years and came only a week after a cyclone which killed four people and caused heavy damage in the islands of Taveuni, Vanua Levu and the Lomaiviti group.

Cyclone Wally triggered scores of landslides in the hilly Serua-Namosi area, where most deaths occurred and where many villages were completely erased. ’I just don’t know how a lot of the people I saw on hilltops were able to survive,’ said deputy prime minister Ratu Sir Penila Ganilau after a helicopter tour of the region.

The 130-mile long Suva- Nadi road was cut for 15 miles along a stretch starting 40 miles from Suva, and the recently completed $2O-million Suva- Deuba highway was badly damaged in parts.

Damage to Suva’s water supply means that about 100 000 people had to be put on severe supply restrictions until repairs, expected to lake at least three weeks, could be completed. Robert Keith- Reid in Suva.

What happened to Olivier Breaud?

Banker’s son kidnapped Two million dollar ransom demanded.’ These were the headlines splashed across the front pages of Tahiti’s morning papers on March 28.

What made the news so sensational was that the crime had been committed not in France or Italy but in Tahiti , thus showing, in particularly dramatic fashion, how thoroughly Europeanised and civilised this Polynesian paradise has now become.

The choice of the kidnappers was, of course, dictated by Jean Breaud’s well-founded reputation as the wealthiest businessman in French Polynesia. His known holdings comprise a bank, la Banque de Tahiti, the 2000 ha Atimaono plantation, the Citroen-Fiat automobile agency, the Tahiti- Petroles fuel distribution company, a big import-export firm and much real estate. He has also lately been promoting a major scheme aimed at the exploitation of hitherto neglected phosphate deposits in the Tuaomotu Islands.

His involvement in local affairs began shortly after World War II when he married a local girl (who incidentally is the youngest daughter of longtime PIM correspondent Oscar Nordman). Their son Olivier, now 26, had acted for several years as the chief manager of the vast family empire.

According to a friend who was among the last people to see Olivier Breaud before he left his office at around five in the afternoon, he had just received a phone call from a former school classmate, a Frenchwoman who was on a brief visit to Tahiti, and who wanted to see him to talk about their old school days. Strangely enough, the meeting place was an abandoned house set high up on Pamatai Hills outside Papeete.

According to another friend, Olivier later in the evening called his de facto Tahitian wife to tell her that he was well and would be home soon.

Next time the phone rang, however, an anonymous voice announced that Mr Breaud Jr was held hostage, and would be released only against a SUS 2 million ransom, payable in Los Angeles.

The following day the gendarmes found Olivier Breaud’s metallic blue Lancia car, hidden among tall ferns just off the Pamatai road.

If he had innocently gone to this unlikely place just to meet a former classmate, why should he have hidden his car?

One can, of course, always suppose that the rendez-vous was not such an innocent affair after all. The only trouble with this interpretation is that the unnamed former classmate. who was supposed to be waiting at the end of the trail, has never been seen by anyone and cannot be found. If on the other hand somebody was impersonating a former girlfriend, how could Olivier Breaud have been so easily deceived and so carelessly walked into what must have appeared to be a very clumsy trap?

Local commentators therefore began to speculate that he might instead have been the victim of some sort of blackmail, and that he went to make a deal with his tormentors who, when their terms were not met, made him their prisoner.

The mystery deepened further when Olivier Breaud’s briefcase, containing only his chequebook and empty wallet, was found in the lagoon on the west coast of Tahiti.

Were the kidnappers simply amateurs of the pickpocket class? Or were the police withholding important information?

As the grief-stricken parents waited vainly for a phone call, the biggest manhunt in Tahiti’s history got under way. Every valley was combed, a commando of gendarmes was despatched to Marlon Brando’s atoll of Tetiaroa (which had already served as a refuge for the Bounty mutineers), yachts which had just left Tahiti were intercepted by French warships, and, as we write this report, a swarm of army helicopters is hovering over our heads. Marie-Therese and Bengt Danielsson in Papeete. • Shortly after the filing of this report Olivier Breaud was found murdered. A Paris radio broadcast said that police had detained his kidnappers. Full report PIM June. Editor. $l7 000 goes down with a canoe An attempt in late February to transport a stolen post office safe containing $l7 159 across the lagoon at Mangaia, southernmost island of the Cooks group, was thwarted when the canoe into which it was loaded sank.

The bungled theft attempt had its sequel in the Rarotonga High Court when two men pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary at the post office.

Some fires are fought in Apia The Western Samoan government offers some of the most generous incentives for overseas companies to set up business in Western Samoa.

These include duty-free imports of capital equipment and raw materials, as well as liberal tax holidays. Yet one of the most important things for which government has not provided adequately is fire protection.

Under Western Samoa’s archaic fire ordinance, the Fire Department based near the centre of town may not attend to fires more than 3.2 km (two miles) from the centre of town which, in this case, is Hans Keifs store, Taufusi Street.

All business enterprises in the industrial zone at Vaitele are beyond the two-mile limit and, therefore, under the ordinance are not entitled to fire protection. These enterprises include the Western Samoa Breweries (makers of Vailima beer), Western Samoa Match Factory, Rothmans, Agriculture Store Corporation, New Samoa Industries, the WSTEC Feedmill Plant, Boatcraft and several others.

In an interview, Mr Eric Janke, Chief Fire Officer, said he intended to enforce the provisions of the fire ordinance, archaic as it is, and this would be done even to the extent of not attending any fire that might break out at the industrial zone.

Mr Janke’s determination to enforce the law was amply demonstrated earlier this year when he turned down an urgent request from Mr Herman Retzlaff Sr and son ‘Fogi’ for assistance in putting out a fire at their copra shed just past the industrial zone. Even the most elementary assistance was refused and Retzlaff company had to sustain losses amounting to thousands of tala. The fact that Billie, Mr Retzlaffs wife, was the Prime Minister’s aunt did not help matters at all. ‘lt was just unfortunate that it was RetzlafTs copra shed that was affected. I would have refused assistance to anybody for that matter because we cannot operate outside the two-mile limit’, Mr Janke said shortly after the incident.

Mr Janke’s refusal to help put out the copra shed fire angered many Apia businessmen and the matter was taken up in a Chamber of Commerce meeting. The Chamber wrote to the Prime Minister expressing its concern at the Fire Department’s refusal to attend to fires outside the two-mile limit and since then a meeting was scheduled between Chamber representatives and Mr Janke in an atempt to solve the problem.

Obviously, the first thing to be done is to change the law to allow the Fire Department to operate beyond the present limit. Mr Janke himself said this would be possible if his department had more equipment.

At the time of writing, the Fire Department has only two trucks. One is quite useless and requires a complete overhaul once the part ordered arrives.

The other does not have a handbrake and its foot brake is faulty. This fact was cited by Mr Janke as one of the reasons he refused to give help in the Retzlaff fire. He was afraid the truck might hurt someone or be involved in an accident. A third truck, brand new, has been bought with government money from a New Zealand supplier and this was expected to arrive in mid-March. ‘Once we have the three trucks going we should be able to provide fire protection beyond the twomile limit,’ said Mr Janke.

If Mr Janke does that, then he would be following the lead of his predecessor, Letaa Sulu Devoe, for many years the Chief Fire Officer. Letaa did not let the ordinance stop him from giving assistance to whomever needed it, whether a fire was within the two-mile limit or beyond. During his time many fire hydrants were deliberately placed ouside the two-mile limit so that assistance could be given to houses, businesses and plantations in those areas.

The old fire ordinance must be updated. Common sense and business sense alike require it. Otherwise no foreign investor in his right mind would dream of investing in Western Samoa if required to put up a plant two miles or more from the centre of Apia town.

So the government’s whole development strategy would be defeated all because the Fire Department won’t use common sense, and the government won’t bother to change a stupid law rFelise Va’a. ‘Holy smoke’ from God’s Cessna A sick joke doing the rounds of Port Vila, New Hebrides: On March 5 the Seventh-day Adventists’ new Cessna Stationair 206 caught fire while taxiing for take-off at Burton Field, Tanna. The pilot, an SDA pastor, noticed smoke coming from under his instrument panel while completing his preflight checks. He hurriedly stopped his taxiing manoeuvre and abandoned the aircraft, which immediately burst into flames.

It is reliably reported that his final radio transmission logged at Port Vila’s Bauerfield control tower was ‘ Holy Smoke!’

The plane was badly damaged.

An island ‘stars’in SPC film The South Pacific Commission has produced a film Story of an Island Managing Your Island 1 Environment for distribution to all SPC member countries.

The film was conceived, written and part-directed by 1 Arthur Dahl, the commission’s; regional ecological adviser.

In Rarotonga for the Cook; Islands premiere of the film,, Mr Dahl told Cook Islands', News that while many governments in the SPC had expressed the desire for films, the: cost of making them had!

An actual-size reproduction of a souvenir sheet for the London 1980 International Stamp Exhibition to be held from May 6-14.

Inset in the centre is a new $1 Western Samoa stamp. At left on the souvenir sheet is a Tower of London-type British Beefeater and at right a Samoan Talking Chief. Between them at top, a well-known London scene. 18 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Tropic Alities

always been beyond the SPC budget. However, in 1978 the SPC had found a company, the Noumea-based Island Image Productions, which offered to make a film within budget limits.

Locations for filming, were Western Samoa, Ouvea in the Loyalty Islands of New Caledonia, and the New Caledonian mainland.

However, the ‘star’ of the film was a model island which was specially built to show the past and the future, with the effects of settlement and civilisation on an island environment.

Mr Dahl said the purpose of the model was to show how an island evolves from pristine purity in its unsettled state through the varying changes brought about by the coming of the first Island people and then the Europeans. These include erosion, unrestricted fishing in the lagoon, and the end result of pollution: no soil, no water and no fish.

The solutions are shown; replanting, conservation and controlling the degree of development. The film also demonstrates the need for people to work together, and the desirability of blending the old traditions, which had many of their own conservationist practices, with modern science.

Noumea and its ‘evacuees’

About 500 people from New Caledonia come to Sydney each year for specialist medical attention. A little more than half of them are non-wageeamers, and costs of their trip are borne by the New Caledonian government. The rest are wage-earners, and therefore covered by the territory’s social security provisions.

In Sydney in March to investigate the problems faced by the former group, who are almost exclusively Melanesians, was Dick Ukeiwe, vicepresident of New Caledonia’s Government Council (roughly the equivalent of the position of Chief Minister in British territories).

Mr Ukeiwe outlined the problems in a conversation with PIM.

Looming large in his account was the sense of moral and emotional isolation felt by these people in the strange Australian environment. This, it was felt, often impeded the recovery of patients. Mr Ukeiwe while in Sydney had been examining the possibility of extending the practice of sending relatives with patients to provide emotional support.

The problems of accommodation for and financial upkeep of such relatives had also received his attention.

He had also discussed with Australian officials the possibility of streamlining immigration procedures for ‘medical evacuees’ and those accompanying them. In particular, he wanted to see arrangements made whereby formalities for immigration to Australia were completed in New Caledonia before departure, rather than on arrival. Such a step would eliminate a host of language and other problems experienced under the present system.

Another of his concerns was clarification of arrangements taking effect in the event of the death of patients under treatment in Australia, and the repatriation of their remains.

Mr Ukeiwe expressed warm gratitude on behalf of his government for the cooperative attitude shown by Australian authorities in all aspects of the welfare of patients, most of whom are treated either at the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children or the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

He said that New Caledonia, with a population of only 145 000, could never hope to justify the expense of installing the most sophisticated equipment (for the treatment of cancer for example) which is fully justified in Australia, with its 14 million people. So ‘medical evacuation’ was likely to remain a long-term feature of Australia-New Caledonia relations.

Mr Ukeiwe said he could not comment on a reference to ‘dubious evacuations’ for medical treatment in Australia made in a New Caledonian newspaper, as he had not read the article concerned. However, from his remarks it seemed that if such a problem did exist it would not concern the Melanesians whose problems he was in Sydney to examine, but rather better-off folk covered by social security.

Mr Ukeiwe is the most senior Melanesian political figure ever to visit Australia from New Caledonia. As a measure of the importance attached by the Australian Government to his visit he was received by and had a long conversation with Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrew Peacock.

Group travels with gavels Emissaries of the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ left London in March bearing gifts for the fledgling parliaments of three newly independent Pacific states: Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and Kiribati.

The Solomon Islands Parliament received an English cherry clock, described as follows in the release: ‘Fitted with a standard front-wind eightday mechanism, the clock has a silver-plated dial with gilt hands and battens. Macassar ebony is used for the inlaid line around the profile of the clock and the presentation plate is in solid silver.’

At Funafuti the Tuvalu Parliament was given ‘a Bombay rosewood gavel and box inlaid with a 9ct. gold presentation plate’. ‘The hammer is held by a secret pivot hinge and the sounding plate is made from macassar ebony. Made by Edward Day of the Londonbased cabinet makers firm of Ashley Stocks, the gavel and box was engraved by T. A.

Wise Engineers of London.’

In Tarawa, the Kiribati Parliament also received a gavel and box, but this time of English brown oak. ‘lnlaid with a 9 ct. gold presentation plate, the gavel and box has a pivothinged hammer and a macassar ebony sounding plate, and was made and engraved by the same firms that constructed the gift for Tuvalu.’

The House of Commons delegation comprised Philip Holland, Conservative MP for the seat of Carlton; John Roper, Labour MP for Farnworth; and the Clerk of the House, John Willcox.

One by-product of the trip for the men of Westminster was that they learnt something of the vagaries of Pacific Islands travel.

They flew first to Fiji where they spent two days and then flew to Tuvalu. They returned to Suva the next day and after another two days’ stay flew to Honiara. They then flew to Tarawa via Nauru.

Said John Willcox: ‘One of the ways the trip has been organised is to get round the difficulty of presenting three gifts to three islands some 1500 miles apart. The inter-island flights sometimes run only once a fortnight. (See picture.

People section.) Sydney Tongans to visit home A group of more than 40 members and friends of the Sydney branch of the Free Church of Tonga were to visit their homeland early in May on what is believed to be the first return visit paid by a group from outside Tonga.

Sione Afu, group leader, said at a pre-departure fund-raising Kava Party: ‘I feel we’re taking part in an historical event. ‘We’ve been working hard for nearly eight months organising this visit and raising funds to enable us to cover some of the estimated cost of SA2O 000.’

Dick Ukeiwe, in Canberra in March. Photo: Canberra Times. 19 TROPICALITIES PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY. 1980

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POLITICAL CURRENTS July 30 named as New Hebrides independence date At 8 pm on April 10 in Port- Vila it was officially announced that independence of the New Hebrides would be proclaimed on July 30. The announcement. which came after a day-long session of the council of ministers, w as expected to be approved by the representative assembly in the following week, and to be approved subsequently by the governments of Britain and France.

A senior New Hebridean political figure told PIM in a telephone interview on April 11 he was confident ‘the date will stick’.

July 30 is the last but one day that could have been chosen if the time-frame of May-July agreed to earlier by the representative assembly for the proclamation of independence was to be adhered to (PIM Jan pl 3).

The announcement followed a series of inconclusive meetings on the New Hebrides’ future which had moved back and forth between Paris and London throughout the latter half of March.

Taking part in these meetings at various limes and places were delegations of the New Hebrides Government: of the Independent opposition (which acknowledges the legitimacy of the govenrment, while disagreeing with it); and of the so-called Moderate opposition (which in general does not accept the legitimacy of the government).

Also present at the talks at various times were the responsible ministers - Paul Dijoud for France, and Peter Blaker for Britain; the two resident commissioners in the New Hebrides Andrew Stuart for Britain, and Jean-Jacques Robert for France; and Sir Reginald Hibberl, Britain’s ambassador to Paris.

Agreement was reached before leaving Europe that talks would be continued in Port- Vila between the three New Hebridean political groupings starting April 9.

When the New Hebridean representatives arrived back home in the early days of April the question of an independence date seemed more than ever ‘up in the air’. The previously accepted notion of independence on June 25 appeared increasingly improbable. in view of the magnitude of existing political divisions.

But a clue to the decision of the New' Hebrides Government to ‘cut the Gordian knot’ and name a precise and rather early - date for independence is contained in a long telegram sent to Port-Vila from the office of Paul Dijoud which summed up the French view of the talks in Paris and London.

The French minister expressed the view that the New Hebrides situation was ‘stymied’ by the fact that the Moderates ‘who represent 40% of the population’ - no longer accepted the government’s decisions and rejected its authority, thus making it impossible for the government to exercise its responsibilities throughout the archipelago. (February had witnessed proclamations of‘independence’ on Santo chosen new name Vaemerana; and on Tanna chosen new name Tafea.) While saying that ‘there can be no question of France supporting secessionist movements’, but renouncing the idea of the use of force against any political minority, Mr Dijoud added that France would not accept either that anyone else - the government of an independent New Hebrides? should ‘engage in aggressive actions against unarmed populations’.

Mr Dijoud went on to outline three possible scenarios for a solution to the problem.

The first involved the fixing of an early date for independence. in the hope that the Melanesians would work out their problems between themselves. But he voiced the fear that such a solution could lead to the Vanuaakau Partv appealing for outside help, its opponents doing likewise, and the condominium being succeeded only by ‘chaos and civil war'.

The second possibility evoked by Mr Dijoud - and this seems to be the real clue to the selection of July 30 as the independence date - was as follows: ‘Purely and simply to maintain the condominium until such time as an atmosphere can be restored for the achievement of a compromise.' The third possibility, which appears to have had its origins in the general vicinity of Cloud Nine, is that government and opposition factions alike should immediately, and consistently henceforth, display such quantities of goodw ill and sweet reasonableness as ‘to reach agreement allowing a tranquil accession to independence with the support of France and Great Britain’.

There seems little doubt that it was Mr Dijoud’s introduction into the debate of the concept of ‘maintenance of the condominium’ not even expressed, it should be noted, as a ‘postponement of independence’ which was the spur for the government’s announcement of April 10. The idea of any kind of open-ended perpetuation of the condominium would certainly have been anathema to it.

As PIM went to press the rumour mills of Vila were running hot. One notion gaining wide currency was that a new government of a coalition character and not as at present all-Vanuaaku Party in composition would be announced. either at independence or before.

Certainly, given the existing balance of political forces, and the high stakes involved, it would appear probable that something will have to ‘give’.

But nothing in New Hebrides politics is simple, especially these days.

The French requirement in terms of assurances from the government is considerable.

The New Hebridean leader interviewed by PIM said; ‘Of recent times, the French have been holding off in selecting a date for independence because they want safeguards concerning the survival of the Frenchlanguage education system, guarantees about security of tenure for Frenchmen who hold land here, and a number of other assurances. ‘For these reasons they have been suggesting that there is no need to rush into independence.' The link between acceptance of safeguards of French interests and future French aid to an independent New Hebrides was made very clear in the telegram from Mr Dijoud's office, which said in part: ‘The minister, Paul Dijoud. indicated that ... the nature and volume of the aid that France will be able to provide in future to the New Hebridean state are linked to the quality of the assurances that may be given by the New Hebrides Government.’

Malcolm Salmon Nabanga captures rival spokesmen Dijoud and Lini.

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1960

Leaders Meet

In Honolulu

Last October a small but representative group of Pacific Islanders was invited to Hawaii’s East West Center to plan an agenda for a much larger conference of Islands leaders scheduled to meet in Honolulu this March. The aim of the bigger conference: To discuss development goals and problems, to identify priorities so that work can begin on trying to resolve the problems, and to develop a better understanding between the Island leaders and international organisations who may be able to help them.

PlM’s Stuart Inder flew to Honolulu for the big conference from March 26 to 29 and reports: It’s not surprising that a conference of 60 Island leaders and their senior government advisers, and 60 delegates and observers from interested agencies and organisations didn’t achieve all that it set out to do. With the objectives so wide and the meeting so large, there was bound to be some woolliness, but the difficulties were compounded by the physical fact that not everybody was seated in the same conference room.

The main participants, the leaders and close advisers, were closeted in one room, their deliberations televised on large TV monitors set up in three nearby conference rooms occupied by observers.

Thus the participants became for the most part ‘talking heads’, occupying their allotted time slots on The Box.

There was loss of animation, and spoken asides could not be heard by those outside the main room, nor could conference reactions be seen so observers could judge the atmosphere.

In fact the atmosphere was subdued. What could have been a super South Pacific Conference had none of the general bonhomie of a South Pacific Conference. Most people seemed a little uncertain and restrained, and I have little doubt that the physical arrangements were responsible, together with the frequent rotation of discussion chairmen.

This is not to criticise the East West Center organisers.

The lack of a conference room large enough for such a meeting made their substantial logistical problems even more complicated, and they met them with efficiency and goodwill.

The list of participants was a Pacific Who’s Who: For American Samoa, Governor Peter Coleman, for Australia, Immigration Minister lan Macphee, High Commissioner to Fiji Ray Greet and Norfolk Island’s Chief Minister David Buffett: Canada, Canadian High Commissioner to NZ, Mrs Irene Johnson; Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Lieut-Gov Francisco Ada; Cook Islands, Premier Tom Davis; Fiji, Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara; France, Ministre Plenipotentiaire Pierre Revol; Guam, Lieut-Gov Joseph Ada; Hawaii, Governor George Ariyoshi; Japan, Ambassador Shizuo Saito; Kiribati, President leremiah Tabai; Marshall Islands, President Amata Kabua; Nauru, President Hammer Deßoburt; New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, Vice President, Conseil de Gouvernement Dick Ukeiwe; New Hebrides, Minister for Home Affairs George Kalkoa; New Zealand, Minister of Maori Affairs M. B. R. Couch; Palau, Acting District Administrator Kim Batcheller; Solomon Islands, Ambassador Francis Bugotu; Tonga, Prime Minister Prince Tui’pelehake; Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Administrator Department of Development Services Lazarus Salii; Tuvalu, Prime Minister Toalipi Lauti; United Kingdom, British High Commissioner to Fiji Viscount Dunrossil; US, Ambassador Rozanne Ridgway; Western Samoa, Minister of Justice, Asi Aikeni; South Pacific Commission, Secretary- General M. Young Vivian; SPEC, Director Dr Gabriel Gris: East West Center, President Dr Everett Kleinjans.

Most leaders came with full delegations, Ratu Mara for example bringing among his team the Secretary to the Cabinet, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and the Director of Economic Planning.

All the more disappointing then that Papua New Guinea had no senior representation at all, merely observers representing the university.

Prime Minister Michael Somare was scheduled to attend, but when in March he was defeated in parliament on a no-confidence motion, newly-elected Prime Minister Julius Chan announced a freeze on all oversea travel for ministers for three months. It was a mistake not to have made an exception for the Honolulu conference, where new Foreign Affairs Minister Noel Levi would have had an unrivalled opportunity to get to know his South Seas colleagues.

And the opportunity to meet and talk informally was of course the real success of the Honolulu conference. The action on the conference room floor is inevitably, in the Islands, of less significance than the informal gettogethers of Island leaders.

During their three and a half days, the leaders discussed problems under the following heads: Goals and Development Strategies, the Pacific Islands in the World Community, Regional Cooperation, Government and Administrative Systems, Cultural Development and Conservation, and Energy.

The subjects were more interesting than the sum of their deliberations for the most part, only the subject of energy creating close attention and concern. This was something that affected everyone and a problem that could be easily identified.

It was agreed that present energy sources were outside the control of the Islands, particularly petrol, and that Islands leaders had to know what, if any, were the alternatives and what chance the Islands had of using them, before they could plan intelligently. This elicited the information that a lot of work was being done on alternative fuels, some of it in the Islands At the Honolulu conference, some of the leaders answer questions. From left American Samoa’s Governor Peter Coleman, Nauru President Hammer DeRoburt, Fiji Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, Cooks Premier Tom Davis, Kiribati President leremiah Tabai and Solomons Ambassador Francis Bugotu. 22 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Political Currents

themselves, but there was insufficient pooling of knowledge. lan Macphee, who until recently was Australia’s Minister for Productivity, was able to add some useful information of the type that the meeting organisers had hoped to draw out, by discussing alternatives to petrol in some detail. He said the petrol squeeze would continue for a little time yet, but meanwhile there was a serious future for electric cars made in Japan.

There was also interesting discussion on the possibility of fuel from sugar cane.

The question of whether existing government and administrative systems were suitable for the Islands, most of them having been initiated in colonial times by the colonial powers, drew surprisingly lack-lustre debate, perhaps because as domestic political problems yet to be resolved they were too close to home to be suitable matters for discussion in a public forum.

Ratu Mara touched on this problem in another context with his usual insight when he summed up the discussion on regional co-operation. ‘The two hurdles of regional cooperation are sovereignty and nationalism,’ he said. The two conflict. We have to be independent, yet we are all reaching out for help at the same time. When the two things conflict, we shy away.’

A message stressed by Ratu Mara in many ways during the conference, of which he was general chairman, was that the Pacific Islands had been ‘divided by our historic past’ and that unless the Islands now learned to work together and stand together they would be exploited by the technology of the advanced countries.

Sixty per cent of Pacific trade went out of the region because of traditional connections with places such as London and Paris, and it was no wonder that the Islanders’ own shipping was unprofitable, he said. By analysing the problems in that area alone, and really co-operating, shipping could be made to work profitably. leremiah Tabai, Kiribati’s young President, stressed more than once that although the Pacific nations had to reject ’the condition of dependency’, there was a danger that regionalism could become a sacred cow. The fact was that the individuality of each country had to be accepted, ‘else we are lost’.

Tuvalu Prime Minister Toalipi Lauti, who has had some unhappy experiences lately with overseas investors, said one of the Islands’ problems was that local business people hadn’t the knowledge or experience yet that put them on an equal footing with overseas businessmen.

The conference was virtually free of political gamesmanship, the leaders applying themselves to the discussion of their common problems without wasting ammunition on what used to be called the metropolitan powers. The exception was Guam’s Lieut- Gov Joseph (‘Gloomy Joe’) Ada, who lost few opportunities to tell of the continuing sins of what he termed ‘the Mother Country’ against Guam. ‘lndependent island states are fortunate,’ he said. They decide for themselves. Guam and some of us cannot make our decisions and have experts telling us what to do.’

What he had to say, while important to ‘Guam USA’, where there is a new nationalism developing following the move towards free association by its neighbouring islands, seemed strangely out of place at this conference, where the problem was not political autonomy but economic freedom.

How best this can be achieved in the Pacific, and how the other goals discussed at the conference can be reached, will be a matter for study by a Program Planning Committee established by the conference and led by Tonga’s Dr S. Langi Kavaliku, who was the meeting’s efficient general secretary.

The committee will consist of government officials from Fiji, the Cooks, Hawaii, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, American and Western Samoa and the Solomons, who will meet with organisations, foundations, etc, to consider research and training programs. They will also examine the setting up of a Regional Development Fund.

The conference also set up a Standing Committee to review follow-up actions on a six-monthly basis, chaired by Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, and whose members will be the President of Kiribati, a Governor representing the US flag territories, the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, the Premier of the Cooks, and the vice-president, Conseil de Gouvernement from one of the French territories. Secretary- General is, again, the effervescent Dr Kavaliku.

The Program Planning Committee expects in the next few months to come up with a plan of strategies aimed at attacking the most serious problems involving rural development, the increase in urbanisation, reliable transport and communications, effective regional co-operation, trade restrictions, shortage of skilled manpower, population pressures, development assistance and the cost and supply of energy.

Dr Kavaliku says the first task is to identify the problems specifically, and this will be helped by a close study of the transcript of the Honolulu conference and of the working papers submitted by the various governments which took part.

There will be no separate secretariat, but assistance from the Pacific Islands Development Program at the East West Center.

Meanwhile, the Pacific leaders have agreed that there will be another general conference like the Honolulu one in the latter part of next year, to be held this time in ‘one of the Island states in the South Pacific’.

By that time, no doubt, it should be clearer as to the exact role these conferences can play, and how they can work in association with the Forum, the SPC and SPEC if indeed they will be required to do so.

Decline Of

PARLIAMENT There was barely room to move in the galleries and lobbies of the Papua New Guinea National Parliament for the no-confidence debate in March which unseated the government. But the events of that day were unusual and generally the parliament has ceased to attract the attention it once did.

When the no-confidence processes were at their peak attendants in the public gallery had to set time limits for visitors, VIPs were standing in the Speaker’s gallery, the crowd in the entrance hall flowed onto the road outside and the car park was one big traffic jam.

But for visitors, party officials, specialist observers and others who made up the crowd the occasion was something of an exception in a long period during which parliament-watching has been very much on the decline.

The decline of day-to-day interest in the workings of parliament appears to be very much a result of how parliament has been conducting itself. Interest in politics and policies, as distinct from interest in parliament, still runs high. Whether the change in government will create new interest in parliamentary proceedings remains to be seen.

What has happened to the parliament which was once the focus of attention? In short, its own tensions and differences appear to have made it too introspective. Regular parliament-watchers, in their decreasing numbers, say it has become too wrapped in its own management and affairs coupled with a growing lack of discipline. This opinion is supported by an analysis of debates which shows that last year the parliament spent almost half its time on matters connected with its own management, problems, procedures and priorities, and with a heavy lacing of disorderly incidents and time-wasting tactics. In the immediate months after PNG gained its independence there was a much 23

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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heavier emphasis on basic issues of national policy and national management. There were debates rather than arguments. During that period party officials, lobbyists, ministerial staff, researchers and pressmen all with legitimate business in and around parliament never stayed away when parliament sat. ‘lt would be stupid not to be there,’ one party official said recently.

But the daily work of parliament no longer commands the same urgency, and many officials and advisers often find there are more important things to be done in the office rather than around parliament.

They continue to keep their eye on parliament, but it no longer commands their consuming attention.

Two things have led to the apparent decline of Parliament as an accepted fount of PNG politics and national management. One is the growth and the increasing experience of the administrative structure which, while not acting outside the framework of regulations, no longer seeks as much direction. The other is a very real decline in the way in which Parliament often conduct itself.

Near fights, personal attacks, shouting matches and bad language had a certain publicity attraction for a while.

One visitor, writing later for an English publication, went so far as to praise the House for its ‘lively, earthy and virile’ style compared to the staid pace of older legislature. But even ‘lively, earthy and virile’ antics, repeated time and time again for no real political reason, tend to pall and this has become very noticeable in PNG.

A verbal brawl which once would have received big coverage in the Port Moresby press now hardly rates a mention because it has become commonplace.

The more serious aspect of the present situation is whether the government and the public service are usurping the powers of Parliament.

At least five commercial and civic organisations, which used to monitor Parliament closely from the public gallery, have abandoned their regular vigil.

Members of the diplomatic corps, who once never failed to half fill the small speaker’s gallery, now are only occasional visitors. They tend to confine their attendance to occasions when matters of direct importance to their missions are under discussion.

The press gallery, too, has reflected the change with parliamentary business no longer being automatically accepted for top news billing of the day.

No matter how conscientious they are, the newsmen who watch Parliament are not tied to the Gallery by the same urgency which was noticeable only two years ago.

There’s no shortage of general day-to-day public interest in the affairs of Parliament.

Often the crowds trying to get into the public gallery overflow the facilities and the attendants have to organise a ‘shift’ system for visitors.

But this is a different sort of interest a curiosity or part of an education, not a solidly consistent attendance by parliamentary buffs who feel they have to be there.

A typical gallery today may be a school civics class, a group of police cadets having a look at the system to which they have sworn their loyalty, perhaps the wives and families of some of the members and always a sprinkling of tourists.

Several members made allegations along these lines at the parliamentary session just ended. The allegations were that the government and the public service were running the country and that too many members of parliament were allowing the situation to worsen. ‘A rubber stamp legislature,’ one parliamentarian said.

The member for Wewak, Tony Bais, told the House bluntly that Parliament had deteriorated and decayed, that it had lost all its integrity and that the controllers of the country no longer took notice of parliamentary resolutions.

These are strong words, and technically they cannot be substantiated because PNG still follows the rules of a formal Westminster democracy. Parliamentary committees still apply the tests which would reveal departures from what a democracy demands. But it cannot be denied that much of the bloom has rubbed from the optimistic legislature which took over from Australian control to bring PNG to selfgovernment and independence.

If there can be any criticism of the role of the PNG parliament in today’s national management, it is diffcult to escape the conclusion that the trouble stems from the parliament itself through the attitude of many of its members. Angus Smales.

The Papua New Guinea House of Assembly which took office In 1972 brought the country to selfgovernment and laid the grounds for independence. Shown here at the official opening, it was an assembly in which every national issue was thrashed out. But today there are claims that too often the present National Parliament, which still meets in the same chamber, is only a rubber stamp for cabinet decisions. 26 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Political Currents

French Polynesia

Gaston Flosse does a U-turn and the T. A. debates N-accidents From Marie-Therese and Bengt Danielsson in Papeete Recent times have seen important new developments in the two areas of perennial concern in Tahitian politics; the political status problem, and the problem of nuclear testing.

In the first, Gaston Flosse, deputy to the Paris National Assembly for Polynesia’s eastern constituency and leader of the local Gaullist Tahoeraa Huiraatira party, in mid- March did an amazing political ‘U-tum’ by asking for a complete revision of the existing constitution, to enable French Polynesia to become a truly self-governing country, only loosely ‘associated’ with France.

The irony of it all was that Flosse and his pro-French, conservative followers for many years opposed all moves by the so-called ‘autonomist’ parties of Teariki and Sanford to obtain full self-government (autonomie interne j, coupled with a recognised right to eventual independence. As a matter of fact, it was not until Teariki and Sanford decided to resort to more forceful actions, including the trapping of the High Commissioner in his official car, and a 10-monthslong occupation of the Territorial Assembly, that the French Government gave in, hurriedly concocted a new constitution, which was adopted in July 1977, and called new elections which catapulted Teariki and Sanford into power.

For those who had dreamt of an internal self-government on the Cook Islands model, the new constitution was a bitter disappointment right from the beginning. The French Government retained control of such vital matters as defence,. foreign affairs, police, justice, immigration, monetary system, credit policies, banking, overseas trade, air traffic, fishing rights, ocean wealth, secondary education, broadcasting-TV, communal affairs and the whole civil service.

Phis left in the hands of the elected representatives of the Polynesian people mainly the troublesome task of balancing the budget with the help of locally raised revenues.

The Autonomist leaders tried to soothe their critics by saying that the 1977 constitution was not the last word, and that they had by no means lost sight of the ultimate goal of independence. It was just that they had to go slow and concentrate, for the time being, on economic problems.

Not surprisingly, they were soon outflanked on their Left by the local socialist party la mana te nunaa, followed by two other smaller nationalist parties, which all asked for immediate independence.

During the 1978 and 1979 general elections, these parties, which also strongly opposed nuclear testing, polled around 15% of the votes. This score, however, was considered so modest that the ruling Autonomists did not see any need to change their ‘go-slow’ policy (PIM Jan p2l).

The fact that Gaston Flosse’s party beat them at the polls in June 1979, capturing 44.5% of the votes to their 40.8%, seemed rather to confirm their view that the electorate or at least the Europeans, part- Europeans and Chinese who form the main body of Flosse’s support was not ready for any more revolutionary changes.

There was therefore total and general surprise when the Autonomists in mid-March were outflanked on their Right by Gaston Flosse’s sudden request for full self-government.

The most surprising thing was the thoroughness and secrecy with which Flosse had acted. Not only had he prepared, with the help of his smart young ‘technical advisers’ (practically all local boys with university degrees), a long, detailed draft for a new constitution, but he had also made a quick trip to Paris two weeks earlier to have it tabled in the French Parliament.

One of its key provisions confers wide powers on an elected cabinet, made up of ministers in charge of departments and headed by a prime minister. The novelty resides, of course, not in the system itself, which is common to practically all democratic governments, but in its application to a French overseas territory.

Equally important are the dispositions in the economic field which would give Polynesia complete freedom to trade with any countries she likes, to handle international air traffic and landing rights, to exploit freely her own immense maritime resources and to open the islands to foreign investors. In his comments, Flosse said squarely that it was both natural and desirable to strengthen Polynesia’s economic ties and increase her trade with the other Pacific countries, naming specifically America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This represents, of course, a complete break with the present colonial-type economic policy which ties the territory firmly to the mother country, 20 000 kilometres away. Unfortunately, as past experience has clearly shown, the only way to make a success of this policy, which ignores geographical facts, is to tow the islands across the oceans and anchor them somewhere off the coast of France.

As can easily be understood, the sudden ‘U-turn’ of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira caused the original Autonomists a certain embarrassment. But they could hardly condemn the ideas they had been fighting for all their lives. They therefore simply castigated Flosse’s motives as being opportunistic.

Surely, Flosse’s next move seemed to confirm this, for he flew off to the Leeward islands, where public sentiment for independence is strongest, on ‘an explanatory mission’.

However, the embarrassment felt in French Government circles was much greater still.

Considering that by mid- March all existing political parties in French Polynesia were in favour of internal self- Gaston Flosse, second from left, presents his ‘amazing political U-turn’ on French Polynesia’s political status at a press conference at his party’s headquarters in Papeete in March. 27

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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government, and that those adopting the most ‘radical’ positions Tahoeraa Hiuraatira, la mana te nunaa, Te taata Tahiti tiama, Polynesian Liberation Front represented about 60% of the electorate, the French Government seemed bound to accept a thorough reform of the existing constitution, in line with the proclaimed - and noble principle of self-determination for all colonial peoples. Or. it seemed, the least it could do would be to accept a referendum.

However, this is precisely the kind of thing that bothers the Paris government, which has always feared that any easing of the reins could lead to a breakaway. In the quite wellfounded view of Paris, an independent Polynesia would not allow any further nuclear tests to be made at the already badly damaged Moruroa Atoll.

The first official response came from High Commissioner Paul Cousseran who went on the air to announce that the old Autonomist parties were quite happy with the present constitution. His statement was greeted with a terse communique from Autonomist headquarters taking the HiCom to task for presuming to speak in their name, and adding that the Autonomists had always believed the constitution could and should be improved.

It was then the turn of Overseas Territory Minister Paul Dijoud who stated that he knew for certain that the majority of the inhabitants of French Polynesia did not wish to change the present constitution, which was functioning in a perfectly satisfactory manner. (How he was able to ascertain this he did not make clear.) But, when all is said and done, Mr Dijoud and everybody else knows that the only group of people empowered to make a decision on this vital matter are the 491 deputies who make up the French National Assembly. With the solid majority enjoyed by President Giscard d’Estaing in this metropolitan body, the chances are practically zero that any piece of legislation distasteful to the government could be adopted or even reach the floor for debate.

Meanwhile, on March 13, French Polynesia’s Territorial Assembly at long last staged a sort of interim debate on the nuclear accidents at Moruroa Atoll on July 6 and 25 1979 (PIM Oct p 29). The accidents left a total of two dead, and 11 injured, six of them seriously.

The debate was necessarily ‘interim’ in character for the simple reason that, having received only very incomplete information from French authorities concerning the accidents, the five members of the Territorial Assembly forming its committee of inquiry into the accidents decided late last year to postpone the debate until they had received certain documents. These documents had not yet reached their hands by March 13.

They were: (1) The CEP (body in charge of the Moruroa Tests) experts’ own report about the accidents. (2) The report which ‘the team of internationally known scientists in the nuclear field’ (who were in fact all French and mostly engineers working for the French Atomic Energy Commission) had made following their investigative visits to Moruroa last year. (3) The geological report by the well-known French volcanologist Haroun Tazieff, in which he reportedly advises against using atolls for nuclear tests. (4) The reports about all other scientific studies made of the subsoil of Moruroa. (5) The annual reports issued by the Atomic Energy Commission/CEP radiological laboratory, set up 15 years ago, which had previously been kept secret.

Perhaps the most important information acquired by the Territorial Assembly’s committee at the time of its investigations although nothing was said to them officially about it was that the 28 underground blasts so far had 28 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

Political Currents

; damaged the periphery of the atoll so badly that the technicians had become very anxious to receive the long awaited equipment (mostly barges) which will enable them to drill bomb shafts into the centre of the lagoon, a new technique for which a CEP general more than a year ago | (PIM Mar 1979 p 7) had used the misleading English expression ‘offshore drillings’.

The most moving speech at the March 13 debate was undoubtedly that of old-style Tahitian party leader John Teariki who reaffirmed, in highly personal terms, his total opposition to the Moruroa tests.

He said; ‘When I went there as a member of the committee of inquiry, it was my first visit to Moruroa. Although this atoll is part of my fatherland, I felt as if I were in a foreign country.’

Of the large revenues produced by the CEP/CEA implantation (1 500 million francs annually) he said: ‘lt seems to me that the financial rewards thus derived are very small indeed, compared to the irreparable harm done by the CEP/ CEA bases to our society in the economic, political and social fields. ‘This is why I deem it necessary to reaffirm in the most solemn terms that in my various capacities, as a Polynesian, a fisherman, a farmer, a councilman and the leader of the Pupu here aia party, I have always been and I am still today against the CEP/CEA and against the continuation of the nuclear tests at Moruroa.’

In the vote, the 18-member Autonomist majority, including Teariki’s party and Francis Sanford’s Ea api party, voted for adoption of the slender three-page report of the committee of inquiry, tacking on an amendment stressing the urgency of receiving the documents requested.

Gaston Flosse and the other nine members of the Tahoeraa Huiraatira group voted against, as a protest against the vague and inconclusive character of the Committee’s report.

They certainly had a point there. But who bears the main blame for our imperfect knowledge of what is going on at Moruroa? It seems to us that the report at least answers that important question.

CANBERRA-

Tarawa Ties

Stronger formal links with Australia may well be one of the developments from the independence last year of the Republic of Kiribati, formerly the Gilbert Islands.

This became apparent last month during a visit to Australia by the Secretary to the Kiribati Cabinet, Mr A. T.

Teaotai, making what he described as a ‘general familiarisation tour’.

He hinted at a possible State visit to Australia by his country’s 29-year-old President leremiah Tabai, taking up an invitation which Australia is known to have extended some time ago.

Mr Teaotai said it was becoming increasingly apparent that Australia was accepting a greater responsibility in the Pacific region and this was welcomed by the Pacific community.

He said his country looked to Australia for aid, not as a beggar but as a regional partner which was anxious to develop itself and to reduce its economic dependency. The bulk of external aid to Kiribati at present comes from Britain, the former administering power, and amounts to about SA4 million to be spent this year and next year.

Australian overseas aid is already providing Kiribati with a $4 million grant for civil engineering and transport, and New Zealand is also providing aid.

Mr Teaotai said that much of the aid his country was already receiving was tied to specific projects at the time of allocation. He looked to the time when Kiribati could establish the economic reputation which would allow it to receive a greater proportion of untied aid. ‘We don’t have much idea yet of how Australians operate, but we believe they are friendly and ready to co-operate with us and these are the sort of things I have been following up,’ Mr Teaotai said in Sydney after spending two weeks in Canberra. Aid agencies were on his calling list during the visit.

High on the list of projects which Kiribati would like to see completed is the 3km causeway planned to connect Betio to Bairiki on Tarawa. A long-planned project to build a causeway was funded by a loan of $1.7 from the Asian Development Bank. But nearly two years of work has failed to produce a causeway and the project is now bogged down by legal wrangles.

There is strong evidence to suggest that Australia might be prepared to provide aid for at least a new feasibility study for the causeway. At present, however, Australian officials are understandably reluctant to become involved in a situation which might be seen as affecting the legal ramifications of the first project.

As Mr Teaotai said during his visit to Sydney; ‘We are not really blaming anyone it’s past history now. All we know is that we still don’t have a causeway, we want one badly, and in the meantime the costs of operating a ferry are going higher and higher.’

QUESTIONS ON N.C.

Some Melanesians are working for independence for New Caledonia both inside and outside the territory, Australian Foreign Minister Andrew Peacock said in a written reply tabled in the House of Representatives in Canberra to a question by former television quiz ace, and now Labor MP, Barry Jones.

Mr Jones had asked Mr Peacock if he could say whether the overwhelming majority of Melanesians there wanted independence and were agitating inside and outside New Caledonia for that goal.

Mr Peacock said claims had been made by the Independence Front Party that more than 80% of the Melanesian voters voted in favour of independentist parties. Other estimates ranged down to 64%.

In the absence of voter enrolment by ethnic origin it was not possible to be precise.

Mr Jones in an earlier question had asked Mr Peacock if he could say whether indigenous Melanesians constituted the largest single ethnic group in New Caledonia. Mr Peacock agreed that was the case and gave a breakdown of population figures as follows: Indigenous Melanesians, 43.3% (65 000) of the population; Europeans, 35.6% (49 700); Wallisians, Tahitians, Vietnamese, Indonesians and other small ethnic groups, 21.1% (29 400).

In reply to a further question from Mr Jones, Mr Peacock said the electoral lists did not reveal details whether the majority who voted against independence in July, 1979, was made up largely of recent arrivals, transient officials and members of the armed forces on their tour of duty.

Turning to another tack on New Caledonia, Mr Jones asked Mr Peacock if his attention had been drawn to reports that at night on January 6-7, a Melanesian was shot dead by a French police officer. If so, could he say whether the incident was followed by a wave of agitation, including the erection of road blocks, in favour of independence.

Mr Peacock replied that on January 9, a French police inspector was suspended from duty and committed to custody in respect of the fatal shooting.

Melanesian reaction was limited to the attendance of about 300 independentists at the funeral. They marched, without incident, several kilometres with the funeral cortege on January 10.

Pago Tells

TOKYO The government of American Samoa has sent a strong letter of protest to United States Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield protesting against possible dumping of nuclear wastes in the Pacific by Japan.

The letter associates American Samoa with earlier protests by Governor Carlos Camacho of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas and others. 29

Political Currents

PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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PEOPLE Andy Ayamiseba, the West Irianese manager of a rock band, has left Papua New Guinea claiming that ‘hidden white advisers’ influenced the government there to move him and his group of West Irian musicians out of the country. ‘We had a lot to offer the musical world here if we had been allowed to stay,’ he said in Port Moresby on his way out. Residents of the Port Moresby suburb of Boroko agreed the band had plenty to offer in decibels, if nothing else. The noise from a series of nightly openair concerts caused some residents to initiate a petition calling for the electronicallyboosted band to move on.

But the immigration office in Port Moresby said e was nothing sinister oehmu the band’s departure. Their entry permits had expired and there was no provision for an extension. The members of the group, who hold Indonesian passports, have wound up in Holland with their wives and children and are claiming political asylum. They say they can’t go back to Irian Jaya, a province of Indonesia, because of differences with Indonesian authorities. Indonesia has denied the claim.

If there’s one member of the new Papua New Guinea cabinet who appreciates the fact that ministers are allocated houses, it surely must be Akepa Miakwe who is now Minister for Lands. Just before the political storm which unseated the Somare government another sort of storm a real tropical one - swept through Mr Miakwe’s electorate of Ungai- Bena. It uprooted a giant tree which fell on his house and destroyed it. No one was injured in the incident.

Just arrived in the Cook Islands from Australia, Dr Stephen Weinstein immediately set about making arrangements for his wedding. He was to marry Elizabeth Sadlak, a nurse he met last year in the operating theatre of an Adelaide hospital. The wedding took place on the island of Manihiki, where Dr Weinstein will be stationed for several months. Later in the year Dr and Mrs Weinstein will be stationed in Penrhyn, with Mrs Weinstein working as senior staff sister ‘and taking orders from me,’ says Dr Weinstein.

P&O Cruises in Australia has announced the appointment of R. A. Blackburn as national sales manager, based in Sydney. Mr Blackburn was previously marketing services manager in Australia for Air New Zealand.

The regional director in Australia for Qantas, John Rowe, will be the next president of the Pacific Area Travel Association. He was made presidentelect at the recent PATA annual meeting in Manila, Republic of the Philippines, and will take over as president at the next annual meeting in Los Angeles, USA. PATA, which will be 30 years old next year, promotes travel in the Pacific and on the Pacific rim. It has membership from the governments of 34 countries, from 52 airlines and from nearly 40 agencies and authorities in the countries represented.

Under a bilateral aid programme the New Zealand government has appointed John Rowley as general manager of the Cook Islands Development Bank for a term of two years. Mr Rowley has been projects manager for the New Zealand Finance Corporation. and goes to his new appointment following discussions between the corporation, the Cook Islands government and the New Zealand government. His assignment is to structure the Cook Islands Development Bank so that it will qualify for international soft loans, particularly from the Asian Development Bank, and to ensure that the bank becomes an effective development agency.

The Australian Government’s International Trading Institute in Sydney has a new principal in Bob Heron. He came to the position after being director of planning at Darwin Community College in the Australian Northern Territory and before that he was deputy dean of the Papua New Guinea University of Technology in Lae. He holds bachelor’s degrees in commerce and education from the University of Melbourne and is a master of science from the London University School of Economics and Political Science.

ITL the institute of which he is now principal, grew from the widely-known Australian School of Pacific Administration to fill a completely different role in the changing politics of the Pacific. In its original role it trained the men and women who administered Australian territories. Today it operates a wide range of training courses for middle-level managers and administrators from developing countries in the Pacific and Asia. It is operated by the Australian Development Assistance Bureau of the Department of Foreign Affairs as part of Australian overseas aid programmes. This year the institute plans to run 20 courses which will be attended by about 300 government officers from South Pacific island countries, South-east Asia, Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

An Australian soccer club, Grange-Thistle in Brisbane, is pinning its hopes for the new season on three Solomon Islanders who will play in the club’s first-grade team. They are midfielder Ben Sokeni, striker Wilson Maelaua and defender Sam Ata. All three were brought from Solomon Islands by the club after manager-coach George Pagan saw them in action in Honiara, the Solomons capital.

Cook Islands has sworn in its new police chief, Superintendent Jim Butterworth, formerly an inspector in the New Zealand police with specialist qualifications in management services, industrial engineering and work study. A special uni- Visiting new South Seas parliaments from the mother of parliaments at the end of March was this three-man delegation from Britain’s House of Commons - from left, Mr John Roper (Labour) Mr Philip Holland (Conservative) and Clerk to the House, Mr John Willcox, They presented an oak gavel and box each to Tuvalu and Kiribati and a cherrywood clock to the Solomons. They were independence gifts to the three new Commonwealth countries. 31 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

form parade marked his first day in office. Superintendent Butterworth replaces Superintendent Eliot Khan who resigned following last year’s conspiracy trial.

The Prime Minister of Fiji, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, has followed his father’s footsteps by taking up song-writing. His father, the late Tui Nanay, Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba, wrote one of the sets of words for the widely-known song of farewell Isa Lei. And now Ratu Sir Kamisese has written a song about the role of Fijian soldiers in the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon. The music was written by the wellknown Fijian composer Sir Josua Rabukawaqa and a recording has been published in Nadi featuring the Fijian Phoenix Choir.

Ratu Sir Kamisese said the words for the song came to him while he was on a flight over Lebanon on his way to Europe. ‘lt was a clear bright day’, he said. Thoughts about the soldiers flowed into my mind so I picked up a piece of paper and started writing’.

Earl Cameron, a Bermudan who became one of Britain’s best-known black actors in television, has retired to Honiara in Solomon Islands. T wanted to get out of the rat race, and Honiara seems a nice quiet place to settle down,’ he said.

A memorial service was held last month at English Harbour on Fanning Island in the Line Islands for Bill Frew, a kindly Australian widely known to passing yachtsmen and who is now presumed dead following his mysterious disappearance on the island.

Over the years many yachts have called at Fanning and their crews have known the hospitality and help which was always available from Bill Frew and his Tuvalu-bom wife Marina. Frew had long been established there as a plantation manager for Burns Philp. He walked from the house earlier this year and has not been heard of since despite an extensive search of the property, the island and the surrounding seas.

Friends have now opened a trust fund to care for the education of his children, and donations are being received by Judith H Moore, Trustee for Daniel, Donald and Diana Frew, 1782 Halekoa Drive, Honolulu, Hawaii.

Fred Kona, widely known to Pacific tourists for his Vilu Village war and cultural museum on Guadalcanal in Solomon Islands, was beaten unconscious when he stopped to help a group of men beside an apparently broken-down car outside Honiara. He is recovering from the attack for which no motive has been given.

Charles Maino, one of Papua New Guinea’s best-known government lawyers, has been appointed his country’s Public Prosecutor, becoming the first Papua New Guinean to hold this office. He replaces the Australian, Kevin Egan, who was a controversial central figure in last year’s contempt of court proceedings against the then Justice Minister, Nahau Rooney Mr Maino, married with four children, is a law graduate from the University of PNG.

Meanwhile PNG has appointed another Australian, Jeffrey Allan Miles, to serve as a National Court Judge, although the Rooney affair raised sensitive issues about the need to speed up localisation of the judiciary. The new Mr Justice Miles has been Public Defender in NSW since 1978 and had earlier experience as a legal advocate for northern Australian Aboriginal communities.

In another senior legal appointment PNG has given the position of Chief Magistrate to Joseph Aisa, a Papua New Guinean magistrate of wide experience.

Two supreme and national court judges in Papua New Guinea have had their jurisdictions extended to become judges of the PNG Defence Force. They are an Australian, Mr Justice Andrew, and the first Papua New Guinean to be made a judge, Mr Justice Kapi.

They will hear proceedings involving members of the force charged through military procedures.

An Australian on secondment to the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, Lt-Colonel I. R.

M. Maclean, has been given the command of the force’s Engineer Battalion based in Port Moresby. He replaces another Australian, Lt-Colonel D. M. King, who was commended by the PNG Government for his command over the past two years. The Engineer Battalion is the element of the force most in the public eye because of its civil construction programme involving roads, bridges and rural buildings.

The title of veteran veteran is fast being earned by AI Bonney Left, Bill Frew, the cruising yachties’ friend, of Fanning Island, who is presumed dead and for whose children a trust fund has been opened in Honolulu. Photograph is by Larry Bortles Below, Mr Joe Carlo, director of Radio New Hebrides, in Sydney recently with Mr John Sparkes, acting national director of rural broadcasting for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Mr Carlo spent four weeks making a study of ABC operations. 32 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980 PEOPLE

f of Brunswick, Maine, USA. > He’s just returned home after his eighth re-visit to the former battle grounds of World War II in Solomon Islands where he ■ served as a marine in 1942. At a mere 59 years of age he believes he still has plenty of rel visits ahead of him.

Mr Bonney is executive secretary of the Guadalcanal Veterans Association and regularly [ organises non-profit tours for former US servicemen returning to the areas where they fought during the Guadalcanal campaign.

There were 43 members in this year’s pilgrimage, including 77-year-old Father Fred Gehring, 50 years a priest this year. In Honiara on Guadalcanal Fr Gehring recalled how he used to say mass for fighter pilots before they took off every morning.

The National Bank’s new Chief Manager for Fiji, Duncan Stewart, is a Scotsman who served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force and has had 30 years banking experience in developing countries. He has been a bank manager in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and his most recent position was as central manager and alternate director of the Standard Bank of Zambia.

Two young women from Rotuma, Fiji, Jane Foster and Violet Gibson Burns have broken the Guinness Book of Records marathon typing time of 162 hours 1 minute. Violet typed for 214 hours (with 25 breaks), and Jane, formerly of the Fiji Times, for 164 hours 45 minutes (36 breaks).

They were allowed five minutes rest every hour, but could accumulate these periods to give themselves longer rest times if they wished.

The typathon was in aid of a House with No Steps for handicapped people. But Gay Laurence of Ben’s Office Machines, on whose Sydney premises the event took place in February, said the amount raised had been ‘disappointing’.

A warrant officer from the Royal Australian Air Force, Norm Plowright, 53, is nearing the end of one of the most unusual tours of duty ever assigned by the RAAF. For the past two years he’s been the first and only Australian serviceman assigned to the Kingdom of Tonga where he’s been teaching carpentry trade skills.

His official designation is carpentry instructor to the Tongan Defence Force, which includes the preparation of a syllabus to guide future instructors. His appointment was part of the Australian defence co-operation programme, assisted by New Zealand which has provided tools and equipment. Projects carried out by WO Plowright and his trainees have included the construction of a carpentry workshop, a general lecture room and an orthopaedic workshop for Tongan medical services. They have also carried out building work at Lotuma naval station.

The Rev David Williams, an American United Methodist missionary with an agricultural background, has joined the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) in Suva. He takes over the work of Fr Patrick Murphy who was killed in a road accident in Port Moresby in 1978.

From 1974 Mr Williams worked with the Melanesian Council of Churches in Papua New Guinea as agricultural secretary.

He edited the Lik Lik Buk, a rural development handbook produced for village people by the MCC. It gives information on appropriate technology, farming and nutrition.

His post in Fiji as coordinator of the Church and Society Programme of the PCC will involve a close study of tourism, its effects on Pacific culture and/or Pacific political decisions, migration, transnational corporations and their effect on human development, and proposals for a nuclearfree Pacific.

In an interview with the daily La Depeche de Tahiti, the vice-president of French Polynesia’s Government Council Francis Sanford said he believed politicians should be ’absolutely open’ about their financial interests. Suiting the action to the word he gave the paper’s reporter Christine Bourne a full rundown on his own sources of income, i must set an example, and I have nothing to hide,’ said Mr Sanford.

The 68-year-old leader also admitted in the interview that he was beginning to feel some concern about* finding a successor for his job, which is roughly equivalent of that of prime minister.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will continue to play a role when the new Micronesian states shed most of their links with the United States, according to Glenn L. Young, special agent in charge of the Honolulu FBI office.

Young, accompanied by Darwin B. Green, who heads the Guam FBI office, was speaking in Saipan in March during a visit to the Northern Marianas.

He said that the Honolulu office, which has jurisdiction over two million square miles in the Pacific, deals mainly with foreign counter-intelligence and white collar crime.

He said he expects that the FBI will have jurisdiction over counter-intelligence and possibly bank robberies when the free association states of the Marshalls, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau emerge from the Trust Territory.

These 14 West Samoans are among 19 Samoan students recently enrolled at the University of Newcastle, Australia, under the Australian Governments’ South Pacific Aid Programme. Six are studying Engineering, four Science, seven Arts, one Economics and one Mathematics. The 19 are Misses C. Ahmu, Laugao Nafanua, M. Meredith, T. Naseri, S. L. Niko, K. Sapolu, Messrs R. Charles, U Fepulea’i, N. A. L. Lam Sam, T. T. Leilua, H. A. Mulipola, E. Mulinuu, A. Niumata, S. Pulenatoa, I. Punivalu, T. Sami, M S.

Siamomua, T. Ugapo and Dr D. T. Mailei. 33 PEOPLE PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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TRAVEL Bob and Dinah Halstead work in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where they operate a small husband-and-wife team called Tropical Diving Adventures. They started it because they love the sea. Bob went to PNG as a schoolteacher, and Dinah was born in the Milne Bay Province, where nearly 1000 islands are set in a quarter of a million square kilometres of beautiful, reef-strewn Pacific. Over the recent Christmas and New Year holidays they inaugurated a Milne Bay Diving Safari, taking 12 amateur divers on a Milne Bay adventure in their specially fitted 11 m (36ft) dive boat, Solatai. We asked Bob and Dinah to tell us the story of that first trip, with the following result.

Exhilaration of a Milne Bay scuba safari Milne Bay Province is well known for two main things.

The Trobriand ‘islands of love,’ famous for their lovely island lasses who still adorn themselves in little else but sexy grass miniskirts, the shortest in the Pacific, and the Battle of Milne Bay, where American and Australian forces first defeated the Japanese on land in World War 11.

We know Milne Bay as our home and to explore some of its reefs was our aim on a new type of holiday in a country where adventure is a way of life. We had been doing it ourselves for years, just for fun.

We sailed Solatai from its base in Port Moresby to Alotau, the provincial capital of Milne Bay Province, where it was only necessary to fill up with fuel and water and top up all the dive tanks before we met Air Niugini’s F 27 Bird of Paradise from Port Moresby with our 12 adventurers. Within minutes all were aboard and we set off for East Cape, the eastern extremity of the Papua New Guinea mainland. Solatai is diesel-powered, fibreglass, equipped for up to 20 divers.

No luxury hotel or even humble guest house was waiting for us. We were on safari.

In the hold were tents and camping gear to enable us to live on the beach if necessary, but we hoped to stay in the villages and add the rich experience of living in another culture to our underwater adventures.

We need not have worried, wherever we went we were welcomed with open arms. Free of the hardships faced by less fortunate villagers in the more rugged and climatically inhospitable parts of Papua New Guinea, Milne Bay people have abundant natural resources and a generous, friendly nature to go with their attractive features.

At East Cape, they soon organised a traditional dance for us while we set up camp in an old mission house.

The next two days were spent exploring the nearby reefs and islands. This was a rewarding time for us, for although the visibility was not as good as usual varying around 20m it was good to watch the excitement generated as the divers saw their first shark, manta, turtle or giant clam. In these untouched waters the marine life is prolific, and every dive produced new sights and experiences and rare shells for the several collectors in our group.

After two days we moved on to Nuakata Island two hours away, catching a good kingfish and a couple of tuna for supper en route. Here we camped in the village church, and as the village was full of youngsters we had a continuous giggling and singing audience, with gasps and ‘oohs’ as our various contraptions appeared. Filling the air beds with a low pressure inflator attached to a scuba bottle proved especially fascinating.

Here we were treated to a magnificent display of drumming on a large drum carved from a tree trunk nearly a metre in diameter and played by three drummers at once.

The leader, a highly energetic village girl, would have put any rock drummer to shame.

There was already great excitement in the village as tonight was New Year’s Eve and a feast is held on New Year’s Day. Now they had some extra guests. We decided to have our own celebration and see in the New Year underwater.

There was a pretty coral reef just where we anchored the boat 50 metres from shore in six metres of water, so at 11.45 pm we kitted up and in we went, armed with a supply of wine in a flexible container.

We all knew that drinking before diving is strictly out, but, as one of the divers pointed out, we hadn’t read anywhere about drinking while you are diving and we figured that one mouthful in six metres of water Dinah Halstead (centre) prepares to lead the diving team over the side in China Strait, Milne Bay. 35 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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wasn’t going to do us any harm. ‘ Actually as midnight arrived mouthpieces were coming out for reasons other than a squeeze from our flexible wine cask as traditional greetings were exchanged.

The dive itself was good fun, f for we played with an enormous lump-headed wrasse, and also a pair of epaulette sharks who were obviously also celebrating the New Year.

As divers emerged into the New Year they were greeted aboard with champagne and we partied on until 2.30 am when our group of weary but happy divers finally hit the sack. Unfortunately we were not to get much rest, as at 5.00 am we were unexpectedly awakened for the traditional village celebration. Dozens of strong young men suddenly appeared, and the conversation went like this, ‘Excuse us please but we will now throw you in the water!’

Firmly but gently everyone was removed from their snug sleeping bags, carried to the beach, and tossed into the sea.

Even babies in the village were carried to the water’s edge and splashed in this traditional ‘rite’.

Only one dive was decided for that day, but before the evening feast in the village we were to visit the skull caves, where ancestors’ skulls can be seen hidden in ledges. A guide took us along a path bordered by the ocean on one side and the remains of an ancient wall on the other side until we arrived at the place. Here, resting in rocky cracks and crevices, were dozens of skulls. We were told various stories to explain their presence, but no one appeared to be really sure who put them there or why.

The next day, after planting some coconuts on a sandy islet whose reef abounded with giant sea fans, black coral and spiny lobsters, some of which ended up in our cooking pot, we sailed down a chain of deserted islands towards Tube Tube, our next camp site.

Diving at these islands is exciting for the shark action. As soon as we reached the edge of the drop-off 10 metres below the boat, reef sharks appeared from every direction. Not aggressive and all under two metres long, they were nonetheless very curious and would take turns to swim close and look at us intruders.

Although we felt perfectly safe and not threatened at all, it was quite a ‘buzz’just to sit on the reef admiring these beautiful animals.

Tube Tube (pronounced too-bey too-bey) is utterly idyllic. We were greeted by children who paddled out to us in their outrigger canoes and welcomed us to their beautiful carved and woven houses.

There were no signs here of corrugated iron or ugly Western junk, just things as they have been for hundreds of years well almost, for we discovered one Western intruder apart from ourselves, an anthropologist who was living with the villagers. Anthropologists are a common species in this remote part of the world!

She was glad to see us, as her cigarettes had long been finished and she couldn’t quite adjust to the stick tobacco the villagers smoke. We were also able to help her in another way as we had various books on marine life aboard and she was able to point to the pictures and find out which creatures the villagers were familiar with and their names for them.

Diving here was a delight.

The reefs were not deeper than 35 metres but covered with beautiful technicolour sea fans, sponges and crinoids. We saw manta rays, kingfish and more sharks, including a very confused wobbegong who swam into the middle of a group of divers before realising that we were something strange. Relying on his camouflage he froze in mid-swim to sink to the bottom, but his head just caught on a coral branch as he was sinking, arching his body in a ridiculous and very exposed position, much to our amusement.

Visibility here was better, with up to 25 metres at times but still disappointing, as this was a place Dinah and I had dived before, and we had much better than 35 metres then.

While based at Tube Tube we made an excursion to Shortland Reef to dive the big drop-off. Here turtles were particularly common and we chased several in shallow water on top of the reef after our deep dive.

Shortland Reef has a large lagoon in its centre and with the tide coming in we decided to have a look at one of the channels. When we got there the current was filling the lagoon, so special precautions were required for the dive. We streamed lines astern with their forward ends tied to the anchor chain and took turns for buddy pairs to dive to the anchor.

While the first divers were down, snorkellers hanging on the line astern could see sharks, groper and eagle rays swimming over the reef 12 metres below. A dive to the anchor might not sound like much, but the first group returned with eyes wide open raving about the things that they had seen while the creatures investigated them.

Soon it was time for our next departure and sadly we left these islands for the historic island of Samarai, catching tuna and a shark on our trolling lines on the way. Once, when adventurers seeking gold and pearl flocked to Papua New Guinea, Samarai was its largest town, even though you can walk around the island in half an hour.

Now that the government centre has moved to Alotau on the mainland, Samarai, its gardens overgrown and grand tropical houses decaying, has become a sleepy and rather scruffy reminder of its grand past. But the magic somehow remains and the setting, surrounded by the beautiful islands and swirling currents on China Strait, has to be one of the most incredible tropical views on this earth.

We camped on nearby Pearl Island, guests of Denis and Yulie George, operators of Papua New Guinea’s only pearl farming industry. Here we were able to admire and purchase exquisite gold, black and silver pearls right at their source. You can even grow your own pearl by personally seeding an oyster the pearl to be sent to you when fully formed and crafted.

In China Strait we were to have some of our most exciting dives. Through this narrow passage, a kilometre or so across, the pent-up tides blocked by the mainland of the world’s second largest island finally get a chance to pour through. The charts show depths of about 40 metres and currents up to six knots not a spot for novices!

We chose a likely spot in mid-channel giving a depth of 36 metres on the echo sounder, then, with every one kitted up and ready to go, we lowered a Solatai off the reef at Tube Tube (pronounced Too-bey Too-bey) No corrugated iron or ugly Western junk here. 37 TRAVEL PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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Air New Zealand or direct to Aggie Grey's, Apia. Western Samoa. Cables: ‘AGGIES' Apia. heavy line with a hefty lump of scrap-iron tied on with a thin | cord. We felt the iron bump the bottom, hoisted it a metre or so and led the first group of seven down to the bottom as we drifted on. It was a parachute entry go! go! go! over the stern platform, onto the line and down to the bottom.

The bumping and dragging of the weight attracts sharks and each time the lead diver descended he was greeted by an active large whaler but on seeing us crazy mob of divers appear, each time the shark, with a sharp flick of its tail, vanished. Every diver attached himself to the main line with a quick release loop on a shorter length so that he could swim clear and fly!

And fly we did! The drag caused by the slight difference in speed of Solatai in the surface current and us at the bottom meant we could stretch out our arms and soar and zoom on our individual lines. The bottom ripped by. With 12 metre visibilitiy we gasped as ledges and gullies full of fish and thick with strange, stunted corals appeared and, in a flash, disappeared.

Occasionally we would run into turbulence and be bumped and thrown around like a small plane in a storm, but all the time rushing on, hanging in effortless motion, merely angling our fins and arms to lift over the next ledge. At 36 metres we had decided on 15 minutes bottom time, for the lead diver, then all would ascend to the surface after a five minute safety stop at three metres under the boat. On surfacing we could see that we had travelled well over a nautical mile, giving nearly five knots speed.

This was such an exhilarating experience that a repeat performance was demanded for the next day, and it was then, as the second group started to ascend, that our one fear materialised. The scrap stuck in a coral ledge, anchoring us in this massive current.

Hanging on and trying to keep your mask in place wasn’t easy!

The lead diver had to cut the thin cord holding the scrap and once again we were all on the move and ascent was effortless.

Although our safety factor was good, everyone had five minutes on the oxygen rig just to make sure the extra effort of hanging on in the current hadn’t produced any bends bubbles. But no one had any problems.

This time we kept going with the current and were soon through China Strait and heading into Milne Bay. Here in 1943 a furious battle was fought as Japanese invaders tried to gain a stepping stone to Port Moresby, but failed.

Fighting in the appalling mud and rain of the wet season, Australian and American troops for the first time stopped the Japanese advance.

Milne Bay itself is very deep, with only a very narrow coral ledge around its shores so that many of the wartime wrecks are impossible to dive. Dinah and I not long ago very sadly watched small oil drops surface and spread from a wartime wreck we had researched, but although we were only 30 metres or so from shore the echo sounder was reading 200 metres. At other times we had dived on the many small landing barges and even a tractor dumped down the reef slopes.

Now we were heading for the wartime wreck of a large coal refuelling barge sunk in a sheltered anchorage near Waga Waga village directly across the bay from Alotau.

The wreck has its bow out of the water and its stern in about 30 metres. Near the stern a tall lattice gantry reaches past the surface, its above-water part a rusty eyesore, its underwater frames festooned with clams, gorgonians and black coral. A huge groper lives on the wreck, but he avoided us this trip as we explored the holds still partly filled with coal, and admired corals on large winches and cables that had been used to transfer coal to the hungry warships. The same night we returned to the wreck to hunt for shell, but spent most of the time weaving our way through the towering iron framework of the gantry admiring the blaze of colour in our torches.

We had been out for 12 nights and the tour was over.

Our adventurers informed us that they couldn’t possibly go back yet, and would be quite content to spend another week or so if that was all right with us. Why, we hadn’t even looked for the sunken Zero reported just a few kilometres up the coast, or dived the USS President Grant on the reef a few hours south of Samarai!.

But next year! Next year!

Samarai in China Strait, now a sleepy and rather scruffy reminder’ of a grand past. It was spic and span when this photograph was taken in 1966, but it is still a South Seas jewel, worth a visit for those wanting to get off the beaten track. You take a launch from the mainland at Alotau. 39 TRAVEL PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1960

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Telephone 764-824 Sela’s, where Tongan welcome matches Tongan cuisine New Zealand freelance journalist David Robie delivers himself of an unabashed ‘rave’ account of Sela’s, a pocket-size guest house in Nukualofa, Tonga. Says he: ‘lf Tonga is billed as the “friendly islands’’, then Sela’s has to be the “friendly haven’’.’

Fed up with all those lookalike international class hotels around the South Pacific?

Keen to take a break at a place with an ethnic and personal touch?

Then here’s something refreshingly different and simple to sample. And so cheap, too. Drop in on Tonga but ignore the big hotels (there is really only one in this category in the capital Nukualofa).

Instead, book into one of the many pocket-sized guest houses that abound and you couldn’t do better than at Sela’s. If Tonga is billed as the ‘friendly islands’ then Sela’s has to be the ‘friendly haven’.

A place for relaxing and dining on delicious Polynesian meals with a convivial atmosphere.

People come and go, many living on more remote Tongan islands, others diehard travellers who have been on the move in the Pacific for a year or so. All have a new dimension to add to the lively dinner conversations. ‘lnteresting people come here from many countries and I love to cook for them,’ says 41-year-old Sela, whose beaming maternal smiles and superb Tonga-style cuisine have won many hearts, even among Tongans.

Her partner is husband Atolo Tu’inukuafe, 40, chief accounting officer in the Tonga Development Bank, who says that without Sela the guest house just wouldn’t be the same.

Sela has a charming culinary staff of several relatives and friends and sometimes some of her six sons (she has one daughter - the youngest child) lend a hand.

A typical meal consists of a wide choice of dishes arranged on large self-help tables - delicacies such as form (grilled turtle), feke (octopus or squid) in coconut sauce, devilled clams, ’ota (raw fish marinated in lemon juice), lobster, avocado salad and heaps of breadfruit, yams, taro and kumara.

That’s for openers and there is always plenty if you have a hefty appetite.

Tropical fruit salads or deserts, such as Sela’s special pineapple pie, are followed up with spiced banana or pineapple cake and coffee.

All this for the unbelievable price of four pa’anga (near enough to dollars) if you are a casual guest, or three pa’anga as a resident.

One day while I stayed there, a meal was prepared in a traditional ’umu (earth oven) in the back garden corned beef wrapped in taro leaves, breadfruit, yams and cassava and a suckling pig was cooked on a spit.

On sunny Sunday afternoons, Atolo throws in a trip to Tongatapu island’s scenic spots. The guests pile into his light truck and off they go to the flying foxes’ nesting trees, blowholes, beaches, or the Ha’amonga Tonga’s answer to Stonehenge.

And if you think this article is rave - well, it is. I have travelled widely in more than 30 countries and Sela’s fine hospitality takes some beating.

Take some of the random comments from the visitors’ book to bear me out: ‘Warm and wonderful a great place to spend a day or a lifetime.’

Til always remember Sela and Atolo as my Tongan mother and father, I have never received so much love, concern and generosity.’

Thank you for making your home our home. We’ll never forget your generosity and hospitality.’

The atmosphere is so relaxed that it’s hard to imagine that the guest house actually had a tough start. Atolo, who has three brothers in Auckland, went to New Zealand on two working holidays in 1963 and 1967 to take jobs at restaurants and save the finance for Sela’s.

They began in 1970 with only two guest rooms and a paraffin stove. Atolo rushed home every night from his post office job to do the cooking. But Sela took over the cuisine with her tremendous flair, and Atolo rarely cooks now.

Today they have two family rooms (with bunks), eight double and two single plus dining and recreation rooms.

For full board, the price sets you back only $9 a day for a single room and $lB double.

Ideal for a budget holiday or long-term travelling.

But there are also many other guest houses in Tonga to stay in. Most, such as lookafter-yourself Leo’s, K’s and the Beach House, offer accommodation in the $3 or so a night bracket.

Out at Kolovai beach there is the Good Samaritan fhn only slightly more expensive and with French cuisine and an idyllic seaside setting to compensate.

Full details may be had from the Tonga Visitors Bureau, PO Box 37, Nukualofa.

The Sela of Sela’s with husband Atolo Tu’inukuafe. They run one of the pocket-sized guest houses in Nukualofa. There are others mentioned in this report. A story on The Good Samaritan appeared in PIM April, p22. 41 TRAVEL PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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BOOKS Sir Albert_and the f 'money that was eaten ...' Sir Albert Henry: His Life and Times. By Kathleen Hancock.

Published by Methuen, New Zealand. 5NZ9.95.

The choice of Kathleen Hancock as a biographer of Sir Albert Henry is a happy one.

Almost 20 years of factual reporting on the comic opera goings on of the Pacific Islands have given the author not only a facility for separating small amounts of fact from large amounts of fiction, but, having laboriously marshalled what is nearest to the truth, for untangling the skein, sorting out a logical timetable of events, and then presenting them to the reader in fresh and lively style.

So much has been written and said about Sir Albert and his sometimes innocent, or often naive, efforts to remain in the seat of Premier of the Cook Islands that seeing his name on the cover of a full-length book might tempt a would-be reader to say ‘Oh no, not again!’, and pass on. However, this book is more than the biography of one man. It is a carefully researched history of the Cook Islands and their past policies and politics, dating back to the arrival of the first white settlers sailors, missionaries and ne’er do wells.

They’re all in here, the individuals each described in terse prose that gives one an immediately clear picture of what, when I lived in the islands, we used to call ‘old island characters’. They were men who, with no qualifications whatever for the job sei about shaping the destiny of the Cook Islands and, in addition, were the progenitors of most of today’s leading families, including that of both Sir Albert and Lady Henry. Now it is only in the more remote islands of the group that a leader can boast that he or she is of pure Polynesian descent.

That dash of European inheritance still seems to mean white equals clever which it does not.

But of one thing you can be sure; among the many and varied talents handed down to today’s mixed-blood Cook Island legislators, now carrying a heavy responsibility of steering their tiny islands safely into contemporary society, a strong financial sense remains totally absent. What Kathleen Hancock refers to as the ‘barn dance’ Sir Albert’s frantic endeavours to launder a vast sum of money through the financial labyrinth, and have it come out spotless at the other end, while remaining spotless himself would have nonplussed a Rockefeller or a Rothschild. What chance did a Henry have?

The Cook Islanders are talkers. They come up with ideas of breath-taking ingenuity, with only vague notions of how to put them into effect and pay for them.

Their hospitality is deservedly legendary. Each new idea must be celebrated, and never mind the cost. They are big spenders and eager borrowers. But they have never quite got the hang of the idea of projecting a budget and sticking to it, much less of balancing it now and again.

The author likes the islanders’ expression ‘the money is eaten’. She tells us of Sir Albert’s talent for fundraising, but she also makes it clear that once raised, the funds just slipped away, here and there, no one quite knowing exactly where.

Not even the dazed auditors sent by the New Zealand government to try to balance the books could fathom the large figures on the credit side and the often total absence of any figures at all on the debit side. They came and went, marking their reports ‘Confidential’ and hoping they would get lost in the New Zealand system before anyone noticed. They still seem to be lost.

Right from his boyhood, we learn that when it came to schemes at first for his own personal improvement and later for the improvement of the economics and life-style of his people, Albert Henry was a whizz. One loses count of the jobs he took in New Zealand, at first to make a comfortable life for his family, and later move up in the trade union movement and to widen his political education. He worked like a navvy, often doing four things at a time. But despite what must have been an exhausting life, he always had time to care for his people.

He worked and cared for the confused newcomers who had abandoned hope of making a living in their homeland; he cared about the exploitation of the growers by the trading companies. The growers, as usual mistaking credit for gift, could not understand why the traders seized their plantations for non-payment of debt.

He cared about the shipping companies high-handedly withdrawing transport, setting the fruit prices plummeting.

Even though he lived in New Zealand, far away from what was happening in the Cooks, he worried about dirty drinking water, unpaved roads, lack of access to the outer islands, poor shipping and slave wages for those with brown skins. He cared about the appalling figure of 34% infant mortality rate, caused, and I quote, by ‘malnutrition of mother and child resulting in death of the infant from pneumonia’.

He saw himself as the saviour of his people and he worked towards that goal. He liked to refer to himself, in later A typical photograph of Sir Albert Henry, this one taken by Sheree Lipton in Honolulu in 1978. 44 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

years, as ‘Papa’. He not only earned that title, he deserved it.

Anyone with an interest in the progress of any of the groups of islands scattered across the Pacific is by now familiar with the events that brought about Sir Albert’s downfall. Of course, as a part of his life, that has to be repeated in this account. Though it has been told before, it will be told again and again, though I doubt with as much accuracy and care as Kathleen Hancock has brought to it in this book.

It was Sir Albert who put the Cook Islands on the international map, and not by his inability to juggle money.

From the early days, when he told the village children tales from European authors he collected as a school teacher, to his first Pacific Conference in Fiji in 1950 when he stood up and contradicted other Island leaders much more powerful than he, to his brilliant, and unprepared speech at the Law of the Sea conference in Caracas in 1974 — where he traded opinions and suggestions with internationally renowned diplomats, and did it with a skill and humour that made him the outstanding delegate to this important meeting — his was a voice to be reckoned with on the international scene.

And he’s still there today.

Given a good economic adviser, we may well hear more from Sir Albert, Premier of the Cook Islands.

Lydia Davis.

Rescuing some of Samoa's history History of Samoa. By K. R.

Lambie. Presented by Adele R.

Meredith. Published by Commercial Printers Ltd, Apia, 1979. SWS9.SO Finding no book on Samoan history available for use in schools, the late K. R. Lambie, New Zealand-born Director of Education in Western Samoa 1948-59, was ‘greatly pleased when he chanced upon’ a copy of Samoan traditional history which had been transcribed by the Marist Brother, the late Fred Henry. Since there was no written history in Polynesia before the coming of Europeans, this record derives entirely from oral tradition. In this tradition, the skill, oratory, and genealogical memory of the Samoan failauga were and are deservedly renowned.

It was essential that this should be so. Not only was it necessary for individuals to know their descent and status in the extremely stratified Samoan hierarchy, but such knowledge was needed to substantiate their claims to titles, status and land.

The credence attributed by anthropologists to oral tradition in the Pacific, and its interpretation, has been dealt with elsewhere, notably by P.M. Mercer in an essay in the Journal of Pacific History. But even the non-academic will understand how details of history and genealogical succession transmitted orally from generation to generation are vulnerable to error, change of emphasis, and, especially, to manipulation of their time scale.

Prehistoric myths of folk memory become fable, fables evolve into legends, and, eventually legends become accepted ‘history’. Moreover, after European missionary contact, orators were doubtless tempted to attenuate their narrative and excise the less attractive characteristics of their forefathers cannibalism for example in the light of the new lotu.

The time scale is especially vulnerable as the recurrence of similar names in different generations leads to a telescoping of time. To align traditional Samoan history with contemporary European historical dates, Lambie adopted the usual empirical estimate of 30 years to a generation. But the Polynesian Society (Bishop Museum, Hawaii) considers 25 years to be more accurate in this context.

Be that as it may, it cannot detract from the value of this book, and Adele Meredith and her collaborators deserve the highest praise for rescuing a work which not only preserves the history of pre-European Samoa, but is also a monument to Lambie and his valuable sojourn in Western Samoa. The book, a facsimile of Lambie’s original typescript, includes some old photographs and, for the purist, several parallel translations. Beautifully reproduced on very high quality paper and bound in hard covers, it is a credit to all concerned with its production.

With its publication, time and circumstance now make possible the revelation of a little known sequel. Although this book ends with the coming of the Europeans (about 1830) it is quite clear from Lambie’s original introduction that he intended to continue the history ‘up to the present time’ (1958), and it is not generally known that, in collaboration with the English Pacific historian S. Masterton (later Mrs S. Smith), in fact he did complete his task.

The 50s in Samoa were years of intense political activity. The euphoria of the ‘dollar manna’ of World War II and the broadening of world contacts by a younger generation, left a vacuum in which a resurgence of nationalism and the cry of Samoa mo Samoa found fertile ground. O. F. Nelson had died in 1944, but his immediate descendants (the present Prime Minister, Tupuola Efi, is his grandson), and many who, in the ‘troubles’ of 1926-36, had taken up arms in the Mau rebellion against the New Zealand Mandated Administration, were very much alive and active in petitioning the United Nations for assistance in the attainment of independence.

In this, his later book, Lambic was no longer dealing with orally transmitted accounts of history, but with heavily documented recent events, and although he wrote in the introduction ‘as the recent history concerns people still living it is ground upon which one must tread lightly’, he and his collaborator did not temper their account of the Mau rebellion, nor their history of the vacillating policies of successive New Zealand governments in Wellington, or of the repeated ineptitudes of the administration at Vailima.

It would appear that this later history, written as it was for senior school students, was too meaty a dish to be set before adolescents excited by the prospect of independence from New Zealand, and notwithstanding that it was printed and bound, its distribution was not approved. Lambie retired in July 1959, and at about this time the copies of the publication were destroyed.

Fortunately, certainly one, and possibly two, copies survived this biblioclastic exercise, and now, after more than 20 years, and with a cooling of passions, it may well be that some day it will be published as Lambie intended. Leonard Goodman.

This old German map of Apia is one of the illustrations in History of Samoa. It shows the reefs in the famous harbour, some of which has since been reclaimed. 45 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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Glifted writers among the bores The Indo-Fijian Experience.

Published by University of Queensland Press. Edited by Subramani. 5F6.75.

May 1979 marked the hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Indians to Fiji.

For the occasion a committee was set up to raise funds to build a commemorative multi-cultural centre on more than five hectares of government-donated land at Lautoka, Fiji’s second city on the main island of Viti Levu.

The ambitious project was estimated to cost an astronomical SF2 million. The committee came up with several ideas to raise this money. One was to publish and sell a book about the indenture period and events surrounding it.

The result? A book called The Indo-Fijian Experience recently released by the University of Queensland Press.

The book of more than 200 pages, is a collection of articles, personal anecdotes, short stories and poems by a host of largely local writers. It is divided into three sections, beginning with an interpretative article on Indians in Fiji by Dr Ahmed Ali, a lecturer at the University of the South Pacific who is well known locally for his political commentaries.

Ali explains the forces that led the Indians to throw aside the shackles of tradition and custom and renounce their motherland in favour of a faraway and unknown island called Fiji. Among other things the article tells of the dreaded sea voyages, their arrival, their contact with the ethnic Fijians, the indenture itself and the attitude of the British Government towards them.

Ali offers, often with probing deftness, insights into the Indians’ quest for political equality, their feelings of insecurity and their deeprooted desire to own land. He tells of the conflicting emotions of a race that initially came to make a fortune and then return home, but who, as they began to put down roots in Fiji, gradually started to sever the umbilical cord that bound them to India.

I found some of Ali’s observations brilliant, his insights piercing, occasionally harsh and at times uncomfortable.

But despite its facinating content, Ali’s chief flaw is in making his article a bit too academic and putting it beyond the reach of the average reader.

One of the most terrible maritime disasters in Fiji was the wreck of the indenture ship Syria in 1884. The wreck on Nasilai reef near Suva cost 70 lives. A relatively unknown local writer Brij V. Lai tells all about it in a simple narrative titled The Wreck of Syria.

Donald Brenneis’ article on the conflict in a rural Indian settlement in Fiji called Bhatgaon, and another article jointly written by Brenneis and Ram Padarath on song challenges in the same village, are presented as research papers in the book. I found both of them dull and more suitable for a research textbook.

The second part begins with what I consider is the most brilliant piece in the whole book. It is a chapter from a book called Turn North-East of the Tombstone written by the late Walter Gill who worked for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company during the indenture period.

It is a tragic-comic account of how a 22-year-old white overseer struggles to cope with the demanding work of being in charge of a group of indentured labourers, assigning them work, running into strife while giving them their meagre pay, acting as their nursemaid, and attending to their wide range of peculiar and at times outrageous problems. Gill is a superb story-teller and the result is both captivating and hilarious.

His piece alone makes it worthing buying the book you will enjoy it.

Through The Time Tunnel by Vijendra Kumar of the Fiji Times is a touching account of how he successfully sets out to fulfil a childhood dream by visiting his grandmother’s birthplace in a small village in India which she had left several decades ago. Simply written, it has parallels with Roots the best-seller by Alex Hailey, and is likely to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers.

The second section also contains two pieces by the gifted local writer and USP lecturer Raymond Pillai, both of which were published by PIM some time ago. Pillai’s style is unpretentious and unusually appealing.

There are also four short stories by the book’s editor Subramani including Marigolds which was the winner of the first short story competition run by the South Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies last year.

I felt somehow let down after reading Marigolds and his other stories. Perhaps I unfairly expected a lot simply because of all the publicity about Marigolds. But I feel that in his stories, particularly Marigolds and No Man’s Land , Subramani fails to achieve the common ground a writer needs to share with his audience to get his work not only read but understood.

The Guru , a short story by Satendra Nandan, another local writer and lecturer at the USP, is a humorous and fairly well written piece once you do away with excesses like the bit about ‘sweat trickling down the crotch’. Nandan’s flaw in writing is his use of vulgarity.

Some writers have the knack of using vulgarity and giving it the appearance of art but somehow when Nandan uses it it seems like sheer bad taste.

Sulochna Nand’s poem A Bastard Child is a sharply observant account of what it is like to be born the child of an Indian father and a Fijian mother. The poem has an honesty and reality about it that is revealing and sad.

I found the style of writing in Sumant Kevat’s and Satendra Nandan’s poems chaotic.

Both fail to establish what their poems are all about. The pace is often disjointed and abrupt.

Vijay C. Mishra’s piece titled The Indo-Fijian Fiction is too long, boring and simply not suitable for a book such as this.

He simply fails to capture one’s interest. Let’s be frank. Does the average reader give a damn about such supposedly ‘scholarly’ analysis? Again the piece was more suited to a textbook.

After going through the whole book I feel it contains a few good pieces that make it worth buying.

However, I have a feeling that because of its unattractive cover and the poor choice of much of the material the book is ultimately destined to gather dust on the shelves of reference libraries.

Sarita Singh. 47 BOOKS PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

IRHUEUinC TO OUST noun soon?

Uie can supply business cnntacts Businessmen travelling to Australia can call on the services of the Australian Trade Commissioner.

He can provide introductions to the Regional Offices of the Department of Trade and Resources located in all Australian capitals.

These offices have been established to directly introduce overseas businessmen to Australian manufacturers and trading companies.

He maintains a comprehensive register system of goods and services available from Australia. If it is available from Australia he can tell you who supplies it.

Easy communications and rapid shipping services make Australia a logical trading partner, and the Australian Trade Commissioner is here to assist development of two way trade. l>*vl Ask the expert who knows Australia The Australian Trade Commissioner can give you details of suppliers and also advise you on ways to research or develop markets in Australia. You can contact an Australian Trade Commissioner at these addresses: FIJI P.O. Box 1252, Suva.

Phone;3l 2844

Papua New Guinea

P.O. Box 9129, Hohola.

Phone: 25 9333

New Caledonia

P.O. Box 22, Noumea.

Phone: 27 2414 Ask the Australian Trade Commissioner 48 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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

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

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

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

From The Fiji Times The Western Regional Library lost more than $5500 worth of library books last year, according to acting assistant librarian Mrs Pushpa Naresh. Mrs Naresh said thousands of books had not been returned over the past three years and after issuing three notices to the people concerned without getting a reply, the library assumed the books were lost. She said the Government allocated $20,000 each year for the library to buy books. Of that amount, the library lost one quarter in unreturned books.

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

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

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

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

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

To cure their offspring of their respective imbalances, it was decided to give the pessimist a pony for Christmas, and the optimist a stable full of horse manure. The pessimist, of course, fretted when he saw his new pony: ‘lt will probably get sick and 49 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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HOLT GS 13 die,’ he said. The optimist, on the other hand, gleefully jumped into the pile of horse manure, began throwing it aside, and said, ‘I know there’s a pony in here somewhere’. Well, folks, sorry for all you pessimists out there, but we feel the tidal storm that struck Majuro has a pony in it and all we have to do is find it. We could look for cleaner beaches if all we do is not dirty them up again. We could look for improved housing if we can restrain ourselves from re-establishing the horrible shacks that were washed away. . . Ah, the list is interminable. The opportunity is ours .. .

From a letter to Solomon Islands News Drum, Honiara Since the Solomon Islands has gained independence, it has been great seeing a great number of our students going overseas, doing various diploma and degree courses. Among these students are some of our most beautiful and privileged girls. This is not at all bad, but the sad thing about these girls is that they can’t complete their specified courses successfully. I’m not saying that they are not intelligent or bright enough. The fact is that about 99% of them don’t think of the taxpayers when they go overseas.

Arriving at their place of study, they start to live a life which they had never lived since they had been at school. Questions from the opposite sex are always positive, not realising the long term consequences which they eventually realize when it is too late. The end product is a group of sorrowful parents, instead of happy ones, waiting for their daughter to return home with an unwanted product both for the parents, but especially the taxpayers. Therefore fellow students, especially the female ones, think twice about the male questions when you are overseas.

Don’t say ‘yes’ when you don’t know whether there is a demand for your product...

Reader’s letter signed ‘Steam and Dry’ in Nauru Post, Nauru Male chauvinism has reared its ugly head - the women of Nauru have been discriminated against by the decision to stop the Chinese laundry service - about the only real service Nauruan women enjoy. Many are too shy to have a ‘foreigner’ come into the home to do their ironing/cleaning. The Chinese who collect the laundry, mend it and bring it back starched provide an acceptable alternative. Expatriates can arrange for housegirls from Location, good luck to them. But why shouldn’t Nauruan women be able to enjoy their laundry service? If it’s a matter of using electricity then either meter the Location and charge for that used above a certain rate, or else stop the air conditioners and let the laundry service continue . . .

From the Norfolk Island News Norfolk Island seems to many visitors to be a simple, pleasant and uncomplicated place. But if you care to look more deeply, and to gain a more informed understanding of the Island, you will find it is as intricate as a piece of symphonic music ... As you talk with people on Norfolk you’ll doubtless hear disagreement on some of the opinions given; Islands attract individualists, with their own strong ideas about many things. But the subjects are keys to knowing Norfolk ...

From Atoll Pioneer, Tarawa, Kiribati Monica was understandably nervous in her first competition, but she has an immaculate swing which will make her a redoubtable opponent once her putting matches the same standard. She was helped throughout her round by some useful coaching from leuan whose serial golf shots and expansive nether regions were recently given Pacific-wide acclaim . . . 50 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

The '50s: A loss of innocence as politics hit the road In her survey of PlM’s 50 years, JUDY TUDOR this month analyses the decade of the 1950 s which, she says, came into being like a ‘puling infant’ but went out like a ‘snarling tiger’. The difference? ‘By then politics were on the march in the once gay and feckless islands, portents of things to come.’ Her area-by-area study of the decade only underlines this basic point. But there are many lighter sides to this highly readable account of PIM, and the islands it serves, in the 19505.

If the decade of the 1950 s had come in like a puling infant, whimpering still at the postwar problems that took so long to solve in some of the territories and islands of the South Pacific, it went out like a fully adult and snarling tiger. By then politics were on the march in the once gay and feckless islands, portents of things to come. We’ll survey the Pacific piece by piece: Papua-New Guinea.

In P-NG, the Liberal Government’s Percy Spender lasted barely a year as External Territories Minister before being sent to Washington as Australian Ambassador which was, so the story went, Prime Minister Menzies’ way of getting rid of a potential rival.

His place was taken by Paul Hasluck and he, in time, became as controversial a figure as Labor’s Eddie Ward. The idea that a Liberal government in Canberra would reverse the direction already taken by Labor died hard and the death was made even more protracted by the fact that the Liberals had initially announced that development of the Territory by Europeans (later called expatriates) was part of their policy and this many took to mean that European development would be paramount.

Mr Hasluck’s most vociferous critics (apart from PIM) were those anxious to settle on the land and grow something but were then forced to wait for years, or even in vain, before the cumbersome land-leasing machinery delineated cocoa blocks, coffee blocks, tea estates, pastoral leases and so forth, and put them up for tender. In the light of events, 15 or 20 years on, when the Territory of Papua-New Guinea became the independent country of Papua New Guinea, without the hyphen, it might be thought that land settlement for nonindigenes was a wasted effort.

However, without white pioneering effort and knowhow, the country would not have been the going concern that it was at the time of change-over.

Although a Legislative Council had been provided for in the Papua-New Guinea Act of 1949, the first council was not set up until 1951. It consisted of the Administrator as President, 16 official members, six European nominated members representing minority groups, three nominated native members and three elected European members.

Although its composition was criticised, Canberra remained unmoved, the election of the European members Don Barrett (NG Islands), C. M. Jacobson (NG Mainland) and E.A.

James (Papua) duly took place and council met for the first time at the end of 1951.

The venue was the old Red Cross Hall at Ela Beach but Canberra made up for the paucity of facilities with the attendance of VIPs from South.

The ‘speech from the throne’ was read by Sir John Northcott, acting Governor-General of Australia, and Paul Hasluck and entourage were also there.

The show was impressive enough to have some formerly cynical Territorians declaring that it just might provide a ‘new channel for reaching Moresby or Canberra’.

They soon changed their minds. The council was later declared to be just a glorified debating society, put there so that official members, against their own best interests, could force through ideas dreamed up in the back rooms of the Canberra bureaucracy.

Two months earlier, Brigadier Donald M. Cleland had been appointed Assistant Administrator. He was already known in the Territory, having been chairman of the wartime Production Control Board although in the interim he had been director of the Federal Secretariat of the Australian Liberal Party.

Nine months later the Wardappointed Administrator, Colonel J. K. Murray, retired, two years before his term of office was to expire. ‘Forced out of office’ was a more accurate way of putting it. At the time PIM was as anti-Murray as it was anti-Ward and attributed his retirement to his being a stumbling block to the Liberal government’s desire to get on with developing land in the Territory. In view of the Hasluck regime’s later dilatoriness over land development, land obviously wasn’t the only bone of contention.

Although Murray might have agreed with Ward over native policy, there all resemblance between the two men ceased. Ward was a ranting Trades Hall socialist of the old school, and probably was motivated more by a desire to get after private enterprise in P-NG the ‘exploiters’ than he was to better the lot of the indigenes. Murray was an academic and a gentleman and, in the Territory, a man before his time.

After a decent period as Acting Administrator, Brigadier Cleland became Administrator and until the council took its next step towards democracy in 1964, sat impassively as its President while his Assistant Administrator, Dr John Gunther, with Machiavellian glee, fired the Canberra bullets that stung the private members and the private individuals they represented.

In early 1959 it became obvious that Canberra was contemplating the introduction of income tax in Papua-New Guinea. A delegation was sent to Canberra to ask the minister for an examination of all aspects of tax in the Territory before introducing something which, it was plain, would be disastrous to development.

This was ignored and at the March session the income-tax bill was introduced without warning, creating such violent reaction that Administrator 51 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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District Managers at: LAE; I.R. Martin. MOUNT HAGEN D.F. Carroll ARAWA: J Longbut. MADANG: R.W V. Ceilings. RABAUL W.F. Tinker) Q E Cleland adjourned the meeting and flew to Canberra himself.

To no avail.

The bill reappeared at the resumed meeting; P-NG was to have Australian-type tax from July 1. complete with double taxation on company profits, pay-as-you-earn tax, deducted at source by employers, for wage and salary earners, and provisional tax for the rest. The official members obediently voted it through and the three elected members walked out of the building and resigned.

An application for an injunction restraining the Legislative Council from passing the bill soon followed on the grounds that the resignation of the elected members made it unconstitutional. This unexpectedly developed into an attack on what was the P-NG ‘constitution’, the Papua-New Guinea Act itself, and the challenge went to the Australian High Court which was expected to hear it in August 1959. The case, in fact, did not come up for over a year and, in the interim, tax duly became payable from July 1, a byelection was held for the three vacant seats, and these were won by anti-tax candidates, who took their seats and then immediately resigned.

The Administration, not to be caught again, simply did without elected members until after the next council was installed in 1960. Income tax of course had continued to go merrily on.

Fiji Fiji’s problems were quite different. Largely they hinged on the fact that the land was secured to the native Fijians who were slow to develop it, while a larger, thrusting, more enterprising migrant population of Indian stock, with a phenomenal birth-rate, hungered for and demanded access to what they believed was their fair share of it.

Fiji’s most important industry, the growing and processing of sugar cane, was moreover almost entirely in the hands of Indians who carried into the 1950 s the industrial disputation that had bedevilled the industry during the war.

Trouble between the Colonial Sugar Refining Co and growers and/or mill workers was a continuing saga during the decade, not made easier by the CSR announcement in January 1957 that after the 1959-crushing season it would close its Nausori mill on the banks of the Rewa River which it had built shortly after it established itself in Fiji in 1880.

The cane grown in wet Nausori was poor in sugar content in comparison with the sugar processed in the company’s other four mills in the dry zones of Fiji. The Nausori land, argued the company, could be put to better use, including large-scale rice growing. As events turned out rice also had its problems.

But in the interim, cane growers in the Rewa area were thrown into some panic and for a while Indian entrepreneurs had hopes that they could take over the mill and carry on where CSR left off.

Because of these problems of population and land, the colony ended the decade with a flurry of imported experts trying to get to the bottom of it all and chart a course for the future that would be to the benefit of all communities.

By mid-1959, G. G.

Honeyman, QC, of the United Kingdom, was almost ready to release his report on the sugar industry, following an inquiry that had begun the previous year. Professor O. H. K. Spate, of the Australian National University, had already presented his monumental report entitled The Fijian People Economic Problems and Prospects although it was only part of the basic material to background the Burns Inquiry which had been set up at the end of 1958 by the UK government.

Under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Bums a panel of experts had the job of considering the future economic and social needs of Fiji, and to submit a programme for development. Sir Alan and his associates arrived in Fiji in mid-1959 and released an exhaustive report in March 50 YEARS OF RIM

1960. The adoption of many of its findings, along with the reforms suggested by the Honeyman inquiry, smoothed the Fijian path in the following K decade and led to a reasonably ; painless progress towards ; independence.

Netherlands New Guinea The Dutch had bowed out of Indonesia in November 1949 leaving the question of Netherlands New Guinea unsettled, but with Soekarno posturing that he would go to war to get it if it were not handed over by December 1950. That date came and went but there was no settlement and no war, except of words, for the next 10 years.

Nonetheless, it was becoming increasingly evident by 1959 that the Dutch in the Netherlands, if not in Netherlands New Guinea, wanted to be rid of their still largely undeveloped territory if they could do so with some honour and could, at the same time, prevent Indonesia from getting it.

In October 1958 NNG and P-NG representatives met in Canberra. The Dutch no doubt, hoped for better things.

But Australia, by this time already foreseeing the time when it would be rid of its own territory, was in no mood to do anything much to help the Dutch in their predicament.

The NNG delegates suggested a ‘consultative union’ with P-NG but no one seemed to know what that meant and in the inevitable showdown with Indonesia, practical help from the Australian side was virtually nil. The Dutch began a crash course of bringing their people to a stage where they might be able to look after themselves, but it was a case of too little too late, as the early years of the 1960 s were to show.

Western Samoa Further east, at the end of 1954, the 170 delegates to the Western Samoan constitutional convention indulged n six weeks of oratory (90 made speeches) as they tried to lammer out a blueprint for ndependence. All except High Chief Mata’afa agreed with the end result when it was decided hat High Chiefs Tamasese and Malietoa would be Joint Heads of State. In fury at what he felt was a slight to his royal title, Mata’afa threatened to withdraw from public life and not participate in the future government. The convention broke up on this note. But Mata’afa later reconsidered his position.

The resolutions of the convention were forwarded to New Zealand and independence seemed just around the corner. The United Nations Trusteeship Council had other ideas no matter whether all parties agreed or not. Western Samoa must jump through the necessary hoops. It was, as well, sold on the idea of universal suffrage and had never heard of the Samoan matai system. It was not until mid-1958 that the three High Chiefs went to the Trusteeship Council in New York to explain why the Samoans preferred matai (i.e. heads of families) suffrage rather than the one-man/ woman-vote variety.

In early 1959, Dr J. W.

Davidson of the Australian National University was in Apia to assist the Working Committee to draft a constitution. Later that year a visiting Trusteeship mission pressed the Samoans into agreeing on a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ plebiscite for independence, conducted according to their rules. The plebiscite was set for May 1961 then, unless the whole population performed a political volte face and voted no, which was unlikely, independence could be celebrated on January 1, 1962.

Western Pacific High Commission The first High Commissioner of the Western Pacific to have separate responsibility was R. C. S.

Stanley (later Sir Robert). Up to 1952 the High Commissioner was also the Governor of Fiji, and WPHC headquarters was in Suva. It moved to Honiara in 1952, and its province included the oversight of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony and the British part of the New Hebrides, as well as the Solomons.

Within a few months of the start of the new set-up, it was facing a challenge from irate residents on its income-taxing laws. Eminent Australian constitutional lawyers were of the opinion that as the British Solomon Islands Protectorate was a protectorate and not a fullblown colony (apparently an oversight of 1893) the five articles of the Order-in- Council setting up the protectorate did not give it income-taxing powers.

The case was heard before the local Judicial Commissioner and the plaintiffs lost. An appeal was lodged but then withdrawn and at a later stage revived. Nonetheless, as in P-NG, tax was there to stay.

France in the Pacific Meantime politics in the French territories seemed to be as schizophrenic as those in the mother country. In 1952 France introduced what amounted to common rolls for election of Deputies from New Caledonia and French Polynesia. As a result, French Polynesia sent a Leftwing, nationalistic Tahitian, Pouvanaa a Oopa, to sit in the Chamber of Deputies in Paris; and New Caledonia elected Maurice Lenormand, also to the Left of what New Caledonia had previously had.

Once in Paris, Lenormand was able to enlist the support of like-minded citizens and demanded a common roll for the New Caledonia Territorial Assembly, hitherto dominated by official members and conservative elements. However, France was going through a series of crises of its own and when the term of the NC Assembly expired it was left in limbo.

In February 1953, when New Caledonia did go to the polls again, it did vote on a common roll and half those on it were native New Caledonians.

Lenormand’s party won 15 of the 25 seats.

In May 1953, French Polynesia held its first Legislative Assembly election and though Alfred Poroi’s conservatives won all the seats in Tahiti, Pouvanaa’s radicals won all those in the other islands. In the assembly, something like civil war raged at times, and at one stage Poroi and a man named Noel Ilari arranged to fight a duel over one hotly disputed matter. The Governor put a stop to it and the political situation remained finely balanced for some years.

Assembly elections were held again in early 1958 and this time the majority of seats What PIM described in its issue of October 1951 as ‘one of the most important Fijian marriages in years’ was the wedding on September 22 that year of Ratu Kamisese Mara and Adi Litia Lalabalavu Tuisawau. Seen here in the wedding party is Ratu George Cakobau (right) the best man. Today of course. Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara is Fiji s Prime Minister and Ratu Sir George is Fiji’s Governor- General. 50 YEARS OF RIM

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in both Tahiti and outer islands I went to Pouvanaa, although | public euphoria lasted only until April when an attempt i was made to introduce incometax.

As a protest, shops and offices closed in Papeete and hundreds gathered at the assembly building. Gendarmes failed to control the mob which began to throw stones and other missiles, while members cowered inside. The fire brigade then dispersed the protesters with their hoses. The assembly soon met and hurriedly repealed the tax.

Meantime in New Caledonia trouble was brewing between Left and Right wing elements, and when it came to the crunch the Governor suspended the assembly and assumed responsibility while he consulted Paris.

Paris was in no mood for New Caledonia’s petty troubles the assembly would remain suspended until at least the end of the year while France and all its appendages voted oui or non to de Gaulle’s new constitution.

New Caledonia voted overwhelmingly oui , but although oui also won in French Polynesia, 9000 voters were for non and, furthermore, were resentful of what they alleged were the difficulties put in their way during the campaign.

On October 10, 1958, the dissenters threw bottles of burning petrol into the house of a political opponent, the Governor ordered the arrest of Pouvanaa, whose house, when searched, was allegedly found to have an arsenal of so-called Molotov cocktails. Pouvanaa was held in gaol for a year without trial, then sentenced to eight years gaol and banishment to France for 15.

It might be said that he went out with France’s Fourth Republic, except that he was feted when he was released from gaol many years later, and was eventually elected to the French Senate.

PROSPEROUS ’sos In spite of troubles over land and taxes, most islands territories ended the decade more prosperous than they had begun it. Even allowing for inflation, export figures showed this clearly. The value of P-NG exports rose from£s million in 1950 to £l9 million in 1959-60.

New industries, including cocoa, coffee, timber, cattle, passionfruit, joined the old standbys of copra and rubber to get a result that was contributed to in an increasing degree by the indigenous population. In Papua, however, two promising industries failed. One was kenaf fibre, an alternative to jute, killed by government indifference. The other was cutch, a tanning agent extracted from mangrove bark. Its demise was the result of isolation in Papua’s Gulf country, plus the inexperience of those sent to do the job.

The value of Fiji’s exports doubled (from £7 million in 1950 to £l5 million at the end of the decade), and so did those of Western Samoa, providing the prosperity on which independence came with much greater ease.

Even Tonga, Cook Islands and the Solomons did better, and New Caledonia, through its nickel, outdid all others, boosting the value of exports from 519 million Pacific francs in 1950 to 4603 million by 1960.

In the British territories participating in the UK Ministry of Food’s nine-year agreement to purchase all copra, great discontent manifested itself among planters in the early ’sos, as free world price was double what they received. By the middle of the period, however, all was silence on the planting front as world price dropped steadily. As December 31, 1957, approached, marking the end of the agreement, something like apprehension gripped the erstwhile protesters.

They need not have worried.

A devastating and fortuitous drought in the Philippines affected copra prices and by the end of 1958 they were around £Stg 100, cif, Europe.

Of the old industries that had kept P-NG and Fiji afloat in the 19305, only goldmining was in decline. Bulolo Gold Dredging, which had won fortunes in New Guinea for its shareholders, began the decade working eight dredges and finished with three. New Guinea Goldfields took 13 years to pay its first postwar dividend of 3d a share. In Fiji, Loloma was almost worked out, although prospects for Emperor were reasonable.

At the root of the trouble was the US price of SUS3S per ounce of gold (£l5/12/2, in Australian currency). It had been fixed in 1946 and was to continue without increase until the 19705. Between 1946 and 1959 the cost of production had risen about 500% and goldmining remained a proposition only with government assistance and diversification into other industries.

Tourism, which was to loom large in the 60s and 70s in most territories, had scarcely begun in the 50s and where it had been recognised as a potential revenue earner Fiji. Tahiti and American Samoa it was hamstrung through lack of hotels.

In Suva the Grand Pacific continued as the only tourist hotel. The hurricane of 1952 had damaged others and demolished the old Club at the corner of Victoria Pde and Gordon St. In 1953, Morris Hedstrom Ltd, which owned the site, announced that a modern multi-storey hotel would be built and work soon commenced. It reached ground floor level, and the old Club Hotel licence providing a reason for reopening the bar, there all effort ceased for four years.

Building recommenced in 1957 when Northern Hotels undertook to run the hotel on completion. But the new Club stopped far short of original plans and provided Suva with only 18 more rooms for clamouring tourists.

By the end of 1958 the GPH was also heading for reorganisation. Back before World War I the Union Steam Ship Co of New Zealand had obtained the lease of a Suva harbourside swamp, reclaimed the land, and built on it its famous GPH.

The company paid no rent to government and, under the original agreement, government was required to take over the hotel at an agreed valuation should the USS Co require it.

In December 1958 the company decided to call in its option by announcing that it would not seek a renewal of the original lease. The hotel was subsequently dropped in the government’s lap, tenders were called for it as a going concern, and in 1959 it went to Cathay Hotels of Singapore who undertook to build a new bed- How PIM was born A reminiscence by R. W. Robson, from RIM, September 1951: As a young reporter before World War I, I was the guest of the New Zealand government in Tutanekai which was taking the then Governor of New Zealand, Lord Liverpool, on a pleasant, cool-weather trip around the Cook Islands. The skipper, Captain Post, was a hard-bitten old lad; and the NZ Cabinet Minister accompanying His Excellency was a well-educated, temperamental Maori, Dr Maui Pomare, later knighted.

Apart from vice-royalty we were a happy party. But his Ex, a tubby, pompous little man, did not mix readily with common roughnecks: and his lady, a pleasant, freckled woman, had no conversation beyond her favourite topic of white leghorn hens.

The Captain and Minister regarded them as a cross that was hard to bear. But vice-royalty retired early and it was our practice to gather each evening at 9.15 in the skipper’s cabin.

There the ritual never varied. The Aide pulled the cork, the Chief Engineer poured the shining liquor, the Minister led us in a round of more or less improper reminiscences, and the Old Man lifted his glass in a final toast: ‘Well, gentlemen, I give you Their Excellencies - Lord and Lady Liverpill.”

It was a chat with Bob McKegg there in Rarotonga in May 1914 which first gave me the idea of the Pacific Islands Monthly - given effect to 16 years later. 50 YEARS OF PIM

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room block, renovate the exist- I ing building and build a swimming pool.

In the meantime, Korolevu remained the only resort hotel I on the Coral Coast; and Mr Barry Philp was running the old Mocambo, the cane and thatch ex-US officers’ club on Nadi Airport, as the only hotel in that area although, as the new jet airport began to encroach upon it, his thoughts turned to the idea of a new Mocambo on a nearby hill.

Papeete had a couple of modest hotels that provided stopgap accommodation until the real tourist boom began, but it suffered from lack of an airport. Not until 1959 did serious work begin on Faaa airport, built partly along an offshore reef.

American Samoa was also in process of upgrading Tafuna airport and made do with a boarding house masquerading as the Rainmaker Hotel. For all these territories it was a Catch 22 situation: What came first, the tourists or the beds to put them in?

Elsewhere tourism was ignored or, as in parts of Polynesia, deliberately discouraged for fear that it might interfere with local customs.

By the end of the decade few islands were without air connections to the outside world, either by flying boat or 2 increasingly, by land planes.

Jet airports were being built in Tahiti and American Samoa; Biak in NNG already had one and at Nadi, Fiji, the jet runway, new terminal building and control tower were ready when Qantas began the first San-Francisco-Sydney Boeing 707 service in early July 1959.

For those who liked to travel by ship, the late ’sos had it all.

The two Matson vessels Monterey and Mariposa provided monthly trans-Pacific services.

P&O 30 000-tonners sailed frequently from Sydney via Islands ports to US West Coast ports, or through Panama to Europe. Shaw Savill ships Southern Cross and (later) Northern Star also played their part as did Messageries Maritimes along with less frequent Italian and Dutch services. The Norwegian Pacific Islands Transport Line ships carried passengers and freight between North American ports and the Islands. All, alas, are now departed.

Burns Philp and New Guinea Australia Line ships kept communications open between Australia and the SW Pacific, as did the Union Co vessels between New Zealand, Fiji and Polynesia. China Navigation Line and Australia- West Pacific Line provided for passengers and freight between the Islands and the Far East.

There were direct cargo services from London and Europe, while Bank Line vessels picked up copra and coconut oil.

Death And Disaster

The Pacific had its fair share of disasters during the decade. On January 21. 1951, after three days of rumbling, the whole northern side of Mt Lamington in the Northern District of Papua blew out horizontally in violent eruption, the lateral blast killing everything and everyone in its eight-mile path.

About 4000 Papuans and 30 Europeans perished including the local District Commissioner and the Director of Native Labour. The headquarters station of Higatura was literally wiped off the map.

Rescue teams flew in from Moresby and government took over the relief and evacuation of the danger area.

Mt Lamington is a peak in the Hydrographers Range. It had apparently been dormant for centuries; not even local folklore had recorded past eruptions.

In late January 1952 the most destructive hurricane ever to hit Fiji cut a swathe 30 miles wide from Viti Levu Bay to Suva. Winds of up to 150 mph were recorded.

The city had almost no warning due to the swiftness of the storm itself and some foul-up in reports. For two hours it lashed the city after leaving a trail of ruin across the big island of Viti Levu, through the banana plantations on the rivers and the dairying country of Tailevu. Suva buildings that had weathered decades of other storms were unroofed and some were demolished.

From that date, the face of the city slowly changed to take on a more modern look.

Just over a year later, on September 14, 1953, Suva and adjacent areas were shaken by the strongest earthquake ever recorded there and this was followed by a tidal wave that swept in over the reef that encloses Suva harbour, rose above the sea wall and flooded reclaimed land where many of the city’s important buildings stand.

The worst affected area was the NE corner of Kadavu, to the south, where a wave 15 ft high swept into a narrow bay, demolishing 40 houses and drowning two people. Total death toll was eight, five of them through drowning.

The origin of the ’quake was not volcanic but subsidence or earth adjustment about 12 miles SW of Suva something that can be expected once in a few hundred years.

Nor was the South Pacific without its unpleasant scandals and murders that aroused the morbid interest of others far from the Pacific scene. On August 15, 1953 the Resident Commissioner of Niue, Mr C.

H. W. Larsen, was brutally murdered and his wife seriously injured when three men using machetes attacked them while they slept. The two Larsen children were unharmed and gave the alarm.

Mr Larsen was able to identify one of the men before he died and after five days of intensive activity, three men were charged.

Defence counsel was sent from NZ but the men admitted their crime and remained unrepentant. They alleged that they had been badly treated by the RC and considered that they had done Niue a good turn. They were sentenced to hang, but when an appeal was made to the NZ Full Court they were shuffled off to New Zealand. The appeal failed and they were on their way back to Niue when an appeal was made to the Privy Council. The prisoners were therefore diverted to Apia Gaol. The PC also turned the appeal down.

Nonetheless the sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment in Auckland.

The Larsen murder by these much-travelled prisoners started a controversy as to whether the administration of Niue had been too harsh.

People also asked what part the London Missionary Society, which regarded Niue as a closed preserve, had played in local affairs, religious and otherwise.

In the Solomons the indiscreet silence of the BSI government and the Melanesian Mission over the murder of a 12-year-old Malaita boy by an Englishman named Reginald Poole exploded in January 1956 and newspapers in Australia and elsewhere were in full cry. ‘Hysteria in Sydney and Honiara has been the keynote’, said PIM when some papers alleged that the murder, which had occurred on November 17, 1955 had been hushed-up.

Poole was tried by the Judicial Commissioner and three assessors. Rabaul lawyer Dudley Jones defended and a NSW government psychiatrist flew up to examine Poole. He had been a lay teacher with the Mission, first at Pawa, then at Maravovo. Before he left Pawa, two Solomon Islanders had told the headmaster that Poole was homosexual, but nothing was done about it. At Maravovo, on November 17, Poole had lunch with the Rev.

D. Hoey and ‘appeared quite normal’. After the meal he went to his house, called out for the boy and almost within minutes rushed back to Hoey to say he had killed him. The youngster was found with a pickaxe sticking out of his side and battered about the head.

Poole was found guilty and sentenced to death. Some residents in BSI, including Mission personnel, believed that Poole should hang forthwith in case Solomon Islanders got the idea that there was one law for them, another for whites. Poole did not hang he was flown to the UK and committed to Broadmoor Asylum for the criminally insane. • See page 59 for further items from PlM’s 50 Years. 50 YEARS OF PIM

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Australia: Hagemeyer (Australasia) 8.V., 25-27 Paul Street, North Ryde, NS W. 2113, Australia Tel. 887-1444 Fiji Islands: D. Gokal & Co., Ltd., G.P.O. Box 501, Corner of Pier Street & Renwick Road, Suva, Fiji Tel. 25259 Cook Islands: J & P. Ingram & Co., Ltd., PC. Box 55, Rarotonga, Cook Islands Tel. 378457 New Hebrides: Wu ke Luong, P C Box 113, Rue Higginson, Port-Vila, New (Hebrides Tel. 2115 New Caledonia: Caldis, 2, Route du Velodrome, B.P. Ml, Noumea, Cedex, New Caledonia Tel. 262350 Tahiti: Magasin Sincere. B.P. 215, Papeete, Tahiti Tel. 20060 Papua New Guinea: Hagemeyer (P.N.G.) Pty, Ltd., P.O. Box9oLae, Papua New Guinea Tel. 42-3200 New Zealand: Atlas Majestic Industries Ltd., 11, Albion Road, Otahuhu, (Auckland 6, New Zealand Tel. 27-67-099

More briefly TONGA’S 50 years of friendship with Britain was celebrated in Nukualofa February 15-17, 1951. The Governor of Fiji was there for Britain.

CAPTAIN P. G. TAYLOR and his crew of three, in a Catalina flying-boat (Frigate Bird II) provided by the Australian Government, reached Chile from Australia on March 27, 1951. The survey flight was via Noumea, Suva, West Samoa, Aitutaki, Papeete, Mangareva, Easter Island, and ending in Valparaiso in 13 days.

IN MID-1951, encouraged by the devastation caused by the eruption of Mt Lamington, the Papua-New Guinea Administration announced that Rabaul would not be rebuilt as the HQ station for New Britain. A new site had been chosen about 20 miles away at Rapopo, near Kokopo. The new centre would be built ‘with all speed’. Of course it was not. Parts of Rabaul remained tropical slums until the move was officially called off seven years after the war.

NINETY Japanese were tried as war criminals at Manus between June 1950 and April 1951. Of these 32 were acquitted, 12 were hanged, and the rest imprisoned.

TOM NEALE and his tom cat were marooned by request on Suwarrow Island, Cook Islands, in September 1952. He later wrote a well-received book on his life of isolation on the atoll.

THE DEATH occurred in Suva on June 2, 1951, of Sir Maynard Hedstrom, co-founder of Morris Hedstrom Ltd, one of the big trading firms of Fiji and elsewhere. His founding partner, P. A.

Morris, had died in Sydney the previous year.

BY JUNE 1951 NZ watersiders had been on strike for three months and were to continue for another two. Union Co’s Matua had missed three trips to the Islands, which were now running out of supplies. Matua was in process of recruiting a volunteer crew.

IN JUNE, said PIM editorially in July 1951, ‘the P-NG Administration paid no less than £8025 to the Kila Kila and Korobosea natives for 321 acres of land which is to be included in the district of Boroko, a new suburb of Port Moresby. In other words, the Administration paid the ridiculous price of $25 per acre for land in a muggy little valley tucked away in the hills at the back of PM when it is obvious that the only suitable place for European settlement there is the cool and accessible country close to the sea.’

IM MID-1951 Mr Harold Gatty established Fiji Airways as an internal air service for the colony despite the dire predictions of old-timers who remembered Guinea Airways’ efforts to do the same in the 19305, with float planes. This time, however, there were airfields at Nausori, Nadi and Lautoka, and strips at Labasa and Taveuni were soon built. The initial service was with de Havilland Rapide aircraft and the five-minute flip between Nadi and Lautoka at 12/6d became popular with local Indians trying flight for the first time. Within a year, however, Lautoka was abandoned.

JAMES NORMAN HALL, US novelist and co-author with Charles Nordhoff of Mutiny on the Bounty, died at his home on Tahiti on July 5, 1951. On July 11, Sir Albert Ellis, the man who first realised the worth of the phosphate on Ocean Island and Nauru, died in Auckland, NZ.

BY THE END of 1951 it had been decided to send a Fiji battalion to Malaya to fight terrorists. The decision produced considerable controversy in Fiji, and PIM asked editorially whether Malaya was sufficiently important to warrant it. The anti-terrorist campaign there had already gone on for seven years. PIM did not doubt that there would be no difficulty in recruiting the necessary 1000 Fijians (nor was there), but asked whether it would not be better in the long term if they stayed home and gave more time to solving some of Fiji’s domestic problems. The Fijians who initially were to serve for two years ended up spending four in Malaya.

SOMETIME in 1951 PIM said that tariff at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Honolulu was a frightening £3O a day. But it seemed that we had got our£’s and s’s mixed and an infuriated RH manager wrote that the rates ranged from $lB-$2B single, and that included meals. In today’s terms they sound more like YMCA rates. But at the time we pointed out that our original paragraph was written more in sorrow than in anger there were few of us who would not like to see what things were like in Hawaii and beyond but, although planes shuttled back and forth like express trains, those in authority had decreed that hard currency $s and Stg. bloc£s should never be permitted to meet. There were ways around some of it, of course, by paying at the Sydney end.

Pan Am, apparently desperate for customers, advertised ‘Strato Clipper to London Double deck Strato Clippers fly direct from Sydney to San Francisco New York London. Superb food: complimentary champagne. No dollars needed fare payable in Australian £s.’ What’s more you could travel in a real private berth or a sleeperette which gave each passenger about six feet of room. Those were the days, before some idiot invented economy class, 10-in-a-row, 500 mph orbiting sardine cans. Fare in those days was about £265, Sydney-San Francisco.

THE DEATH occurred in Honolulu on December 1, 1951, of Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa). Son of an Irish father and a Maori mother, he had been director of the Bishop Museum in Honolulu since 1936 although always remaining a NZ citizen.

THE NEW HEBRIDES in 1952 was having its usual labour shortage and this inspired one French planter to import 20 Italians as copra cutters. Their contracts were for three years and they were paid about £3O per month and all found. The experiment lasted weeks rather than years; contract or no contract the Italians left to take more highly paid jobs elsewhere.

IN APRIL 1952 Dr T. R. A. Davis, Chief Medical Officer in the Cook Islands, quit his job and with his wife and two young sons left on his 48-ft ketch for the USA where he was to take up a post-graduate scholarship.

IT GAVE Fiji a laugh when some time after the Fiji hurricane of 1952 the Sydney Sun interviewed a woman traveller. The hurricane had blown down most of the schools, she was reported to have said, and school was therefore being held in the breweries of which there were several in every small town. What the lady really said was that schools were being held in bures Fijian houses of native materials.

THE PARTNERSHIP of Bulolo Gold Dredging and the Australian Government, set up to exploit the pine forests of Morobe, had been announced in 1949 by the then Territories Minister Eddie Ward but had gone into limbo with the change of Australian Government. The plan was exhumed and dusted off in mid-1952 when Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers was formed, 51% Australian Government, 49% BGD owned. A ply mill was built at Bulolo and plans for systematic reafforestation made.

ALL VITI LEVU was interested in the making of the movie, His Majesty O’Keefe , with Burt Lancaster in the name role. Most of it was shot at Deuba but in July 1952 the old Customs house in Suva was temporarily turned into a 19th-century Hong Kong bank, with locals playing bit parts for one sequence of the film.

Western Samoa was also in the movie business in 1952 when one of James Michener’s stories from Return to Paradise was being filmed with Gary Cooper as the star.

ECONOMIC conditions were bad in American Samoa after the Navy pulled out in 1951 and in mid-1952 one batch of almost 1000 Samoans sailed from Pago Pago to Honolulu. The small amount of land in the American territory was unable to support the population which had increased from 6000 at the time the Navy set up its base in 1900 to 20 000 by the time the Navy left.

The 1952 exodus left 1000 behind who would be fitted into jobs in Guam, Hawaii and the US West Coast. 50 YEARS OF PIM

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TRADE WINDS Nauru phosphate: How much longer, 8 years or 13?

The Nauru Phosphate Corporation has officially estimated that Nauru’s phosphate supplies the republic’s lifeblood will last only another 13 years at the ‘present anticipated rate of depletion’.

It made its estimate in a report tabled in the Nauru Parliament in March following a suggestion made in Nauru’s independent weekly newspaper the previous week that Nauru may have only eight years to go before the phosphate is exhausted.

The Nauru Post said that it had made its own investigation in the absence of any official statement ‘on this nagging question’.

The newspaper, which is edited and part-owned by a former President of Nauru, Bernard Dowiyogo, said that it had heard from a reliable source that the lands which were at present being mined by the NPC were yielding less phosphate than had been expected because of their shallower depths.

The newspaper produced two graphs showing the disposition of the phosphate deposits on the island in 1968 and in 1980. It said its 1980 estimate was made with the aid of a 1968 aerial photograph and the knowledge of certain landmarks. The paper said: ‘Using a total of 34 622 000 tons of phosphate extracted since 1922 (excluding the war years) to 1968, the yield in tons per acre, with the remaining phosphate area in acres and an extraction rate of about 1.6 million tons per year, the Nauru Post has come up with a timing of 8.92 years. At a higher rate of extraction this, of course, will be reduced further.’

The paper asked whether Nauru was giving itself a false sense of security by continuing to mine at the present rate of extraction, thinking it had enough time left when it did not. It pointed out however that Nauru was not entirely free to reduce the extraction rate. It had long-term contracts. and was in the dilemma that it ‘cannot reduce the annual phosphate sales to lengthen the life of the industry and at the same time continue running the country at $6O to $7O million each year’.

It said that even if its estimate of eight to nine years was incorrect, Nauru may have left things too late.

Itasked; ‘Should not Government have already begun rehabilitation or back-filling the gaping holes in specific topside mined areas with soil from Australia or New Zealand while there are still ships running back and forth? Is eight years enough to backload with phosphate ships when it has taken 63 years to reach this state of the island’s supply?

Have we done enough to concentrate more time and money to build up Nauru to construct more buildings and institutions like schools, hospitals, sports stadiums, swimming pools, youth centres, water supplies and other amenities and services? We have of course made investments overseas which have helped to develop these other countries, like hotels in Majuro and Western Samoa, commercial centres in Saipan and Melbourne ... If we cannot truthfully find satisfactory answers to these questions, then Nauru must be seen as pursuing the other policy which suggests that after the phosphate industry closes we then pack up and go elsewhere to live. The Nauru Post believes that it is incumbent on Government to give us further guidance on matters which directly affect our day-to-day lives and the future of our children.’

In an accompanying editorial on the matter, the paper further commented: ‘Our population is increasing rapidly, Nauruan housing construction is falling behind requests and will continue to fall further and further behind.

The island is using more and more water each year and yet still relies mainly on rain for supplies. No one is bothering to conserve energy and everincreasing quantities of electricity are being used. When the phosphate runs out there will be unemployment .. .

There is at present no coherent and definite plan about what Nauruans will do when the phosphate runs out. This is the most vital question.’

In its report to the Nauru Parliament, the republicowned NPC (successor to the British Phosphate Commission on the island) said the anticipated life of the phosphate industry was ‘presently estimated to be 14 years from June 30 1979’, but gave no other comment on reserves.

It disclosed that phosphate sales for the year to June 30 1979 totalled $79 444 463, with 1 854 550 tonnes having gone to Australia and New Zealand, 93 230 tonnes to Japan, 64 880 tonnes to South Korea and 16 000 tonnes to Indonesia.

Total direct operating costs of the NPC for the year were $6 405 769 and indirect costs were $5 971577. The government’s dividend for the year, after capital and loan redemp- The Nauru Post reproduced these sketches of Nauru to indicate the phosphate deposits as of 1968 (left) and the deposits estimated to be remaining today. The ringed area indicates Buada Lagoon. Top picture shows how the shallow topsoil of Nauru is removed so that mechanical grabs can recover the phosphate deposits, leaving only limestone pinnacles. 61 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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62 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY. 1980

tions of $6 574 076, was $2O 169 091.

Included in the NPC’s indirect costs was the importation of water by ship to make up for Nauru’s shortfall. During the year it imported 130 050 tonnes of water, compared with 36 272 tonnes the previous year.

Nauru’s neighbour island of Banaba (Ocean Island) exhausted its phosphate supplies at the end of last year after having begun shipping in 1900. The first shipment left Nauru in 1907. ‘Colonial’ BPC gets a bucketing The British Phosphate Commission, for so many years in control of phosphate extraction operations on Nauru and Ocean Island, has been criticised for ‘colonial’ practices in its continuing administration of phosphate mining on the Indian Ocean island of Christmas.

The report of an Australian Government inquiry into Christmas Island goes so far as to recommend termination of BPC’s appointment as managing agent for the Christmas Island Phosphate Commission, a body formed for this specific activity.

The inquiry also found that while BPC expected to close the operation by 1983, it is economically viable for another eight years. Moreover, this conclusion was reached on the basis of calculations of payment to island workers,* many of them recruits from Malaysia and Singapore, of the Australian minimum wage. (The CIPC which had only two days before the report was due to be tabled in the Australian Parliament announced it would make a pay rise offer to the Union of Christmas Island Workers bringing them up at least to minimum Australian wage levels. The decision followed many months of agitation by the union on this and other issues.) The report of the commission of inquiry, chaired by Mr W. W. Sweetland, described the BPC as an organisation which has ‘not adapted quickly enough or willingly enough to the passing of the colonial era’. Responsibility is put upon the shareholders, the governments of Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

It also described as ‘outmoded, discredited and in many ways repugnant’ the institutional framework on which Christmas Island operates. Recommending the abolition of the post of Administrator, the report suggests that the Administrator’s residence should be made available to residents of the island for a purpose of their choice.

The finding that Christmas Island phosphate reserves, which have traditionally been of high quality with low costs of extraction, are expected to last another eight years will ease the minds of Australian and New Zealand farmers.

The nod for two PNG schemes The Papua New Guinea Government in March gave the final go-ahead for the development of the Ok Tedi copper and gold deposit in the country’s remote Star Mountains.

The mine is 15 km from the PNG-Indonesia border on top of 2070 m Mount Fubilan. It will cost about $27 million to develop at today’s prices, and have an expected life of 25-30 years.

The announcement by the then Prime Minister Michael Somare means that the international consortium of BHP, Amoco Minerals, and Copper Exploration Co of West Germany has 12 months to arrange finance and marketing arrangements for its products.

The announcement followed three weeks of tough negotiations between the government and the consortium. The talks followed the submission of the consortium’s $14 million feasibility study in late 1979.

Consortium study figures — regarded as very conservative — say that there is more than $1 billion worth of gold and $6 billion worth of copper in the mountain.

The PNG Government intends to take up a 20% share in the development company, at a cost of about $46 million.

It already has a 20% share in the country’s other big gold and copper mine at Bougainville.

Earlier, the government had announced that the $100 million Ramu sugar project will go ‘on stream’.

The project, designed to make PNG self-sufficient in sugar in five years, will be managed by the London-based agricultural development company Booker McConnell.

The PNG Government will be the biggest shareholder in Ramu Sugar Ltd with 49% of the 25 million 1-kina shares issued. Next largest shareholder will be the Commonwealth Development Corporation of Britain with 25%.

Fiji firm wins sugar rights The Fiji firm of Yatulau Sundartex Ltd has won the contract to buy and sell all Fiji’s sugar exports to South Pacific Forum countries for the next two years.

The South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation (SPEC) said in a statement in March that agreement had been reached among Forum countries on sugar prices and quotas for 1980-81.

The agreement had been reached at a meeting of five Forum member countries: Fiji, Western Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu. The Solomons and Nauru could not attend, and Papua New Guinea attended as an observer.

Big NZ push in Micronesia A major push by New Zealand exporters to gain a foothold in Micronesia is to be launched with the departure due on May 25 of an exporters’ delegation to the Marshall Islands and Guam, and possibly to the Northern Marianas and Ponape.

Leader of the delegation, Gilbert W. Ullrich, vicepresident of the Export Institute of New Zealand, says stimulus was given to the plan by the opening of a new direct airline service from Auckland to Guam and Micronesia by Air Nauru, who were recently granted landing rights in NZ.

At the same time a new direct shipping service was announced by the Daiwa Line to most ports in Micronesia and Guam.

The delegation, which has been given the status of an A helicopter, lifeline of the now-complete feasibility study for the Ok Tedi mining project, flies above the limestone and timber ridges through which copper and gold will be brought to the Papua New Guinea south coast. 63 TRADEWINDS PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

official trade mission by the New Zealand Government, will also visit Honiara, Nauru and Tarawa.

BP heavily into Fiji Industries Bums Philp in April emerged as the largest shareholder in the cement-making firm. Fiji Industries Ltd.

Bums Philp (South Sea) Co bought out the 13.3% held by interests associated with CSR Ltd for S442 530.

With its original stake of 7.5%, BP thus controlled 22.8% and was expected to stand in the market for a month to accept all Fiji Industries shares at $2.50.

The purchase followed two other expansionary moves made in the Pacific by BP interests over the past year: in June 1979 BP (SS) paid $1.8 million for Cope Allman International Ltd’s South Pacific Subsidiary: and in the following month bought the Papua New Guinea-based Tutt Bryant Pacific Ltd for $3 million.

BP’s Pacific area subsidiaries provide more than half of the group’s annual profit. According to the 1979 annual report.

Pacific subsidiaries brought in $8.47 million of a total profit of $14.29 million. In 1978 the figures were $7.75 million of $11.23 million.

Qantas thanked for airline aid Qantas, the Australian airline which helped pull New Hebrides Airways out of its pioneering problems, has sold back the financial stake it held in the operation.

The equity has gone back to Bob Paul of Tanna Island in the New Hebrides, co-founder and chairman of New Hebrides Airways which became part of the Air Melanesiae consortium. Qantas, Burns Philp and British Airways joined New Hebrides Airways 12 years ago to help put the then struggling operation on its feel.

New Hebrides Airways hosted a reception in Sydney last month to thank Qantas for the aid and expertise it had offered over the years, not only to New Hebrides Airways but to other regional operators in the Pacific. Mr Paul presented a plaque to the Qantas Deputy General Manager, Ron Yates, to commemorate the occasion and to express his company’s thanks.

Mr Paul said that in 1967 the problems of his airline had appeared insurmountable and he had appealed to Qantas for help. ‘From that time on the future of the airline was never in doubt,’ he said.

He said that Qantas had organised the airline operationally and administratively and had supplied equipment on a lease-purchase basis.

New Hebrides Airways was formed in 1960 using a single aircraft, a DH89 Rapide. which had earlier been an aerial ambulance in Queensland. The company still has many of its original New Hebridean shareholders from Tanna, Aoba and Tongoa. It now operates as an element of Air Melanesiae using Britlen-Norman Islanders and Trislanders.

PNG plantation takeover ends The new government in Papua New Guinea has scrapped the controversial scheme under which plantations owned by non-nationals were being bought and distributed to Papua New Guineans.

However the move does not represent a switch in attitudes towards foreign ownership.

The six year-old acquisition scheme had run into problems for a number of reasons and the previous Somare government had already frozen it pending a review. The new Chan government is satisfied that the scheme has failed and that the money being spent on it would be better applied to new rural development.

Announcing the end of the scheme the Prime Minister. Sir Julius Chan, said that PNG could not afford to confuse acquisition with development.

He said that too often money had been paid to acquire rundown properties and the money had been repatriated out of PNG. The same amount spent on opening unused land would have stimulated the local economy and retained the money in the country.

The government’s decision also follows representations from a number of PNG communities which claim that the retention of properly-managed plantations, even if foreignowned, is a stimulus to overall development.

Since the scheme was introduced, about SA6.B million has been spent to buy 54 plantations. Many of the local communities which bought the properties from the government on long-term loans have run into management and financial difficulties and some of the properties have ceased production.

Bob Paul, chairman of New Hebrides Airways. ‘Qantas put us on our feet,’ he said.

Papua New Guinea plantation workers split cocoa pods to prepare wet beans for processing.

Management doesn’t come easily, they have found. 64 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980 TRADEWINDS

*n AIWA t 'A A S' /// ~J\ (ini component sys from AIWA lor cmflsmonship AIWA AIWA Co , Ltd 11 9, Ueno 1 chome, Taito-ku, Tokyo. Japan Australia & New Zealand AIWA Australia Pty , Ltd , P.O Box 339, Rockdale.

NSW. Australia 2216 Tel 597-2388/2808 American Samoa Island Pacific Agencies Inc . P.O. Box 1018. Pago Pago, A Samoa Tel: 633 4687 Cook Islands Island Merchants Ltd . P.O Box 69, Rarotonga, Cook Islands Fiji D Ranchhod & Company, Corner of Vidilo St. & Vitogo PDE , P.O Box 18, Lautoka. Fiji Tel 60227/P Hargovind Bros.. Duty Free Centre, 190 Renwick Road, Suva, Fiji Tel 24350 Guam Micropac Audio, Inc , P.O. Box 3478, Agana, Guam 96910 Tel 472-8091 P.N.G. Oceania Indent Agency (P N G.) Pty, Ltd,, Box 5518, Boroko.

Port Moresby, P N G. Tel PM 256406 Solomon Islands Harvest Pacific Ltd , G.P.O. 517, Honiara, Solomon Islands Tel: 718 Tahiti Fare Hi-Fi Stereo, Rue du Marechal Foch, P.O. Box 269, Papeete, Tahiti R C 6604 A

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TRADEWINDS INTELLIGENCE...TRADEWINDS INTELLIGENCE...TRADEWINDS INTELLIG WORK is under way on a five-month SUS 2 500 000 renovation of the former Guam Tokyu Hotel. The new property, to be called Pacific Islands Village, is the first of a series of resort-recreational complexes to be operated by Pacific Islands Club, an activity of General Atlantic Development Corporation of Guam. The project is the first major new hotel activity on Guam in more than five years.

OFFICIALS of Fiji national carrier Air Pacific were in New Zealand in March to discuss leasing of an Air New Zealand Boeing 737 jet. Air Pacific is considering replacing its BAC-11 Is with Boeings, and wants to lease one until the first of its own can be delivered. Meanwhile, Fiji’s Minister of Transport, Civil Aviation and Tourism, Tomasi Vakatora, was visiting Israel (to discuss an offer of Boeing 707 s made during the recent visit to that country of Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara) and Canada (to probe possibilities of acquiring DCBs surplus to Canadian Pacific’s needs). Air Pacific wants long-range jets for services to Sydney, Melbourne, Hawaii and mainland USA and Canada.

JOHN Mangefel, Governor of Yap, has revealed that the United States has offered the Federated States of Micronesia SUS76S million as its financial assistance during the 15-year term of free association with the US. Micronesian News Service reports that the governor said 40% of the money would be used for economic development in the four states of the FSM: Yap, Truk, Ponape and Kosrae.

KIRIBATI is to try exporting its copra to Japan, due to the rise in transport costs to Europe. While Japan would pay a lower price than European customers, transport costs would be substantially lower. It was reported from Tawara in a news exchange with Peacesat terminals throughout the Pacific that about 1200 tonnes of Kiribati copra would be shipped to Japan on United Micronesian Development Association vessels in mid-March.

SOUTHERN Pacific Hotel Corporation has moved into what is called the ‘third phase’ of returns on its $6O million Pacific Harbour Resort project at Deuba, Fiji. It is a convention facility known as Treetops, able to accommodate up to 250 people for convention meetings. ‘First phase’ of the Deuba development, according to the SPHC offshoot Pacific Hotels and Development, was installing infrastructure such as canals and roads. ‘Second phase’ was construction of Pacific Harbour township. Now, the third phase is of the ‘commercial industries type’, including catering for business and corporate-type travel groups.

A CALL for a ‘reassessment’ of Australian aid to Papua New Guinea now that Sir Julius Chan has become prime minister was made in March by Richard Alston, chairman of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid. Mr Alston pointed out that Australia now provides $234.8 million a year to PNG, which is almost 50% of Australia’s total aid budget and about 30% of PNG’s income.

With the present aid agreement expiring next year, it was ‘particularly appropriate’ that the review should take place now, he said. He also pointed out that the agreement would expire at a time when ‘many developing countries such as Zimbabwe and Kampuchea would be likely to gain substantial benefits from a firm Australian aid commitment’.

SALT P roduced by villagers on the coast of Rakiraki, near Tavua, Fiji, is being sold to livestock farmers by the Commercial Undertaking Section of the Department of Agriculture. The project involves manufacture of salt from the evaporation of sea water.

An Australian salt expert, Lancelot Boord, helped people from the villages of Drauniivi, Togovere and Vunitogoloa to establish it in 1977.

BOUGAINVILLE Copper Ltd served notice in March that it will not give up its intention to search for other viable ore bodies in the Bougainville region. The group has encountered problems in looking beyond its special mining leases due to lack of approval from the Papua New Guinea Government. A company spokesman said discussions with the government would continue.

THE COOK Islands was hooked into the world satellite comminications network with the opening on March 1 of the new Cable & Wireless satellite earth station on Rarotonga. The $4 million station, which has been financed by Cable & Wireless, provides for instant communication with more than 300 other earth stations throughout the world.

A NEW primary school and 18 housing units for teachers and local residents were officially opened on Robinson Crusoe’s Island in the Juan Fernandez group in March. The ceremony was attended by a number of high-ranking Chilean government officials.

THE GOVERNMENT Council in Noumea has established a commission of inquiry into New Caledonia’s energy situation.

Part of its brief is to examine the possibilities of setting up an oil refinery in the territory.

NEW ZEALAND has made a cash grant of $76 000 to pay for a steel barge for Aitutaki Island and the upgrading of the island’s slipway. Part of the grant will also be used for the manufacture of moulds for concrete piles to be installed in Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga.

GOVERNOR Carlos Camacho of the Northern Marianas has discussed a tentative proposal with major companies in Japan to investigate the feasibility of an experimental thermal energy conversion (OTEC) project in the Northern Marianas. The system would use water temperature differences at sea surface and various depths to generate energy. An experimental plant utilising the principle is already in operation in Hawaii, financed by the US Department of Energy.

A GOVERNMENT task force headed by Lieutenant-Governor Francisco Ada has recommended that the Northern Marianas permit Northville Industries Corp to make a feasibility study of building a supertanker oil port and possibly a refinery in Rota.

Mendel Gryndsztejn, senior vice-president of the New York company, said the study might take up to two years and would cost almost SUSI million.

COMPAC, the underwater cable telephone which gave Fiji direct links with the outside world, will come to an end of its design life in about three years, and will be replaced by a new system.

COMPAC opened for Fiji to New Zealand and Australia late in 1962. The new trans-Pacific cable is expected to provide between 1200 and 1800 telephone circuits linking Sydney with Vancouver, via Norfolk Island, Fiji and Hawaii.

TONGA Visitors Bureau has just staged two visitor recruiting drives in Sydney. Tour agents were entertained by Tongan dancers, and at a Tongan-style buffet. In Japan, meanwhile, an estimated 40 million viewers saw a TV film of Tonga. The country’s cruise ship visitors in 1979 totalled 29 900, 3445 fewer than in 1978. But air visitors were up by 36 to 12 126.

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No. 12-11, 2-Chome, Higashi-Shimbashi Minato-ku, Tokyo 105, Japan Phone: Tokyo (03) 437-2411 Cable : YUASABATRY TOKYO Telex : 29228 YBCTOK Yuasa Columbus Line in bi[?]extension of South Pacific [?]ervice The Columbus Line has announced that its service between Europe and the South Pacific has been extended to include Fiji, Samoa. Tonga.

Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The Hamburg-Sued group, parent company of Columbus Line, started the service from Europe to the Pacific in 1968.

In recent years the service has concentrated mainly on cargo carried to the French territories of Tahiti and New Caledonia.

In its earlv stages the new service will he ;un ; • , ncer with two modern sei riventional cargo-liner Santa Teresa and Santa hies.

These ships will provide the service at eight-weekly intervals.

On the southbound leg from Europe the ships will use the Panama Canal and the return voyage will be made via the Suez Canal.

President of Columbus Line, Erwin Ludewig, said the extended service was expected to make a significant contribution to regional development. ‘Hamburg-Sued and Columbus Line have had a long and active association with the South Pacific,’ he said. ‘We share the view of regional governments and private business that the region’s growth potential will never be realised without reliable access to efficient transport services.

“While our estimates of the growth potential in the short term are conservative, we will continue to pay close attention to requests of shippers for variations in existing services.’

The extended services began A Columbus Line container vessel heads out to sea from her German home port.

Erwin Ludewig 68 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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Enquiries: P.O. Box 11, Samarai, Milne Bay Province, P.N.G. or phone 62 1310 or 62 1353.

I on March 20 when the Santa * Teresa sailed from Rotter- I dam.

Other European ports to be [ served are Hamburg. Dunkirk.

I and Le Havre. Operation of the service will be directed from Hamburg by Columbus Line Reederei GMBH.

New Forum services Improved services to the Pacific Islands were announced in March by the Pacific Forum Line.

The new schedules took effect with the arrival of the Strider class container ship Forum New Zealand in Auckland at the end of that month.

This ship completes a modern fleet for the line.

The Forum New Zealand will operate a 14-day service between Auckland, Fiji, the Samoas and Tonga.

The other new ships in the fleet, the Forum Samoa and Fua Kavenga , will operate a 28-day scheduled service between Lyttelton, Napier, Mt Maunganui (one ship only) and Auckland to Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The line said the rescheduling reflected particular regard to the potential of the Papua New Guinea and Fiji markets for New Zealand exporters and expected growth of exports from the islands to New Zealand.

Soviet ship ban hurts Fiji Fiji’s tourist industry would be hit hard by the cancellation of scheduled visits by Russian cruise ships, according to tourist industry sources.

Henry Gibson, the Suva shipping manager of Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, confirmed that all visits by Russian cruise ships had been cancelled.

Burns Philp are the agents handling Russian cruise liners.

Mr Gibson said the Aus- SHIPS tralian Government's decision to ban Russian vessels from entering Australia had resulted in the cancellations.

The Charter Travel Company of Australia operates the Russian cruise vessels Ivan Franko, Taras Shevchenko and MV Turkmenia. The ships are on charter from the Far East Shipping Co which is based at Vladivostok, he said.

He added that because of their Russian ownership the vessels were included in the ban. The crews of the vessels are mostly Russians.

The president of the Fiji Duty-Free Dealers Association. Mohan Musadilal, said the duty-free dealers would suffer from the cancellation. ‘We duty-free dealers here in Suva depend to a large extent on tourists arriving by sea for business,' Mr Musadilal said. ‘The last three months have been the worst we have experienced in trading, and now we will lose further business.’

The Russian ships usually brought in 600 to 700 passengers at every call.

Mr Musadilal said that the duty-free dealers would lose about $lOOOOO to $125 000 from every Rusian cruise ship that was cancelled.

Mr Shantilal Lallubhai, a Suva duty-free dealer, said his shop would lose more than $lOOO from every Russian cruise ship that did not call.

The general manager of the Fiji Visitors Bureau, Mr Malakai Gucake said, ‘The tourist industry will be affected drastically.’

As reported earlier (PIM Apr p 9), the Australian Government has announced a three-year forward civil aid commitment of $l2O million to South Pacific island countries, an increase of more than 40% on the previous commitment of $B4 million. The increase was seen in part as compensation for losses of revenue such as those complained of in Fiji as a result of Australian policy on Afghanistan.

Afghanistan echoes in Madang The Russian cruise ship Alexander Pushkin arrived on Sunday, March 17, in Madang after the Papua New Guinea Government had reversed its previous decision not to allow the ship to berth. This was in accordance with the international boycott brought on by the Russian military intervention in Afghanistan.

The PNG government felt that there was no reason for the West European passengers to be the victims of a boycott, especially as the ship’s visit occurred so close to the establishment of a West German embassy in Port Moresby.

The authorities however forbade any of the Soviet crew to disembark.

Four hundred and thirty West German and Dutch tourists stepped thankfully ashore in Madang, relieved that they hadn’t turned into so many Flying Dutchmen cursed to forever haunt the oceans of the world.

The 86-day cruise around the world started on January 5 in Rotterdam.

The first taste of things to come was in Panama, where the American authorities allowed neither passengers nor Russian crew to land.

In the Pacific, the ship called at Tahiti, Western Samoa and Fiji, the 340 crew being forbidden to go ashore in most places - although this was due mainly to the well-established Soviet policy of keeping the crew under tight control so as to avoid any chance of defection.

Several passengers complained about the cold war atmosphere on board, the crew being expressly forbidden to have any contact with the passengers apart from their normal duties.

From Madang, Captain A.

P. Rusin took his ship to Manila, planning to return to Europe via the Suez Canal.

Jimmy Cornell in Madang.

Tourists return to the Alexander Pushkin after a short stay in Madang. Photo Jimmy Cornell. extension service

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Strengthens hulls, eliminates water absorption and rot and increases the value and life of yourboat i Improved cargo services on PNG Australia shipping run By Captain Vic Sanderson New efficiencies and new techniques have restructured shipping services on the important cargo routes between the Australian east coast and Papua New Guinea ports.

Four operators are now trading regularly on these routes, and depending on the season they use up to 12 ships and provide an average tum-around of 26 days. A PNG importer can now order stock lines and can expect to have them on his shelves within any period of three weeks.

The two major ports of Port Moresby and Lae in PNG are now getting one vessel from the Australian run every three or four days a particularly good service for Lae which imports only 10% of the tonnage. The transit period from Melbourne to Port Moresby, including laytime in Sydney and Brisbane, is only about nine days.

Like all other trades there is a peak and trough situation about eight months peak and four months trough. This means that during the slack season the trade is overtonnaged, but this is a worldwide phenomenon. In the peak trading season there is only a surplus of about 2%, indicating that the trade is ideally tonnaged, and as in all trades one has to carry surplus tonnage during the slack period.

Because of the lack of southbound cargoes, when cargoes filling only 15 to 20% of capacity can be expected, the freight rates are said to be somewhat high, but if we compare them with the Australia - South-east Asia trade they are pretty much lined off.

The volume of trade is largely controlled by the coffee season in the Highlands. A good coffee season generates trade. It puts more cash into the pockets of the people who then buy luxuries like beer, cigarettes, canned foodstuffs and frozen pies. When there are beer bans in the Highlands, the people tend to eat more, which in turn generates more northbound cargo.

However, the base cargo is rice which accounts for approximately 20% to 25% of the trade and all Major reconstruction work is continuing on the Daulo Pass between Lae and Goroka as the road is upgraded to take shipping container transports which will serve a planned container depot at Goroka in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. About 40 trucks are already capable of taking containers from the coast to the Highlands. 70 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980 SHIPS

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Gives up to months growth-free performance Racing Red, Blue, Green and Gold. 12 amUouling | EPIGLAS S | COOK ISLANDS: Cook Island Trading Corporation Ltd FIJIAN ISLANDS; Burns Philp (SS) Co. Ltd NEW HEBRIDES: Burns Philp (NH) Ltd NOUMEA: Enterprise Guy Limousine NIUE ISLAND: Niue Island United PAGO PAGO: Max Haleck Inc, Burns Philp (SS) Ltd PAPUA NEW GUINEA: KIETA: Nikana Wholesalers, LAE; Faulkner-Tait (NG) Pty Ltd, MADANG: Burns Philp (NG) Co.

Ltd PORT MORESBY; S.A. Heath Co. Ltd, Steamships Honda Centre RABAUL: Elvee Trading Pty Ltd, WEWAK: Burns Philp (P N G.) SOLOMON ISLANDS: P.K.R Pacific Sales Co TAHITI: Marine Corail, Tahiti Sport, Comptior Polynesien TONGA: Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd WESTERN SAMOA: Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, E. A Coxon Ltd, Gold Star Transport Co. Ltd, Morris Hedstrom Ltd NORFOLK ISLAND: Irvines Building Supplies shipping lines are competing for I Other foodstuffs, including I frozen poultry which is extremely popular, canned meat, canned fish, { frozen pies, and frozen meat, make up the real general cargo trade.

Another base cargo is steel, including billets and sheeting, but this is mostly carried by one company still using conventional ships. The other companies use cellular container vessels.

Although most cargoes are carried on contract with individual shipping companies, machinery is usually shipped by first available vessel because it is often required urgently.

The main commodities exported from PNG are plywood, sawn timber, coffee, cocoa, tea and personal effects.

Substantial quantities of plywood are produced in Bulolo, which is about 100 km southwest of Lae, and exported principally to Japan. The secondary market is Australia. PNG can produce plywood more cheaply than the Philippines and Malaysia who have to import the timber, letting PNG compete successfully with Korea, Japan and Taiwan where prices are constantly rising.

Until recently the Port Moresby wharf was unable to cope with the tonnage put through it, and it was obvious that a container station was required. Now a container depot in Port Moresby is well developed and a second depot has been established at Konedobu about 1.5 km from the wharf. This has cleared the congestion on the Moresby waterfront.

Another interesting development will be the establishment by a consortium of all major shipping companies of a depot at Goroka in the Highlands, to also serve Mount Hagen. The road leading to this depot and to Mount Hagen is not good, but it is being improved and containers are already going there.

The road operators, especially over the past 18 months, have gradually upgraded their equipment and are replacing their existing fleets with vehicles capable of taking containers into the Highlands. Now there are about 40 trucks capable of doing this.

For firms wishing to trade with PNG there is a large market with enormous potential. It is a matter of going there and selling the product, but it has to be done across the table. The Australian Trade Commissioner is trying to get the message to exporters that no longer can one sell by telephone, telex, or telegram. Merchants have to get off their tails and go there if they want to do business.

Tahiti Line

Has Its Say

PIM has received the following official comment from the Tahiti Line (Compagnie Tahitienne Maritime SA) on our report ‘A modern Bounty mutiny troubles NZ export link’ (PIM Dec 1979 p 61): It must be the fate of any ship named Bounty to have troubles with story-tellers.

Life aboard the first one has become, through popular tales, a hard-life sentence, and her captain a stone-hearted brutal beast of a shipmaster. In fact, life aboard the Bounty wasn’t any better or worse than on any ship of that time, and Captain Bligh became a rear-admiral, a tribute to his competence and seamanship.

The troubles of the second Bounty were very different, as unions did not exist in the 18th century. But what writers of books and moviemakers did to the old Bounty newsmen have done to the new one.

Pacific Islands Monthly and Nautical News mentioned in their issues of December 1979 and January 1980 respectively the difficulties met by today’s Bounty in New Zealand as if they had just happened, and would put the whole operation in jeopardy.

We, as proud owners of the ship, would like to emphasise that these problems occurred in July 1979 and have long since been settled. For many months now the modern Bounty has been plying a very successful and busy trade. She has proven to be a rewarding link between Tahiti and New Zealand.

So please Messrs Newsmen, keep up with the Bounty and write about Rear-Admiral Bligh and his successful career instead of his past troubles with Fletcher Christian.

Seven ships for the FSM Seven US Trust Territory government ships and two fishing vessels were transferred to the Federated States of Micronesia government on April 1. The seven ships are Micro Glory, Micro Trader, Micro Spirit, Micro Dawn, Yap Islander, Kaselehlia and 71 SHIPS ’ACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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Distributors in the Pacific are: United Enterprises Ltd., Honiaria; Burns Philp South Sea Company, Suva; Sunbeam Transport Ltd., Lautoka: S.A.T.M.A., Noumea: D. L. Dent Industries Pty. Ltd., Boroko, PNG; Comptoirs Francais des Nouvelles-Hebrides, Port Vila; Bearing Service Company Ltd., Auckland: Niven Bearings Limited, Auckland. 4191 ATX

Caroline Islands and the fishing vessels are Kacho and Morkorkor. Two additional fishing vessels at present in Palau will also be turned over to the FSM government when their existing charters are expired or terminated.

Under an agreement signed by the President of the FSM Government, Tosiwo Nakayama, and High Commissioner Adrian P. Winkel, the FSM government will assume the administration, operation and management of the vessels, but title of ownership will remain with the Trust Territory government.

Operating funds for the ships for the rest of 1980 will be turned over to the FSM Government, which will also be responsible for maintenance, dry docking, collection of revenues, shipboard personnel, contractual obligations and insurance.

Pfl Withdraws From

Shipowners’ Group

After only five months, the Pacific Forum Line has announced its withdrawal from the fledgling South Pacific Shipowner’s Association (PIM Jan p 65). The PFL was a founding member of the association when it was set up in November 1979.

An official statement released by PFL headquarters in Apia in April said that ‘it had gradually become apparent that membership of the association was in some areas inhibiting PFL from wholly carrying out its obligations and commitments to its shareholders’.

These shareholders are the governments of New Zealand, Western Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Cook Islands, and Nauru. They formed the line as a joint venture in 1977.

The Apia statement said: ‘The company believes that the particularly diverse trading requirements of the Pacific Islands mean that it can more usefully be employed as an independent line.’

The PFL has a fleet of three ships, the two sister ships Forum Samoa and Fua Kavenga owned by the governments of Western Samoa and Tonga respectively. These vessels are new, purpose-built ships of about 300 teu (twentyfoot equivalent units) capacity, with roro capabilities. The Forum New Zealand, owned by the New Zealand Government, is a ‘Strider Class’ sea container vessel with similar capacity.

The company is also negotiating a charter agreement for another vessel suitable for trading to the smaller island groups of Tuvalu and Tokelau.

The PFL provides a regular service to the Central and South Pacific regions from both Australia and New Zealand, serving Brisbane and Sydney as its Australian ports of call.

The company recently established its own offices in Suva, Wellington and Sydney.

Sailors from Guam took the first three places in the Hobie 16 Class in the Annual Laguna Regatta held at Saipan, Northern Marianas, in March.

Scott Russell of Saipan took first in the 14 Class.

The regatta had entries from Saipan, Guam and Japan.

YACHTS • ROMANCE. An elegant visitor to Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga, in mid-March was the brigantine Romance which is being taken round the world by owners Arthur and Gloria Kimberly, reports Karen Garner- Williams.

Romance, once a Danish inter-island cargo carrier, was converted to an accurate 1850 s square rig brigantine for the movie Hawaii. The Kimberlys bought her 14 years ago after filming was completed. She has a crew of up to 16. Romance now spends her days cruising in the Virgin Islands or on long ocean voyages, and the Kimberlys have made more than 200 eight-day cruises out of the Virgin Islands, their home base.

The Rarotonga call was part of the Kimberlys’ second circumnavigation in Romance, leaving Ansanada, Mexico, in October last year. They crossed to Pitcairn Island (‘our favourite port in the South Seas’, Gloria says) and then to the Marquesas and the Society Islands before reaching Rarotonga.

From Rarotonga Romance is headed for Palmerston Island, Samoa, Tokelau, a shipyard appointment and crew change-over in Fiji, New Hebrides, Tikopia, Solomon Islands, the Marshalls (where she may pick up anthropologist Nancy Munn on Gawa) and Papua New Guinea. From the Pacific it is through to the Orient the Indonesian islands, Singapore and across the Indian Ocean to the Cocos, Keeling and Seychelles Islands, and on through Africa and South America home to the Caribbean around April, 1981. The young crew are from ‘all over’, although mainly from the USA on this voyage.

Romance measures 27 m on deck, 34 m overall, and has been home for the Kimberlys for many years. The couple are full of tales of the South Seas, about shark worshippers, shell money as legal tender with an Australian bank and etiquette with Trobriands chiefs, for example. Their brigantine is decorated with many native artifacts and carvings, including wooden replicas of the Bounty and the Romance made by an old friend on Pitcairn.

Two American ketches sailed into Rarotonga’s Avatiu Romance shows off her graceful lines in Avatiu Harbour, Rarotonga.

Photo Abbie Cogan. 73 SHIPS PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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harbour at the end of March on the tail of tropical cyclone Val, which hit Niue but by-passed Rarotonga with nothing more than minor flooding and high winds. • NIRVANA. The 14 m CAL 3 Nirvana is being sailed in the Pacific by a crew of three for owner Lon Skinner, who comes from Medford, Oregon (hence Nirvana’s unusual home ‘port’ those who know Oregon are surprised to see the name of an inland town inscribed on an ocean-going yacht). Skinner flies out from the States to visit his craft and her crew Captain Larry Ryan, with Eric Le Buse and Sarah Moon in their various ports of call. He made two trips to French Polynesia to see Nirvana between October 1979 and March of this year, and was expected to drop into Rarotonga for several weeks during the ketch’s month-long stay.

Nirvana left Hawaii bound for French Polynesia last October, and the crew were talking about heading for Samoa after the Cook Islands.

They commented that Pacific Publications’ South Seas Guide has proved an extremely useful addition to the nautical information they carry, providing all kinds of extra information about what to expect at the next port of call.

Apollo lost in reef grounding The Australian champion international racing yacht Apollo was lost off the Queensland coast last month after striking a reef at night.

Apollo, a 17-metre sloop, was leading the field in the Sydney- Gladstone race and was making about 12 knots under spinnaker when she struck the reef off Lady Elliott Island near Bundaberg.

The crew, including millionaire owner Jack Rooklyn, got ashore without injury but an inspection at first light showed Apollo heeled over, smashed along the hull and beyond salvage.

Rooklyn said the financial loss of the yacht was overshadowed by the sentimental loss suffered by him, his family and the crew.

Some of the crew members, in danger of their lives after the grounding, had to be ‘physically removed’ because they wanted to stay with the yacht, he said.

Rooklyn bought Apollo in 1970 from the Australian yachtsman Alan Bond, and four years ago spent SAIOO 000 on a refit.

Apollo gained line honours in the Sydney-Hobart race in 1978-79 and in the Sydney-Brisbane races of 1973 and 1977.

Rogue, a 12.6 m one-tonner racing yacht from Sydney, owned by retired merchant banker Roger White, takes part in a Sunday race in Suva harbour. Photo Jimmy Cornell.

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American Samoa 96799 Cable "POLYSHIP"

Apia Union Steam Ship Co. of New Zealand POBoxSO Apia Western Samoa Cable "UNION"

San Francisco Fumess Interocean Corporation 465 California Street, Suite 1001 San Francisco, CA 94104 (415) 398-2000 Cable “INTERCO"

Long Beach Fumess Interocean . Corporation 444 West Ocean Boulevard, Suite 700 tong Beach, CA 90802 (213)435-7601 Cable "INTERCO" • SHADOW. Nirvana’s neighhour in Avatiu harbour for a week or so was a smaller CAL 36 ketch sailed by brothers Dick and Hank Lubkey from Minnesota. Shadow left Los Angeles last July and spent two and a half months in Hawaii, followed by another two-and-a-half month period at Christmas Island where they were waiting for registered mail. From Christmas Island Shadow continued on to French Polynesia, and arrived at Rarotonga after two days on high seas caused by cyclone Val, which Hank describes as ‘not too bad’, although this is his first ocean cruise. Brother Dick, however, who is the owner of the ketch, has been sailing out of Los Angeles for several years, After a week in Rarotonga, Shadow was bound for Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand, after which comes the big decision to go home, or keep going?

The 11.4 m sloop Gambol, above, sails Into Suva after a six-year circumnavigation by owner Stuart Clay, a New Zealander and former farmer. At right Eric and Susan Hiscock sail their famous Wanderer IV in Suva Harbour. Photos Jimmy Cornell.

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KYOWA

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To: Solomon, New Caledonia, Fiji, W Samoa, A. Samoa. Tahiti, Cook Is., Tonga, New Hebrides. Ellice Is., Nauru To: Guam, Saipan, Truk. Ponape, Majuro, Yap, Koror g Singapore Philippine To; Papua New Guinea, Other Pacific Islands.

AGENTS Taiwan; Royal Steamship Corp , Ltd . Taipei S. Korea; Dong Sue Shipping Co. Ltd., Seoul Hong Kong: Dahzun Enterprises Ltd Singapore: Ocean Shipping & Enterprises Pte, Ltd Guam: Maritime Agencies of The, Pacific Ltd , Guam Saipan; Saipan Shipping Co, Inc, Saipan Solomon: Solomon Taiyo Ltd , Honiara Tahiti: J.A. Cowan & Fils, Papeete Cooks: Eastern Associates Ltd , Rarotonga Tonga; E M. Jones Ltd , Nukualofa New Hebrides: Pentecost Pacific S.A., Port Vila Phillippines: Sky International Inc., Manila Ponape: United Micronesia Development Association, Ponape A.Samoa: Island Pacific Agencies Inc., Pago Pago W. Samoa: Morris Hedstrom Ltd , Apia Fiji: C arpenter Shipping, Suva & Lautoka Nauru: Nauru phosphate Corp.

PNG: Carpenter Shipping Agencies. Port Moresby, Rabaul New Caledonia: Agence Maritime Du Rond Point Du Pacific, Noumea Indonesia: P.T Porodisa Raya Shipping Lines, Jakarta Sabah: KOH Han Ming Shipping & Forwarding Agent , Kotakmabalu Sarawak: Pan Sarawak Agencies Sdn Bhd . Sibu & Kuching Australia: Hethenngton Kingsbury Pty. Ltd , Sydney. N S W.

Newzealand: Hussell & Summers Ltd , Aukland KYOWA SHIPPING CO., LTD.

Head Office Osaka Office

5th FI., Suzumaru Bldg. 39-8, 2-chome, Nishi-Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Frontier Bldg., 3-13 Hirano-cho, Higashi-ku, Osaka, Japan.

Phone : 03(437)2885(Rep.) Cables : “MARIQUEEN” Tokyo. Telex : 242-4651 Kyowa J. Phone : 06(227) 0422(Rep.) Cables : “MARIQUEEN" Osaka. Telex : 522-3896 Kyowa O.

The sports ground rally also made the point and this is largely reflected throughout PNG that no vote anywhere can take away the fact that Mr Somare was his country’s first national leader, initially as Chief Minister in the transitional self-government stage and then as Prime Minister after full independence was achieved from Australia. In all it’s been an innings of nearly a decade.

One of the most significant factors in his defeat has not been mentioned much in his )wn country but has emerged /ery clearly in the comments md reactions of PNG’s Pacific teighbours. It is that democraic principles of national nanagement, which PNG idopted, functioned smoothly o allow a change of governnent. Mr Somare neither intrenched himself in power tor created a situation where brce was needed to remove iim. Apart from some ragged edges in practice, the constitutional system has been proved sound and has reflected national stability.

Mr Somare said on his first visit to Australia as Opposition Leader ‘I get annoyed at talk of a crisis in our affairs there never was a crisis. There was a vote and we lost it. And there can just as easily be another vote and we can win it.’

In an address to the Sydney Chamber of Commerce in Sydney last month, Mr Somare said ‘Eight years after selfgovernment, five years after independence, the government of my country has changed peacefully and democratically.

Papua New Guinea can take pride in the fact that the constitutional and parliamentary systems which we built have worked. ‘The administrative structure which we developed functioned smoothly during the change of government. It will continue to operate smoothly under the new cabinet. An important testimony to my government’s success is that there was a peaceful transition and that we handed over a stable, growing and well-run country.’

In Australia particularly the point has not been lost. In many island countries of the Pacific the point, perhaps, didn’t have to be made they recognise similar attitudes in their own politics.

Australian investment interests and other interests with links in PNG have particularly noticed Mr Somare’s failure to vilify the new government or even to trenchantly criticise its policies. In some respects Mr Somare’s attitude is understandable because there have never been many differences in doctrine between the multitude of political parties which his country has produced. The only real differences were his own Pangu Party’s call for self-government 12 years ago when no one else wanted self-government and the sporadic Papua secession calls of the Papua Besena Party a party which, is now represented in the new government.

Mr Somare’s almost magnanimous attitude towards his victorious opponents in his public attitudes, anyway has kept his country’s image high in terms of management and stability.

At two press conferences in PNG since his defeat and in two subsequent interviews in Australia he made the following points: • He will be active in opposition but will not resort to pigheaded blocking of the government for the mere sake of opposing it, • His target is to lead another Somare government into office by ‘peaceful constitutional means’, and • He does not believe there will be any significant shift in policies under the new government despite suggestions that the government envisages a ‘wider door’ for investment from overseas.

Early this year Mr Somare told close friends that he was considering stepping down as Prime Minister by the middle of the year. At the time he was clearly tired, he had been troubled on and off with sickness, and those who knew him well could see only too clearly how the years of leadership had taken their price.

But being beaten on a vote is a different matter from stepping down, and Mr Somare has more or less been forced into a new phase of his political career. He refers to it jokingly as a ‘rest’ while he gets going again. There was no doubt, too, during his recent Sydney visit he looked fitter and more relaxed than he has for some time.

Quoting Milton’s Paradise Lost he told more than 200 business leaders who came to hear him speak ‘Solitude sometimes is best society, and short retirement urges sweet return’. [?]lchael Somare, travelling politician. During his State visit to China [?]1997 as Prime Minister of PNG he Is escorted into the Great Hall [?] the People in Peking by Vice-Premier Li Xianian.

Michael Somare, clan leader. This was in 1973 In his home province of East Sepik when he was Initiated as Sana (leader) of the Saet Clan. He had only just become Chief Minister of PNG at the time of the ceremony.

Somare, the man from the Sepik JContinued from pi 4)

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LOCAL AGENTS AND REPRESENTATION: PAPUA NEW GUINEA: RABAUL; M. & C. Seeto P.O. Box 131, Rabaul.

Telephone 92-2919.

MADANG; W. Double, P.O. Box 22, Madang.

Telephone 82-2696.

SOLOMON FIJI: K. Witherington Ltd., P.O. Box 293, Suva.

Telephone 22-356.

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. ■ PACIFIC • FORUm Line

Owned By The People

Of The Pacific Islands

Regular Monthly Liner Services from Australia and New Zealand to the South and Central Pacific 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, Nukualofa.

SHIPPING SERVICES Should any shipping company wish to have its services cargo and passenger included in these listings they should contact PIM.

Australia - Fiji

Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd operates onthly cargo services from Sydney to jva and Lautoka.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, )-31 Pitt Street. Sydney (27-6301), algety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, elbourne (60-0731), Burns Philp (SS) o Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Sofrana-Unilines (Fiji Express Line) >erates to Suva and Lautoka every ree weeks from the main ports on the ist coast of Australia and monthly to tutoka from Melbourne and Sydney.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 19 Pitt reet, Sydney, (27-2031), Transjstral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke reet, Melbourne (67-9162). ACTA Pty j, Brisbane (221-3116), Elder-ANL y Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, jwcastle (049-24364), Clements & arshall, Burnie, Tasmania 1-1833).

AUSTRALIA - FIJI - SAMOAS - TONGA Pacific Forum Line operates a fully ntainerised service (Gen/Reefer) m Melbourne, Sydney to Lautoka, va, Pago Pago, Apia and iku’alofa. -unafuti cargo transhipped at Suva.

Details from Union Bulkships, Sydy; ANL Melbourne; Burns Philp, Lau- :a and Suva; Polynesia Shipping rvices, Pago Pago; Burns Philp, ia; and Union Steamships Co, ku'alofa; or Pacific Forum Line, ad Office, Apia.

AUSTRALIA - LORD HOWE IS -

Norfolk Is

Dompagnie des Chargeurs ledoniens operates four-weekly go service Sydney - Lord Howe md and Norfolk Island.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty I, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney ’-1671).

AUSTRALIA - NAURU - KIRIBATI Jauru Pacific Line operates regular go/passenger service from Meljrne to Nauru and Tarawa.

Details: Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru use, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne 3-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring set. Sydney (2-0522).

Ustralia - New Caledonia

(And/Or) New Hebrides

karlander operates a monthly service n Sydney to Noumea.

Details; Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd 31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

'Ofrana-Unilines ships serve umea every three weeks from the n ports along the east Australian ist.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 19 Pitt Jet, Sydney (27-2031), Transitral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke jet, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty . Brisbane (221-3116), Elders-ANL Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL vcastle (049-24364), Clements & shall, Burnie, Tasmania -1833). iompagnie des Chargeurs Caleliens 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).

Daiwa Line operates 30 day service from Sydney to Vila and Santo.

Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (290-1633), Tlx: AA25970.

AUSTRALIA - NZ - FIJI -

Hawaii - 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 - Tahiti

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, Nukualofa, 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 - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates a regular container service from Melbourne to Majuro, Kosrae, Ponape, Truk, Guam and Saipan.

Details Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Australia - Png

New Guinea Express Lines operates three-weekly conventional and container services Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane. Port Moresby, Lae. Rabaul, Alotau.

Details from New Guinea Express Lines, PO Box R 73, Royal Exchange PO, Sydney (241-3991) MacArthur Shipping Agency Co, 82-92 Eagle Street, Brisbane (229-3777), New Guinea Express Lines, 327 Collins .Street, Melbourne (61-3053), Niugini Express Lines in Port Moresby (21-4572), Lae (42-1536), Rabtrad Niugini Pty Ltd, Rabaul (92-2911), Alotau Stevedoring & T'sport (61-1318).

Karlander New Guinea Line’s cargo vessels call at Melbourne, Sydney, Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Wewak, Manus, Kimbe, Rabaul, Popondetta.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), Dalgety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, Melbourne (60-0731).

Australia-Png-Solomons

A consortium of Conpac, NGAL/PNGL have three container vessels operating on a 28 day turnaround from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane to Port Moresby. Lae, Rabaul, Kavieng, Wewak, Madang, Kieta and Honiara supplemented by Daiwa vessels, Pacific Princess and Fiji Maru extending from Sydney to Lae on a monthly basis.

Details from Burns, Philp & Co. Ltd. 51 Pitt Street, Sydney (2-0547) and Interocean Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney. (2-0522).

AUSTRALIA - SOLOMONS -

Kiribati - Micronesia

Daiwa Line operates a container service every 30 days from Sydney to 79 IFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

South Sea Freighters Limited Announcing: A 30-day service between Singapore, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands «r ■ ' ■■ % ft AGENTS: New Hebrides: South Sea Freighters Limited, PO Box 166 Port Vila • Singapore: Bienley & Co. (Pte) Ltd. Telex RS 25114, Phone: 98 1935 Pt Moresby: Nuigini Express Lines • Oro Bay: Carnell Carriers, Popondetta P.N.G. • Madang: B J. Back • Lae: Nuigini Express Lines • Wewak Burns Philp (N.G.) Ltd.

Kiel* Burns Philp (N.G.) Ltd. • Kimbe; Harrisons & Crossfield (P.N.G.) Ltd. • Rabaul: New Guinea Cocoa (Export) Co. Pty. Ltd. • Honiara: Island Co-operative Shipping Federation Ltd Serviced by MV Solomon Sea and MV Bismarck Sea.

Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa and Guam. Gizo cargoes transhipped at Honiara, Saipan, cargoes transhipped at Kobe, Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (290-1633), Tlx.

AA25970.

AUSTRALIA - SOLOMONS - NORTHERN MARIANAS-TAIWAN- JAPAN Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly service Sydney-Honiara-Guam-Taiwan- Japan with transhipment at Kobe for Saipan.

Details Meridian Shipping & Transport Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (290-1633). Tlx.

AA25970.

Australia - Tahiti

Compagnie Generate Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Papeete using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generate Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231 -3700).

AUSTRALIA - TONGA -

Samoas - Tahiti

Karlander operates a monthly cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Nukualofa, Apia, Papeete, US west coast.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Australia - W. Samoa

Compagnie Generate Maritime operates a monthly service from Sydney to Apia, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel Details Compagnie Generate Maritime, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Far East - Fiji - New

ZEALAND New Zealand Unit Express (NZUE) operates a fortnightly palletised cargo service from Manila, Keelung, Kaoshiung and Hong Kong to Lautoka, Suva and thence to NZ, Details from Carpenters Shipping, Suva (312-244), Burns Philp, Suva (311-777), P & O S.N. Co, Wellington (736-477) or Nedlloyd Swire Pty Ltd, Sydney (20-522).

Nedlloyd operates bi-weekly cargo service with four ships from Sourabaya, Jakarta, Bangkok, Port Kelang and Singapore to Suva and NZ ports.

Details from Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring St, Sydney (27 3801), Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Far East - Mid-S. Pacific

China Navigation’s New Guinea Pacific Line (NGPL) operates 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 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 (290-1633) Tlx: AA25970.

Japan - Fiji - New Zealand

China Navigation, operates a monthly service from main ports Japan to Suva and Lautoka and thence Noumea and NZ.

Details from Carpenters Shipping, Suva (312-244).

Japan - Png

Mitsui O.S.K. Lines operates a monthly service from main ports Japan and Port Moresby, Rabaul, Lae, Madang, Kieta and Kimbe.

Details from J. C. Waller, Port Moresby (21-1755).

JAPAN - GUAM - FIJI - TAHITI - SAMOA - N. CALEDONIA -

Solomons - Kiribati

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.

Hawaii - Samoas - Tonga

Warner Pacific Line operates unitized/palletized and reefer cargo service every 30 days Honolulu /Pago Pago-Apia-Nuku’alofa. Line Islands and Suva by inducement.

Details from Hawaii-Pacific Maritime Inc,, Honolulu, Hi 96801. Tel. (808) 521-9806 Freight Dept. Tlx (RCA): 723-8330 ITT 743-0040 Cables ‘Oral’.

New Caledonia - Fiji - West

Coast North America

PAD Line operates an approx. 3weekly ro-ro service from Noumea and Suva to Honolulu and West Coast USA and Canadian ports.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines SA, BP 1602, Noumea (27-51 -91), Tlx NMO4B; W. R. Carpenter, 100 Thomson St., Suva (31-11-22), Tlx FJ2199; Trans- Austral Shipping, Box R 232 PO, Royal Exchange. NSW (27-2441), Tlx AA21204.

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) Ptl Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041' Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, ports.

PNG - US Bank Line operates regular cargi service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe Madang and Lae direct to New Orleans calls at other US and Gulf and Eas Coast ports on inducement.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Ft Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041 Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports.

SOLOMONS - USA -

Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular carg service from Honiara to New Orleans Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and An werp.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pi Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041 Trading Co, Honiara (389).

NZ - COOK IS - NIUE - TAHITI Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd ope ates cargo services based on pallet and similar units from Auckland to Niu< Cook Islands and Tahiti.

Details from the Shipping Corp of N Ltd, PO Box 3420, Aucklan (797-210), Waterfront Commission, Pi Box 61, Rarotonga; Lighterage an Stevedoring Co, Aitutaki; Niue Go' Offices, Niue Island Compagnie Mar time Polynesienne, B’P’ 368, Papeets Tahiti.

NZ - FIJI Reef operates a regular 18-day se vice from Auckland to Suva and Lai toka.

Details from Reef Shipping Agencies PO Box 3382, Auckland. N (77-1221-3).

Pacific Line with one ship operate 80

Pacific Islands Monthly - May, 198'

fortnightly roro cargo service New Zealand, Lautoka, Suva.

Details: Sofrana Unilines, 18 Customs Street, Auckland (773-279) PO Box 3614, Telex: NZ2313.

Nz - Fiji - North America (Wc)

Blue Star Line Ltd Pacific Coast con- , tainer services. Only direct service to and from New Zealand. Blue Star vessels call at Suva and Honolulu on NZ-US-West Coast voyages.

Details from Blueport ACT (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 192, Wellington (739-029) , Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777).

NZ - FIJI - PNG Pacific Forum Line operates a containerised unitised/palletised service (Gen/Reefer) from Lyttelton and Auckland to Suva, Port Moresby, Lae and Kieta.

Details from Shipping Corporation of New Zealand Ltd, Auckland, Lyttelton Burns Philp, Suva, Steamships Trading Co in Port Moresby, Lae and Kieta. (As from end March, Service will be fully containerised)

Nz - Fiji - Samoas - Tonga

Pacific Forum Line operates a containerised service (Gen/Reefer) from Lyttelton, Napier, Auckland to Lautoka, Suva, Pago Pago, Apia and Nuku’alofa.

Details from Shipping Corp of New Zealand Ltd, Napier, Lyttelton and Wellington; Union Steamship Co, Auckland, Lautoka, Suva, Apia, Nuku’alofa; Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago. Funafuti cargo transhipped at Suva.

NZ-N. CALEDONIA-N. HEBRIDES-

Png-Solomons

Sofrana Unilines with three ships operates to Vila and Santo, to Honiara and P apua New Guinea and to Norfolk stand and Noumea.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, 18 Sustoms Street, Auckland (773-279), 3 0 Box 3614, Telex NZ2313.

Nz - Tahiti

Compagnie Tahitienne Maritime SA vith one ship operates monthly service slew Zealand - Papeete.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, PO Box 3614, 18 Customs St, Auckland 773-279), Tlx NZ2313.

Nz - Tonga - Samoas

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates i four-weekly cargo service, Auckland Nuku’alofa - Pago Pago - Apia - Auckland.

Details from McKay Shipping Ltd, )owntown House, Queen Street, Auckland (30-229).

Warner Pacific Line services Auckland - Nuku’alofa/Vavau/ .pia/Pago Pago fortnightly carrying eneral and freezer cargoes. Also imaru - Nuku'alofa/Vavau/Apia every 1 days carrying freezer cargo.

Details from Air Marine Services (NZ) td, PO Box 2505, Auckland /96-841), Telex NZ21555.

EUROPE - TAHITI -

New Caledonia

Compagnie Generale Maritime opertes services from Europe and Meditermean ports to Papeete and Noumea sing three Ro-Ro and two multiurpose vessels thus ensuring a bilonthly sailing to and from.

Details Compagnie Generale Marine, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney !31 -3700).

Hamburg-Sued operates monthly argo services from Hamburg, Dunkirk id Le Havre to Papeete, Noumea, via anama.

Details from Columbus Overseas arvices Pty Ltd, 333 George Street, /dney (290-2966), Columbus Marine Services, 17 Albert Street, uckland (77-3460).

EUROPE - TAHITI - W. SAMOA -

Fiji - N. Caledonia

Nedlloyd offers regular cargo series from Northern Europe and UK to Papeete, Apia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Details Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801).

Uk - N Continent - Fiji

The Bank Line operates a regular 28 day cargo 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 - PNG - SOLOMONS The Bank Line operates a regular 28 day 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 The Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports; Trading Co Honiara.

UK/N. CONTINENT - TAHITI -

N. Caledonia - N. Hebrides

The Bank Line operates a regular 28 day cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Papeete and Noumea.

Details from The Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Ets A M Fare UTE, Papeete; Ets Ballande, Noumea.

US - FIJI - TAHITI - NZ - AUSTRALIA The 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 The 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 - Hawaii - Micronesia

Philippines, Micronesia & Orient Navigation Co (PM&O Lines) operates regular container service on selfsustained ship with ro-ro capabilities from Oakland, Portland and Honolulu to Majuro, Kosrae, Ponape, Truk, Saipan, Yap and Koror.

Details for Micronesia can be obtained from Larry Guerrero, PM&O Owners Rep, PO Box 803, Saipan, Ml 96950, Cable COMMONTIME; PM&O Lines, 181 Fremont St, San Francisco, California 94105, Cable PMONAV.

US - HAWAII - NAURU - MICRONESIA Nauru Pacific Line operates regular conventional/container and passenger service from San Francisco and Honolulu to Majuro, Ponape, Truk and Saipan. Cargo is accepted for Nauru and Kosrae with transhipment at Majuro and Ponape.

Details from Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709); North American Maritime Agencies, PO Box 7302, San Francisco. California 9411 (981-0343).

Us - Noumea - Fiji

PAD Line operates an approx 3-weekly ro-ro service from West Coast USA and Canada to Noumea and Suva.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines SA, BP 1602, Noumea (27-51 -91), Tlx NMO4B; W. R. Carpenter, 100 Thomson St, Suva (31-11-22), Tlx FJ2199; Trans-Austral Shipping, Box R 232 PO, Royal Exchange, NSW (27-2441), Tlx AA21204.

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.

DEATHS of Islands People RATU LIVAI TABUCALA, MBE In Savusavu Hospital recently, aged 77. Among his many community interests he was chairman of the Savusavu hospital Board of Visitors, and was active in fund-raising for the new mortuary unit at the hospital.

Bruce Allan

At Vaimea, Western Samoa, recently. A New Zealand volunteer working as an instructor in carpentry at the Young Men’s Christian Association, Mr Allan was killed when the motor cycle he was riding was struck by a taxi which had got out of control.

James L. Lewis

In New York USA on March 2, aged 71, from a heart attack.

James Lewis, who came from Danville, Pennsylvania, was a US citizen who became head of the Asia and Pacific Section of the United Nations Trusteeship Department, and had been living in retirement in New York. He had been a UN official since 1948.

He became widely known to administering officials and the newly-emerging politicians of Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Western Samoa during moves towards independence which were studied by UN.

Mr Lewis was the senior official in UN Trusteeship Council missions which monitored the Australian administrations of Papua New Guinea and Nauru immediately before independence was granted. He also served as an official in UN teams which supervised elections and referendums in West Irian and on parts of the African continent. During World War II he served with the US Navy’s Pacific fleet.

A memorial service was held in the UN chapel in New York.

Cecil Joseph

SHORTHOUSE At Redcliffe, Queensland, February 1, 1980. Cec was a pre-war and post-war Terri torian, and a long-time employee of Steamships, Papua New Guinea. His funeral was attended by old PNG identities such as George Gough (exsuperintendent Bomana Gaol), Jack Woods and Joe Roach of Steamships Trading Company, Mike Duffy, formerly of the Department of District Administration, Roy Barwick ex- Department of Native Labour, and Fred Allen, ex-STC.

Sarju Prasad

Saiju Prasad, who has died in Fiji, was more than 100 years old and came there under the original indentured labor system which established the Indo-Fijian community. He served two terms as an indentured worker after being recruited in Africa and then settled in Vanua Levu. He spent most of his life in Vanua Levu and Taveuni and was active in Indian affairs in these islands. He leaves eight sons, four daughters and 150 grandchildren.

GWEN READ At Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, on January 31. Gwen Read Mrs W. J. Read was one of the band of Australian women who sacrificed a normal lifestyle to live in remote parts of Papua New Guinea with their husbands during the administrative contact periods of the late 1930 s and immediately after World War 11.

Incensed once by an Australian politician who claimed Australians had it easy in PNG she planned a menu of bully 81 *CIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

FOR SALE 76 ft. cruising ketch 14.6 ft. beam 10 ft. draft, teak hull and deck, copper sheathed—bronze fastened.

New rig and sails, 10 new winches, Gardiner 5 cyl., feathering prop., 2700 sq. ft. sail.

Excellent condition. Ideal family cruising boat. Price $A275,000.

Write: Captain Mike Morehart, Box 94, Russell, N.Z. Ph.: 694.

NEW

Aluminium Barge

40' by 1 2 , 3208 caterpillar diesel, large commercial jet unit, Very fast barge, front loading off beach. $63,000.00

Passenger Launch

Built 1979 steel, surveyed 70 passengers. Gardiner diesel, great boat. $130,000.00 C. HILTON, KIWI RANCH, P.B. ROTORUA, NEW ZEALAND, PHONE: 53 533 ROTORUA ELECTRIC MOTORS & MACHINERY LTD.

POWERHOWSE ELECTRIC LTD.

Electric Motors - Drip Proof TEFC Type “N”

F L P Starters Slide Rails Pulley Belts AC & DC Alternators Generators Switch Board Meter Panels Motor Control Centres Cable Reels Cable Handling Gear Contractors Hardware ELECTRIC MOTORS MACHINERY LTD.

POWER HOWSE ELECTRIC LTD. 164 Khyber Pass Rd, Newmarket. Auckland. New Zealand. Ph 371-643 or 374-487

Postage Stamps

Office or bank workers.

Do you throw away envelopes?

I pay cash for postage stamps on envelopes from Pacific Islands. (No Australian or N.Z. required). Envelopes should be neatly opened. Send in quantities of at least 50 by surface mail or write for further details to:

Harry Hayes

48 Trafalgar Street, Batley, West Yo«J<shire WFI7 7HA, United Kingdom

A Fair Deal Is Assured

4 REX WEBB REAL ESTATE PTY. LTD.

INVESTORS We have many years’ experience in real estate on the Gold Coast, Old. and would like to offer you FREE advice on property investments in the fastest growing area in Australia. • Houses • Flats • Units • Land • Commercial Properties. All enquiries treated confidentially.

PHONE: (075) 37 2588 A.H.: 37 1486 BIGGERA WATERS SHOPPING CENTRE, HOLLYWELL ROAD, BIGGERA WATERS, Q. 4216

Six Function

Solar Alarm

WATCH IN LATEST STYLE Distributors & Agents Wanted Contact: INIERCAPE AUSTRALIA 19-21 Lonsdale St.,””

Melbourne 3000 y

Peter Fisher

TRADING Pty Ltd 321 PITT St., SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA 2000 Telephone: 212 1475 Cables: "FISHERION" Sydney

Exporters To The

Pacific Islands

FLEETS 60 ft. ketch workboat, prof, bit. 1957, major re-fit 1976. 100 h.p. diesel. In survey, 8 berths, radar, pilot, raft etc. $52,500. 36 ft. sloop motor sailer, ideal world cruise $52,500.

FLEETS 221 Esplanade, Wynnum Central, Brisbane.

Cable FLEETS BRISBANE.

F3 beef and rice to welcome him ‘so he can eat the same as we do’.

She is survived by her husband Jack Read, known widely as an administrative officer in PNG, a member of the famous Coastwatchers unit of World War 11, and more lately as a senior land titles commissioner based in Rabaul.

Geraldine Marlow

At Suva, Fiji, at the age of 96.

Mrs Marlow, known as Lulu Marlow, was the wife of Alf Marlow, founder of the Suva firm of Marlows. She was born in Levuka only nine years after the cession of Fiji and became one of her country’s pioneer women but she said in later years that she never regretted the hardships she had known. ‘lt’s a challenge to people to find out what they can really do,’ she said.

Bernard J. Viggers

In Brisbane, Australia, following an illness which forced his retirement from Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. Bernie Viggers was one of the bestknown businessmen in the islands region of PNG, with a quiet and kindly manner which became something of a byword. Soon after World War 11, after military service in the area, he established a partnership with Mr L. F. (Harry) Croyden and continued to live in Rabaul until last year.

Ngaeikura Tou

In Auckland on March 15, aged 63. Dr Ngaeikura Tou, a doctor in the Cook Islands for 37 years, was a former Deputy Director and later Secretary of Health who represented the Cooks at many regional medical seminars and conferences.

He was a man who believed in the value of traditional Maori medicine and often claimed that China was not the only pioneer of the barefoot doctor system. The Cook Islanders had always had such a system in their traditional culture, he said. Dr Tou, who trained in New Zealand and Fiji, retired only last year and was living in Rarotonga where he was Com-. missioner of the High Court and president of Rarotonga Rotary Club. He was a member of the Cook Islands bowling team which won two gold medals at last year’s South Pacific Games.

Advertising Index

Advertiser Page

NISSAN MOTOR CO 62 84

Nelson & Robertson ' 66

NZ DAIRY BOARD 83

Polynesian Bookshop 41

Polynesian Airlines 88

Portals Water Treatement 76

PACIFIC FORUM 79 PAPUA HOTEL 39 PETER FISHER 82 PIONEER 24-25 QBE INSURANCE 52

Rex Webb Real Estate 82

RICOH !6

Superior Farm Equipment 66

South Pacific Hotels 40

SANSUI 34 SONY 54

South Seas Freighters 80

SARIBA SLIPWAYS 69 TOYOTA MOTOR 42-43 TATHAM 4 VICTOR 58

Video Recorder Centre 82

YUASA BATTERY CO 68 YAMAHA 20

Advertiser Page

AIR NIUGINI 36 AIWA 64 AMATIL 30 AGGIE GREY HOTEL 39 AUST TIMKEN 72 AKAI 2 BANKLINE 78 BORAL 50 CUMINES, HENRY 79 CLARION SHOJI 12 CARPTRAC 56 CONSOLIDATED CHEMICALS 70-71

Dept Overseas Trade 48

Electric Motors Machinery Ltd 82

FUJITSU TEN 38 FLEETS 82 FURNESS 75 HAYES, HARRY 82 HENDON DETECTORS 74 HILTON, C 82

Integrated Technical Service 28

KYOWA SHIPPING 76

Marlin Modular Homes 60

MOREHART 82 MATSUSHITA 46 82 PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY - MAY, 1980

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»X P '“ Ac Stock Rotation

H 0» Ik V-N' OP cheese "■ i s - ofe: 'V «M ?kha !Qd |aM At 7e^ ■*> 4 ,V Q *ll & P mmmm msmm u 13£!« «:2* <ln *»< »»Wf

Datsun’s “extra” effort for total quality.

All because you deserve nothing but the best Dummy components for assembly practice.

Special shower tests on a “white body."

Datsun’s "pass/no pass sample."

Tough wheel strength testing.

Whenever you step into a Datsun, there's one thing you can always count on. Every Datsun comes from a winning combination of the highest technological know-how, the most advanced production techniques and the strictest quality control measures possible.

But there’s something else. Something uniquely Datsun. And that's what we call our ‘‘extra’’ effort. For instance, our system of inserting a “dummy’’ body into a current production line not only enables us to master the new procedures before actual production of a new model, but it also gives each of us a rare opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge on how a car in its entirety should be.

Special shower tests are conducted on a “white body’’ to analyze water flow under diverse motoring conditions in the rain. The results are fed back to the engineering and design department to ensure car body watertightness.

Then, there’s our “pass/no pass sample.’’ An authoritative guide for determining the best paint quality, it enables us to tell, virtually at a glance, whether a Datsun has been painted precisely and with the utmost care.

Datsun statistically picks samples from each lot of wheels and subjects them to rigorous strength tests.

If a sample fails to measure up to Datsun’s strict standards, it is promptly rejected along with the entire lot.

In other words, we leave nothing to chance. So whenever you travel in a Datsun, you ride not only on peak technology but also on our “extra’’ effort to make each Datsun a benchmark of quality.

DATSUN American Samoa: B. F. KNEUBUHL INC., Pago Pago/Cook Islands: COOK ISLANDS MOTOR CENTRE LTD.. Rarotonga/Fiji: CARPENTERS MOTORS, Suva/Guam: DATSUN MOTOR SALES, Agana/Hawaii: NISSAN MOTOR CORPORATION IN HAWAII LTD., Honolulu/Kiribati: ATOLL AUTO STORES, Tarawa/Nauru: JACOB ENTERPRISES LTDV New Caledonia.

AGENCE ALMA S.A., Noumea/New Hebrides: PENTECOST S.A., Port Vila and Santo/Norfolk Islands: SIRIUS MOTORS/Papua New Guinea: BOROKO MOTOR S 1 T?- res . by/ Saipan: JOETEN MOTOR COMPANY INC./Solomon Islands: UNITED ENTERPRISES LTD., Honiara/Tahiti: TAHITIBULL S.A.R.L., Papeete/Western Samoa: MORRIS HEDSTROM LTD., Apia