Pacific Islands Monthly - 1 August 1979

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August 1979

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Cover: Sir Jacob Vouza of Solomon Islands the knighthood may have come but he’ll still be remem bered as Sergeant-Major. (See Pacific Report.) Photo: Bruce Adams

Pim

Vol. 50 No. 8

Ahughĥst 1979

(Usps 952480)

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• Bikini-Enewetak The tragic sequence of events since 1947 in these H-bomb-test-devastated Micro nesian islands is traced by American freelance writer Gifford Johnson 11 • The Region This month’s Sixth South Pacific Games in Suva previewed 18 • New Hebrides Vital new progress in sorting out the country’s political problems as it moves to indepen dence 31 • USA in the Pacific President Carter’s personal representative to the future status talks with Micronesia speaks in Hawaii of a ‘new constellation of relations in the Pacific’ 33 • Papua New Guinea A 15-page review by PlM’s Port Moresby correspondent Angus Smales of the state of the nation as it prepares for the fourth anniversary of its independence 41 •Fiji Sir Vijay Singh, attorney-general and one of his country’s most prominent politicians, seems to be fighting for his political life 31 • Western Samoa - Head of State Malietola Tanumafili II had some reassuring words for his coun trymen when he spoke at the celebrations for the 17th anniversary of independence 31 • Oil Fiji’s oil search is about to get under way in earnest 39 • Cook Islands Big hopes are pinned on plans to ‘reshape’ the Cooks’ agricultural production 91

Gerard Leymang, New Hebrides chief minis ter ... straight talking in an interview with Nabanga

Head of State of Western Samoa Malietoa Tanumafili ll ... saying a word for fa’a Samoa

Afterthoughts 40 Books 77,78,80 Cook Islands 91 Deaths 99

Fiji 31,85,89,93

Guam 36 Hawaii 80 Islands Press 83 Letters 5 Micronesia 11,33 New Caledonia 38 New Hebrides 31,36 Norfolk Island 77 Pacific Report.. 7

Papua New Guinea 25,26,40,41-69 People 21 Political Currents 31 Rotuma 80 Shipping 100 South Pacific Games 18 Tahiti 38, 73 Tonga 29, 71 Tradewlnds 89 Tradewlnds Intelligence 94 Travel 71 Troplcallties 25 Western Samoa 31 Yachts 95

Yesterday 85

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

I quote first from the bio graphical notes Paul himself was preparing at the time of his death: ‘Bob Stuart and I were about the same age, we may even have been born on the same day. But what a different background! Stuart was a tall dark handsome young man, born in India and sent to school in England when he was nine years old, to a preparatory school, and then on to the

English public school of

Tunbridge. From there it was intended that he go to Sandhurst, but he did not make the grade, and was sent to

Hawkesbury Agricultural

College in New South Wales ... ‘Bob proved to be the best assistant I ever had and he took over Inus after I left. We had a hard battle together getting the place cleaned up and in order.’ It is to be remembered that the previous manager had been murdered on the beach front at Inus, and Paul had been asked to come and ‘clean up’ more than literally. The plantation work line was a rabble. Bob was always con cerned that Paul walked inno

cently amongst these tough

specimens and not on a horse as he preferred. It is nice that Bob is here to take the bow

or perhaps, more rightly, give

a bow.

I also read with interest his reference to Paul’s affection for

the dictionary. He always wrote with one beside him: he loved the right nuance of a word. Paul had left school at the age of 14 to help support

his parents’ large family.

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

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

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

Noelle Mason

Kundiawa PNG

A choice cut on

Solomons’ beef

I refer to ‘Pitfalls in a promis ing Solomons scene’ (PIM Tradewinds May). Your Honiara correspondent was quite wrong in stating that ‘while Solomon Islands looks like becoming a sizable rice exporter, it is not likely to be come a major beef exporter as was envisaged until recently’. It has never been the intention that Solomon Islands becomes a major beef exporter for although it was envisaged that in the early 1980 s the necessity may arise to seek markets in

adjacent countries for superior

cuts surplus to demand here, the primary intention is to be come self-sufficient in beef.

This point was recognised by

the author later on in the article but it hardly reconciles with

previous observations.

I am especially dismayed by

the statement which claims that ‘the government has failed to

provide adequate transport,

stockholding and marketing

facilities’. This again is quite wrong in every respect for these functions fall to the Cattle Development Authority which has done an excellent job in fostering the cattle smallholder and developing a reliable and

regular marketing system. The

authority is funded by overseas aid donors and I am very dis turbed indeed by the thought that they will read these damaging and totally inac curate statements in your

magazine.

Waeta Ben

Minister of Agriculture and Lands Honiara Solomon Islands

Questions about

French nuclear tests

What a pleasant surprise to read in the May issue of PIM the Moruroa newsletter by the French charge d’affaires in Fiji, Bernard Malandain,

heralding a complete reversal

of the long-standing French in formation policy in the nuclear weapons field.

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

To ensure complete secrecy, the French Government has even forbidden the French National Radiation Labora tory to send observers to the islands and entrusted the radi ation control to the very people who explode the bombs the French army. Not very surprisingly, the admirals and

generals have never publicly

critised their own undertak

ings.

Only once in the past has a high-ranking French official deigned to depart from this

strictly enforced hush-up pol

icy. This was in 1973, when the then deputy for French Polynesia, Francis Sanford,

sent in the following question to Minister for Health Michel Poniatowski: ‘Mr Sanford asks the minis ter for public health and social security (1) if he is able to indi cate the exact number of deaths due to cancer that have oc curred in French Polynesia during the last 10 years, and (2) if he can undertake an evalu ation of the amount of radioac tive contamination existing in the following three French Polynesian islands: Hao, Tureia and Mangareva.

To everybody’s surprise, Mr

Poniatowski on this occasion took time off to answer although not in a very satisfac tory manner. This is the com

plete reply, dated September

15, 1973: ‘The minister for public health and social security informs the honourable mem ber of parliament that he has no direct responsibility for the territory of Polynesia. He is nevertheless able to state (i) that the frequency of cancer and leukemia has remained

unchanged in Polynesia during

the last 10 years, and (ii) that the radioactivity in the islands of Polynesia, taken as a whole, has stayed within the limits of the fluctuations of the natural

radioactivity.’

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

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

Incidentally, it is very sad to hear that some ‘residents’ at Moruroa have been hit by a

viral hepatitis, probably caused

by seafood poisoning that had nothing to do with the radioac

tivity produced by the tests,

and I sincerely hope that they

will soon be back again at their

peaceful tasks.

But what about us other 150 000 inhabitants of French

Polynesia who seriously fear

that the long-lived radioactive fallout from all these bombs may have affected our health and that of our children? All we have heard so far are flat de nials that French bombs are harmful. Which is exactly what

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

So I trust that Mr Malandain will answer the following simple questions that countless anguished men and women here in the islands have hith erto asked in vain: • When was the last health sur vey made in French Polynesia to ascertain the radioactive body contents of the inhabi tants, and what were the re sults? • It is a well-known fact that certain marine and land ani

mals absorb unusually high

quantities of radioactivity, and among these are the following,

commonly eaten especially in

the Tuamotu islands: turbo shells, tridacna clams, squid, sea turtles and coconut crabs?

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

According to official state ments, in between the blasts, these islands were decon taminated. How was this dif ficult task that the Americans never mastered in Micronesia accomplished, and what is the present environmental radio

activity?

• Where can I find a copy of the

geological survey of Moruroa, allegedly showing that it will take 1500 years for the radioac tivity, produced by each ex plosion, to leak out into the ocean?

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

Marie-Therese Danielsson

Co-author of Moruroa, Mon Amour Papehue Paea Tahiti

Chatterton and ‘My

Reluctant

Missionary’

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

ably placed in.

For a start, Dr Chatterton ignores two-thirds of the novel’s title the ‘My’ and the ‘Reluctant’. To be unaware of

the disguised autobiographical

elements in the novel is forgiv able, but to judge Judy as a missionary of the ordinary sort is inappropriate to the book’s intentions.

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

Paralleling his inability to

comprehend the vacillations of the half-devoted Christian, Reverend Chatterton’s amaze

ment at Judy’s flaunting of ‘the nursing profession’s code of conduct’ stems from his appar ent faith in people’s ability to wholly commit themselves to an elected cause. A nubile nurse’s manner has been known to go further than the bedside more than once be fore.

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

pathy for distraught humanity.

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

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

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

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

foreign faith. Apparently it

has.

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

Papua New Guinea today.

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

Meanwhile, a perusal of other publications from the Institute will show Dr Chatter ton that Kolia’s novel is con sistent with past publishing policy, an aspect of which is the airing of topics relevant to the contemporary scene. I don’t believe any blame lies with the Institute for refusing to concen trate on the past, and refusing

to bury its findings in mouldy

archives. Creating discussion on topical issues through publi cation in various styles and media has allowed the Institute to produce, as part of one of its roles, a vitalising effect on the intellectual life of the Papua New Guinean community.

Nigel Krauth

Brisbane Australia

Lieutenant Bell,

coastwatcher

I am seeking information con

cerning events during the

World War II period in the Southwest Pacific.

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

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

intelligence information.

On one trip, we were sup posed to pick him up for deliv ery of intelligence reports, but he failed to show.

The June 1946 issue of PIM reported that the Australian Department of External Terri tories was making investi gations into the fate of 68 civilians missing in New Bri tain and other islands. Among the names of the missing was J. W. Bell, planter, Penipol Plantation, Kavieng. Much later, in the October 1971 issue of your magazine, there was a reference to ‘coastwatcher Stan Bell, brother of Lincoln Bell’,

telling of wartime occupation

intelligence activities by Aus tralians in New Ireland.

I wonder if any readers can help me to find out more about the Lieutenant Bell whom we

dropped off and picked up by

PT boat off New Ireland so many years ago?

Wilmon Menard

PO Box M Honolulu Hawaii

Welcome To Independent Kiribati!

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

France, Usa In Forum Sights

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

New Caledonia Votes

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

of a stable majority favouring continued association with France.

Unifil Fijians; Woundings, Kidnapping

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

It’S Sunshine Again In New Hebrides

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

‘Arise, Sir Jacob...’

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

Banabans Reject London Ruling

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

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

Finbar Kenny For Rarotonga

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

Radio Australia Beefs Up Its Pidgin

Radio Australia has increased the strength of the transmission used for its Pidgin service from 10 kW to 100 kW. ‘GET THE HELL OUT OF ISLANDS’ (I) New Zealand journalist Mike Field, editor of the Apia-based Western Samoa Government newspaper Savali, whose free wheeling journalistic ways have more than once tried the patience of his mentors in the prime minister’s department, has resigned and, for good measure, been ordered to quit the country. The crunch came when, after receiving instructions not to publish a report of a court hearing of bribery charges against a former MR (Political Currents), Field brought out the June 5 issue of Savali with a blank column on the front page and a blank page two (PIM July). The large white spaces were ac companied by a short note from Field saying the report, of which all that appeared was the headline ‘Ex-MP Fined $1550 in Brib ery Case;’ was ‘ordered removed by the government only a few hours before it was due to be printed’.

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

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

Now Neave Runs ‘Soviet Weapons’

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

• Liberal-Minded Norfolk Administrator

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

Petition To Oust Tupuola

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

Death Link With Arawa

F. R. ‘Kip’ McKillop, the man whose Arawa plantation on Bougainville was forcibly resumed by the Papua New Guinea Administration in 1969 as the site of the town of Arawa that today services the activities of the giant Panguna copper mine, died

at Teresopolis, Brazil, on July 2, aged 63. Kip McKillop, who died from a heart attack, built up Arawa plantation during 17 years on Bougainville, and bitterly fought acquisition of the prop erty. Arawa, among other things, was noted for its magnificent collection of orchids and native plants, and McKillop was one of the founders of the New Guinea Biological Foundation. He bought and developed planting property in Brazil, with his wife Mary, following the loss of Arawa. About 50 old PNG friends attended a memorial service to him in Sydney on July 11.

Tonga’S ‘Sea’ Of Pumice

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

Getting Closer To Karkar

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

A New Franco-Tongan Pact?

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

Oscar Temaru Touches Sore Spot

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

They’Ll Fly Noumea-Norfolk-Nz

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

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

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

Giant Man-Eating Croc Caught In Png

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

The victim was 34-year-old Gabriel Solop, a plantation inspector, who was seized by the leg and dragged into a river while check ing fishing lines.

Micronesia

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

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

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

Up to the 1940 s the Marshall [slanders, like most other Micronesians, were self sufficient, living off the ocean

md land. Though covering a

>reat expanse of ocean, the Marshalls’ 28 multi-islet atolls md five single islands com

3rise only about 180

square km. The atolls are rings }f 15 to as many as 97 islets xmnected by a coral reef that mcircles a clear blue lagoon.

Dut of necessity, the

Marshallese are traditionally

expert fishermen, deriving

nost of their protein from the ich lagoons, while the land )rovides coconuts, breadfruit, )andanus and taro.

The most isolated and least vestemised of the Marshallese ived on the northern atolls of

Bikini and Enewetak. Having

ittle contact with foreigners not even with the Japanese

luring their 25-year occu

>ation), they relied on the out ide world for almost nothing, ronically, this very isolation hrust the Bikini and Enewetak )eople into the nuclear age.

In January 1946, Navy

)fficials in Washington, DC,

mnounced that Bikini Atoll

itted all requirements for Op

ration Crossroads , designed to

est the destructive power of mclear weapons on naval vessels. When the US military governor of the Marshalls went o Bikini in February, he told he people that American

■dentists were experimenting

vith nuclear weapons ‘for the

In July 1947 the United States of America gave its word to the United Nations, when it signed the UN Trusteeship Agree ment for the US Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia) to *. . .protect the inhabitants against the loss of their land and resources’. The Micronesians of Bikini and Enewetak Atolls have good reason to doubt the United States’ sincerity as they survey the devastation of their homelands for the good of mankind and to end all world wars’. Gifford Johnson, a freelance writer, traces the tragic sequence of events since 1947 in this article which first appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientests. PIM reprints it in the hope of widening public discussion on a problem which shows no sign of going away. It is not a question of digging up an old story. The future for the Bikinians and the Enewetakese is as bleak now as it was, without their knowing, in the middle

forties.

good of mankind and to end all world wars’. He promised that their atoll would be returned after the tests were finished, and asked that they consent to being moved to another island.

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

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

Even while the United States

was removing the Marshallese from their islands, in July 1947 it was signing the United Nations Trusteeship Agree ment for the US Trust Terri tory of the Pacific Islands (Micronesia). This agreement stated: 7« discharging its obligations, the administering authority (US) shall: promote the econ omic advancement and self sufficiency of the inhabitants, and to this end shall ... en courage the development of

fisheries, agriculture and indus

tries; and protect the inhabitants against the loss of their land and resources. ’

In addition, this agreement bound the United States to ‘promote the social advance

ment of the inhabitants, and to this end .. . protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of all elements of the population without discrimination; and protect the health of the inhabitants. . .

After the relocation of the Marshallese, however, what happened during the next 12 years was that about 70 atomic and hydrogen bomb blasts dev astated the islands and irrever sibly changed the lives of the

people.

The Bikinians first moved about 160 km east to Rongerik, an uninhabited atoll consisting of barely 1.25 square km of land. Within two months, they

expressed anxiety over the

atoll’s meagre resources and made the first of many requests to return home. Within a year, the people faced starvation; a visiting American medical offi cer reported that the Bikinians

were ‘visibly suffering from

malnutrition’. In 1948 the Bikinians were evacuated to a temporary tent city at the Navy base on Kwajalein.

Kili Island in the southern Marshalls was selected for their next home. Kili, a single island, has no lagoon or protected

anchorage; heavy surf from

November until late spring halts fishing and isolates the island. On the other hand, Kili had once supported a Japanese copra plantation, and US authorities hoped that, while the Bikinians were not a farm

ing people, the island’s agricul

tural possibilities would overcome its drawbacks. Thus, the Bikinians were forced to adapt to a completely alien environment.

In early December 1947, Washington officials an nounced without prelimi naries, that Enewetak was to be used for the next series of bomb tests. In less than three weeks, the people of Enewetak were relocated to Ujelang, the westernmost atoll in the Marshalls. Like Rongerik and Kili it was also uninhabited, and for good reason. Ujelang has only a quarter of the land area of Enewetak and its 65

Bikini family waits for evacuation ... ahead on Kili, a completely different environment. Photo: Mike Malone

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

lagoon.

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

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

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

On March 1, 1954, the United States detonated Bravo, the first test of a deliverable hy drogen bomb, at Bikini Atoll attd severely contaminated fishermen aboard the Lucky

Dragon, a Japanese fishing

vessel that had strayed into nearby waters. More than 200 Marshallese on the neighbour ing atolls of Rongelap and Utirik, and some 28 Americans

monitoring the explosion were

also contaminated.

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

Despite an incomplete and

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

The Lucky Dragon, illegally

fishing near Bikini, was the first hit by the radioactive fall

out. Returning to Japan

quickly, unaware that they had been exposed to nuclear fall out, the 22 fishermen began to feel the effects of acute radi ation exposure: itching of the skin, nausea and vomiting.

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

In the AEC’s Nevada Nu clear Proving Grounds in the United States, prior to an

atomic test series, a public in formation programme, includ ing films and discussions on the forthcoming tests, was implemented. No such pro gramme had been conducted in the Marshalls, although the United States did inform the chief of Rongelap that a hydro gen test would soon occur.

What the chief was told about the test and what his reactions were is not clear; that he knew nothing of the radiation disas ter soon to befall his people is certain. Indeed, the Marshallese on Rongelap and Utirik were not even warned of

precautionary measures they

might take in the event of radi ation exposure.

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

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

Children played in the radioac tive powder and an old man with vision problems rubbed the ash into his eyes to see if

this might somehow cure his ailment.

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

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

Medical reports on these men are still unpublished.

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

The Rongelap people were

exposed to 175 rems of gamma radiation, considered a high dose of radiation. (A lethal dose is estimated at 300 to 500 rems in the absence of inten sive medical care.) Neverthe less, they were not evacuated from the island for more than 24 hours after the Americans

left Rongerik, which is only about 40 km away. The Utirik population was not removed by the United States until more than three days after the Bravo test.

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

those most heavily exposed.

The Utirik people were told by the Atomic Energy Com mission that ‘their island was

only slightly contaminated and

considered safe for habitation,’ and they were moved back in

May 1954.

Three years later the Ron

gelapese were permitted to

return home after a July 1957 radiological survey stated that

‘in spite of slight lingering

radioactivity’ Rongelap Atoll

was safe for rehabitation, the

Rongelapese returned.

Brookhaven National Laboratory (on contract to the AEC) reported that: ‘ Even though . . . the radioactive

contamination of Rongelap

Island is considered perfectly safe for human habitation, the levels of activity are higher than those found in other inhabited locations in the world. The habi tation of these people on the island will afford most valuable ecological radiation data on

human beings.’

Even at the outset of its medical treatment programme, the AEC seemed willing to ex

periment with the exposed

Marshallese islanders. Up to 1958 the incidence of stillbirths and miscarriages in the exposed Rongelap women was more than twice the rate of

unexposed Marshallese

women.

In 1961, a Brookhaven National Laboratory report (prepared for the AEC) showed that after the exposed

Rongelap people returned to

their island in 1957 their body

burden of radioactivity rapidly

Air base on Enewetak Atoll... out of the blue, they chose Enewetak for testing and the people were removed within three weeks

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

In 1964, the first thyroid tu mours and cancers appeared.

Since that time, more than 90% of the Rongelap children who were under 12 years old in 1954

have developed thyroid tu

mours. Forty percent of all the exposed Marshallese have de

veloped thyroid problems, as

compared to an average of 3-4% among Americans.

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

Brookhaven’s 1960 medical survey showed little difference in radioactivity levels among

exposed and unexposed people

living on Rongelap. However,

as late as 1969, the body radioactivity levels of pre

viously unexposed Rongelap

people was 10 times that of Marshallese living on a non contaminated island.

In 1971, Marshall Islands leaders invited a Japanese medical team to perform an independent survey of the

Rongelap and Utirik people.

Barred by the United States from actually going to Ron gelap and Utirik, the team

examined exposed people in

the district centre of Majuro.

The Japanese report stated:

‘The people of Rongelap who

were not exposed to fallout, received a considerable amount of radioactive nuclides from the environment. Consequently, the

“unexposed” group actually be

came an “ exposed” group ... it was a great mistake to permit

the people of Rongelap to return

to their island in July 1957 with out sufficient work having been done to remove radioactive pol lution from the island . ’

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

The Atomic Energy Com mission has consistently obs cured information about the

irradiation of the people and their high incidence of thyroid disease and cancer. In 1975

Nelson Anjain, Rongelap’s

magistrate, wrote to Dr Robert Conard of Brookhaven: ‘For me and the people on Rongelap, it is life which mat ters most. For you it is facts and figures. We want our life and our health. In all the years you’ve come to our island you’ve never once treated us as people. You’ve never sat down among us and really helped us

honestly with our problems.

You have told the people that the “worst is over,” then Lekoj

and this was quite unpredicted and we had some of the best experts in the United States, said Dr Conard, who has headed the Atomic Energy Commission and now ERDA (Energy Research and

Development Administration)

medical programme in the Marshalls since 1954. ‘The theory was put forth that Utirik received low radi ation so a detailed follow-up was not necessary,’ said Dr Konrad Kotrady, a former Brookhaven resident physician in the Marshalls. ‘Now the facts of the thyroid cancer of Utirik have strongly shown that the

theory was wrong,’ Kotrady

Anjain died. I am very worried that we will suffer again and

again.’

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

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

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

exposed Rongelap population.

This unexpected increase has forced government scientists to revise theories on which radi ation dose rate will lead to adverse human effects. ‘Thyroid nodules have been increasing in the Utirik people

wrote in a stinging critique of the ERDA medical pro gramme. ‘The people ask if this

thyroid problem has suddenly

occurred is it not possible that the experts have been wrong for so many years and more problems will occur in the future?

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

Every year since 1954, the AEC and later ERDA medical teams have examined the Marshallese people, and every year they reassure them of their good health. When the people

eventually began asking ‘lf

nothing is wrong with us, why

do you keep coming back every year to examine us? ERDA re plied that it was a precaution ary measure.

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

Protesting at what they con sidered inadequate medical care and, to underline the monumental cultural clash be tween the US medical person nel and the islanders, the Utirikese refused a quarterly ERDA medical checkup on December 1976, and the ERDA physician was recalled. ‘The people of Utirik are very distressed and angry as a result of the radiation,’ the chiefs of the atoll wrote in a letter to the

Energy Research and Develop

ment Association in 1977. ‘The people feel that the ERDA pro gramme is in need of vast

changes.’

While the Utirik and Ron gelap populations were experi encing the effects of direct fallout exposure, the peoples of Bikini and Enewetak were attempting to survive in their US-imposed exile on tiny, in

hospitable islands.

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

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

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

In addition, the Atomic Energy Commission, which had been increasingly criticised for advocating that there were per missible levels of radiation

Forty houses like this have been built on Bikini for returnees ... but still the atoll is unfit for human habitation

exposure, was eager to demon strate that low levels of radi ation were not harmful to

people.

In 1968, 10 years after the Marshalls’ nuclear test pro gramme had ended, President

Lyndon Johnson promised the

540 Bikini people a permanent return to their home; the radi ation had dropped below the danger level, according to the Atomic Energy Commission.

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

In the early 1970 s the

Bikinians began slowly return

ing to their atoll to help in the massive rehabilitation pro gramme, which included the replanting of more then 50,000 coconut trees and many other local crops, as well as construc tion of a new village.

About 100 Bikinians were on the atoll when the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory con ducted a radiation assessment in June 1975. The study, Dose Assessment at Bikini Atoll, not released until mid-1977, stated

clearly: ‘All living patterns

involving Bikini Island exceed federal (radiation) guidelines

for 30-year population doses.’

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

Despite these and other

warnings. Energy Research

and Development Associ ation’s Dr Conard stated a short time earlier; ‘Our medi cal team has evaluated the radiation exposure in the people who have been working on Bikini the past two years.

There is some low level radi ation remaining on the island of Bikini and measures have been taken to reduce these levels . . . The internal absorp tion of radioactive materials will be . . . only slight from ter restrial food plant sources.

Therefore, we do not expect to see any ill effects in the Bikini people or in their offspring

from the small amounts of radiation to which they will be exposed.’

Caught in the middle of these conflicting statements, in late 1975 the Bikinians filed a federal law suit against the US government demanding a com plete scientific survey of Bikini to determine if the island was

indeed safe for habitation.

In late 1977, ERDA monitor ing of the Bikinians who had returned earlier showed a marked increase in the amount of radioactive nuclides in the people’s bodies. These tests show that the Bikinians were

ingesting higher than accept

able concentrations of cancer causing radiation from the water and from food grown in the island’s contaminated soil.

The US government then

began importing all food

(except local fish, which was declared safe) and drink to Bikini. This food programme has compounded the Bikini di lemma; while the Bikinians have been told that the island is radioactive and potentially dangerous, the prospect of free

food and housing and a chance to move from Kili called the

‘prison’ by resident has

encouraged people to return.

In early 1978, the Energy Re search and Development As sociation considered moving the people to another island in Bikini Atoll Eneu and was

growing fruits and vegetables

in an experimental gardens to test radioactivity levels there.

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

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

Nevertheless, In April, Trust

Territory officials, testifying at

a congressional hearing on

funding for re-establishing the

Bikinians on Eneu Island, insisted that the people could remain on Bikini without harm until the experiments on Eneu

were completed in January

1979 provided that they

didn’t eat any coconuts, and that the coming medical tests showed, as was expected, no large increases in internal radi ation levels.

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

expected.

Throughout the rehabilita tion of Bikini, the Energy Re search and Development Association and the Depart ment of Energy (DOE) had conducted countless radiologi cal surveys of the island many of which suggest the

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

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

of plutonium body burden’.

A 1976 Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientist stated that Bikini ‘is possibly the best available source of data for evaluating the transfer of plu tonium across the gut wall after

being incorporated into bio

logical systems.’

Government scientists ve

hemently deny they have used

the Marshallese for experimen tation. A DOE official

explained: ‘lt was done by technical types anxious to know about the transfer of radioactive elements.’

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

have our ceremony on the ship.

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

Though the Bikinians, like the Enewetakese, suffered the

devastating physical and

psychological effects of relo cation and, at times, even near starvation, they had never suf fered radiation exposure until they returned to their radioac tive island after 25 years. Now the Bikinians are an exposed population, too. And who knows what the future holds for the Enewetak people many of whom have now re turned to their home atoll to work with thousands of US army soldiers in the massive nuclear debris cleanup.

Until the scientific com

munity and independent or

ganisations begin critically to

monitor US government agen cies’ treatment of the Marshallese, their situation is not apt to change.

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

Reprinted by permission of the Bull etin of the Atomic Scientists, a magazine of science and public affairs. Copyright 1979 by the Edu cational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Chicago, Illinois.

Bikinians Look To

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

check on radiation

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

The US Government at first suppressed a Government Accounting Office (GAO) re port of May 8 which said it was not ‘in the best interests of the US Government to inform

people living on Enewetak

Atoll in the Marshall Islands that they may be exposed to ex cessive doses of radiation.’

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

But, the GAO says, there is no guarantee that the islands will be safe for habitation at the completion of the radiation clean-up late this year. The GAO report indicates the

jncertainty surrounding the

unprecedented project among

the government agencies in volved. In spite of this uncer ainty, ‘the government has consistently told us that the islands are safe,’ said Ismael John, a member of the Marshalls’ legislature from Enewetak.

The GAO attempted to pre vent public release of the ‘sen

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

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

When the clean-up started in early 1977, the DOE said ‘it could not assure that the radi ation doses would not sig nificantly exceed the proposed Environmental Protection Agency guidelines’ for popu lation safety. From the outset, the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) in charge of the clean-up operations said it was impossible to reduce the contamination to pre-test levels, but Ridded that the southern islands are ‘relatively free’ of contamination and are

safe for habitation. Enewetak’s northern islands are still dangerously radioactive but,

following the clean-up, only

one island, Runit - where

plutonium-contaminated earth

* from other islands is to be dumped in an atomic bomb crater and capped with cement will be off limits. In addition, living and food gathering re strictions will be placed on many islands.

But even if the Enewetak people ‘adhere to living pattern restrictions’, states the GAO re port, ‘they could receive radi ation doses in excess of current standards’,

Tony Debrum, spokesman

for the Marshalls Status Com mission, said even the living re strictions placed on the islands were unrealistic. ‘lslands on either side and within five kilo metres of Runit which must be quarantined for at least 24 000 years are designated for “picnics and food gather ing’’,’ Mr Debrum said.

The GAO questioned the

safety of entombing the

plutonium-saturated debris in cement in a bomb crater.

The high levels of radioac tivity on the northern islands and the problems that devel oped at Bikini Atoll during a

similar clean-up, have delayed,

since 1974, the planting of coconut trees at Enewetak.

In 1969 the Atomic Energy Commission declared that there was ‘virtually no radi ation left’ on Bikini. Then in

1978, after 130 people re turned, medical tests showed the Bikinians’ body levels of radiation were, in some cases, more than twice the maximum considered a safe level in the US. So they were re-evacuated.

The GAO is concerned that the same problems could occur at Enewetak and strongly cri ticised the DNA and the Interior Department for their

opposition to any independent

scientific assessment of radi ation levels at Enewetak. ‘This situation could raise questions on the objectivity of the pro

ject,’ the report suggested.

The GAO report found that the ‘radiological assessments

are being made by employees

of DOE and the Department of Defense or contractors working for these agencies’. The GAO’s concern centred on recent exposure of an Atomic Energy Commission/DOE cover-up of the dangers of radiation from nuclear tests in the 1950 s and the unsatisfactory AEG hand ling of the Bikini nuclear clean-up, informed sources said.

The report concluded that independent scientists should perform an assessment of the

‘post-clean-up hazards’ before

resettlement of the Enewetak

people begins. The report

failed to mention that 55 Enewetak people are now liv ing on one of the islands and that many others have lived there since part of the popu lation was allowed to return in early 1977.

The participants

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

A thletics Basketball Boxing

Cricket Golf Hockey Judo Lawn bowls

Lawn tennis Netball Rugby Soccer Squash

Swimming Table tennis Volleyball Weightlifting Yachting

‘Go’ For

The Games

The suggestion by an organiser of the sixth South Pacific Games in Suva that he didn’t think any other country in the region could handle them, probably wouldn’t go over too well with some of the Pacific’s more affluent countries say Papua New Guinea or New Caledonia. But it did clearly in dicate that, unless some limi tations are placed on future

games, they are only going to

be possible to stage in places like Suva, Port Moresby and Noumea. No other centre, without massive outside financial assistance, could con template the prospect.

The statistics for the Suva games, beginning on August 28

and running through to Sep

tember 8, are daunting enough: 19 competing nations, 18 sports, and a theoretical 2672 competitors a figure which is likely to shrink a little as com peting nations find cost factors forcing them to pare their teams.

The bill? Probably at lot more than Fiji thought it was

going to be when it agreed to host this year’s games. When the organising committee first got together it set a fund raising target of $F 100 000.

Now there’s talk in Suva of a bill exceeding $3OO 000. Even more frightening is the knowl edge that the SP Games lottery tickets at $2 each, are not sell ing well, and that there are now doubts about the amount of revenue from spectator ticket sales. And there’s little chance of pruning costs Fiji and the games organising committee are committed to a sporting spectacular, the like of which has never been seen in the Pa cific and which, in terms of

competitors, will be bigger

than last year’s Common wealth Games at Edmonton, Canada.

Not only bigger but prob

ably faster, much faster on the athletics track. At the heart of Suva’s Buckhurst Park national sports complex funded to the tune of $3.5 million by the Fiji Government, a surprisingly generous splurge by a cabinet

which normally keeps a tight

hand on the national purse strings is an all-weather Canadian ‘tartan’ track. Some of New Zealand’s top runners, including world record miler

John Walker, have already tried it out. Said long-distance star Rod Dixon: ‘That track would be one of the best in the world.’ This was music to local ears. Dixon continued: ‘That’s something I’ve never said about our two top venues in Christchurch and at Mount Smart .. . The new track .. . would be one of the fastest I’ve ever run on and certainly faster than anything in New Zealand and Australia.’

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

Fifteen teams will be com peting on the athletics scene, 13 at tennis and soccer, 12 in volleyball, 11 in boxing and

golf, 10 in yachting, rugby and

basketball, nine in table tennis,

eight in weightlifting and judo,

seven in netball and cricket, six in squash and swimming, five in lawn bowls and four in hockey. Fiji and Papua New Guinea will contest all 18 sports and Western Samoa all but basketball.

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

Some see political overtones in

its participation including

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

French-governed New

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

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

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

If only sporting facilities had to be provided there’d be no

problem. The big headaches

come from accommodation

and victualling logistics. ‘Vil

lages’ are lined up for competi tors and officials on the University of the South Pacific campus, at Corpus Christi College, about three kilo metres away, and a third at the Derrick Technical Institute.

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

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

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

Princess Alexandra will be opening the games, flying from London specifically for the event, and the end-of-games party will be held in the old

Sunderland flying boat hangar

at the lower end of the USP campus near the bay.

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

They might be told by future

hosts that there will be a limit on the number they can send.

This projection might be

somewhat gloomy. But don’t let it cast a shadow over this month’s sixth South Pacific Games. Last month, with or ganisation activities in full swing, committee members

were confidently saying that

preparations were ‘one month ahead of schedule’. Said Com mander Stan Brown, chairman of the committee: ‘lt’s all sys tems go.’

Records

Tumble

In Suva

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

Three national and two all comer Fiji records were

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

Meanwhile in Goroka, Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby’s Titi Christian emerged as a top games hope

with a convincing performance

against Moses Aloysius of

North Solomons in the national boxing cham

pionships. This light welter

weight took only one round to

flatten Aloysius.

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

From Papeete comes the news that French Polynesia’s

big hopes are Jeanclaude

Duhaze in shotput, discus and

hammer, Dany Guyonnet in

high and long jump, shotput

and pentathlon, and Sandra Bordes in discus. French

Polynesia also expects good

team performances in table tennis and football.

Noumea reports suggest that the territory’s young athletes are determined not to be overshadowed by their former

champions. They plan to be

well among the medals in ath

letics, volleyball, judo, tennis,

table tennis and football.

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

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

‘The Martin Luther of the Pa cific or a fly-by-night cult fig ure?’ asks the Auckland Star about former Methodist minis ter, Senitulu Koloi, 53. Mr Koloi has led a breakaway independent fellowship in pro test at the burden of annual offerings of money and Sunday feasting imposed by the Ton gan Methodist Church in Auckland.

The Star comments: ‘Like the sixteenth-century Prot estant reformer, Mr Koloi has denounced from the pulpit what he considers abuses of the Christian teachings. ‘At issue is the church prac tice of setting annual amounts of money as targets for the con gregation to achieve. ‘Last year, Auckland’s 2000 Tongans gave about $2OO 000 in offerings. The money was used largely to pay expenses. In Tonga, where work is hard to get, the effect is even worse. ‘ “People are given $5O to pay but end up paying $lOOO in the competitive spirit to outdo each other,” says a Koloi sup porter. Equally “evil” is the

regular Tongan Sunday feast

ing “when families can hardly afford meat during the week”.

Some ministers, says Mr Koloi, are preaching “the more you to the church the more slessings you get”. Mr Koloi las about 200 followers in ~nd and his message is ;hat work comes after sal tation.’

Cook Islands bantamweight aoxer Richard Pittman was the )nly gold medallist from a Pa cific Island country at the

Oceania Boxing Champion

hips held at Dubbo, New South Wales, Australia, in May.

Jis three wins over opponents rom New Zealand and the Australian states of Victoria ind Queensland clinched his )lace in the Oceania team vhich will compete at the

vorld championships in New

fork in October.

Relating his experiences at Oubbo to the Cook Islands

News, Richard said ‘lt was cold’. When he arrived for the

weigh-in nobody could believe

he was a bantamweight he looked too big. Then he started taking off his tracksuit, three sweatshirts and three T-shirts.

Everybody laughed as the

Cook Islands representative

visilby shrank.

Toughest bout for Richard was the third and final one

against Queensland champion

Gordon Willis. He said; ‘I just managed to “psych” him out to win on points. But I don’t mind telling you I’d had it I was gone by the end.’

He added: ‘After the fight I

felt happy. Many people

cheered for me New Zealanders, other Islanders but they weren’t my own people ... I wish some of my own people could have been there to see it.’

As for the future, Richard’s only definite venture will be the World Cup in October. The Queensland and Tahitian

champions want to challenge

him, though nothing has been decided yet. There’s this month’s South Pacific Games, and possibly even the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. ‘But we’ll have to wait and see,’ says Richard.

Whatever happens, the Cook Islands News says, ‘our cham pion boxer has already won the pride and admiration of his people, and it’s certain that Richard, and other local boxers, will be able to count on their help and support’.

Margaret Thatcher’s elec tion as Britain’s first woman prime minister appealed as an

omen to Fetaui Mata’afa, well known member of Western Samoa’s parliament. The New Zealand Herald reports her ju bilant reaction to the news in an interview at Auckland’s Samoa House. ‘I am so happy for Maragaret Thatcher and for Britain,’ she said, beaming. ‘Perhaps the day is not so far away when a woman will head the Samoan Government. I might even win the post my self.’

Elected to parliament in February, Mrs Mata’afa known to her constituents as La’ulu Fetauimalemau is the only woman among 46 men.

When her husband, Fiame Mata’afa, a former Samoan prime minister, died in office in 1975, she won the by election in his rural constitu ency, but lost the seat in the general election a year later.

Now back in the house, she stands firmly behind the idea of an opposition party in Samoa.

As only the second Samoan woman to win a seat in parlia ment, she is keen to encourage others of her sex. ‘lt was not so long ago that Samoan women

were content to leave politics to men,’ she said. ‘Now they are becoming more aware of their

political responsibility. In the

last election I was impressed with the large number who, though not candidates, were

lobbying and campaigning for

husbands or relatives.’ She says

Samoan women have yet to reach their full strength, but sees no obstacles in their path.

It would certainly encourage their advance if she were ever to achieve the prime minis terial mantle on which she’s set

her sights.

Father George Kester, the Dutch-born priest who has befriended thousands of visit ing yachties over his 32 years in the Cook Islands, is having a holiday in Holland, but expects to be back in the Cooks

by Christmas.

Wes Guy DFC, has been

appointed general manager of

Norfolk Island Airways. A for mer flying instructor in the Royal Australian Air Force, Mr Guy has also served as chief examiner for Australia’s Department of Civil Aviation, conducted his own flying train ing school in Papua New Guinea, and worked with

Douglas Airways in PNG.

A new face in the Marshall Islands is that of New Zealand law graduate Tony Johns, 29, who has just taken up duty as secretary to the cabinet of the Marshall Islands Govern ment.

Bonnie Anne Quintal, of Nor folk Island, received an MBE ‘for service to health and the community’, in the 1979 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Godwin Ligo, 33, chief news re porter for Radio New Hebrides, has returned home after a three-weeks familiaris ation visit to Australia.

Philip Rating, the New Hebrides’ first professional boxer, had another victory when he outboxed New Zealand Viti Patterson in a 10-round professional middle weight bout in Auckland’s town hall.

In Australia at the invitation of the government in June was Tu’a Taumoepeau, deputy sec retary to government in Tonga.

On a courtesy visit to PI M’s Sydney office, Mr Tua was not

Senitulu Koloi ... ‘Martin Luther of the Pacific’, or ‘fly-by-night cult operator’? Time alone will tell

Mrs Fetaui Mata’afa - La’ula Fetauimealemau to friends ... in her sights, a prime minister’s mantle

only interested to find out how the magazine is produced, but was also keen to talk about his crowded programme. At the time of his call, he had already been engaged in visits and talks concerned with fisheries, tour

ism, and agricultural training.

Ahead of him were talks with the Bank of New South Wales on questions of industrial de centralisation, and three days with Australian Government officials in Canberra. Of the home front Mr Tua reported that the attempt to revive Ton ga’s ill-starred Bank of the South Pacific appeared to have failed, and that Taiwanese engineers are hard at work

studying the problems of

upgrading Nukualofa’s

Fuaamotu airport, a venture which, it is hoped, will be financed by funds from

Libya.

Daryl Cross, 37, Australian athletics coach, spent two weeks in the New Hebrides training the country’s athletes for this month’s South Pacific Games in Suva.

Old friends met in Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in May when World War II Japanese gunner, Goshi Inuzuka. met up again with Yading of Hasini village. They had first met at Wagang village in 1943 when Mr Yading gave the Japanese soldier pawpaws and other fruit. They were firm friends from then on. They’ve met on one other occasion since the war. In 1962 Mr Inuzuka was visiting Lae with other Japanese ex-soldiers to see World War II relics, and looked up his old Papua New Guinean mate.

Fiji’s Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara is on three months leave on orders from his doctors. An official state ment from Ratu Mara’s office said there was nothing organically wrong with the PM, who was 59 in May. But after almost 12 years in office the strain on his physical resources was such that he should take the recuperative leave. Deputy Prime Minister Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau is the acting prime minister.

Inspector Merewalesi Mataika is to head the newly-formed Juvenile Bureau in Fiji to deal with minor offenders. She will be assisted by four other police officers including one woman.

Her appointment comes four years after a royal commission into crime reported a need for

a specialist police youth section

to work in with the social wel

fare department in dealing

with juvenile offenders. One function will be to provide counsel to young offenders rather than prosecute them.

Tonga’s Prince Ula Valu went

west recently, visiting

Queensland, Australia, for five days. On his travels he took the opportunity to address the rotary club at Mackay which is roughly on the same latitude as Tonga. When he left Australia, the prince was talking of the possibility of sheep and ginger industries on Tonga, having studied ginger projects at Buderim and inspected the Queensland Government’s re search station at Coolum which specialises in tropical grasses

and legumes.

Sergeant Henri Geoffrey, 47, of the Vila French police force, has jogged around the island of Efate in 17 hours. He left Vila at 6 pm on a Saturday and arrived back at 2.30 pm on Sunday. His average speed for

the cross-country run was 7.78 km per hour.

Bernard Tzilu has qualifed as an architect the first Bougainvillean to do so. He graduated from the Lae

University of Technology in

Papua New Guinea.

Doing a two-months training

course at Fontainebleau, France, is policewoman Con stable Diana Jimmys of Santo, New Hebrides. Besides study ing typing and switchboard op eration, she also is studying self-defence techniques, and how to conduct investi

gations.

Alan Familton, an officer in the New Zealand forest service, is nothing if not persistent. The New Zealand High Commiss ioner in Fiji, David McDowell, wants to import kauri trees from his country to give a New Zealand flavour to the grounds of his official residence. But, as kauri is classed as a dangerous

exotic by the Fijian agricultural

authorities, he has been told he can’t.

Fijians want to protect their own strain of kauri from dis eases or pests another species might bfing in. So Mr Familton had to take out three kauris and some kahikateas from a gift of 40 native trees for the high commission just before he boarded an aircraft for Suva at Auckland’s international air port. The other tiees - pohu tukawas, karakas, karaires and lucebarks travelled on a first class ticket as cabin baggage.

Mr Familton told the Auck land Star: ‘Believe me, I had

my problems with quarantine

officials when I got there it took an hour-and-a-half to get out of the airport.’ Mr Famil ton then went to a scheduled meeting of the Fijian Pine Commission, while the high commissioner drove to his resi dence with his trees to plant out healthy ones and pot the others to be nursed back to health. But Mr Familton and his service did not give up. They were quick to take another tack in the matter of the kauri trees.

They finally persuaded the

Fijian conservator of forests to let kauri seeds into the country to grow into trees.

Tu’a Taumoepau relaxes in PIM’s Sydney office ... the sun of the Bank of the South Pacific seems to have set in the west

Sergeant Henri Geoffrey, Vate’s one-man conqueror of distance, in full flight on his around-the-island run. Nabanga photo.

Tropicalities

for Canberra

The National Library of Aus tralia has announced the arrival at the library in Can berra of a painting it purchased at a London auction in March of items associated with Cap tain Cook.

The painting is a small (29cm x 40cm) oil sketch by William Hodges, the official artist on Cook’s second Pacific voyage. Painted in 1774, it de picts Point Venus in Matavai Bay, Tahiti. The library be lieves that it was from this orig inal sketch that Hodges

subsequently painted, in Lon

don, a larger version which now hangs in the National Maritime Museum at Green

wich, England.

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

The Library’s successful bid was $l9 000.

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

As it happens, the Hodges painting was the only one. We already hold the originals or copies of the other items that were offered. ‘The painting is very rel evant,’ Dr Chandler said.

‘Point Venus was the place where the transit of Venus across the sun’s face was obser ved. As this was the ostensible purpose of Cook’s first voyage to the Pacific, which brought him to Australia, the painting must be regarded as an import ant visual record in his story. ‘We were anxious to get it because of this historical sig nificance and also because there are few works of its kind outside Britain. Most of the art originals from Cook’s voyages are in the maritime museum or the British Museum of Natural History.’

Gatecrash for

Suharto

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

Angus Smales reports from Port Moresby that the member,

James Mopio, told parliament;

‘That just shows we have no real security.’ Mr Mopio, a

flamboyant figure who smokes

a huge bamboo-tube pipe, had introduced a ‘motion of public importance’ to debate aspects of the president’s visit. He said he had indulged ‘a well-known

Mopio habit by crashing the

party’. ‘We Papuans have got to do this or we get left out,’ he said. (Officially all citizens of Papua New Guinea are Papua New Guineans, but some from the original terri tory of Papua, and Mr Mopio is one of them, still claim a

Papuan entity. They claim that

New Guineans, because of greater numbers, exercise ex cessive control.) Mr Mopio went on: ‘I had a little bet just how close I could get to the president. Then I just walked right up to him and said “Have a beer”. Well, I ask you, where is our security? I tell you, if anyone wanted to invade this country, it would be easy.’

Mr Mopio also criticised decorations put up in Port Moresby for President Suhar to’s visit. ‘Things like women’s

underpants flying on electric

poles are just not good

enough.’ he said.

The debate was gagged.

Of a lost cat,

and ‘bust cream’

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

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

When the complainant went to pay the fees and collect her cat she was informed that it was missing. In fact the cat went missing on the very first day it arrived at the station. She wrote to me as follows:

“... Upon arriving to pay all

necessary fees I was informed for the first time my cat was missing had been for six days! No one had bothered to

Oil sketch by William Hodges of Point Venus, Matavai Bay, Tahiti ... a $19 000 purchase by the National Library of Australia

Gatecrasher James Mopio in conventional garb ... ‘invading PNG would be easy’

contact me. On questioning the cat’s disappearance the quarantine inspector admitted liability. I drove to the station and found the facilities for cat quarantine ridiculous. He had been placed in a pen, one of four in a block, with a dog only one pen away! I would like to state the complete neglect of cat facilities at this station and insist my cat be found or I should be compensated for the loss of my cat and the costs involved in bringing him to Suva. I have since learnt that

the Agriculture Department

placed an advertisement in Fiji Times on Wednesday 3rd only one advertisement and I do not feel enough effort is being made to find him. Would it alter the situation I wonder, if he had rabies!”

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

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

Everyone seemed happy -

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

failing.

The ombudsman himself, while closing his file with the notation ‘Justified grievance rectified’, had some doubts about the corrective course of action suggested in response to the affair by the secretary of finance. With admirable re straint, he wrote to the sec retary that he was ‘wondering about the legal validity, wis dom and fairness of the direc

tive given by the Secretary of

Finance in his letter Fin. 26/1 of November 3 1977 that in

future Ministry of Agriculture,

Fisheries and Forests officers obtain “no liability” undertak

ings from expatriates.’

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

A little further on in his report he had to address the problem of whether ‘a cream used by women in the care of their busts’ was to be regarded as a ‘medical product’ or a ‘toilet cream’. The question was a vital one for the complainant, ‘Mrs X’. who was seeking to import the stuff but whose con

signment had been officially

held up. The ombudsman ruled that the cream was indeed a toilet and not a medi cal preparation, and ‘Mrs X’ got her goods. But the ombuds man could not sustain her com plaints against the customs and health departments, who had, he said, ‘indeed .. . been very co-operative’. File closed, ‘Not

justified’.

A close look

at ‘Pandora’

A team of marine specialists has set out from Thursday Island, Torres Strait, in an attempt to identify one of Aus

tralia’s grimmest shipwrecks,

that of HMS Pandora, accord ing to the Australian Infor mation Service. The 24-gun frigate was sent from England in 1791 to run down and arrest Fletcher Christian and his fel low Bounty mutineers.

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

Thirty-one of the ship’s

company and four mutineers were drowned in the wreck.

The remaining mutineers, having spent several months caged on the ship’s deck locked inside what the crew called ’Pandora’s Box’, owed their lives to the master-at-arms, who passed the keys to their

chains through their prison

bars as captain and crew aban

doned ship.

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

archaeological significance.

New treasure

from WWI

‘Psst... wanna buy a set of five German New Guinea notes printed at the start of World War I?’ writes Sydney journal ist John Alexander in a June re port in the newspaper The A ustralian.

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

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

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

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

Colonel William Holmes, de cided to print the mark denomination notes on some

Kewal Chetty, Fiji sales representative for the Gillette company, demonstrates a new type of locking safety razor designed for use in prisons and other security institutions. The razors lock with the key Mr Chetty is holding so that the blade cannot be removed. He has presented samples of the razors to the Suva prison.

roughly-hewn printing blocks.

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

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

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

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

Haapai causeway

rises again

The islands of Lifuka and Foa in Tonga’s Haapai group are to be linked by a causeway built under a New Zealand aid scheme, writes Jimmy Cornell from the spot. One third of the 600 m gap separating the two islands has already been filled in. The work is being carried out by a team of 43 army

engineers commanded by

Lieut. John Kamp of the Ist

Field Squadron. Papakura

(Auckland).

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

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

The causeway will be one lane wide with a concrete cap ping and will rise about one metre above the highest tide level. It will enable the islands to communicate more easily and also give access to the people of Foa to the Pangai market, on Lifuka, and the new 28-bed hospital, also built

under a New Zealand aid scheme. The hospital is sched

uled to be opened by King

Taufa’ahau Tupou IV in Sep tember. No completion date has been set for the causeway, but Lieut. Kamp is confident that it will be a lasting job.

Now it’s Emma

on the stage

The islands around New Bri tain and New Ireland have their fair share of legendary characters, but perhaps none stands out more than the ener

getic Emma Forsayth

‘Queen Emma’ who established and ruled a copra and trading empire in the Duke of York Islands from 1878,

writes Stephen Measday.

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

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

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

Now Troupe, an indepen

dent theatre ensemble based in Adelaide, has recreated Emma’s life on stage in a pro duction entitled Missis (sic) Queen.

Written by Adelaide play

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

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

Laurel. Gone with Hardy.

With Missis Queen , Troupe has demonstrated a hard

working, innovative approach

that has led to comparisons with the style of production in

the early days of Sydney’s very

successful Nimrod Theatre.

Church of Tonga

is fifty years old

The jubilee of the Church of Tonga, one of the branches of Methodism, was celebrated at Pangai, the capital of the Haapai group, where it was founded half a century ago by the Hon Ulukalala, its first

president, writes Jimmy Cor

nell. A special ceremony was held at dawn on May 3, a

plaque being unveiled by the

fourth president of the Church of Tonga, Selu Pepelimafi. The plaque was erected ‘to com memorate the golden jubilee of the Church of Tonga which was founded in Haapai in May 1928 and was formally con secrated on May 3 1929’. The church has about 8000 fol lowers in the kingdom, of whom about 3000 reside in the

Haapai group.

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

Plaque for the 50th anniversary of the Church of Tonga. Selu Pepelimafi, president of the church (left), with the Reverend Fono, Pagai’s minister. Photo Jimmy Cornell.

Political

Up And Away

Again In Nh

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

independence.

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

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

The paper wrote: ‘After long negotiations, the government reached agreement on a for mula which was in line with the plan proposed by the govern ments of France and Great Bri tain. but departed from it on one essential point, the refer endum. The fundamental order of factors was respected: no elections without a consti tution ... ‘But the government pro posed to dispense with an inter mediate stage contained in the Dijoud plan, the adoption of the draft constitution by way of referendum. The government

preferred instead a method comprising three stages: prep aration of a draft by the en

larged constitutional

committee, using consultation at the grassroots; final drafting of the constitution by the government; elaboration and adoption of the final text by a constitutional conference involving all members of the constitutional committee and the representatives of the trustee powers.. . ‘Paul Dijoud approved the ideas and thus agreed to aban don the idea of a referendum if asked to do so by the consti tutional committee. It seems that in his view the procedure outlined contained adequate guarantees in that it involved

broad participation by all

trends of opinion and that con sensus had been reached upon it within the government of

national unity.’

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

Reassurance

By Malietoa

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

stitutional points.

The speech came as Samoa’s politicians tried to cope with

increasing public concern at

the implications of what appeared to be widespread

electoral corruption.

During the previous week

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

charges.

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

Western Samoa’s Chief Jus tice Nicholson, a New

Zealander, ruled that their actions had crossed the divid ing line between what was ac ceptable under the traditional Samoan system of making

gifts, and electoral bribery.

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

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

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

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

He said the people would de cide what would be best for Samoa. ‘And what is best for

our country must be based on Samoa’s heritage and the heri tage that the Samoan people bring to the present. We are working for the future more than we are working for

today.’

In what appeared to be a comment on Chief Justice Nicholson’s decisions, the head of state said: ‘Short-term

precedents could provide only

a guideline and should not be allowed to restrict progress.’

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

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

Vijay Singh

At Bay

Sir Vijay Singh, attorney

general and regarded as

capable of running rings

Western Samoa’s Head of State Malietoa Tanumafili II ... saying a word for fa’a Samoa

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

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

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

sacking.

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

As minister for commerce in 1972. Sir Vijay gave Flour Mills a 10-year flour milling monopoly. Three years later,

practising privately as a lawyer,

he became the company’s con sultant in negotiations with the government for renewal of a

flour prices fixing formula.

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

Sir Vijay had explanations

for the court but. at the end of cross-examination, he was called a liar by the crown pros ecutor. Robert Lindsay, and the judge. Mr Justice Dyke, commented that his appear ance was one of the strange fea tures of a bizarre trial.

Howls for Sir Vijay’s head came straight after the trial from political foes within the government’s Alliance group ing of which he is a founder member. His Flour Mills con nections had ‘tarnished’ the Al

liance image, they said.

Some cabinet ministers, among them Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau (standing in as acting prime minister for Ratu Maru

who was on three months’ leave on medical advice), were believed to be threatening to resign over Ratu Mara’s refusal to get rid of his attorney general.

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

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

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

Meanwhile. Sir Vijay jetted

off to the United Nations in New York and Ratu Mara flew in from his island home on Lakeba for a late night meeting with cabinet ministers. A bland statement next day denied press reports of a ‘ministerial clash’. Ministers had been given a chance to reaffirm their

‘personal loyalty’ to Ratu Mara and Sir Vijay would ‘respond to criticism’ when he got back

in early July.

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

Was it an attempt to win a month’s reprieve from a show down over the attorney

general? Unlikely. Sir Vijay

had too many enemies within his own party for the matter to rest.

A Us Look

Into Future

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

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

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

They would establish close working relations with the independent island nations to their south, transforming, one

might hope, the regional insti

tutions of the South Pacific into those of the Pacific. ‘The continued US presence, the Micronesian states’ close

relationship with nearby US

areas, and their growing links with the friendly nations of the South Pacific offer the prospect that the areas of the Pacific closest to the important nations of East Asia will remain free of Great Power rivalry and accompanying tensions for the foreseeable future.’

All this would constitute ‘a new constellation of Pacific re

lationships’.

Mr Rosenblatt said that, pol

itically speaking, he believed

the Micronesian states would prove ‘stable and democratic’. ‘The traditional Micronesian emphasis on consensus de cisions harmonises with mod ern democratic practice and the new institutions of government seem to be taking firm root.’

He added that, economi cally, there was less cause for optimism. ‘lt saddens me to have to say that our own efforts

at inducing economic develop

ment in Micronesia, while undertaken in good faith and at considerable cost to the US tax payer, have had little result. To their credit, the emerging Micronesian governments are determined to work hard to achieve economic growth in the years to come.' Mr Rosenblatt said the US was mindful of the need ‘to strike a balance between meet ing the needs of the people and

inducing over-dependency on

American largesse’.

‘We hope to make further progress in the rationalisation of federal expenditures in the trust territory in the remaining years of the trusteeship, so as to better prepare the Micronesian governments for free association.

‘But the problems facing

small island economies in par

ticipating effectively in the

inter-related world economy of today are, of course, formi dable.

‘Underpinned by continuing

US financial support and, in

the Marshalls, by employment

flowing from the operation of the Kwajalein missile range, there are modest but real pros pects, in which the business men of Hawaii may reasonably hope to take an interest, in the fields of tourism, fisheries, and

agriculture, and perhaps one

day in the development of seabed resources.’

Mr. Rosenblatt’s ‘new con stellation’ was not slow in beginning to take shape. In the same month of June as he spoke to the Honolulu gather ing, President Tosiwo

Nakayama of the newly

formed Federated States of Micronesia announced that his government was seeking mem

Fiji’s Acting Prime Minister Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau ... a threat to resign?

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

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

President Nakayama, in an

explanatory telegram to trust

territory High Commissioner

Adrian P. Winkel, said the FSM hopes to ‘extend our Forum ad hoc participation into formalised membership of some sort’.

He said the most important reason for the move ‘is the

hope of participating in Forum economic activities. par ticularly those of the South Pa cific Bureau of Economic Co-operation (SPEC), and the Forum’s fisheries agency’. He said the FSM was also seeking regional recognition as a new government, and experience in the conduct of regional re lations.

His telegram said he antici pated that some Forum mem bers would ask for clarification from relevant US embassies concerning the FSM’s consti tutional status and US policy

concerning its membership.

Guam: Who

Runs Gaol?

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

Paul Addison writes from Agana that after months of un rest at the overcrowded peni tentiary, Miles received his marching orders on the same day that two persons escaped and a crime prevention cru-

sader was arrested for trying to smuggle marihuana into the prison.

Governor Paul Calvo ... first sacking

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

Miles became prison boss in

January after a long search by

Calvo to find a willing can didate to sort out chaotic prison affairs. A hard-liner on disci

pline. parole and prison

escapes. Miles took a no nonsense stance on prisoner

troubles which brought a mixed reaction from Guam’s

population. And the outspoken

ex-Marine said he would not go along with a Calvo execu tive order barring Guam’s media from talking to prison officials about penitentiary conditions for two months, while the board of inquiry meets. Miles’ firing is the first dismissal by Calvo of any of his appointees since he was elected last November.

Prisoners charge they lack an adequate diet, good medical and dental care, and decent laundry facilities. The Inmates Council, a representative body

of prisoners, has requested more visiting rights, and re alistic and effective rehabilita tion programs with more time for recreation.

According to officials, prob lems at the prison have become much worse over the past year since the conviction of numer ous heroin dealers and mur derers. In late May convicted murderer Johnny C. Dela Rosa, Anthony Santos, a re puted heroin dealer currently serving time for tax evasion, and three unnamed ‘John Does’ were indicted as co

conspirators to murder eight

prominent island officials. The

‘hit list’ included Superior Court Judge Paul Abbate, Attorney-General Ken North, Senator James Underwood, former senator Howard Trapp, and Miles.

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

On June 15 armed police wielding batons and rifles were called to the prison late at night to quash the attempted escape of at least five prisoners, including three convicted mur derers, who had broken out of

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

But one prison guard told PIM:

‘These people didn’t want to escape. They just wanted to show they can get out any time they want to; they want to show they rule the prison. One man had an iron pipe he could have used to kill me anytime. But he

didn’t. They just are telling us

they’re in charge.’

Polynesia’S

June 10

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

Local voters were asked to cast their ballots for a confus ing array of 243 mostly un known candidates for the future parliament of the European Common Market.

The list of President Giscard d’Estaing candidates, incon

gruously supported by the local

autonomists, got 16 496 votes, or 40.8% of the total, while the

list headed by Right wing

Gaullist Jaques Chirac, and

supported by local opposition

leader Gaston Flosse, got 18 074 votes, or 44.5%.

The French Socialist Party, represented locally by the five

year-old and steadily growing

pro-independence la Mana te Nunaa party, made a good showing, bettering its share of the vote from 7.1% in the 1978 legislative elections (3398 votes) to 10.4% (4137 votes).

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

Some of their speakers were

impudent enough to point out

that Polynesia is not in Europe, and to suggest that the best common market and inter national parliament would be those made up of the peoples and nations of the South Pa cific.

In every respect the elections

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

All in all it is not surprising that on June 10 the quietest polling day for many years only 56.4% of registered voters bothered to go to the polls, most of them delivered there

by the major political parties in

hired trucks and motor cars.

Dijoud In

Noumea

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

It is not an easy job to pacify

and satisfy everybody, but the minister seemed reasonably confident he had done so. He said he was pleased to receive criticism both from the far Left and the far Right, as this gener ally meant the policies con cerned had the approval of the

‘silent majority’.

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

The conservative, Gaullist party, supported by the tra

ditional Rightwing parties in

New Caledonia, obtained very poor results, both in France and in the territory.

The most important aspect of Mr Dijoud’s visit was his ap pearance live on television, with viewers invited to tele

phone in their questions.

The minister talked frankly of the need to increase

Melanesian land-holdings,

particularly the tribal reserves.

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

the territory.

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

But he warned the Melanesians that ‘land-grabbing’ was not the purpose of the programme, and that if ritual land was to be returned to the clans, pastoral

and agricultural holdings

would only be granted to those who could prove their need and demonstrate their capacity to use the land productively.

An improvement of rural production would necessitate outlets what Mr Dijoud called ‘potential export mar kets’. Placed between Australia and New Zealand, it is hard to imagine New Caledonia com peting successfully on the inter national market, unless its agriculture concentrated on

specialised tropical produce.

The only alternative would be a substantial increase in the

territory’s population, which is

very small. Here, other prob lems arise, as the current natu ral increase could create future racial frictions, the fastest growing section of the popu

lation being the Polynesians.

Immigration, another alterna tive, would increase the num ber of Europeans, Asians or people from the French West Indies.

Undoubtedly, the territory

can go further to satisfy its own needs. But with such a small

population the margin between

potential consumption and sur

plus is small.

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

The minister refused to accept suggestions that the July election could be interpreted as a referendum to approve or

disapprove of his plan.

But the fact remains that the moderate coalition, fighting against both Left and Right

wing parties, made acceptance

of the plan its main campaign

point.

The other coalition, group ing those in favour of indepen dence, harboured some confusing elements. Some of its members were practically forced to declare themselves in favour of independence,

although many really consider

independence more as a long term, inevitable and natural outcome, for which the status of overseas territory was cre ated. For many of these people, the Dijoud plan could indeed be interpreted as a ‘democratic revolution’, designed to pre pare New Caledonia’s trans formation into a more

equitable, multi-racial,

independent country but in 10 years’ time.

Polynesia’s Francis Sanford ... ‘incongruous’ support for Gis card?

Interview With

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

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

Perhaps the most striking

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

Extracts from Salmon’s

translation of the interview follow.

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

Leymang: I must say, as far as I’m concerned. I’m rather allergic to what is appearing in the Australian press these days. I’ve explained this at length to (the Noumea news paper) France Australe. I took a very firm position in deny

ing some things that are being

said in the Australian press just now. I also have some criticisms to raise of what is sometimes written in the Caledonian press. It’s plain rubbish much of the time, as far as I’m concerned. It’s as if people got pleasure from

painting a dark picture of things in the New Hebrides whereas, as you said a mo ment ago. the situation is in fact loosening up. These newspapers only undo the work for unity and the efforts we are undertaking. They are doing a job, in my view, of undermining the work that

we are continually doing

within the government, and among the New Hebridean

people.

M: But what are their intentions?

L: Ah ... Go and ask them.

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

L: Certainly! I think so . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you may desire . . .

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

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

L: I’ve already said on the radio that this is only an ap proximate date, a basis for

discussion, becauseeverything

now depends on the adminis trative and tec! nical process of preparing for the poll, as well as the material problems it raises. One of the first jobs is to prepare proper electoral rolls from the population cen sus that’s just been com

pleted, etc.

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

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

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

Think of the expense of buy ing 478 Polaroid cameras.

And what use would they be later on? Don’t forget, either, the problem of keeping the unexposed film at a certain temperature. At our last cabi net meeting, which lasted nearly two days, we came to the view that the ink method would be the speediest and most economical.

M: The ink method?

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

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

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

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

rigged.

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

There’s nothing new in this statement, as the minister put

forward the same idea on his first visit to the archipelago.

So, we’re only a few months away from independence and yet it seems remarkable that there is no actual planning going on in terms of protocol,

practical arrangements,

official contacts, lodging for guests, the press no plan ning in short for the indepen dence ceremonies.

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

We’ve no time to think of

independence ceremonies.

But we'll get round to it.

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

But there’s another thing that I want to say very clearly: Mr Dijoud has said it and I also said it clearly in a com munique I signed on June 8:

‘Having become indepen

dent, the New Hebrides Government will be the sole

master and solely responsible

for its policy; in particular, it will be free to reach agree ments on co-operation with France and Great Britain or any partner it may have freely chosen.’ Only I want to say that in all this there is a big ‘but’.

You speak to me about

independence ceremonies

and, for my part, I want to speak to you on another level altogether, about our local

administration (drumming of

fingers on the table), our everyday life, how we are going to get there, to this independence. 1 regret to have to say to you that so far 1 have received no concrete proposal on these questions from France. And do you know why? Because the New Hebrides comes under the rue Oudinot (headquarters of the French Ministry for Overseas Departments and Territories PIM), while on the English side it comes under the Foreign Office. The officials in the British Residency here

already belong to the Foreign

Office in London. Your ad ministrative structures, the way you shuffle things around between the rue Oudinot, the rue Monsieur

(headquarters of the Ministry

of Co-operation, responsible

for overseas aid PIM), and the Quai d'Orsav (Foreign Ministry PIM), doesn’t interest me. I’ve said this in writing to Mr Dijoud and 1 spoke to him about it the other day in Noumea. As far as I’m concerned the import ant thing is that France should put its cards on the table and announce which ministry the New Hebrides will come under after in

dependence.

The local repercussions of this lack of clarity are more

important than people might

think. In the two biggest ser vices that are to be amal gamated. health and education, there’s a real un easiness on the French side because nobody knows who’s going to have charge of them after independence. As far as I'm concerned. I hope as soon as possible to talk to the people from the ministry of co-operation to whom I have made a word-of-mouth re quest, to be passed on by Mr Dijoud, for the attachment to my services of a head of mission coming from the rue Monsieur. France has already followed this procedure, no tably before Djibouti achieved independence. I am not afraid to repeat myself: it is very important for the ad ministration of the New Hebrides to know with whom we will be dealing on the French side after indepen dence ...

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

Afterthoughts With Percy Chatterton

Student strife: it's time to look at those free handouts

Like the old grey mare in the song, the University of Papua New Guinea ain’t what it used to be. At least, that’s what so many of us who watched its birth and early growth think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This generous treatment was justified 10 years ago by the cir cumstances of the time and the needs of the country. Is it justified

today?

The fact is that the affluent sector of the community is becom ing steadily larger and more affluent. At primary and secondary levels of schooling, even in the mainstream of community schools and provincial and national high schools, the parents of pupils

are required to pay fees. Parents who choose to send their children to Australian curriculum (now dubbed ‘international’) schools have to pay very substantial fees.

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

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

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

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

If the recent period of university unrest provokes the govern ment into taking a hard look at the present free hand-out system, it will have been worth going through.

‘Striking’ students on UPNG campus ... their actions militated against their cause. Photo: PNG Post-Courier

Pim Pacific Islands Monthly

Focus On

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

Background

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

It achieved independence from Australia on September 16, 1975 after 70 years of exter nal administration and after a brief transient period of self government to prepare for

independence.

PNG recognises the Queen as head of state and her rep resentative is a governor

general whose appointment

comes from an election within the PNG National Parlia ment.

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

parliamentary and judicial

structures.

The legal emphasis in

national management rests with the Parliament rather than with the government a fine point, but one which has sig nificance.

A prime minister is head of government, and he too is

elected directly by Parliament.

This is another fine point

which theoretically could give

the position to a powerful

independent personality rather

than the leader of the biggest party.

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

voting.

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

The present governor general is Sir Tore Lokoloko and the prime minister is Michael Somare who has held the office since indepen dence.

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

The aid is in the form of untied grants.

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

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

The people

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

projects. The total population

PNG’s sporting Prime Minister Michael Somare ... first, and still, national leader

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

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

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

The Philippines, UK and

Japan are the major newly

represented countries in the non-citizen workforce. Since independence there have been 815 naturalisations of long term residents, most in the first 18 months. Of these, 310 for merly held Australian citizen ship. PNG keeps no records of the ethnic background of its residents.

Citizenship by naturalisation

has become a contentious

issue, with public allegations

that some citizenship appli

cations have been moves of financial convenience.

The attacks have been lev elled particularly at married couples in which one partner has taken out citizenship and the other hasn’t. Some Papua New Guineans see this as an attempt to make money with

the advantage of citizenship

and to ship it out with the

advantages of foreign nation

ality.

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

Most non-citizens live in the urban areas where the number of non-citizens has become

fairly stable, showing only a

very small growth rate.

Estimates indicate there is a de cline in the non-citizen popu lation of rural areas.

The populations of the main urban areas are:

Port Moresby 107 000 (11 000 non-citizens) Lae 45 000 (4 000 non-citizens) Madang 20 000 (1600 non-citizens) Rabaul 14 000 (1800 non-citizens) The combined urban com plexes in the Bougainville cop per mine area (Kieta, Arawa and Panguna) have a popula tion of 16 000.

Urban drift continues to be a major problem with unskilled workers, who have little hope

of employment, swelling town

populations. This has wor sened employment situations and has created new social

problems.

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

They have attempted, with

varying degrees of success, to

send unemployed people back

to their home provinces in chartered trucks, aircraft and workboats. But this has had

political implications because

it is a non-enforceable policy which conflicts with consti tutional guarantees of freedom of movement.

Often, too, shipping people home has merely created an urban drift problem for another town because the people returned to their home

provinces don’t necessarily

return to their rural homes.

They stay instead in the provin

cial capital.

Politics

Michael Somare’s Pangu Party has been the senior party in governing coalition since independence - and earlier,

too, during the pre-independ

ence self-government period.

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

The former government co alition partner, the Peoples Progress Party, now sits on the

opposition benches following a

row in which it claimed Mr Somare was leaving it out of consultation in national man agement.

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

The issues come down to leadership and the methods and mechanics of politics, al lied to the normal processes of

political power seeking, rather

than to any inherent dif ferences in political outlook.

All party policy outlooks in PNG could reasonably come under the general definition of ‘progressive’, aimed at the cre ation and maintenance of a

society in which shared devel opment is supreme, where a strong state presence exists, but where free enterprise is an essential element.

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

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

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

The first is now a part of his

Above: fishing at Vanimo, West Sepik; right: coconut treat in the market place ... provincial governments worried by a drift to the towns

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

The two party leaders in government are Michael Somare (Pangu Party) and Sir Tei Abal (United Party), with Pangu holding the top posts of

prime minister, deputy prime

minister and finance. Sir Tei, as minister for public utilities, is in a service rather than a policy

portfolio.

The two principal figures

across the floor of parliament are the Opposition Leader lambakey Okuk, leader of the loosely-linked Okuk group, and Julius Chan, leader of the

Peoples Progress Party and

who was once deputy prime minister.

In numbers which are not

always significant in isolation

because day-to-day issues affect them the government has a narrow majority but the

opposition’s minority is

widened because of the pres ence of about 10 effective

independents.

Mr Somare and his deputy, Ebia Olewale another long time Pangu man are both se cure in their group leadership.

Their government also appears immediately secure after with standing a number of chal lenges last year.

Mr Somare has no plan to step down at the next election

despite occasional speculation

over the past 12 months and despite a statement attributed to him in Australia which he later described as not accu

rately reflecting what he

meant.

In the opposition ranks some dissatisfaction is known to exist over leadership matters. A

Peoples Progress Party move to

establish Julius Chan as oppo sition leader was tipped in May and June but there were no immediate developments and Mr Chan refuses to discuss the issues.

Diplomacy

PNG has established diplo matic relations with 53 coun tries, and seven of these have established resident embassies in Port Moresby. PNG itself has six missions overseas.

including ambassadors to the United Nations and to the European Economic Com munity.

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

through membership of the

Lome Convention.

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

However, the Lome Con vention ends its five-year run early next year, and PNG is now one of the ACP States

actively campaigning for the

best possible terms under new arrangements which the nine EEC countries are investigat

ing.

Foreign policy

Papua New Guinea defines its

foreign policy as ‘Univer

salism’, first laid down by the foundation foreign minister, Sir Maori Kiki, and carried on by the present minister, Ebia Olewale.

The basic definition of

PNG political leaders, clockwise from above: Oppostion Leader lambakey Okuk, Peoples Pro gress Party Chief Julius Chan, Minister for Public Utilities Sir Tei Abal, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ebia Olewale with Australia’s Andrew Peacock

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

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

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

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

There are also increasing political pressures inside PNG to rethink the policy. ‘We should come out and say who our friends are,’ was the com ment of Vincent Eri, until re

cently PNG high commiss

ioner in Australia. Mr Eri claimed that, in any event, membership of the Common wealth was a negation of Universalism.

Universalism has so far pre vented the signing of any de fence agreement with Australia because of the ‘political’ over tones, but vague ‘cultural’ agreements have been entered into in the South Pacific and South-East Asia.

The most recent questioning of the policy came from the prime minister himself, when

Mr Somare spoke in Australia to the Australian Institute of International Affairs.

Confirming a review of

foreign policy, Mr Somare

said: ‘The policies which have served us since independence are now due for close examin ation. Universalism ... made sense for a new democracy.

Now for the first time since we became independent in 1975

our foreign policy is undergo

ing a complete review.’

Mr Somare said that in its

foreign policy his country

wanted to ensure security but the sort of security he meant was not protection from attack, but protection for trade re lations and prospects.

Neighbours

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

Of the three, the Solomons link is both the most serene and the least technical. A reason

ably common ethnic heritage,

an identical background and an unquestionable brother hood have made formal diplo macy almost unnecessary.

The border is something of a question mark but no one

particularly cares, and the big gest argument of recent years was over a claim that Solomons mosquitoes were flying to the PNG island of Bougainville.

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

The Australian link is far too complex today to be described in a few lines, but geography and events and attitudes have

created a surprisingly healthy

bond from what was once a straight colonial situation.

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

Sir John Guise, PNG’s

governor-general at indepen

dence, said on that occasion: ‘We are hauling down the Aus-

tralian flag, not tearing it down.’ The attitude displayed in that statement continues to hold generally true.

The Indonesian link is an ambivalent one. Formal diplo matic links are strong, and PNG unhesitatingly accepts Indonesian sovereignty in

adjoining Irian Jaya.

But a significant sector of

public opinion defines

Indonesia as a neo-colonial power in Irian Jaya and, de

spite protestations of friend

ship, is uneasy at the

Indonesian proximity.

President Suharto, who visi ted PNG in June, drew a bigger crowd than Australia’s Gough Whitlam or Malcolm Fraser

has ever managed (although

the Queen won hands down), but curiosity rather than

Former PNG high commissioner to Australia, Vincent Eri ... call to rethink ‘universalism’ policy

Torres Treaty signing ... seated from left: Australia’s Foreign Minister Peacock and Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser; PNG’s Prime Minister Somare and Foreign Minister Olewale

Former governor-general, Sir John Guise ... independence day statement still holds true

togetherness stood out as the motive.

The PNG and Indonesian governments have formal agreements on border defi nition and management (with a renegotiation in the offing),

on cultural exchanges, sharing

of expertise, mutual aid and mutual regional attitudes.

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

The Region

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

The border is with Indonesia, one of three with other countries, and was the first to be properly formalised. (The other two, both sea borders, are with Australia and Solomon Islands. Also, there is a high seas border to the north.) Because of its Indonesian border, PNG sees itself as

occupying a special diplomatic

‘bridging’ role between Asia and the South Pacific. This has led PNG to obtain observer status in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), largely with the support of Indonesia.

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

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

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

This has included a common line towards the banning of nu clear tests and in campaigning to keep the Indian and South Pacific Oceans free of super power rivalries.

Aid

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

budget.

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

Under the program Australia has guaranteed an annual grant of $lBO million, to be

supplemented by an additional

amount agreed to by annual

negotiation.

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

Despite the progressive in

crease, the real value of Aus tralian aid in terms of purchasing power is estimated to have dropped by 7.6% over the period because of inter national economic factors including Australian currency movements.

On general principles PNG

does not quarrel with this tapering-off which is part of its own process of increasing self reliance. From the start of the aid agreement PNG adopted a strict policy to use the grant as little as possible for ongoing

public expenditure. Where

possible the money is applied to capital development of a type which will eventually gen erate national revenue, or will at least reduce avenues of

recurring expenditure.

The policy, piloted by the

first finance minister, Julius Chan and later by the present

minister, Barry Holloway, is

progressively reducing depen

dence on outside aid.

In addition to Australian aid, PNG is also receiving grants from the United Nations

Development Program and

from the New Zealand Government to a total this year of more than $6 million.

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

agencies.

This type of aid at present totals an annual content of about $26 million, with the

principal sources being Japan.

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

Development Association.

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

The economy

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

This makes any economy

highly susceptible to world

economic fluctuations, and in PNG the susceptibility is accentuated by the ‘com modity’ nature of the exports.

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

Unlike most developing countries, PNG does not have

balance of payment problems and its inflation rate is lower than average. This situation is partly fortuitous for several reasons. One is the efficient running of the Conzinc

Riotinto-backed Bougainville

Copper mine, the biggest single

government revenue earner in PNG and in which the govern ment has a 20% share. The mine’s economy enabled it to continue profitably when other major world mines couldn't counter a recent recession in copper.

Another reason is the bol stering presence of the Aus tralian grant in aid. con tributing about one-third of the national budget. But. more sig

nificantly. PNG’s own policies

of financial management have contributed to the more favoured position which the country holds in balancing its

books and financing long-term

development.

PNG is passing through a period in which lack of home

Bougainville Copper's Panguna mine ... PNG’s single biggest revenue earner

skills is creating the utmost dif ficulty in staffing and operat ing its institutions.

Inefficiencies and problems are rife and a source of con stant management frus trations.

But these are largely mech anical problems which should

gradually recede. The import

ant areas of policy and strategy in national finances have fol lowed sound principles.

A hard currency exchange policy, an extensive back-up of export market stabilisation

schemes, emphasis on develop

ment projects when commit

ting major expenditure, and

the deliberate cultivation of a

high international credit rating

are the four cornerstones of the structure.

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

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

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

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

The upward movement has not been an altogether popular measure at home because it has lowered the return (in figures, anyway) from exports. But in terms of financial management of the entire economy, as reflected in cost of living indicators and the assessed in

flation rate, the policy has been successful. This has been par ticularly so as a hedge against

‘imported’ inflation.

Export market stabilisation: Two years ago when com modity prices boomed and pro ducers looked for bigger returns the government again

risked some unpopularity by

holding down the returns and building up stabilisation buffers. Stabilisation formulas were applied to copper ore exports as well as to agricul

tural products. The policies

were soon vindicated in more recent slumps. The coffee situ ation was particularly interest

ing where PNG producers

experienced the least fall in

prices of producers anywhere

in the world.

The slump in copper, coffee

and cocoa naturally enough

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

As a comparison, the earlier

Gathering cocoa pods ... slump before recovery

1977 boom year had seen an 11% increase in the gross dom estic product and a $l5O million lift in overseas re serves.

The important point, how

ever, was that PNG weathered

the depressed period without

hardship and spending power

remained reasonably constant.

With copper now improving and coffee and cocoa firming, funds available for stabilis ation and overseas reserves are

now moving up again.

Emphasis on development type spending: PNG has resisted a temptation to pour its available funds in electorate

pleasing expenditure of a

recurrent type and on glamour

capital projects. Where poss

ible it has attempted to use its own direct revenue for recur

rent public expenditures,

applying its Australian and loan aid to long-term develop

ment projects particularly in

the rural sector which will

eventually provide new rev

enue bases.

From time to time there is public and political argument about the appropriateness of some of the schemes the government chooses to establish. But the thrust of any controversy is not against the

principle involved, and mainly

concerns the degree of success which different projects are likely to achieve.

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

At first there was a tacit stipu lation that Australia should guarantee the loans, and this was the basis of early arrange ments. PNG made a point of

maintaining absolute integrity

in how it applied the loans and in how it met its loan commit ments.

This policy, together with

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

PNG now has a surprisingly wide access, on its own guaran tee, to international money at nominal or low rates. The only factor today which would in-

hibit any development loan ap plication by PNG would be

disagreement over the viability

of a project under consider ation.

Investment

Since independence, a series of policy statements, many of them complex and sometimes emotional, have been made

regarding general investment

and foreign investment in PNG. There has never been any basic change in policy atti tudes which in itself is a stabilising element in the econ omy but the processes relat ing to investment tend to be in a constant state of flux.

This has produced some mcertainties for the investor, often not realised by the bu reaucracy which defines the situation as ‘refinement’. In essence, PNG investment pol

icy makes the following

points: • Too much capital and control is in the hands of non-nationals particularly resident and non resident Australians. • But. . . this will be tolerated if certain guidelines are fol lowed to phase in local partner

ships, capital and manage

ment. • Investment will be actively encouraged from outside, and even sought, if it is of a

developmental or highly

capitalised nature which is

obviously beyond the country’s

present resources. • Where the above require ments are met a foreign inves tor will be guaranteed freedom from expropriation and dis criminatory sanctions, and will be free to repatriate earnings, interest payments and capital.

These four guidelines have stood fairly strongly from the start of PNG nationhood, but where investors run into some uncertainty is in the continual

replanning and rethinking of

the processes involved, in the creation of new institutions and the re-aligning of older ones, in re-interpretations of situations, and in differing methods of applying the rules.

For foreigh investors the situation has created two some what conflicting reactions. One is an optimism bred by an ac ceptance that PNG genuinely wants certain types of invest ment and will provide a fair deal to those who qualify.

The other is caution bred from the uncertainties of day to-day processes, and the sensi tivities of fluctuating national

politics.

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

If the PNG planners have any blind spot, it is a failure to realise that foreign investors need just as much concessional treatment as Papua New

Guinean investors (although of different types) if ultimate stability is to be assured.

NIDA (National Investment

and Development Authority)

masterminds the investment and employment scene, recom mending to the government what employment and what investment is being progress ively closed to non-nationals.

There has never been any

significant questioning of the

genuine nature of what PNG is offering. However the process of making, applying and main taining the rules is frequently a source of investment

insecurity.

Planning schemes, too, have sometimes been accused of failing to see the wood for the

trees. Don Harvey, managing

director of the big multi interest group Steamships

Trading Company, recently

pointed out that the shares of his company, all publicly listed, are mainly held in Australia only because of the historical accident of how the firm was financed at its establishment.

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

‘foreign business’.

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

Minerals

Bougainville Copper mine is

PNG’s biggest engineering

project, a giant open-pit mine

in the Crown Prince Range on Bougainville Island. It has a annual net sales revenue exceeding $270 million.

The mine, operated by

Bougainville Copper Ltd. is

majority owned (over 60 per cent) by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd, and the PNG Government (with more than

Picking coffee ... with prices firming overseas reserves are moving up again

20 percent) is the other major shareholder. The mine is

PNG’s major export earnings

producer, and the return from shareholdings is only a small part of what the government derives from the venture.

Company tax alone which the government received from the mine last year was $27.5

million and royalties produced

another $3.5 million. The oper

ation also provides employ

ment in PNG for more than 4000 men and women, of whom 3300 are Papua New Guineans.

Through scholarships, ap

prenticeships and on-site train ing the mine is a major contributor to developing skilled professionals, tech nicians, tradesmen and oper ators in the PNG workforce.

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

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

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

Png.

PNG gained some important

advantages from the renegotia

tions particularly a surplus

earnings tax but the newly independent country was criti cised abroad for what was seen as repudiating an international agreement, and criticised at home for fear it would lose confidence on the international investment market.

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

The government then launched into a major planning

inquiry which eventually pro

duced its formal attitudes and policies towards any future

mining operations involving

major multinational invest ment. The guidelines do not insist that a major government equity should necessarily be a prime consideration. More im portant aspects are seen as the

best possible guaranteed

financial returns, a graded sur

tax on unexpectedly high

profits, contributions to national development and the provision of wider economic

Five months has yet to run before the final feasibility study is completed, but there seems little doubt that the country will get its second major copper venture, and that the new mine will be about three-quarters the size of

Bougainville.

The US Kennecott group carried out the original Ok

Tedi exploration, dating back

to 1968. But Kennecott pulled

opportunities for people and

their communities.

The test of PNG’s mining

policy expertise and negotiat

ing ability will come soon when arrangements begin for the construction and commission

ing phases of the proposed new

copper mine at Ok Tedi in the central western Star Mountains of the PNG mainland.

out in 1975 when it couldn’t get the assurances it wanted for its share in any eventual mining venture.

PNG then took a bold step for a new country, forming its own exploration company. Ok Tedi Development, and

employing or contracting the

skills it wanted.

Then in November 1976 the government made a deal with the big Australian miner BHP.

under which BHP formed a consortium to push ahead a

feasibility study without

delay.

The consortium represents Australian, US and West Ger man interests, and the project partners are: PNG Govern ment 20%, BHP through its

subsidiary Dampier Mining

30%, Standard Oil of Indiana

through its subsidiary Mount

Fubilan Development 30%,

and Kupfer Explorations,

representing three West Ger man industrials, 20%.

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

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

Papua coastline.

The feasibility study should

have been completed by the middle of this year but the con sortium was granted an exten sion and expects to present its report in November.

Primary industry

Agriculture, except for major

developmental projects involv

ing joint estates and process plants, is no longer an attract ive investment for outside money because of deliberate

government policies.

The industry, particularly

where individual ownership is

involved, is gradually being

closed to all but Papua New Guinean nationals. The pro cess includes the expropriation

of foreign-owned properties at

government valuation for re distribution to Papua New Guineans living in the areas involved.

In general, the system has

worked fairly smoothly with

the government willing to renegotiate some valuations, and with only a handful of

deep-seated disputes involving

the displaced owners.

The government is not buy

ing every foreign-owned prop

erty on principle, but is selecting those in areas where acute local land shortages have

developed.

The expropriations have

Apprentice at work at Bougain ville Copper’s workshop ... a duty to develop skilled Papua New Guineans

meant a long-term loss to most of the displaced owners be cause of the ongoing earnings involved, but they have at least permitted the realisation of capital on an otherwise dead property market.

Coffee has replaced cocoa as the boom glamour crop in PNG and heads the list of exports in agriculture and fisheries production. The value of agriculture and fisheries exports in 1978 was: coffee sl34m, cocoa s7Bm, coconut products s46m, tuna s2sm. timber and ply s24m, palm oil sl3m. tea slom. prawns ssm. rubber s3m. (For comparison, PNG’s biggest export, copper ore, was valued for the same period at $271m.) Coffee: Frosts which almost wiped out crops in Brazil,

together with the development

of a reputation for providing a

special flavouring coffee, have

boosted PNG’s coffee earnings considerably in the past four years. The boom is expected to last for at least another two years, despite a temporary set back last season.

The industry is protected by

a stabilisation scheme. The crop comes solely from the

Highlands and has injected

huge amounts of cash income into a relatively primitive com

munity which previously had

only a sustenance economy.

Sociologically, there is some concern at squandering of incomes by producers and in the emergence of coffee indus

try crime, mainly stealing

beans from properties or dur

ing trucking.

Cocoa: Once a booming industry near the top, cocoa is the export earner which is most

reflecting the departure of

many white planters. Pro duction has fallen off through a running down of some

properties although many of

the former owners themselves have been accused of allowing this to happen when they knew their time was short.

World market situations, the economies of the industry and the breaking down of some properties into small units have all taken their toll of the indus try but the general prospects re main good provided PNG can maintain quality and grade ac

curately.

The centres of production are East New Britain (Rabaul

and Kokopo areas), Bougain

ville and New Ireland.

Foreign-owned cocoa

properties were among the first properties to come under intense pressures for expropri ation. but more recently there have been calls to ensure that

experienced planters are al

lowed to remain at least in lim ited numbers in the general interests of the industry.

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

Husking coconuts near Rabaul ... reasonably trouble-free industry

Carpenter group of com panies.

The mill sells oil on world markets, particularly to

Europe, and the by-product,

copra cake, is sold to the US as a cattle feed. Coconut pro duction remains a steady and reasonably trouble-free indus try for thousands of small holder growers.

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

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

nually.

PNG is not anxious to sell any rights cheaply because it sees tuna fishing as a means of

building a brand-new industry

of its own, boosted by the newly-declared 200-mile mar ine resource limits.

Timber and plywood: Ply wood production at Bulolo, once an Australian venture but

now backed by Japanese

interests, continues as a steady industry and, as a minor by product, the factory has started exporting chopsticks to Japan.

Logging and timber milling,

ofte-n troubled industries in PNG because of shoestring capitalisation, are going through a series of reorganis ations with political presssures to ensure greater equity for PNG nationals.

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

Japanese interests continue to operate a successful

woodchip industry and reaf

forestation programme at Madang on the north coast of the PNG Mainland.

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

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

Japanese interest attempted to become involved in the indus try but lacked the expertise and the PNG government termin ated the agreement.

Palm oil has been the basis of PNG’s most ambitious pro gramme in agricultural settle ment. Applications were called from all parts of the country, settlers and their families were flown into newly-acquired land, and there they built their houses and planted their crops

in a self-help development

venture.

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

Among the minor industries of PNG, special attention is being given to crocodile farm ing and crocodile skin export

ing. The industry is particularly

Planting out the seedlings at Hoskins palm oil project, West New Britain ... one of PNG’s fas test developing industries

Crocodile trade . . . exemption from world ban on export of salt water skins valuable to the relatively de pressed areas of the south west.

Australia and the US re

cently supported moves for

PNG to be exempted from a proposed world ban on the export of saltwater crocodile skins. The ban is wanted by the International Union of Conser vation of Nature which claims saltwater crocodiles are in danger of extinction.

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

Tourism

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

But the industry itself is still settling down and it has be-

come the focus of several conflicting attitudes at home and from visitors. Despite the effort going into it, the industry is not yet a major revenue earner for PNG.

Foreign exchange earnings

from tourism (not counting fares in and out but counting internal fare spending) is run ning at just under $lO million a year, and increasing. This makes tourism PNG’s seventh

highest foreign exchange

earner. There is little doubt that the earnings will increase sharply under the present promotional moves by the Office of Tourism a statutory body and by travel and ac commodation interests in volved in the industry. This includes the promotional work of the national airline. Air

Niugini.

However the position of

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

an expansion.

As part of a Pacific-wide trend, tourism is officially accepted and tacitly seen as something which must be pro moted. From time to time, however, and recently with some increasing frequency, the

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

the questions being asked.

There are fears that tourism could promote the destruction of existing cultures and the emergence of‘sham’ cultures in the traditional tribal areas which are the main tourist drawcard. Tourists themselves

criticise the comparatively high

cost of transport and accom modation, accentuated now by cheap international airfares which do not extend to PNG.

Human nature itself has created another problem. With

charming honesty, PNG tour

ism is sold partly as a visit to one of the last remaining links with ancient tribal cultures. But the very people who lap this up as bait are often the first to complain if the hot water is lukewarm or if the cooking is not up to their standards.

Migration statistics show that 56% of all short-term visi tors to PNG are tourists, and the most recent figures show an annual intake of 20 000 tourists

travelling by air.

Nearly the same number pass through in cruise ships in some years, but these visits are

only one-day stopovers in

single ports and do not involve

significant tourist expendi

ture.

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

Recent figures show that 62.5% of the visitors were from Australia, 7.8% from Japan and 7.6% from the US. (These pro portions are for all short-term visitors, not merely tourists, but they are considered to reflect the tourist situation fairly

closely.)

South Pacific countries, including New Zealand but

excluding Australia, provided 6.6% of the visitors, UK 3.6% and West Germany 2.1%.

As a side issue, a tourism sur vey disclosed that New Zealanders were the biggest

individual spenders once they

hit PNG, and visitors from UK and West Germany the most frugal (perhaps the fare from Europe left them little

change.)

Australians as spenders were in the middle of the list, a shade ahead of Americans but when it came to spending money on souvenir artifacts the Americans won hands down over visitors from all coun tries.

Transport

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

The revolution comes from a

policy decision by Transport

Minister Paias Wingti that all

foreign-owned trucking com

panies must release at least 50% of their shares to Papua New Guineans by next year and be out of the business altogether by 1981.

‘Foreign-owned’ means

ownership by non-citizens,

even if the owners have been long established and resident in PNG. Mr Wingti’s portfolio covers land, sea and air trans port, and he believes that of all

three, complete ‘localisation’ of ownership and control is now possible in the road transport business.

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

PNG Highlands.

Operators claim that

although they accept the prin

ciple involved they believe the timetable is too rapid.

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

Sea: The PNG Government has conducted a major reor ganisation of shipping services,

including involving itself di

rectly as a partner in coastal and overseas shipping lines.

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

In conjunction with the re

equipment and reorganisation

programme the government has also set up or extended for mal training schemes to de velop Papua New Guineans as ships officers and seamen.

Air: Air services remain the backbone of passenger travel throughout PNG because of

the lack of a continuous trunk road system.

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

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

Fokker Friendships.

International routes are to Australia, Japan, Indonesia,

the Philippines, Hawaii, Hong

Kong, Singapore and Solomon

Islands.

An extensive network of light aircraft charter operations provides feeder services and has also been instrumental in opening up many isolated com

munities by flying produce to

markets and bringing in

supplies (see PIM July).

Trade unions

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

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

Since then, PNG unionism has become more spontaneous

Lae’s new airport at Nadzab in the Markham Valley ... flying is the backbone of passenger travel because of lack of roads

but it still lacks much of the co herence evident in more devel oped countries. The only consistent militancy so far has come from the waterfront and to a smaller extent from the

mining operation on Bougain

ville Island.

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

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

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

There are about 60 organis ations in PNG which call them selves unions but the number

properly registered is consider

ably less.

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

Unregistered unions are per mitted to operate but they have no legal standing and an

increasing body of political

opinion is agitating for the pre sent situation to be put into order.

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

Lae has the best-organised overall union structure with the PNG Trade Union Congress, the Lae Waterside Workers and Seamen’s Union and the Lae Miscellaneous Workers

Union. Other centres with active union organisation are Port Moresby, Rabaul. the Bougainville copper mine and

Madang.

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

Hydro-power

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

Port Moresby has been sup

plied by a hydro scheme

generating its electricity and

supplying its water for nearly 20 years, and there is another

major hydro-electric scheme in

the Eastern Highlands. Several local schemes are either in ser vice or under construction and

planning.

But one of the world’s great-

Waterfall near Sogeri, Central Province ... hydro-power barely tapped so far

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

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

Australian, Japanese and PNG interests last year com pleted a $9 million survey to assess the potential and vi ability of a stage one hydro electric scheme on the Purari.

A dam at Wabo, towards the headwaters, was selected as the site for any initial develop ment. The position now is that PNG knows it has the possi

bility for mass-produced power

at one of the cheapest rates in the world. But it can’t reticulate or use the power itself and needs a wholesale industrial customer prepared to establish

an industry.

Port sites and town sites have been surveyed in the Gulf of Papua, and tentative interest has been shown by inter national smelting groups in

West Germany, Japan and

Australia. So far however nothing firm has come from any of the approaches and in

quiries.

Minerals and Energy Minis ter Karl Stack, has been

investigating the possibility of

an undersea cable to carry power to northern Australia for consumption at Gove and Weipa where power for smelt ing is at present expensive.

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

Defence force

The PNG Defence Force has maritime, army and air ele ments, and is responsible through its commander to the defence minister and govern ment of the day. The former defence presence in PNG was Papua New Guinea Command of the Australian Military Forces, which included two battalions of Papua New

Guinean soldiers and mainly Australian officers.

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

duced annually.

The main elements of the force are two battalions of infantry, an engineer and sup port battalions, a transport and patrol air unit (with Nomad and Dakota aircraft), a water transport section and a mari time fast patrol boat squad ron.

PNG has no defence treaty with Australia but there is

extensive training and general

co-operation between the forces of the two countries, and under an ‘agreement of under standing’ Australia extends support and aid directly to the defence establishment.

Police

The police force in PNG is incorporated under royal char ter as the Royal Papua New

Guinea Constabulary.

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

Its present strength is about 4000 officers and men, but this is almost 1000 below author ised and required strength and

the force is engaged in an extensive recruiting cam

paign.

The force has almost com

pletely phased out Australians

and other non-nationals who served with it before PNG be came independent. However it is still bringing in experts from overseas as instructors or advisers in special or technical fields.

Under this arrangement it is at present using the services of a New Zealand police officer

for prosecutions training, four

officers from the South Aus tralian police force for a survey of sector patrol work and three Australian military personnel for aid in communications and

catering services.

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

The force has come under a

considerable testing period in

recent years following sweep

ing changes in PNG society

which have included increases in crowd violence situations and a rise in petty crime and law and order problems.

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

period of extreme change in methods and outlook.

Law and order

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

The urban situation has im

proved slightly in recent

months, and the improvement is attributed to more efficient

police patrolling and to tighter

restrictions on the availability of alcohol. There is only 30 hours bar trading a week, and in Port Moresby all bottle sales are banned three days a week.

Officialdom sometimes tries to play down the urban crime situation with claims that it is symptomatic of a world urban condition, and that it is

highlighted in PNG only by

comparison with sleepier days

which are close enough to re member.

For their size, however. Port

Moresby in particular and

other PNG centres to a lesser

degree are indeed badly

troubled by urban crime de spite what statistical com

parison might be introduced.

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

istical comparison.

Stoning of vehicles almost as a night-time sport, theft of ve hicles, street fights, knifing of

householders during burglar

Queen Elizabeth II, nominally head of state of PNG, inspects PNG Defence Force infantry guard of honour ... no treaties but extensive co-operation with Australia

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

Factory-type wire fences round suburban houses, jail like bars on the windows and

privately-employed security

guards for houses and residen tial streets are all part of the

picture.

Opposition Leader lam

bakey Okuk spoke recently of

‘people living in fear behind high wire fences’.

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

The presence in a single so ciety of huge extremes of

income, including highly-paid

foreigners and low-paid locals,

is quoted as another factor but it does not appear to be as sig nificant today as it once might have been. Certainly rank and file Papua New Guineans as much as any one else are among the victims.

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

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

the Highland regions.

More than 50 people have died this year at the end of an arrow, an axe or a spear, hun dreds of acres of food and com mercial crops have been torn ap and several hundred houses

lave been destroyed.

This has been the direct cost

if tribal fighting in the Highl

ands, but the indirect costs in lolice, government and court ictivity, in loss of production,

lisruption of society, and

Jiversion of funds cannot be :ounted.

Payback feuds, which the

ights represent, have always

leen a part of traditional Highl ands society and neither the ormer Australian adminis-

trators nor the PNG leaders themselves ever believed that the payback system could be ended easily. It was assumed, however, that the problem would recede as a new

organised society developed.

Modern developments how ever - roads, vehicles, cash incomes, freedom of move ment, consumer goods and im

proved farming methods -

have had exactly the reverse effect in some areas.

Now there are more issues on which a feud can flare up. more means of carrying it on, and more means of entrench ing it. Modern fights start over road accidents, pigs, women,

land and farming expansion,

disputes over crops, and the re sults of formal court cases.

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

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

In political theory tribal

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

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

undermining national unity.

Not only the government but the entire leadership of PNG has now accepted that the tribal fighting situation with its drain on resources and its

disruptions represents a major

national problem. It is also

seen as a dangerous element towards weakening the normal rule of law. This has been shown in a number of instances when men actually on trial have been seized from court or

police station by tribal lynch

gangs and killed.

In another recent incident tribesmen burnt down a court

building because they

disagreed with a magistrate’s

decision.

Media

PNG has two newspapers, the Post-Courier and the Niugini Nius, and two widely distributed national periodicals, Wantok and New Nation, sev

eral regional publications and

about 60 special interest and

generally non-commercial

publications of a more or less

regular nature.

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

The newly-launched four days-a-week Niugini Nius is

published by a wholly-owned

subsidiary of the locally-based

PNG Printing Company Pty

Ltd. This publication marks a

merging of three publications,

Lae Nius, Hail ans Nius and A Hans Nius.

Wantok and New Nation are

also locally-owned, emerging

from a joint churches commer cial venture aimed at providing a service rather than making money.

A statutory broadcasting

authority, the National Broad casting Commission, operates more than 20 national and re

gional stations.

There is no television broad

casting or commercially

owned radio, although the NBC supplements its govern ment grant with advertising sales, a step taken by the NBC itself in the face of wide politi

cal and public opposition.

Full press freedoms exist under the national consti tution, and the situation has never been seriously ques tioned. The same freedoms extend to radio but the prac tical situation there has been lessclear-cutthan in the private

enterprise-owned press.

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

Generally speaking there is

no political pressure to censor the broadcast content, but rather to guarantee the broad cast and form of statements

which political leaders might

want to air.

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

The need for wider avenues

of publication has consistently

occupied the government and an inquiry on whether new newspapers were needed, poss

ibly involving government

financial support, has just been concluded. A final report from the inquiry is still awaited.

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

At least three overseas journalists have been refused visas to visit PNG but there have been no incidents revok ing the permits of resident rep resentatives of the overseas press.

Western Highlands clan marches before making com pensation payment to settle debts ... too often there’s fight ing before friendship

Aid 49 Background 41 Defence force 67 Diplomacy 45 Economy 49 Foreign policy 45 Hydro-power 65 Investment 53 Law and order 67 Media 69 Minerals 53 Neighbours 47 People 41 Police 67 Politics 43 Primary industry 55 Region 49 Tourism 61 Trade unions 61 Transport 61

Travel

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

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

Three yachts arrived recently at Vavau to establish a bareboat

charter operation. Owned by

South Pacific Yacht Charters (SPYC) Limited, a company based in Springfields, Utah, USA, the yachts, Stargazer, Fantasy and Omoo all CSY 44 types were brought out by delivery crews who left Florida in December last year.

The 13.2 m cutters are

sturdy vessels, well equipped

on deck and below, a perfect choice for vessels to be handled

by ever-changing crews.

Equally inspired was the choice of Vavau as a base, one of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the Pacific. There are dozens of islands, excellent

anchorages and relatively few

dangers. Charterers will also find here the relaxed pace of a small community, a colourful market with precious little to offer to the palangi taste, but plenty of locals offering Ton gan feasts on their private beaches at $5 a head.

The lack of European-type vegetables and the poor selec tion of food in the local shops have prompted the charter company to include in their

package a complete menu.for

the duration of the trip ($lO a person a day). Each boat has a fully stocked freezer, a Tongan

cook being optional. Also

optional is the hire of a local

skipper or guide ($25 per day)

to take less confident sailors to some of the more exciting

places.

So far only the Vavau group

is allowed for cruising but trips

to Haapai will be possible soon

provided a Tongan skipper is

taken along.

The cost of chartering a boat, which can sleep up to eight per sons in comfort, works out at about $l3OO a week, food, drinks and local crew not in

eluded. Also available are re duced air fares from Los

Angeles to Pago Pago with a

quick transfer to Vavau.

SPYC has already built its own marina facilities in Neiafu. Manager of the oper ation, American Don Coleman, who arrived in

Vavau accompanied by his

wife and two children at the beginning of May, is an old Pa cific voyager. The Colemans left Australia in 1970 on board

their yacht Alandseer, cruising

through PNG and the Caroline, Gilbert and Marshall Islands. For five years they were in the Marshalls, running a tourist operation on Arno, a small atoll close to Majuro.

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

In spite of a recent clamp down on the freedom of move

ment of cruising yachts wishing

to explore the area, no cruising restrictions apply to the three

yachts owned by SPYC.

Vavau’s police chief. Inspec

tor Lavaki. explained that cur rent restrictions on the movement of foreign yachts were imposed on orders from Nukualofa. Apparently several of the 127 yachts which called at Vavau in 1978 have mis behaved in one way or another.

Cruising in Vavau has never been easy, with skippers being forced to report regularly to the police. This year’s order does not allow yachts to leave the anchorage at Neiafu at all. For tunately the Governor of Vavau, Ma’afu Tupou. is a reasonable man and he has

granted special permission to

several yachts to visit the outly ing islands of the groups.

Trying to get to the bottom of this ‘yachtie phobia’, I was quoted an old case of a ‘yach

tie’ having been apprehended

planting marijuana on one of the outer islands. In fact, the culprit, caught in Vavau, was a

‘landlubbing’ Peace Corps

volunteer.

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

According to Tongan law,

everything under the sea be longs to the crown and the Tongan people, so it is a crime even to pick up a shell or spear

a fish, although Inspector

Lavaki assured me he had no intention of applying the law in such cases. In fact, he could only think of three serious

offences committed by yachts

last year. Hardly enough to jus

tify such stern measures.

Over the past 10 years, small boat cruising in the Pacific has

become an accepted phenom

enon. Cruising yachts bring not

only a welcome change into the daily lives of many islanders but also make an important contribution to their incomes.

Carvings, baskets, tapa cloth and shells are bought by the

crews, not to speak oflocal pro duce.

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

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

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

untypical of Pacific hospi

tality?

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

only call it shortsightedness.

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

visiting yachtsmen as undesir

ables.

One of the three CSY 44s ... a sturdy choice. Photo: Jimmy Cornell

Heart Of Png

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

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

landscape.

Mount Hagen, at 1600 metres had seemed high to me after the heat of coastal Port Moresby. But now, at 2460 metres, I was ready to come down again. Soon we did,

winding, dropping along the

mountainside into the Minamba Valley. It was a spirit world. No one had to tell me that. But they wanted to: a

pointed finger took my gaze back up to the towering cliffs.

You would have sworn some

ingenious construction

company had been at work.

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

In the rare mountain air. the trip from Mount Hagen, the Western Highlands Province

capital, to Kompiam, in neigh

bouring Enga Province, was a breathtaker. I found myself without a care and foolishly

climbing out onto precarious

perches to take pictures. It was

a photographer’s paradise.

Every turn in the road

presented views of indescrib able beauty. I shot mountain tops wreathed in clouds: fast

flowing streams forcing their

way between rocks and burst

ing through in frothy miniature

falls; and rivers thundering down mountainsides in ca

pricious cascades.

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

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

Women, their breasts exposed to the elements, looked a hardy lot. The image may be of liberation to the cas ual onlooker, but their life is chained to a demanding role mother / gardener, the fruits of

their labours literally making

the difference between full and empty bellies.

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

Some were fortunate enough to

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

That night I was invited to a

tanim het (literally ‘turning

head’) courtship ceremony.

Men and women alike glistened with tree resin. The

girls smelled lovely, having

rubbed their skins with a

scented herb. They proudly

displayed their wealth in the form of kina shells, beads and cuscus fur pieces. Men wore short pieces of thin bamboo, one for each pig they owned, and crowned the lot with those fantastic wig hats.

The men and women sat opposite each other about four metres apart. The males wooed with songs until they received some sort of encouragement sometimes a smile, perhaps a

whispered phrase. Having

received the ‘come on', a war rior would move across and sit next to the woman who had chosen him. And make no mis take, the ladies do the choos ing. The man would nestle up ever closer to his woman and finally start stroking her cheek with his nose. As if prearran

ged. they would start swaying

back and forth in unison, cheek to cheek. Eventually in an up

right position they stroked their

noses across each other’s face.

Next day. almost before the sun had a chance to show its face, preparations for the sing sing began. A group of people milled happily close to a dozen pigs tied to stakes along the roadside. It was payday for the bride’s family. Kina shells and cash were also given by the groom-to-be. There would be

Warriers of the High lands ... the earth vibrated as hundreds of bare feet marched.

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

Warriors gathered in small groups, each dancer with an entourage of helpers arranging fantastic arrays of birds of

paradise plumes into head

pieces. Often some of the attire was lent to the performer who would donate a pig for the lender’s culinary pleasure. As proof of payment, the warrior would wear the inflated pig’s bladder on the back of his headdress.

Gradually the throngs of

people built up. Warriors and a handful of meris (women) formed into rows as the official show began. I positioned my self so that they would be

marching straight toward me.

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

displayed nature’s beauty to

such advantage.

The earth vibrated as hun dreds of bare feet marched

toward me. An advance guard wielded spears and arrows at onlookers who got too close. I was down on my knees snap ping away. Time seemed to stop. I was unaware of the light rain and completely entranced

by the approaching swaying

body of Highlanders.

Suddenly they stopped,

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

Later, as I leaned back in the comfort of a jet, I turned over

in my mind all that I had just experienced. No superlative was adequate to explain that

truly magnificent. unique,

spectacle. And then came the relisation that these people do not revert to a Western lifestyle or attire after the show. What I had seen was their way of

life.

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

It was difficult to realise that an hour or so on an aircraft would return me to the twentieth cen

tury, complete with electricity,

computers and all mod cons. I was both eager and reluctant to get home.

beckons from across the Sea of the Moon

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

Getting underway, about

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

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

Moorea is close now. The skipper eases the Keke into the

turquoise lagoon, then cruises

along wonderful white sand beaches and palm-fringed shores. Soon the captain turns to port. A churchlike silence descends on the craft as it enters the most wildly beautiful blue body of water on earth. Pao Pao Bay. Somerset

Maugham’s description comes

to mind: ‘Pao Pao Bay has too much beauty for the beholder who, dazed by its impact, fumbles for phrases to describe it then concedes defeat.’

The Keke's diesels die down as it slides alongside the tiny Hotel Aimeo jetty, where the tourists are warmly welcomed with gay greetings and fresh frangipani leis. No fussy, for mal ‘signing-in’ here at what is for my money the grandest hotel in the South Pacific. The tourists are led to their bunga lows by pareu- clad girls. Their bags are already there as is a much-needed, thirst

quenching drink, the glorious

maita 7 (rum punch-de-luxe).

After relaxing a little, some of the visitors dive into the

cool, quiet lagoon. Modern

carbon-14 dating tells us that this beautiful bay also

refreshed plunging Polynesians

way back in 1500 BC. Here is

Pao Pao Bay ... too much beauty for the beholder

the secret of Moorea. So little

has changed since Polynesians

first arrived. Even the two ‘civi lised centuries’ since Captain Cook sighted this green jewel have been kind to Moorea.

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

Their performance is unique to the Aimeo.

Moorea is rather heart shaped. There are two routes to attract the tourist, one west, one east. We won’t go clear round the island. This is a hot, dusty waste of time. We’ll con centrate on the north coast, where there are many attrac tions.

The hotel provides push bikes free of charge. For the less active, jeeps can be rented across the road.

First of all let’s head south alongside Pao Pao Bay (also called Cook's Bay) to the mini metropolis of Pao Pao village.

Right out of a Maugham novel! Two Chinese shops ped

dling everything from bikinis

to beer. A tiny clinic, lovely tropical-style school, a rusty old petrol pump, and a couple of slow-moving local charac ters. That’s Pao Pao village, except for the one and only Pao Pao Hotel, locally and lovingly known as One Chicken Inn.

Since the deplorable destruc tion of the world-famous Quinn’s Tahitian Hut on Papeete’s waterfront, the One Chicken Inn on Saturday night steals the South Pacific show for sheer, uninhibited enter tainment. Only then does sleepy Moorea really wake up, as all hell breaks loose at the One Chicken Inn.

Now we press on around the western shore of Pao Pao Bay.

On our right is a lovely, coral white Catholic chapel. You’ll be charmed by this delightful little house of God. Pierre Heyman’s marvellous murals, with brown-skinned Poly

nesians portraying the nativity

scene, are world-renowned.

It’s hot now. We pause at our nearest oasis, the Moorea La goon Hotel. It’s a lovely place, with a pool and lagoonside set ting. Its maita’is hit the spot.

Westward again. The island road gently curves into another deep bay. We stare in wonder, for this Opunohu Bay is as stag geringly beautiful as Pao Pao which we have just left.

On the shores of Opunohu Bay we now discover the tiny,

storybook village of Papetoai.

Here are the rebuilt ruins of the first (1813) Protestant church in the South Pacific. Here also the Temae dancers came to enter tain the first royalty, the Maramas of Moorea, and later the powerful Pomare, who

conquered all the Society

Islands.

At the head of Opunohu Bay we see a wooden sign in the heart-shape of Moorea. It says that this is the inland road to the lovely lookout park of Bel vedere. After checking our Moorea map we also spot this as the forested area of ancient marae (sacred temples).

Up into the green mountains we go on a wonderful, winding road. At the lookout we take in one of the world’s grandest views, of both Pao Pao and

Opunohu bays, the lovely la

goon with its rough reef and the distant Pacific.

Later, visiting one of the sev eral ancient marae in the area,

the gloom surrounding these

semi-restored ruins hauntingly recalls savage spectacles of human sacrifice, royal wed dings, wild and weird religious

rites, and the crowning of

ancient kings.

Soon we are back home at our Aimeo, ready for a lagoon dip, and, of course, another maita V.

Do the things that I’ve de scribed, and also visit the vil lage of Temae, and the Shangri-La of Kia Ora Moorea, and you’ll have seen ‘the best’ of this glorious island.

Moorea numbers about 5 000 uninhibited inhabitants.

They are scattered over the lush lowlands of the island’s 130 square km area. The island road covers 70 memorable kilometres, and the highest cloud-piercing peak is about 1220 metres closer to heaven than you.

Tourists who come to Moorea to be with their own nationals will be more than sat isfied with the Club Med with its rollicking, regimented regime at the western tip of Moorea. But remember, prices at the Bali Ha’i and the Club Med are not cheap.

For the budget-minded here is a highly-unpublicised pair of Moorea secrets: there are two modest, yet very comfortable,

fully-furnished housekeeping

‘motels’ right here. Same view,

same setting, same everything,

except the price. They’re called Chez Albert and Chez Jacqueline.

A word about food: all meals are expensive in French Polynesia. For budgeteers; stay at one of the ‘motels’ men tioned, shop at your local Chinese store, cook your own food. You’ll save a bundle.

Books

A long drawn-out 'conquest' of the Islands

Pacific Islanders under German Rule: a study in the meaning of colonial resistance by Peter Hempensta/l. Published by A ustralian National University Press, Canberra, 1978. $A 19.50.

By the 19705, German business interests working out of Apia, the coconut oil trade their main objective, had penetrated much of the Pacific. Plantations, a cheaper and more reliable source of coconut oil than buying it from islanders,

were being developed and

trading stations had been established on many islands. It was, however, not until 1884 in north-eastern New Guinea, the following year in the Marshall Islands, 1899 in the Mariana and Caroline Islands, and 1900 in Western Samoa that Ger-

man sovereignty was imposed.

The reasons for this drawn-out

‘conquest’ were mainly com-

mercial (local and global) and political (rivalries in imperialism by Britain, its Australasian colonies, and the In Pacific Islanders under German Rule, Dr Peter Hempenstall looks at instances of

physical resistance by

Samoans, Micronesians and New Guineans to German

zin people and by the Bainings;

and the Sokehs rebellion on Ponape in each case oppo sition to foreign acquisition of land was the underlying, if not the main, cause.

Hundreds of resisters and many Europeans and their sup porters lost their lives. ‘ lnta puain inta’ (blood buys blood), says the Ponapeans. The islanders yielded to no one when it came to bravery. On June 25, 1890, for instance, 40 Spanish soldiers were mass acred by the Madolenihmw on

Ponape.

The most important aspect dealt with in this scholarly and readable book is the emerg ence of leadership of the kind needed for the islanders to gain optimum advantage from cir cumstances imposed upon them and, so it seemed, of per manence. On Samoa, men such as Malietoa Tanumafili I and Mata’afa Josefo took their fol lowers into temporary alliances with the Germans or Amer icans, as did the Wasai Sokehs and Henry Nanpei with the Spaniards or Germans on

Ponape. They did not merely

seek territorial and status advantages for their people but amelioration of the foreign imposed overall conditions as well. Lauaki Namula’ulu Mamoe on Samoa and Nanpei on Ponape stood out by their success in getting the best of two worlds. The Samoans and

Ponapeans of to-day rightly re

vere their memory.

Of great interest, too, are the

overlordship. Compared with.

say, the Herero-Nama war of 1904 in South-West Africa and the Maji Maji rebellion of 1905 in East Africa, warfare in Samoa (a mixture of tra ditional rivalries, their apex the claim to paramount clieftaincy.

and competing European

imperalisms), resistance on Ponape (with concurrent tra ditional inter-district struggles for dominance), and uprisings in New Guinea (by temporary alliances of clans or villages) were of minor significance, Only the Samoan wars made some impact on international politics, and that impact was

slight and fleeting,

In retrospect, almost a cen tury later, those early struggles for independence are neverthe

less important because they

were the first indicators of the vigour and adaptability of Pa cific cultures under threat of

continuing foreign dominance

and possible extermination, They show the vital importance of land, a saleable commodity to Europeans but an integral part of the Islanders’ religio secular universe. The continu ing struggle for the Ali’i Sili title, the Oloa Movement and its Cumpani, etc, in Samoa; the uprisings on the Gazelle Penin sula (New Guinea) by the Var-

author’s brief but lucid account of the convoluted social sys tems which underlay the shaping of events, and his ex planation of the emergence of German colonial policy for the Pacific. In those days as, indeed, throughout most of the

years of European political

dominance, the government official on the spot had a larger share of policymaking than his

superiors at home.

Harry

Jackman.

Bainings massacre leaders before firing squad in 1904 ..

Islanders did not take the Europeans’ coming lying down

'Hell On

In Detail

Convicts and Commandants of Norfolk Island 1788-1855 by Margaret Hazzard. 58pp, 1978.

Distributed by Book People of

Australia, Sydney.

In Convicts and Commandants, a meticulously researched account of Norfolk Island’s his tory as a penal settlement, Margaret Hazzard illuminates the characters of its several commandants, describes with fascinating attention to detail the preparation for, and im plementation of, settlement plans for an island home to be pioneered by convicts, and re counts many of the well documented instances of both the interesting formations and changes of power-structure on the island, and the harsh brut ality of convict discipline.

The first governor of the new ‘prison colonies’ of the

southern hemisphere, Captain

Arthur Phillip, was instructed that ‘Norfolk Island, being rep resented as a spot which may become useful, you are ... to send a small establishment thither to secure the same to us and prevent it being occupied by subjects of any other European power’. There would be the added benefit to the Bri tish Navy of securing a supply

of the much-needed flax plant, which Captain James Cook reported to be plentiful when he visited Norfolk in 1774.

The absorbing account of the personalities, male and female, involved in the fornTation of the penal settlement, whose crimes as convicts were of such moment as stealing cows and

prostitution, gives evidence of

an unusually supportive for

mation of relationships in the initial period of the settle ment.

Lieutenant Philip Gidley

King, the island’s first com mandant, took with him from Sydney’s Port Jackson settle ment a group of ‘first-fleeters’ eight free men, nine male convicts and six females. The free men, who included a volunteer surgeon, a seaman adventurer and a few ‘police’ and general order men, worked with convicts, all as servants of the crown. John Rice, a burglar from Devon, became Lieuten

ant King’s ‘right-hand man’.

Their situation was one of trust.

The worst punishment that could be handed out by Com mandant King would be return to Port Jackson.

Rules for the ‘colony’ were stringent. Everyone had ‘to be at church on Sunday at 11am, clean, orderly and behave de voutly’. Each person had Satur day free to clear his own plot of land and plant seed supplied

by Lieutenant King.

If ‘an affection’ arose be tween male and female settler, the surgeon was permitted to perform a ceremony which would be solemnised at some future time when a clergyman visited the settlement.

Between 1788 and 1814 the island saw the number of con victs increasing and a series of commandants whose person alities and systems of control ranged from the indecisive to the plainly sadistic. Foveaux (commandant from 1800-1804) regularly ordered that women be flogged and was known as

the ‘Tyrant’.

During the administration of such commandants, men were sent from Australia’s mainland

to be ‘broken’ on the island and it became known to convicts as ‘hell on earth’. Conversely, some commandants behaved like social reformers. Alex ander Maconochie (comman dant from 1840-1844) brought books, musical instruments, and a public holiday for con victs on the Queen’s Birthday to the island.

This account of Norfolk Island’s first 70 years is neither ambitious nor in any way pre tentious. It is a valid historical document which, contrary to any impression of a ‘dry treat ise’ which may be given by its cover design and title, gives an

outstandingly perceptive and

human picture of Norfolk Island’s origins not as a microcosm of Australia’s development, but as an attempt to form a community, albeit an enforced one, on a naturally hospitable Pacific Island.

Margaret Hazzard, as a long term resident of the island, clearly evidences her interest in, and concern for the development of Norfolk Island in this record of its first 70

years.

Mary Dennis

Convict boy and girl by Malaspina, 1793... illustration from Convicts and Commandants

Questions And

For Rotumans

Rotuma Split Island, ed Chris Plant. Published by the Institute

of Pacific Studies, University of

the South Pacific, in association with the South Pacific Social Sciences Association and the USP Fiji Extension Centre, 1977.

Rotuma is a remote island about 500 km north-west of Fiji. The only access is by ship from Suva although an airstrip

is nearing completion. There

are no hotels. The main source of income is copra.

Although linked politically

with Fiji, Rotumans are

racially and culturally dif

ferent. The political links are

strengthened by family ties,

however, since today over 60% of Rotumans live in Fiji.

Rotuma is fairly close to the boundary between Melanesia, Polynesia Micronesia, and aspects of all three cultures can be found in Rotuman language and custom.

Rotuma Split Island is a timely reference work. It is a

collection of material written by several authors over a period of years. Ten Rotumans and one European have con tributed to the work. It points to some of the social forces at work in Rotuman culture, both in Rotuma and Fiji, as well as problems associated with the process of change in a remote island culture. These problems, although dealt with in detail in their Rotuman setting, don’t just apply to Rotuma and its people: they could apply to almost any remote culture.

Each chapter of Rotuma Split Island covers a specific subject: An introduction and

geography; history, super

stition and religion: mission in fluence on secular life; kinship,

reciprocity and society;

Rotuman marriage; the mamasa ceremony; decision making in Rotuma; legal as pects of Rotuman land tenure; dance as a reflection of Rotuman culture; Rotuman chants, sports and pastimes; the emigration of Rotumans to Fiji; Rotuman communities in

Fiji: Raiwai, Raiwaqa and

Lomaivuna; and the develop ment dilemma.

As well as writing the last chapter, Chris Plant edited the book.

As one who is married to a Rotuman, and who visited Rotuma during December 1977 and January 1978, I read Rotuma Split Island with great interest. For Rotumans it is an essential reference work, es pecially since many young

Rotumans have never seen their homeland.

The book provides questions which must be answered if Rotumans are to adapt success fully to the changes with which they are faced today. Some of these questions are: What as pects of our culture shall we leave in the past? What changes should be made so our

society does not stagnate?

What is needed to help advance the economic standing of our island? How are we to achieve our aims?

In reading this book, and

observing and speaking with

Rotumans, I have concluded that five important changes are needed before Rotuma can face the challenges of this age

successfully:

• Rotuman chiefs, politicians and decision-makers should encourage their people to speak out about what is needed. The merit of ideas put forward should be weighed carefully. • Rotumans should not be rub ber stamp ‘yes men’ when given decision-making re

sponsibilities.

• The ideas of young Rotumans should be respected.

They dearly love and respect their fellow people and island culture. This is why they speak out and ‘criticise’ when they return home. • Rotuma needs represen tatives in both Houses of Par liament not just the Senate as at present. Rotuma should be one electorate with possibly all Rotumans, in Fiji and Rotuma, eligible to vote therein. • The economics of another crop, more lucrative than

copra, should be examined in detail. I like Chris Plant’s idea about oranges, but a much bet ter shipping service is essential before these can be exploited.

David McCarthy

Hofliu, or Split Island, from which the book takes its title

wealthy

The Peopling of Hawaii by Eleanor C. Nordyke. Published for the East- West Center by the University Press of Hawaii, 1977. Paper SUS4.95; cloth $12.

To know Hawaii, one must

begin by looking at its people.

When visiting the islands, the observer sees its multi-ethnic population immediately. If printed material is used, the reader swiftly learns that Hawaii’s population is a cosmopolitan one.

Thus, whatever subject is pursued a knowledge of the people of Hawaii is important.

Eleanor C. Nordyke’s The

Peopling of Hawaii provides an

excellent source on the subject.

A demographic study, the work has many figures and tables with technical information de scribed. Age and sex character istics, ethnic groups, immigration patterns and the like are included as well as such interesting facts as motor ve hicle registration, water usage and social welfare costs per

capita.

This book is written in a light and felicitous style and has a

good selection of photographs

to beguile the reader. Con sequently the work is a useful one for the general reader. It is

also good supplementary read

ing for courses in the liberal arts and the sciences. Rarely has such a wealth of material been presented in so pleasant

a manner.

Pauline King

Joerger.

From the

Press

Letter to Impulse, East-West Center, Hawaii One had only to hear the first paragraph of Vice President Mondale’s recent speech at the East-West Centre to realize how little currency events here in Honolulu have in Washington, DC.

The Vice President referred to Chancellor Kleinjans and to the EWC as a ‘centre of learning.’ The title “Chancellor” was dropped some fouryears ago at the time of incorporation. All the evidence suggests that the EWC ceased being a “center of learning” sometime prior to that. Name nit held on Request.

PNG Post-Courier When it comes to frankness, the Prime Minister. Mr Somare. has few peers. He admitted in Parliament this week that he was not happy with the public behaviour of some of his Ministers. Better still he told the House that he had made it clear to all Ministers that if anyone of them was convicted three times by a court he

would be automatically sacked.

Letter by Ruai Timothy, New Hebrides News Probably some hear that announcers on Radio New Hebrides announce a programme but don’t follow it till the end. apart from power failure. When an announcer announces a programme, people switch their ears to it, but he/she plays just a moment then spends two to three minutes giving unnecessary stories not :onnected with the programme. An example of this is local string band every Saturday. Some of the things repeated are important but we don’t need it every five minutes as sometimes happens vith some of the announcers. This could only be done every half 3r an hour. As a whole the programmes are fantastic.

r iji Times

lotuma has been hit by a pig menace, the Senate heard yesterday.

Lotuman Senator Wilson Inia told the House that “there are pigs ill over the place” in the island, four hundred miles north of Viti evu.. .The senator said Rotumans had been misled about an ige limit for licences to handle guns to shoot the pigs. It was bought that men over 60 would not be issued licences because heir hands shook. But later Senator Inia found that this was not rue...

Letter to Cook Islands News I am concerned over the emphasis being placed on trying to get our children to pass NZ examinations like School Certificate or University Entrance . . . The average NZ student can do his homework whenever he feels like it either when he comes home, or before or after tea. The Cook Islands students are usually forced to do things like work around the home, go out into the plots, feed the pigs, etc girls have to wash clothes, and help around the house ... Too many kids are being pushed into academic courses when it would be more sensible to concentrate on agriculture or trade training elsewhere . . . Ex-A uckland

Grammar Boy

Fiji Times

Since January 1. a total of 112 prisoners have escaped from prisons and from police custody.

The Bulletin, Nauru A Tennis Friendly Match was played ... at the Meneng Hotel Tennis Court, between the Cities and the Countries. The Cities completely thrashed the Countries, six wins to nil . . . Following their tragic defeat, the Countries declared and issued a return-bout on the Cities, immediately after their great loss ...

The date is being kept secret as a surprise attack by means of manoeuvres and tactics against the Cities.

Lae Nius, Papua New Guinea Mr G. Inuzuka, formerly a lieutenant in the Japanese army during World War 11, has revisited Lae after 37 years, and met an old friend, Mr Yanding, of Wagang village . . . When the Americans and Australians came and the Japanese retreated. Mr Inuzuka offered to take Mr Yanding with him by submarine to Japan, but Mr Yanding did not wish to go.

Pitcairn Miscellany

The stork had been expected all January, but it didn’t finally land until February 10, when it arrived at the editor’s own home with a bundle of bouncing baby boy, weighing eight pounds nine ounces. Mrs Ferguson and Meralda, our nurse and assistant nurse, supervised at the delivery in our home. And so Simon James Pitcairn Cox was born. Proud mum and dad never thought they might have a mutineer in the family.

Unsigned letter, New Hebrides News Please allow me to space to express my concern regarding job opportunities offered to New Hebridean graduates from the University of the South Pacific (Fiji), University of Papua New Guinea (PNG), and the University of Technology (PNG). It has become quite obvious that the output from these three universities, in terms of qualifications, is not recognised in the New Hebrides. . . After all, it is the government that sends us to these three universities. If our qualifications are not recognised then why on earth did you decide to send us there in the first

place?

PNG Post-Courier comment on the constitution

Yesterday

Davuilevu—'biggest educational town in the Pacific’

Sun, sand, sea and the easy life are present-day attractions adver tised by Fiji's tourist industry. But, in years gone by, when visitors were fewer and pursuits were different, Davuilevu, centre of Methodist educational activities, was a big attraction. Ken James writes about yesterday's Davuilevu.

Davuilevu, showpiece of the Methodist mission’s work in the South Pacific, was built on 325 hectares of freehold land across the Rewa River from

Nausori township, about 18

kilometres northeast of Suva.

Visitors would travel from Suva to first inspect the sugar mill and farms as well as the Methodist mission’s Navuso

Agricultural College at

Nausori. Then they would :ross the river to Davuilevu.

Visitors varied from groups )ff cruise ships to official quests from within or outside he colony. In the 1930 s there vas even a visit from the crew )f a Japanese cruiser. Demon ;trations of mekes and dances vere given on the ratra, fol owed by a guided tour of the :ducational institutions mak ng up the township.

The Reverend C.O. Lelean, uperintendent for 30 years, ;ave this description in 1932: There are about 600 people, ndians, Fijians and Rotumans. r here is a Teacher Training In

titution. Theological College,

technical School for boys, three rimary schools for boys and iris, Indians and Fijians in dif ?rent schools, and an orphan ge for Indian girls and a few ijian girls. We have three mis 'onaries, one lay missionary, ve mission sisters, a native unister, two native sisters, a

'nail hospital and dispensary,

ve boy scout troops, a power f ation . . . There are about 75 uildings at present... It is the iggest educational town in the ' acific.

Davuilevu’s origin goes back ) 1860 when land was sold by ie chiefs of Naitasiri and /aila to Charles Pickering Sr nd Robert Swanston. In the

same year, the Reverend Joseph Waterhouse, resident minister in the Rewa circuit of the Wesleyan mission, asked Swanston if he could build a summer retreat on a small mound known as Davui Levu about 20-25 metres high on the edge of the Rewa river. This was agreed to and - after

approaching and receiving per

mission from the inland tribes who used the hill from which to launch attacks on the village

of Nausori he commenced his summer residence.

He was so pleased with the site that in 1864, 125 hectares of the land was purchased by the mission. Davuilevu was retained as a name for the property, and Waterhouse’s retreat appears to have become the site of a mission station under the direction of the Rev erend Thomas Baker.

The mound overlooking the river was cleared, two resi dences, a church, school and dormitories being erected.

Following the murder of Baker and his party while on tour in the interior of Viti Levu in 1867, the estate was abandoned for more than 30 years until 1903 when the mission decided to start work among the Indian community in the Nausori dis trict. The Reverend John Bur ton reopened the mission station and a school and or-

phanage quickly followed.

Then, in 1905, the newly established mission’s District Boys’ High School was trans ferred from Navuloa to Davuilevu. This particularly arduous task took more than two years to complete. First, food gardens and roads had to be cut out of the dense veg etation. Then hill and ridge tops had to be levelled-off to provide sites for new buildings.

The school was finally

officially opened by Governor

Sir Everard im Thurn in October 1907. One of the main reasons for establishing the school had been to counter the threat to the mission’s edu-

A gala opening for Baker Hall, Davuilevu, Fiji, 1913 ... preservation Is the problem today

cational work from two Cath olic English-medium schools for Fijian boys.

The future of the estate as an education town was assured in 1908 when the mission resolved to transfer their pastor-training insititution from Navuloa, and at the same time to establish a theological college, the first in the colony. The transfer was

completed the following year,

an additional 200 hectares of

land having been purchased.

The Lomovata was used to facilitate the transfer.

The importance of the town was summed up in 1909 by the

superintendent:

It would be hard to overesti mate the strategic importance of this institution. It is to the edu cational work of our mission in Fiji what the heart is to the body . . . the centre from which a constant stream of life is poured out to the remotest member whose arteries beat in perfect proportion to the central organ.

The Davuilevu estate is made up of high ridges, hills, and deep valleys. Most build ings were and still are sited on the levelled tops of the hills and ridges. The central point of the whole area is Baker Hall. An

impressive concrete building,

used today as classrooms and as a church, it was erected be tween 1910 and 1913. The official opening in 1913 was a grand occasion: There was a high gala appear ance about the pretty Davuilevu station on the Rewa on Tuesday last when the Baker Memorial

Hall or College was opened by

His Excellency the Goveror.

The landing stage was a scene of great animation and the river was thronged with cutters and motor launches of all sorts and sizes. Motor cars and horsed ve hicles were in serried array in front of the stables and every now and then great squads of Fijians in meke panoply were to

be seen making for the mission

rara, a most perfect and pic

turesque amphitheatre.

The walls of the hall were

covered with photographs and

portraits of past and present

mission workers. The building

was named in memory of the murdered Thomas Baker and. later, an armbone, the only re mains of the missionary, was

buried in a casket under the building. From the time of opening the building has been used for church services, students from the different in stitutions marching from their respective ridges to the ser vices. Today, Baker Hall is fall ing into disrepair, and there is some talk of approaching the Fiji National Trust in the hope of having the building declared

worthy of preservation.

A large number of edu cational institutions have existed on the estate since the turn of the century. The boys’ high school, which opened in 1905, soon had an agricultural and industrial institution attached to it. From 1909-1911, under the headmastership of W.L. Waterhouse, later pro fessor of agriculture at Sydney University, basic technical and agricultural training of a theor etical as well as practical nature was offered to limited numbers of students. The mission’s annual meeting of 1910 re solved to expand the work but a destructive cyclone in the same year forced these plans to be abandoned. It was not until 1923, with the establishment of the Navuso Agricultural

College, that agricultural edu

cation was again attempted on an ambitious scale in the col ony.

The pastor-teacher training institution, known as the Yuli Levu, was assisted in its work by the establishment in 1915 of a primary school which served as a practising school for teacher training. Then, three years later, a teacher training institution was commenced to

provide higher teacher prep

aration than that offered in the Yuli Levu. For many decades this establishment provided many of the trained teachers in the colony. It was closed in the 19405.

In 1919, the new headmaster at the high school, R. A. Der rick (known today as the his torian of Fiji), started changes which transformed the school into an institution which pro vided well thought out and executed courses of study in technical and commercial areas. Derrick remained at Davuilevu for 30 years. The school closed in 1942, being replaced by the Lelean Mem orial School, a multi-racial, co educational secondary school.

Today there are three insti tutions remaining at Davuilevu: the theological college, a Yuli Levu or lay training centre, and the high school. At Dilkusha, the part of the estate which traditionally contained the ‘lndian’ work of the mission, there are two pri

mary schools, a youth centre, orphanage and church.

Davuilevu was indeed a male dominated town. Not until the late thirties were women students admitted into the teacher training institution.

In common with other mission stations throughout the Pacific, the town was run by European staff members with a clear demarcation in status be tween the clerical and lay ex patriate missionaries. It is only in recent years that localisation of all the key positions has

taken place.

Today the Davuilevu- Dilkusha complex is still a siz able educational town, even

though its importance within

Fiji’s educational system has diminished as the services it once singularly offered to the country have been matched elsewhere. Likewise, with the expansion of the tourist indus try and its multitude of attrac tions, Davuilevu has lost its place as one of the showpieces

in Fiji.

A question which must be faced in the immediate future is how a building of such his toric importance as Baker Hall can be preserved.

A formal welcome for a mission delegation from Sydney, 1917

Trade

Winds

Fiji’S Oil Men

Gear Up To

Start Drilling

Fiji’s search for oil so far has been confined to seismic and geological surveys but early next year a drilling rig will begin boring into the seabed of the shallow, reef-strewn area north of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island, writes Robert Keith- Reid in Suva.

Chances of a commercial strike of oil or gas are rated good. The reason, says San Francisco-based Pacific En ergy and Minerals Limited (PEML), is that seabed geology around and between Viti Levu and the second largest island, Vanua Levu, is extraordinarily like that of rich oil-bearing areas of Indonesia.

The company says it has the same kind of subterranean temperature gradients which indicate conditions for oil for mation. Things are so hot, in fact, that PEML reckons that Viti Levu itself is a reservoir of geo-thermal energy worth tap ping commercially in its own

right.

PEML’s chairman is Jonathan Stoen who was for merly with a US company which ran seismic checks for oil in Fiji in the early seventies but abandoned work when pros pects elsewhere became more attractive.

Mr Stoen, however, was so sure of Fiji’s possibilities that he set PEML up to find out.

Now, working in partnership

with Mapco Incorporated of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Chev ron Overseas Petroleum Cor

poration, a subsidiary of

Standard Oil of California, PEML is exploring 8000 square

kilometre concessions covering

Bligh Water, immediately

north of Viti Levu; the Yasawa Islands, west of Viti Levu; and the Great Sea Reef area west of Vanua Levu.

Another US company, Dakota Exploration, is at work in an 8000 square kilometre

concession covering the

Lomaiviti Islands which lie be tween the two big islands.

So far PEML has spent around SF3 million and this

figure will be bumped up con siderably when drilling, to which it is committed under an agreement with the Fiji Government, begins next year.

At least six, possibly nine, exploratory wells are being talked about.

A commercial strike would transform Fiji’s sugar and tour ism dependent economy al most overnight, relieving it of the need to buy oil and pet roleum now costing about $2O million a year and bringing the government revenue conserva tively estimated at $lOO,OOO a

day.

But and despite all the op timism it’s still a very big but there’s really no knowing whether PEML and govern ment dreams will come true until those exploratory wells are drilled.

Fiji’s Director of Mines Ronald Richmond, who had much to do with reviving ex ploration interest in Fiji after the the first phase of it waned in the early 19705, says: ‘My own feeling is that we will find something, probably gas and oil. But will it be commercially viable?’ Even a modest find would do wonders for the Fiji economy. PEML thinks oil will be found in small pockets that, while amounting to no Saudi Arabian bonanza, will yield a very nice living. The govern ment and companies have

already signed detailed agree

ments on how oil profits, if any, will be shared.

In May the then minister for minerals, Militoni Leweniqila, went to the US to look at off shore oil rigs at work in the Gulf of Mexico. In June his successor, Bill Clark, left for British Columbia, the Philip pines and Papua New Guinea to look at open pit copper mines. The reason for the sec ond trip is that Fiji’s other great mineral hope, a copper deposit at Namosi, about 40 km north west of Suva, looks a goer as a major mine and the govern ment wants to know how to

handle the situation if mining starts.

America’s Amax group, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia, Anglo American of South Africa and West Germany’s Preusagg, are the Namosi ex

ploration partners. They’ve

spent $l4 million testing the prospects and are now talking of putting $6OO million into a mine.

However it will be another 18 months or so before a final decision is made on whether to

proceed with this project.

PUDS at work

in the Islands

New Zealand’s Department of Trade and Industry, by March this year, had received 249 enquiries about PUDS, includ ing 48 applications for assist ance. PUDS ventures so far include: • Western Samoa: Wisemans South Pacific Ltd makes vinyl

bags and considering manufac

turing airline bags for the United States including Hawaii.

Shannon Marketing Inter national (New Zealand Export Promotions Ltd) has an annato

processing venture to produce

dye from the seeds for the dairy

industry. The department of

scientific and industrial re search rates the Western

Samoan dye as high quality.

NZ Industrial Gases is help ing to expand a carbolic ice

plant and industrial training

programme.

Rothmans Industries

manufactures cigarettes. This scheme created such a furore in Western Samoa and New Zealand that Trevor Lloyd of the Department of Trade and Industry admitted that before any similar scheme was ap proved elsewhere there would be discussion in New Zealand and the Islands first.

Brugger Industries has estab lished a light engineering oper

ation that provides import

substitution for some pro ducts, SMI Biscuits has been offered assistance to make sweet biscuits.

• Tonga: Tonga Wire

Company makes the island’s entire chain link fencing re

quirements.

Dolphin Tanks Ltd makes concrete storage tanks and sep tic tanks in Vavau, an area af

fected by water shortages.

F. C. Matthews and Sons Ltd make leather soccer balls.

Associated Confectioners/ Oasis Industries have a soft

drink bottling operation.

• Fiji: Butland Industries Ltd processes ginger with a Fijian company, Balthan Inter national Ltd.

W. F. Tucker and Co. Ltd has a food processing oper ation in Suva which produces peanut butter at present from

imported peanuts, eventually

from island peanuts.

J. A. Bolt has been offered help to open a sausage casing

operation.

Timber and Building

Supplies (Fiji) Ltd has

expanded its timber processing

operation and is to treat timber

locally.

Fiji Steel Industries has

expanded its bucket-making

operation from waste steel.

Allen E. Douglas Ltd has been offered help to manufac ture jewelry. It found its island

trainees picked up jewelry

making skills quicker than

New Zealanders. Eventually it plans to make and export wed ding rings to Hawaii and the United States.

Bill Clark ... serving Fiji by

looking at open pit copper mines around the world

• Cook Islands: Mortco Hold ings Ltd manufacture corru gated roofing iron and other

metal products.

• Niue: Niue Products Ltd expanded its softdrink manufacturing operation and opened a coconut cream can ning line for local and export markets.

Astrafine Leather has established a hand-sewn soccer

ball operation.

In addition there has been

approval for;

• Potter Brown Ltd to open an

adhesive manufacturing plant

in Fiji.

• Natural Energy Ltd to pro ceed with a solar heater manufacturing unit that may be based in Western Samoa or Tonga for the Islands and other markets. • Caxton Printing Works Ltd to proceed with a paper

processing operation in West

ern Samoa. • Norsewear Industries Ltd to

open a hand-operated knitting

business in Tonga to market its products in North America.

Feasibility studies have been

approved for storing and dry

ing maize and processing gin

ger in Fiji; manufacturing

chain-link fencing, paint and

more cigarettes in Western Samoa; drying fruit and manufacturing parquet floor ing from coconut palm stems in

Tonga; and opening a sheep

skin clothing operation in

either Fiji or Samoa.

Ideas for the

villagers

‘A business co-operative in the New Hebrides makes soap from coconut oil for home con

sumption. The Community

Education Training Centre in Fiji is using borax and table salt to fix the brilliant colours from hibiscus flowers, wild gin ger and marigolds for use as textile dyes. A common activity in Papua New Guinea is mak

ing wooden roofing shingles.

Niue is investigating the possi

bility of adding local fruit pulp

to coconut cream to make a frozen dessert. Bananas, as well as being dried whole, can be made into sweet chips, powder, flakes, chips flour, pulp and

vinegar..

So begins an enthusiastic re

view in the Cook Islands News of a new publication from the South Pacific Commission, T- Shirts and Tapa Cloth , by Alan Bollard.

The reviewer goes on; ‘This is a handbook, which looks at a number of small businesses

designed for Pacific villages,

but it is not a step-by-step “how-to” book for business men to follow. Rather, it is a collection of experiences in the Pacific to give ideas and introduce new possibilities. ‘The handbook has been

designed for rural develop

ment workers, teachers and extension officers who are involved with rural economic activity, and for government planners who are selecting and

financing rural projects ...

‘At a time when we are increasingly concerned with trying to achieve economic self-reliance we should be thinking about ways to meet our own consumer needs, sub

stituting locally produced

goods for imported ones.’

Copies may be obtained from the Secretariat, South Pa cific Commission, Noumea.

‘WESPAC’ plan

from Perth

The Western Pacific should build its own economic bloc to counter the threat of the world’s established economic blocs.

That was the message of Dr Liu Yat-wing of the East Asian Studies Centre at the Univer sity of Western Australia to a Perth seminar on future politi cal and economic development of the Pacific Basin region.

Dr Liu said that, ideally, the Western Pacific group would include Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the ASEAN countries with Hong Kong and Taiwan as associate members.

Calling the group WESPAC, Dr Liu said the economies in such a community ‘are comp lementary in character’ and, together, formed a group ‘which is not only well endowed in natural resources but also one with a large popu lation and the necessary capital and technology to become a powerful and prosperous econ omic bloc’.

‘Reshaping’ to spur Cooks’ producers

The appointment of two New Zealanders to the Cook Islands Ministry of Agriculture a chief advisory officer and an information officer may seem a little surprisng, writes Don Bryant from Wellington, considering the high level of local expertise already in the Cooks’; agricultural field.

However, the appointments, by the external aid division of

the NZ Ministry of Foreign

Affairs, have come in response

to the reshaping plan devised

by the Cooks’ own planners and they are only temporary.

Things had got to the point where the Cooks experts were doing all the work, including fertiliser and spraying pro grammes, while many growers were doing very little. The nove is to encourage growers ;o work and produce and signs ire that this is already begin

ling to happen.

There’s plenty of air cargo ipace for Cooks produce to be ihipped to New Zealand and aapayas, capsicums and other

vegetables have been attracting

>ood prices at Auckland’s mar kets recently.

Cook Islands bananas have ilso been seen in Auckland for he first time in many years md even commanding a pre nium over Ecuadorian ba tanas.

The overall message that >eing a good grower brings

good rewards is not being lost but the urge to grow something different and strike a bonanza is always there. There were those who wanted to grow pea nuts in spite of a lack of mar kets, and those who thought ginger was the answer. But official encouragement will tend to be directed toward ba nanas, pineapples, citrus and papayas which have assured markets in New Zealand.

Against that is politician

turned-grower Dr Joe Williams, who produces beans and has claimed that by airfreighting out of season to the Auckland markets he has made more in three months than he used to get as a year’s salary as a government minis ter.

As long as it’s only beans, which are not a significant hot house crop in New Zealand. Dr Williams will make no waves.

Tomatoes and capsicums are another matter but unlike Tonga, there is nothing to stop Cooks growers consigning to New Zealand markets because import licences are not necess ary in the case of the Cooks.

One slight hindrance can be

quarantine provisions. For

example, no kumara (or kumala) can enter New Zealand except Niue kumala which may be landed at points south of Timaru. The reason for this odd limitation is be cause Niue is not a high risk area for the sweet potato weevil and. south of Timaru, it cannot be expected to live, as New Zealand kumaras won’t grow there either.

Taro is a product with a big New Zealand sale to the

Polynesian communities

throughout the country, but Samoa supplies most taro re quirements at the moment with

Tonga also shipping plenty.

Western Samoa would like a

higher price but must keep an

eye on Tongan growers who might be content with less.

The new information officer

in Rarotonga will have the job of giving this overall picture to growers all over the group. He is likely to produce pamphlets and instruction leaflets as well as use the established govern ment communications organs.

His main communication, however, is expected to be radio, which is the only way to

quickly reach the northern islands.

Inevitably, some of his infor mation in this area will relate to subsistance growing rather

than cash-cropping, but, given

rising copra prices and rising

demand for vegetable oils, he may yet find himself dealing with coconut planting.

Cook Islanders and bananas... back on the NZ market

PNG boost for forum services

The Papua New Guinea Ship

ping Corporation’s contri

bution to the Pacific Forum Line, Forum Niugini , will enter service this month. The vessel, a modern German-built unit, will be capable of carrying more than 100 containers, 50 of which will eventually be refrigerated. This vessel, of 5100 tonnes deadweight, has a speed of 14 knots and will pro vide a 35-day liner service be tween New Zealand and PNG, with Noumea and Honiara as ports of call en route.

PNG Shipping Corporation

has been appointed PFL managing agents in PNG.

Forum Niugini will be the first major PNG flag vessel to trade overseas, though PNG

Shipping Corporation’s charter

vessel Coral Chief has operated within the Chief Container Service to Australia for a year.

In May, the PNG Shipping Corporation’s coastal liner af

filiate, Mainport Cargoes,

commissioned its new flagship,

Moresby Chief

The 2900 tonne deadweight vessel, built in 1973, is capable

of carrying 52 six metre boxes and 40 nine cubic metre boxes.

Facilities are provided for 14 reefer boxes. Two 20-tonne, one 12-tonne and a five-tonne derrick are capable of handling containers and general cargo.

The vessel will normally trade on the line’s weekly liner and container service from Port

Moresby, through Lae, to

Madang and Wewak. How ever, after its first coastal voy age, the vessel went to New Zealand for the Pacific Forum Line, pending the arrival of Forum Niugini.

With the arrival of Moresby

Chief ‘ Mainport’s smaller con

tainer vessel Provincial Chief has started a Lae-to-outer islands 12-day container ser vice.

In addition to commercial service, Moresby Chief is out fitted as the PNG Shipping Corporation’s officer cadet training vessel. The ship is crewed by 13 officer cadets who will receive basic training before completing their train ing on overseas vessels.

In Papeete, the formation of the Compagnie Tahitienne

Moresby Chief ... PNG Shipping Corporation’s new flagship

Maritime, Tahiti’s first international shipping line, is expected to boost trade between Trench Polynesia and New Zealand. The company’s first vessel is the Capitaine La Perouse, from Sofrana Unilines, which has been renamed Bounty. Sofrana will be the company’s agents in New Zealand.

XT „ . .

The New Zealand Shipping Corporation which hitherto had provided the only service between NZ and Tahiti, has two vessels on the run, the Tiare Moana and the Fetu Moana which also call at the Moana which also call at the Cook Islands.

This service is run at a loss and has a government subsidy.

Tahitienne Maritime’s entry can only make life harder for

the NZ Shipping Corporation.

The new service was expected

to be in operation before mid-

July.

Another Pacific shipping development recently was the introduction of the 1700-tonne freighter Fijian to the New Zealand-Fiji trade. The Fijian's big attraction is that it can carry up to 10 passengers in twin and single berth cabins.

Sailing mainly between Lau ,oka and Suva m Fiji and Qnehunga in NZ the at times , wi a i so call at other Fiji and a , wha arei D ’

Round trip passenger charges are S NZ63O (share twin basis) and $770 (single cabin). Return sailing time will

be about eight days.

The Fijian, formerly the Shaw Savill Cotswold Prince , is owned by Reef Shipping Agen cies, Auckland.

worries Steamships boss

The effectiveness of adminis trative government in Papua New Guinea is slipping, claims the managing director of the Australia-based Steam ships Trading Company Lim ited, Don Harvey.

In a paper to the PNG Institute of Management, published in mid-June, Mr Harvey praises the orderly manner in which PNG assumed control of its affairs from Australia. But he ex pressed concern that the past five years have seen ‘co ordination and effectiveness disappearing from the national administration’.

Steamships Trading

Company is a major multi interest group operating in PNG. It is engaged in retail ing, service industries, agriculture, shipping and

slipways, cargo handling,

light industry, the automotive

trades, hotels and tourism.

Because of the historical background to investment in PNG, most of the company’s shareholders are in Australia.

But all of its shares are listed on the public market and, un like many other major enterprises in PNG, it is fully controlled in PNG and is not a subsidiary of an Australian company.

Mr Harvey said that de

spite the government’s ex

pensive research into the need for development, invest ment and internal equity, there appeared to be a lack of overall co-ordination and a failure to apply consistent guidelines to the economy.

Referring to his own company, Mr Harvey said great concern was felt at the

oft-quoted phrase ‘foreign

enterprise’. The shares were freely available any day, he said, but the company had to smart under the tag of

‘foreign enterprise’, often

used by people whom, he suspected, did not know what they were talking about. He said he had already told critics: ‘Put your money where your mouth is and you could take control today.’

He said he knew of

companies owned by Papua

New Guineans wanting to invest in Steamships but they were denied this opportunity by the government itself be cause some person in the government classified Steam

ships as ‘foreign’.

‘Surely with this attitude, the government’s policy of “buying back the farm” will never be fulfilled,’ said Mr

Harvey. He said the stability

of Steamships Trading Com

pany shares on the Australian market was long established but there was a low rating out of context with the results.

He saw this not as a reflec tion on the company but on the investment climate of PNG, and this in turn stemmed from government and public attitudes on PNG itself.

On the wider sphere of general management in PNG, Mr Harvey said that the deterioration of law and order was a cause for great concern.

He said that staffing costs were escalating because em

ployees whites or Papua

New Guineans had to be protected from fear and

apprehension. Shoplifting

and theft were on the increase and social responsibility and social consciousness were

disappearing.

Port Moresby, he said, had

become a dirty, untidy city,

and private enterprise was

disheartened when its attempts to upgrade facilities

created vandalism, destruc tion and graffiti.

The slipping of control, he said, was also noticeable in an

increasing lack of discipline

in the workforce. Govern ment had to be looked at as a business, he said, but until all its arms and activities could be co-ordinated im provement could not be

expected.

PNG’s tax man

chasing s2om

Former residents of Papua New Guinea, mainly Aus tralians, have left the country owing $A7.5 million in back taxes. This sum, disclosed in the taxation office’s annual re port, is part of a total overdue tax amounting to nearly $2O million.

The chief collector of taxes said that the amount owed by

people living in Australia,

mainly overdue personal tax,

could not be recovered by any existing standard process be cause ‘our recovery rights do not extend beyond our terri torial boundaries’.

Yachts

• APPLEDORE 20 m gaff rigged wooden schooner, registered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, US, arrived in Rarotonga in April bound for the Samoas, writes Susana Nia in Rarotonga. On board, with owner-skipper Herb Smith, with ages ranging from two to 64, were John Richards, Tom and Doris Smith, Alexandria Clark, Anne and Jack Williams, Maria and Jack Stiles, Donna and Alan Twombly, Sandy and Greg Wellstead and Maggie Gaeth.

T he Appledore, after cruising the Caribbean, had visited 3 anama, the Galapagos, the Marquesas, Societies and Fuamotus. Launched in last year, this is the maiden voyage.

Fwo days out of Rarotonga, he two-year-old boy on board /vas taken ill with bronchitis and high fever and the Appledore put back in for reatment. A crewman was noved to comment; ‘His prob em has been taken care of hanks to your good medical acilities . . . It’s nice to be in he Cook Islands. They’re as beautiful as French Polynesia )ut without the inflated costs md language barrier

• Gloria Maris, A 15 M

unk, homeported in Guam, arrived in Rabaul with Delmer md Joyce Stone. Gloria Maris neans ‘Glory of the Sea’, a ieashell treasured by collec ors the world over. Shell en husiasts themselves, the >tones have improvised a Iredging system on board to ind shells in depths to 200 m, writes Roderica Laymon from labaul. Another arrival in labaul was FALCON, 17 m notorsailor ketch, Herreshoff lesign, homeported in Pun arenas, Costa Rica. Morris lensen, owner-skipper, was iccompanied by Debbie Poe, ler son Shawn, age 6, and ’aul Sullivan. The engine is mder the mainmast, with the nast serving as exhaust. It’s a

startling sight to see smoke puffing forth from the mast. • Radio messages reported by Laymon in Rabaul in April- May included: BANYANDAH in Brunei: GANDALF in Kagoshima, Japan, heading north; MILLROSE heading for Kobe, Japan; MOANA out of Manus for Madang; WAN DERBIRD in Madang; SCOR PIO in Kieta; SITISI 111 in Honiara: FREYJA in Sin gapore; APHRODITE in Palau; trimaran ALLEGRA in No 110, Panay Island in the Philippines; OCARINA out of Rabaul for Indonesia: SPINDRIFT heading for Queensland; DRAGONERA in Honiara, heading for Vila; WINDROSE in Samarai; INTERMEZZO in Darwin, proceeding to Bali WY WUR RIE en route to Cairns; SUN FLOWER in Port Moresby: FREJA in Port Moresby; trimaran VALKYRIEN in Palau; THYME in Manila; EST in Cebu City, Philippines; ARION 111 out of the Hermit Islands in northern PNG head ing for Indonesia SUNDAY MORNING in Port Moresby; DREAMTIME in Darwin; GILLAWA returning to Aus tralia RIGADOON in Vanimo, northern PNG, heading for Indonesia: SVEA and WIND SUN in Samarai WARLOCK in the southern Solomons; and THURLOO in the Marovo La goon, Solomons. • Other visitors to Rarotonga,

reports Susana Nia, were BE CAUSE. an 11 m cutter built by owner-skipper Dick Thuillier from Victoria, BC, Canada, which left for Pago Pago; OJALA (meaning ‘I hope so’), al2 m Mason ketch registered in Hawaii, with owner-skipper Jack Moseley and wife Sylvia, on its way to New Zealand after visiting French Polynesia; RIMU, 11 m Snowgoosecutter-rigged cata maran, London-registered, owner-skipper David Gilchrist and son James, on way to Pago Pago; KAMAWICK 14 m ketch, Papeete-regis tered, with Kermadec Islands next stop on way to New Zea land ALISA with Tonga next stop; and SPECTRA going to Pago Pago.

Jimmy Cornell on the AVEN TURA on his way to Wallis Islands in May, reports: • SAVANNAH 12.60 m fer

rocement Raiatea class cutter, is taking Brisbane's Watson family on a cruise around the southwestern Pacific. Skipper Barry, accompanied by wife Gail and two young sons, Kelly (2V2) and Casey (9 months), arrived in Nukualofa at the end of April after a rough but fast seven-day passage from Auckland. After cruising the Tongan islands, they left Vavau for Tongatapu and then Fiji, where they planned to spend several months before returning to Australia. • EOLO, 19 m cutter from Lahaina, Hawaii, arrived at the end of April in Tongatapu bound for New Zealand, with US owner-skipper Tim Gold and NZ mate Ross Lynch. The John Philips yacht was built in Australia for the 1947 Sydney

Ross Lynch, five-year-old foul mouth Romeo, and Tim Gold on Eolo

to Hobart Race. Over the past 30 years Eolo has taken part in several races out of Hawaii and California and has also undertaken two Pacific cruises under different owner ship. On the present cruise, Eolo left Hawaii in June 1978 for the Marquesas, Tuamotu and Society Islands. After a brief stopover in the Cooks, Eolo arrived in Nukualofa, her owner planning to sail on to New Zealand for a major refit before continuing to Japan and, hopefully, China. Ross, who describes himself as ‘mul tifunctional’ left home in 1977 on board the yacht SUN SHINE. The last, but not least important member of the crew is five year old Romeo, a parrot with a wide repertoire of whistles and an even better supply of four letter words.

• Morning Star, 21 M

steel schooner from Santa Cruz, California, is cruising the Pacific with a mission. Its crew are members of the Glo bal Youth Evangelism move ment. President Reverend Al Lewis is accompanied by the skipper of Morning Star, Bren dan Baer, his wife, Pat Baer, Mike and Susie Mclntosh.

They left California in July 1978 sailing to Hawaii, then sailing in at ports in American and Western Samoa before 'caching Tonga. The move ment, which is based in Santa Sruz, has followers in Mexico, Canada and Samoa, the mem bers of the organisation songregating in what are ermed as Assemblies of God.

Corning Star’s present mission, says Mr Lewis, is not >o much to attract new fol owers as to encourage and strengthen the missionaries of he Christian faith in the Pa cific area and to help revive he Christian church. So far, le says, they have had an excellent reception every vhere. After Tonga, Morning Star's crew planned to sail to /licronesia, visiting the /larshall Islands, Yap and s alau. • KIANO. For more than 30 'ears Cliff Garvie has been isked by friends when he was joing on his dream cruise, iverytime he replied: ‘Not yet.’

So it’s not surprising he called his dreamboat Kiano, meaning ‘not yet’ in Maori. Not worried by the age-old superstition, Kiano left Auckland on Friday, May 13, bound for Tongatapu.

En route the crew stopped at Raoul Island, in the Ker madecs, diving for several hours among the huge number of fish and several two-metre sharks, intrigued by the strange intruders into their do main. On board the 10.70 m cutter are the skipper’s wife Mona and crew Peter Wilkin son, Peter Worley and Bernie Marshall. Only Bernie was staying on to cruise with the Garvies through Tonga from south to north before heading for Fiji.

• New Morning 13 M

Philip 43 sloop from Dart mouth, England, arrived in Vavau in May from Tahiti. Skip per Philip Wade and wife Sue were delivering New Morning to its Australian owner in Mel bourne. The 24 000 km job started in November in England, from where they sailed to the Canaries, West Indies and Panama. In the Pa cific, New Morning has made stops in Cocos Island, Marquesas, Tuamotus and So ciety Islands. After Vavau the crew were planning to stop in Suva before the final leg to Australia. Skipper Phil is an old salt in the yacht delivery business having completed so far 12 trans-Atlantic deliveries (several from the UK to Brazil), one across the Indian Ocean and one other Pacific delivery. • CASTAWAY, 17 m staysail schooner, provisionally‘based in Suva, Fiji, spent May cruis ing the Tongan islands. On board were US owner Steve Humen, Connie Myers and Fijian crew Jack Wickham.

Steve bought the boat in Tahiti in 1976. During the past three years he has cruised in American Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. Steve Humen is a com mercial diver working on the North Sea oilrigs off the British coast. He commutes regularly between the UK and Fiji, spending his long holidays aboard Castaway. He hopes to take more time off soon and sail to the New Hebrides.

of Islands People

Papaiya Naidu

President of Lautoka Soccer Association, Fiji, in a road acci dent, while returning from watching a game between Siga toka and Tailevu Naitasiri, at Navo near Nadi. He had been president of the LSA since 1977.

Saraswati Devi

Miss Saraswati Devi, 64, a leading educationist and social worker in Fiji. A teacher for 40 years, she was a daughter of the late Badri Maharaj, the first Indian member of Fiji’s Legis lative Council.

Georgette

Des Granges

Mrs Georgette des Granges,

after a short illness, in Vila, aged 75. Mrs des Granges spent 52 years in the New Hebrides, worked on her hus

band’s Bellevue plantation, was president, then honorary president, of the French Red Cross of the New Hebrides, and served for many years on the committee of management of Vila’s Cultural Centre.

P. Mehta

Dr Prakash Mehta, suddenly on March 7, in Suva, aged 42.

Dr Mehta emigrated from India to Fiji, returning to Bom bay to train as a doctor before opening a practice in Suva. He was a member of the Fiji Medi cal Council and vice president of the Fiji Medical Associ ation.

Wally Morgan

Walter Herbert Morgan in Brisbane, aged 67. Wally Mor gan, bom in Levuka, joined the Fiji civil service in 1946, retir ing six years ago as controller

of prisons.

Reno Ainui

Tolai community leader on the Gazelle Peninsula of Papua New Guinea’s East New Bri tain Province. Reno Ainui, 69.

Two thousand mourners at tended his funeral and burial at his home village of Karadui in

the Raluana area. Mr Ainui

played a major role in assessing

the views of East New Britain

people toward provincial

government and also was chairman of the Tolai War

wagira festival organising com

mittee.

D. Sharma

Deo Sharma, a Fiji-born law yer who practised in Fiji and New Zealand, aged 51. Mr Sharma had just returned to New Zealand after visiting the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.

S. D. Maharaj

Shree Dhar Maharaj, promi nent in Fiji’s passenger trans port industry for many years and chairman of several

companies including Pacific

Transport and Shreedhar Motors.

C. P. Sharma

Chandra Prakash Sharma, for mer Fiji MP, civil servant and trade union leader, aged about 50, in Melbourne. He won the Suva Rural seat for the National Federation Party at the 1977 election.

Win Ryan

At Mangakino, New Zealand, aged 68. Winton Henry Ryan, OBE, Order of King George I and Greek Silver Star, was a well-known figure in the Cook Islands where he served for 20 years in various posts, includ ing that of superintendent of the Public Works Department.

During World War II he was with New Zealand forces in Greece and Crete. In the latter campaign he, and the platoon he commanded, were given the task of escorting the Greek King George from Crete to safety in Egypt. He was awarded the Order of King George I and Greek Silver Star for his success in the mission.

Only two other New Zealanders are believed to have received these awards.

Antonio Benavente

In Saipan, of a heart attack,

aged 52. Saipan-born Antonio

Benavente was a former chief of the Marianas Public Safety Department, and had a record of police and public service going back to 1944.

Services

These listings do not necessarily cover all services to Island ports.

Should any shipping company wish to have its services cargo and passenger included in these list ings they should contact PIM.

Sydney - Lord Howe Is -

Norolk Is

Compagnie des Chargeurs Caledoniens operates four-weekly cargo service Sydney - Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

SYDNEY - NZ - FIJI - HAWAII -

Canada - Us

P & O liners call at Auckland. Suva, Honolulu and Vancouver on eastbound and westbound voyages between Syd ney and the US.

Details from P & O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

AUSTRALIA - NZ - FIJI - TONGA - N. HEBRIDES - NOUMEA - PNG -

Solomons -Samoas

Sitmar Cruises operates a year-round cruise programme to include most of the above countries.

Details from Sitmar Cruises, 47 Elizabeth Street, Sydney (232-7511).

P & O liners call at Auckland, Bay of

Islands, Honiara, Lautoka, Noumea, Nuku’alofa, Pago Pago, Papeete, Port Moresby, Santo, Savusavu, Suva, Vavau and Vila on cruises from Aus tralia.

Details from P & O Booking Centre, World Travel Headquarters Pty Ltd, 33 Bligh Street, Sydney (231-6655).

Australia - Fiji - Samoas -

New Hebrides - Tonga -

Norfolk Island

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a five-weekly refrigerated general car go/container service from Sydney and Brisbane to Vila, Santo, Suva, Lautoka, Apia, Pago Pago, Nuku’alofa and Nor folk Island.

Details from Beaufort Shipping Agency Co, 2 Castlereagh Street, Syd ney (239-1022).

Australia - New Caledonia

(And/Or) New Hebrides

Karlander operates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Sofrana-Unilines ships serve Noumea every three weeks from the main ports along the east Australian coast.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd. 570 Bourke Street, Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd. Brisbane (221-3116), Elders-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Compagnie des Chargeurs Cale donians operates a three-weekly con tainerised cargo service from Sydney to Noumea.

Details Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Compagnie Generale Maritime oper

ates a monthly service from Sydney to Noumea. Port Vila and Santo, using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231 -3700).

Australia - Fiji

Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd operates monthly cargo services from Sydney to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), Dalgety Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, Melbourne (60-0731), Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Sofrana-Unilines (Fiji Express Line) operates to Suva and Lautoka every three weeks from the main ports on the east coast of Australia and monthly to Lautoka from Melbourne and Sydney.

Details from Sofrana-Unilines, 37 Pitt Street, Sydney, (27-2031), Trans- Austral Shipping Pty Ltd, 570 Bourke Street. Melbourne (67-9162), ACTA Pty Ltd, Brisbane (221-3116), Elder-ANL Pty Ltd, Port Adelaide (47-5688), ANL, Newcastle (049-24364), Clements & Marshall, Burnie, Tasmania (31-1833).

Australia • W. Samoa

Compagnie Generale Maritime oper ates a monthly service from Sydney to Apia, using a self-sustained fully con tainerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Fiji - Tuvalu

• Samoas - Tonga

Pacific Forum Line operates a con tainer, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Melbourne and Syd ney to Lautoka, Suva, Funafuti, Pago Pago, Apia and Nuku'alofa. Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from ANL Melbourne and

Brisbane, Union Bulkships, Sydney, Hobart, Port Adelaide and Fremantle, Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777); Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nuku'alofa; PWD, Funafuti; or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W.

Samoa.

Australia - Northern

Marianas - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates a regular container service from Melbourne to Saipan. Truk, Ponape and Kosrai.

Details Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne, (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Australia - Tonga -

Samoas - Tahiti

Karlander operates a monthly cargo service from Melbourne and Sydney to Nuku’alofa, Apia, Pago Pago, Papeete.

US west coast.

Details: Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, 19-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301).

Australia - Tahiti

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly ser vice from Australia to Papeete.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx: AA25970.

Compagnie Generale Maritime oper ates a monthly service from Sydney to Papeete using a self-sustained fully containerised vessel.

Details Compagnie Generale Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

Australia - Png

Containers Pacific Express (Burns Philp and AWP Line) and NGAL/PNGL Operate chief Container Service from Australia to PNG-Solomon Islands ports on joint slot sharing basis. Three con tainer vessels operate on 28-day turn

ound from Melbourne, Sydney and risbane to Port Moresby, Lae, Rabaul, avieng, Wewak, Madang, Kieta and oniara.

Details from Burns Philp & Co Ltd, 51 tt Street, Sydney (2-0547) and terocean Swire, 8 Spring Street, Syd -3y (2-0522).

New Guinea Express Lines operates ree-weekly conventional and con iner services Melbourne, Sydney, risbane, Port Moresby. Lae, Rabaul, lotau.

Details from New Guinea Express nes, PO Box R 73, Royal Exchange D, Sydney (241-3991) MacArthur lipping Agency Co, 82-92 Eagle reet, Brisbane (229-3777), New uinea Express Lines, 327 Collins reet, Melbourne (61-3053), Niugini (press Lines in Port Moresby 1-2466), Lae (42-1536), Rabtrad iugini Pty Ltd, Rabaul (92-2911), otau Stevedoring & T’sport 1-1318).

Karlander New Guinea Line’s cargo sssels call at Melbourne, Sydney, Port oresby, Lae, Madang, Wewak, anus, Kimbe, Rabaul, Popondetta.

Details from Karlander (Aust) Pty Ltd, )-31 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-6301), algetty Shipping, 461 Bourke Street, elbourne (60-0731).

Australia-Solomons

Jorthern Marianas-Taiwan

Japan

Daiwa Line offers a four-weekly ser ze Sydney-Honiara-Guam-Taiwan ipan with transhipment at Guam for aipan.

Details Meridian Shipping & Trans )rt Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO, rtJney 2001 (29-4987). Tlx. <\25970.

Australia - Solomons -

Gilbert Is - Micronesia

Daiwa Line operates a container ser :e every 30 days from Sydney to

Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa and Guam. Gizo cargoes transhipped at Honiara, Saipan, cargoes transhipped at Guam.

Details Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agancies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987), Tlx.

AA25970.

Australia - Nauru -

Majuro

Nauru Pacific Line operates regular cargo/passenger service from Mel bourne to Nauru and Majuro.

Details: Nauru Pacific Line, Nauru House, 80 Collins Street, Melbourne (653-5709), Nedlloyd Swire, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Png ■ Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae to Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp, Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, ports.

Png - Us

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Kieta, Rabaul, Kimbe, Madang and Lae direct to New Orleans; calls at other US and Gulf and East Coast ports on inducement.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports.

Solomons - Usa -

Uk/Continent

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Honiara to New Orleans, Cardiff, Hamburg, Rotterdam and Ant werp.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd. 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Trading Co, Honiara (389).

Far East - Fiji - New

Zealand

New Zealand Unit Express (CNC.

MNOL, Nedlloyd) operates a three weekly cargo service from Hong Kong to Lautoka, Suva. NZ ports, Manila, Kaoshiung, Keelung, Hong Kong.

Details from Nedlloyd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (2-0522).

Nedlloyd operates monthly cargo service with three ships from Surabaya, Jakarta, Bangkok, Port Keland and Sin gapore to Suva and NZ ports.

Details from Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street, Sydney (27-3801); Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva and Lau toka.

Japan - Nz - Png

China Navigation Co, with three ships operates a monthly service from Japan to New Zealand calling at Fiji and Noumea en route Details Carpenters Shipping, Suva (312-2441); P & O S. N. Co, Wellington (736-477),

Far East • Mid-S. Pacific

China Navigation Co’s vessels oper ate a regular cargo service from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Manila, Port Kelang and Singapore to Wewak, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta, Lae, Port Moresby, Honiara, Santo, Vila, Noumea, Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Tarawa and Nauru.

Details from Steamships Trading Co., Port Moresby (21-2000).

Kyowa Shipping Co Ltd, operates monthly services from Hong Kong, Taiwan, S. Korea and Japan, to Guam, Saipan, Solomons, New Caledonia, Fiji, Western and American Samoa, Tahiti, Cook Is., Tonga and New Hebrides.

Details: Hetherington Kingsbury Pty Ltd, 37-49 Pitt Street, Sydney (27-1671).

Daiwa Line operates 30-day service from Moji, Kobe, Nagoya and Yokohama to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia, Suva, Lautoka, Noumea, Sydney, Honiara, Kieta, Tarawa, Guam and Taiwan.

Details: Meridian Shipping & Trans port Agencies Pty Ltd, Box 3410 GPO Sydney 2001 (29-4987) Tlx: AA25970.

North Europe - Tahiti -

New Caledonia

Hamburg-Sued operates monthly cargo services from Hamburg, Dunkirk and Le Havre to Papeete, Noumea, via Panama.

Details from Columbus Overseas Services Pty Ltd, 333 George Street, Sydney (290-2966), Columbus Mari time Services, 17 Albert Street, Auckland (77-3460),

Europe - Pacific Islands

Compagnie Generate Maritime oper ates services from Europe and Mediter ranean ports to Papeete and Noumea using three Ro-Ro and one multi purpose vessel thus ensuring a bi monthly sailing to and from.

Details Compagnie Generate Mari time, 12 Castlereagh Street, Sydney (231-3700).

EUROPE - TAHITI - W. SAMOA -

Fiji - N. Caledonia

Nedlloyd offers regular cargo ser vices from Northern Europe and UK to Papeete, Apia, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Details Nedlloyd (Aust) Pty Ltd, 8 Spring Street. Sydney (27-3801).

JAPAN - GUAM - FIJI - TAHITI -

Samoa - N. Caledonia -

Solomons - Gilberts

Daiwa Lines runs a monthly cargo service from Japan via Guam to Lau toka, Suva, Papeete, Pago Pago.'Apia, Sydney, Noumea, Honiara, Tarawa, Guam.

Details from Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd, Suva.

Nz - New Caledonia - Fiji

Pacific Forum Line operates a uni tized /palletized and reefer cargo ser

vice from Lyttelton and Auckland to Napier, Noumea, Lautoka and Suva.

Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777); Polynesia Shipping Services, Pago Pago; Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, Nukualofa or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

Nz-N. Caledonia-N. Hebrides

Png-Solomons

Sofrana Unilines with three ships op erates to Vila and Santo, to Honiara and Papua New Guinea and to Noumea.

Details from Sofrana Unilines, 18 Customs Street, Auckland (773-279), PO Box 3614, Telex NZ2313.

Nz - New Caledonia

- Solomons - Gilberts -

Micronesia

Union Co/Daiwa Line operates a container service from New Zealand through Sydney to Guam.

Details: Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, PO Box 12, Auckland..

NZ - FIJI - NORTH AMERICA (WC) Blue Star Line Ltd Pacific Coast con sider services. Only direct service to and from New Zealand. Blue Star /essels call at Suva and Honolulu on MZ-US-West Coast voyages.

Details from Blueport ACT (NZ) Ltd, 3 0 Box 192, Wellington (739-029) , Burns Philp (SS) Co Ltd. GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311-777).

Nz • Fiji

Reef operates a regular 18-day ser 'ice from Auckland to Suva and Lau oka.

Details from Reef Shipping Agencies -td. PO Box 3382, Auckland. NZ 77-1221-3).

Pacific Line with one ship operates crtnightly roro cargo service New [ealand, Lautoka, Suva.

Details: Sofrana Unilines, 18 Cus

toms Street, Auckland (773-279) PO Box 3614, Telex: NZ2313.

Nz - Fiji - Gilberts -

Solomons - Png

Pacific Forum Line operates a con tainer, unitised/palletised and reefer cargo service from Lyttelton and Auckland to Suva, Port Moresby, Lae Honiara, Tarawa, Madang, Lae and Port Moresby. Other ports are included on inducement.

Details from Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd, Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. Burns Philp (SS) Company Ltd, GPO Box 355, Suva, Fiji (311 -777) Sullivans, Honiara; Gilbert Islands Ship ping Corporation, Tarawa; Steamships Trading in Port Moresby, Lae and Madang or Pacific Forum Line, PO Box 655, Apia, W. Samoa.

Union Steam Ship Co of NZ operates a roll-on, roll-of, container/unitised ser vice from Auckland to Lautoka-Suva- Pago Pago-Apia-Nuku-alofa on a 14 day frequency.

Details from Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd, PO Box 12, Auckland or from Branch offices/agents in Fiji, Tonga and the Samoas.

Nz - Samoa - Tonga

Pacific Navigation of Tonga operates a four-weekly cargo service, Auckland - Nuku’alofa - Pago Pago - Apia - Auckland.

Details from McKay Shipping Ltd, Downtown House, Queen Street, Auckland (30-229).

Warner Pacific Line services Auckland - Nuku’alofa/Vavau/ Apia fortnightly carrying general and freezer cargoes. Also Timaru - Nuku'alofa/Vavau/Apia every 21 days carrying freezer cargo.

Details from Air Marine Services (NZ) Ltd, PO Box 2505, Auckland (796-841), Telex NZ21555, NZ - COOK IS - NIUE -

Tahiti

Shipping Corporation of NZ Ltd oper ates cargo services based on pallets

and similar units from Auckland to Niue, Cook Islands and Tahiti.

Details from the Shipping Corp of NZ Ltd, PO Box 3420, Auckland (797-210); Waterfront Commission, PO Box 61, Rarotonga, Lighterage and Stevedoring Co, Aitutaki, Niue Govt Offices, Niue Island Compagnie Mari time Polynesienne, B'P’ 368, Papeete, Tahiti.

Uk - N Continent - Fiji

The Bank Line operates a direct, fast monthly service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Suva and Lautoka.

Details from the Bank Line (Aus tralasia) Pty Ltd, 1 York St, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (South Sea) Co Ltd, Suva and Lautoka.

Uk/N. Continent - Tahiti -

N. Caledonia - N. Hebrides

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Papeete and Noumea.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Ets A M Fare UTE, Papeete; Ets Ballande, Noumea.

Uk/N. Continent - Png -

Solomons

Bank Line operates regular cargo service from Hull, Hamburg, Bremen, Antwerp and Rotterdam to Port Moresby, Lae, Madang, Kimbe, Rabaul, Kieta and Honiara and on inducement to Yandina.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041); Burns Philp (PNG) Ltd, PNG ports; Trading Co Honiara.

San Francisco - Honolulu -

Nauru - Micronesia

Nauru Pacific Line operates regular conventional/container service from Ban Francisco and Honolulu to Majuro, 3 onape, Truk and Saipan. Cargo is accepted for Nauru and Kosrai with Tanshipment at Majuro and Ponape.

Details from Nauru Pacific Line, Mauru House, 80 Collins Street, Mel

bourne (653-5709); North American Maritime Agencies, 100 California Street, San Francisco, California 9411 (981-0343).

US - FIJI - TAHITI - NZ -

Australia

Bank and Savill Line Ltd, operates regular cargo services from US Gulf ports to Australia and NZ. Calls at Suva, Lautoka and Papeete on demand.

Details from Bank Line (A’asia) Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-2041) or Howard Smith Industries Pty Ltd, 1 York Street, Sydney (27-5611).

Us - Tahiti - Samoa

Pacific Islands Transport operates a five weekly cargo service from North America west coast ports to Papeete, Pago Pago, Apia.

Details from Polynesia Shipping Ser vices 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 Ser vices Inc., PO Box 1478, Pago Pago (9-6799).

US - TAHITI - SAMOA - NZ - AUST Farrell Lines Inc, operate a fast reg ular 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 Mari time 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.