Rabaul marks 70th anniversary of Japanese bombing

By MALUM NALU

Wednesday, Jan 4, 2012, marked the 70^th anniversary of the first Japanese bombing of Rabaul on Jan 4, 1942.

Sadly, this day went by unrecognised by many people in Rabaul, East New Britain and Papua New Guinea.

The Japanese dropped their first bombs on Rabaul on Jan 4, 1942, and continued with almost daily air raids until the 5, 000-strong Japanese invasion force attacked Rabaul soon after midnight on Jan 23, 1942.

The New Guinea campaign opened with the battles for New Britain and New Ireland.

In the first month of the war in the Pacific, Japanese aircraft reconnoitred the islands and in response, Australian Hudson bombers and Catalina flying boats flew reconnaissance and bombing sorties over the Japanese naval bases in the Caroline Islands.

The first casualties occurred on Jan 4, 1942, when three New Guinean workers were killed in an air raid on Rabaul.

 On Jan 22–23, the Japanese invaded Rabaul and Kavieng.

Rabaul had been the administrative capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea.

Its pre-war populace included about 1,000 Europeans, 1,000 Asians (mostly Chinese), but also a few Japanese and about 3,000 New Guineans.

 Villages and plantations were spread across New Britain and New Ireland.

Australian troops, local police and some civilians retreated south but the Japanese captured over 500 European civilians, six army nurses and some wounded soldiers (some of whom were executed) in and around Rabaul.

These captives included 350 missionaries, priests and nuns who were interned.

The Chinese were especially fearful, as the Japanese had massacred Chinese in other countries.

Some were executed soon after Rabaul fell but there was no large-scale massacre.

Instead, they were ordered to live in designated areas outside Rabaul.

Men were forced to work as labourers alongside Chinese prisoners of war brought to the island.

An unknown number of women and girls were raped and, in the worst instances, forced to serve for periods as “comfort women”.

 The situation might have been even worse had the Japanese not begun importing some Japanese, Korean and Chinese “comfort women”, who were housed at “China Town” in Rabaul.

In July 1942, , about 1, 000 of the captured Australian men, including civilian internees, were drowned when the Japanese transport ship Montevideo Maru was sunk by an American submarine off the Philippines coast en route to Japan.

The ill-fated Montevideo Maru. In July 1942,  about 1, 000 of the captured Australian men from Rabaul, including civilian internees, were drowned when the Japanese transport ship was sunk by an American submarine off the Philippines coast en route to Japan.

 Only the officers and nurses, sent to Japan on a different ship, survived.

The small Australian garrison, Lark Force, was overwhelmed and most of its troops, including six army nurses, captured.

Approximately 400 of the troops escaped to the mainland and another 160 were massacred at Tol Plantation.

“Some villagers remained staunchly pro-Australian but several villages turned pro-Japanese to ensure survival under the new regime or (sometimes) to facilitate ‘payback’ against rival groups,” writes John Moremon of the Australian War Memorial.

“The Japanese were fortunate to have at least one pre-war Japanese resident who arrived with the invading force and was able to advise on Australian administrative methods.

“The Japanese adapted the system of delegating to lululais and tultuls (village chiefs); the few who refused to comply were punished harshly, and sometimes killed.

“About 8,000 New Guineans from the mainland and some Bougainvilleans who had been employed around Rabaul were trapped on the island.

“Most ended up having to fend for themselves or work for the Japanese because local villagers were not very welcoming; this was due partly to ethnicity and partly the fact that locals could not feed all of the outsiders, as the island was in drought.

“The Japanese appointed some of these men as police while others were later transported to the mainland to work as carriers and labourers.”

“Roman Catholic missionaries and a few other civilians from neutral nations (such as Sweden) were interned separately at Vanuapope, outside Rabaul.

“They established gardens and lived relatively well, but in 1944 their camp was bombed mistakenly by Allied aircraft.

“A few internees were killed in the raid, and others had died of disease.

“The 158 survivors moved to Ramale where they were liberated at the end of the war.

“The Japanese developed Rabaul as their principal base in New Guinea.

“Over 100,000 navy and army personnel eventually would be based there.

“The workforce was bolstered by local Chinese and New Guineans and from mid-1942 by thousands of Chinese, Indian and British prisoners of war shipped to New Britain.

“From March 1942, the Allies responded with a bombing campaign and fierce aerial battles were waged over Rabaul.”

There were six airfields used by the Japanese, and several seaplane anchorages in Simpson Harbor.

Reportedly, 367 anti-aircraft weapons (192 army, 175 navy) were emplaced around Rabaul by late 1942.

The harbors were defended by an estimated 43 costal guns and 20 searchlights, according to US Strategic Bombing Survey in 1943.

The Rabaul area was the most heavily-defended target in the South-West Pacific area.

Bypassed by the Allies, Rabaul remained in Japanese hands for the duration of the war and was subject to almost daily air raids, until the Japanese surrender in 1945.

Americans dropped 20,000 tons of bombs on the town and vicinity.

 Conditions for the Japanese deteriorated once they were cut off from supply.

They were forced to commandeer food from the natives and to fend for themselves by large scale gardening.

War had begun in the Pacific with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on Dec 7, 1941.

Rabaul was bombed on Jan 4, 1942 followed by Lae, Salamaua, and Bulolo on Jan 21.

Bitapaka War Cemetery, not far from Rabaul, is a peaceful and beautiful cemetery containing the graves of over 1, 000 Allied war dead and the Rabaul Memorial commemorates those who have no known grave.

Bitapaka War Cemetery, not far from Rabaul, is a peaceful and beautiful cemetery containing the graves of over 1, 000 Allied war dead and the Rabaul Memorial commemorates those who have no known grave.-Picture by MALUM NALU

The cemetery is maintained by the Office of Australian War Graves, Department of Veterans' Affairs, on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

It is located near the site of the first Australian action of World War I when the Australian Naval & Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) captured a German wireless station on Sept 11, 1914.

Each grave is marked by a bronze plaque set on a low concrete pedestal with 500 marked 'Known to God'.

As well as Australians, the cemetery contains the graves of Indian and British prisoners of war who were transported to New Britain by the Japanese as a labour force.

The peace of the setting and the enormous number of white crosses shocked me with the contrast.

It was here that I began to grasp the sacrifice made by those who give their lives for their country.

Bitapaka War Cemetery respects and honors those who made the supreme sacrifice for their people.

It also serves as a reminder that war kills, not just a few, but many hundreds of thousands, and on both sides.

Bitapaka – like other war cemeteries in Papua New Guinea – offers an opportunity to create goodwill amongst all the living so that the same tragedies may not be repeated.

It creates strong feelings of sacredness, tranquility, spaciousness, peace and beauty, and is immaculately maintained by devoted staff.

Bitapaka War Cemetery contains 1, 111 burials of WW11: 12 from the Navy, 1,042 from the Navy, 55 from the Air Force and two civilians.

Of these, 35 are British, 420 are Australians, one is a New Zealander, 614 are Indians, 34 are Fijians, two are Western Solomon Islanders, and five are Allies.

The memorial commemorates 1,113 Australian soldiers, 104 airmen and eight Papua New Guineans who have no known grave.

The Indian soldiers were prisoners of war from the Malayan Campaign, while the remainder of the burials and all the names on the memorial are of men who died in New Britain and New Ireland.

The cemetery also contains 28 burials of WW1: 27 Australian and one British.

The cemetery and memorial were constructed and are maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Lest we forget!

Journalists urged to write and sell books

By ABIGAIL APINA

GRAND Chief Sir Paulias Matane has challenged members of the media to write books, The National reports.
He issued the challenge while congratulating secretary for Education Dr Musawe Sinebare for his book, Path of Success, which was published recently.
He said those in the media were in a better position to write about any subject and he failed to understand why most of them had not tried writing books on local issues and subjects.
“We have so many things in the country to write about,” he said.
There were 52 people in the country who had written books while others were in the process of having their work published.
He said more people should write and sell their books to schools.
Sir Paulias said the market was not very good compared with other countries because Papua New Guineans were not readers.
“The market in PNG is poor because we are not readers, we are talkers,” he said.
He said the lack of proper market was not a problem but a challenge for the people.
Sir Paulias urged people to improve the market by writing more books and encouraging youths to develop the habit of reading books.
His 46th book, titled From Jungle House to Government House, would soon be published and be launched in March or April.
He said people should make time to write books if they managed their time well

Family and friends farewell Tony Subam

By SALLY POKITON
UPNG journalism student

MUSIC legend Tony Soru Subam, who died on Christmas Day at age 53, was a positive man who believed in the power of the mind, a farewell service in Port Moresby was told yesterday, The National reports.
Sebastian Miyoni, a fellow founder of the renowned Sanguma band formed in 1978, told a gathering of colleagues, family and friends to celebrate Subam’s life at the St Joseph’s Catholic Church,  his band mate meditated a lot to find an inner peace.
Subam’s son, Siaro Subam, paid tribute to his father on behalf of the family saying he was a loving, humble and caring person.
“His work and commitment to his students, you can see the connection he had with them,’’ he said.
“To me he was a strong man, he believed in what he thought was right.
“He always pushed away the negative things in life and told me and my siblings to move forward.”
Subam, of Kairuru in East Sepik and Yabob in Madang, was the third of five boys who grew up in Madang, Goroka and Lae where his father worked.
He attended the Holy Spirit “A” Catholic School then went on to Malala Catholic High School in 1970 before going on to Kerevat National High School in 1974.
Subam enrolled at UPNG in 1976 to study science but withdrew to enroll at the National Arts school to study music where he majored in  saxophone and flute.
He formed the Sanguma band with fellow National Arts school pioneer students Thomas Komboi and Miyoni in 1978.
The band which grew to include Buruka Tau, Raymond Haken and Aaron Murray, performed in Germany, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and other Pacific islands.
At the time of his death, he was the head of the UPNG creative arts music section.
One of his former students, Richard Mogu, described his mentor as an ambassador of PNG culture.
His body leaves for Madang today.
He is survived by his two partners, four sons and one daughter

High drama in Indonesian airspace involving PNG Falcon jet

THE Indonesian military scrambled two aircraft to track Air Niugini’s Falcon jet last November as it was returning home from Malaysia with VIPs on board, including Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah, it has been disclosed, The National reports.
The P2ANW flight was in Indonesian airspace when the drama unfolded on Nov 29, unbeknown to Namah and his entourage.
He had demanded an explanation from the Indonesian Embassy in Port Moresby.
However, his request for a meeting with the Indonesian Ambassador was not granted.
According to protocol, it was required that the Foreign Affairs secretary would summon the ambassador and present a protest note on behalf of the PNG government to the Indonesian government.
Details on the incident surfaced in PNG in recent days when an Indonesian journalist started asking questions through PNG sources about the government’s reaction to it.
It was known that the Falcon F900 had left Subang, Malaysia, on Nov 29 for Port Moresby and was flying through the approved route which included flying over Indonesian airspace.
According to the Indonesian journalist, Indonesian authorities were tipped off that the aircraft was carrying substantial amount of cash in US dollars.
Indonesia, which has very strict laws on money laundering, scrambled two military jets to “escort” the PNG carrier through its airspace until it reached PNG airspace.
The crew on the aircraft included Capt Christopher Gregory Smith, Capt Vincent Kipma and attendant Dessie Benson.
The passenger manifest listed Namah, Obura-Wonenara MP John Boito, Bulolo MP Sam Basil, private lawyer Bonny Ninai, Australian Anubhav Tadav and Malaysians Tee Kim Tee, Tan Bing Hua and Tan Keh Feng.
The Falcon crew had furnished a three-page report about the incident which would be delivered to the PNG government for further action, including an official protest note to Jakarta.
Namah yesterday vehemently denied that he or his group were carrying substantial amount of US dollars aboard the Falcon.
“We went through the normal immigration and customs checks to get clearance to fly to Papua New Guinea,” he said

What alternative systems might work in Papua New Guinea?

By JOHN FOWKE

I write this in answer to Paul Oates’s recent article on the subject. 

John Fowke

As a young public servant stationed at Talasea in 1964, I took part as a team member, helping to conduct the House of Assembly poll in villages from Cape Gloucester back to Talasea, and then in the actual vote-count conducted at the Talasea Local Government Council’s council chamber. 
Although I had already conceived of a deep affection for the country and its people, and had acquired a modest acquaintance and understanding of the society, I was too immature to give the subject of the swift and self-generated rise of a  party-based national political system which soon followed, any meaningful thought and analysis.
I was, however, aware of the likelihood that one result would be the effective exclusion from the chain of government of the grassroots-based LGCs (Local Level Governments) and I thought to myself that this was probably a mistake in the making, an idea which became a firm conviction as years passed.
A conviction I have previously expressed a number of times.
This vast social and cultural revolution was imposed in answer to international pressure and  opinion within the Australian electorate where there was still a strong memory of the ignominy of colonial control by an authority on the other side of the world.
In haste, urged on by the United Nations, a new national census preceded the creation of electorates and the preparation of  electoral rolls and an electoral bureaucracy in 1962-63. 
The multi-tasked patrol officers imparted as much as was possible of the principle and practice of the new and, to many, frightening changes soon to come whilst completing this major task.
The structure which grew following self government is an organic Papua New Guinean policy.
The party-based system is not the result of  Australian planning or imposition; it is the result of lack of forethought and lack of imagination on the part of the minister and senior administration men in the years preceding self government. 
Lack of foresight by all senior men, that is, except for the late David Fenbury, who, as father of local government in the Territory had raised a proposal for incorporation of the existing, grass-roots-based LGC structure with Minister Hasluck as early as 1956.
Very simply, from the meetings of the famed “Bully-beef Club” arose PANGU, the party of the well-educated and ambitious “young turks” of the about-to-be nation. 
From the ranks of the older generation, the tribal elders, men of traditional position and influence, plus white-men with a vested interest in a slow and orderly advance to independence, rose COMPASS PATI, later re-named.
Here, in PNG ATTITUDE, and in THE NATIONAL  and WANTOK in PNG, and in QUADRANT in Australia I have written  recommending the concept of an adoption of  LLG-based representation, nationally, where the existing parties would become superfluous, being simply structures offering an entry into politics for ambitious men almost all undistinguished in any other way and certainly devoid of idealism in a nationalist or nation-building sense.

In this I have been supported by Sir Barry Holloway and his amanuensis, Graham Tuck, with whom I have discussed these ideas quite exhaustively. 

These two ex-kiaps are with others involved in the painfully slow process of obtaining policy changes leading to efficiency, honesty and full social equity for the general population via reforms through decentralisation and improved transparency in the public service, but there is little to show that anyone else is very interested.

The politically-inclined are impelled by ambitions which would not be achieved where they represented councils and were required to report to and work with their electorate via minuted meetings attended by all councillors.

All this is stated in support of the writer’s belief that the current situation where criticism and openly or obliquely-derogatory comment is leveled at policies, at politicians and at the national leadership, while understandable as the product of anger and frustration, nonetheless misses the real point.
PNG’s system of politics and governance is organic in the true meaning of the word.

It is a system which has grown from a traditional cultural matrix, drawing at least as much from this source for its conventions and practices as from imported texts and ideas.

Fertilised by imported ideas, but nurtured and allowed to develop from the fruit and seeds of an ancient, functioning and well-understood land-owning, tribal social system.

Society at large has supported the development of PNG’s peculiar polity of patronage over three decades and it is just as much the product of the citizenry-at-large’s expressed will, or lack of expressed will, as of the will and  greed of the actors upon the political and administrative stage themselves.

 Change will not come in any major way until the rise of an outspoken, politically-aware activist movement from within the city-based, educated and salary-earning middle class. 

Currently the young of this class is inclined to waste its breath in incessant outpourings of ire and resentment, backward-looking, mild expressions of which have appeared recently on this blog. 

Other PNG blogs feature quite rabid negativity and nothing of evidence of a view of how the future might be.

 Who will start the ball rolling? 

Views of how the future might be, and how to get there. 

Positivism, please, ol lain koresponden na kontributo.

Airlines PNG Dash 8 gets bogged in Daru

This Airlines PNG Dash 8 aircraft got bogged in the mud after landing in Daru, Western province today, after arriving from Port Moresby.

.All I can say is that not very good, especially so soon after last October’s crash in Madang.

Daru’s still waiting for engineers from Port Moresby to fly in and check on the state of the plane.

Basil: Leave Grand Chief alone

By JEFFREY ELAPA

NATIONAL Planning Minister Sam Basil says members of parliament in the Somare faction should stop misleading Sir Michael Somare and allow him to rest, The National reports.
Basil suggested that some MPs were using the Grand Chief for their personal gain and should stop to allow him to recover from his operations.
“Anderson Agiru, Sir Arnold Amet, Patrick Pruaitch and Arthur Somare have been forcing the old man,’’ he said.
“Leave him alone and allow him to rest so that he recovers well from his operation. It is about time we help him and not use him and put more pressure and stress on him.”
He said if the Grand Chief got more ill from the pressure, the MPs should be held responsible.
He said the country acknowledged the many contributions Sir Michael had made for the young nation and he should be left to rest.
He said Agiru and Sir Arnold needed to go back to their provinces and provide the leadership as their people needed them.
He said Madang and the Southern Highlands provinces needed good governors to provide leadership in their provinces and not stay in Port Moresby

K3.7 million Singapore ‘allowances’ to Somare family and visitors probed

By JEFFREY ELAPA

AN investigation has been launched into the payment of K3.7 million in allowances to a group of people who visited Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare in a Singapore hospital, The National reports.
The group consists of public ser­vants serving in the Prime Minis­ter’s office, officers from other government departments plus those who were not public servants.
Chief Secretary Manasupe Zurenuoc, when asked to comment yesterday, declined to say who was entitled to travelling allowances while accompanying the prime minister – who went on a medical leave.
But Deputy Prime Minister Belden Namah said everyone who received the allowances would be investigated.
He pointed out that Sir Michael was on sick leave and not on official government business.
Namah also questioned why the entire Prime Minister’s Department had to make the trip to Singapore.
The government-appointed Task Force Sweep team had been directed to investigate why allowances were paid to non-public servants and officials from other government departments.
“Some of these people who benefited from the K3.7 million of public funds during the hospitalisation of Sir Michael will be arrested soon,” Namah said.
More than 30 people, including family members of the Grand Chief, received allowances on the pretext of visiting the sick leader. Namah termed it as “daylight robbery” and “corruption of the highest order”.
According to Namah, Sir Michael and Lady Veronica received almost K700,000 as allowances, daughter Betha Somare and son Sana’s wife each received almost K200,000 and Sir Michael’s brother Paul Somare received more than K76,000.
The others allegedly paid allowances were Paul Bengo K85,000, Seki Karingai K192,000, Rodney Kamus K105,000, police Const John Keai K108,000, Richard Gogo K143,000, police Snr Const Ekonia Puki  K71,000, police Const Rodney Eminoni  K88,000, Tambon Tara K77,000, Margaret Elias K23,000, Hudson Ramatlap K23,000, Insp Simon Dugumi K26,000, Ipai Edward K48,000, Michael Ikau K26,000, Nora Solien K45,000, police First Const Peter Wesley K22,000, police Const Simon Guvi K23,000, Joan Vanariu K19,000, Chris Haiveta K10,000, Anna Abal K4,000 – plus four others who received less than K3,000 each.
Betha Somare, daughter of Sir Michael, said as employees of the prime minister’s office at the time, the public servants were entitled to the travel allowances.
She declined to comment further and referred other queries to the secretary at the Prime Minister’s Department.
She called on leaders to stop politicising the allowance issue because some of the payments were genuine.
She did not say if non-public servants, who accompanied the Grand Chief, were entitled to allowances.