PNG women killed over 'sorcery'

By Phil Mercer

BBC News, Sydney 

Police in Papua New Guinea say four women accused of using sorcery to cause a fatal road crash have been murdered.

It is believed the victims were tortured by fellow villagers in a remote highland region 400km (250 miles) north of capital Port Moresby.

Police believe they were forced to confess to witchcraft after they were stabbed with hot metal rods.

Human rights campaigners say it is not uncommon in Papua New Guinea for women suspected of witchcraft to be killed.

These four women had been accused by fellow villagers of using sorcery to cause a car crash in which three prison guards died.

A senior police officer said it appeared the killings took place last October and that a tip-off from tribal elders had eventually alerted the authorities.

The women's bodies were found hidden in an old pit.

It is not clear if any charges will be laid.

Tight-knit communities

Superstition has always been part of life in Papua New Guinea.

Death and mysterious illness are sometimes blamed on evil curses and suspected sorcerers are often blamed and then killed.

Researchers have found that the victims are usually elderly women with little influence in the village.

Prosecuting those who kill these so-called magic makers within tight-knit communities is problematic, with potential witnesses often refusing to speak to the police.

Christianity is a powerful force in Papua New Guinea, but many people still believe in sorcery.

Those suffering from HIV and Aids are often seen as the victims of witchcraft.

Papua New Guinea has the highest HIV rate in the South Pacific - aid agencies warn of an epidemic spiralling out of control - but many people do not understand how it is spread.

In the past, some Aids victims have been thrown off bridges or dumped into graves to die.

 

PNG tries to halt sorcery murders

The authorities in Papua New Guinea have announced plans to toughen laws against sorcery-related murders, after a surge of them during the past year, BBC reports.

The chairman of the Constitutional Review and Law Reform Commission said defendants were using accusations of witchcraft as an excuse to kill people.

Police say at least 50 people were killed last year across the country.

In the latest suspected incident, a young woman accused of being a witch was burnt at the stake last week.

Correspondents say deaths and mysterious illnesses are sometimes blamed on evil curses and suspected sorcerers are often blamed and then killed.

Prosecuting those who kill these so-called magic makers within tight-knit communities is problematic, they add, and rural courts often acquit those who are made to stand trial.

"It's the easy way out for someone to kill somebody else, and use sorcery as an excuse," the head of the law reform commission, Joe Mek Teine, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"And you would find that the victim is totally innocent."

Mr Mek Teine told local media that the new legislation would force rural courts to charge those accused of sorcery-related killings with premeditated murder.

"It is a problem that has been existing in the country before the arrival of Western influence, and it's deeply rooted," he told the Post-Courier newspaper last week.

"The churches have done a lot to improve it but it's getting worse every time," he added.

 

 

 

 

Call to Papua New Guinea actors and artists

I received an email this week from Lisa Le Feuvre, Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, London, asking for actors and actists in Papua New Guinea to take part in a project on the life of Polish-born anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, who is famed for his work in the Trobriand Islands (pictured above) of Milne Bay province.

Artists and actors interested in this project should get in touch with her on her contact details provided below.

“I am emailing from that National Maritime Museum in London where I am Curator of Contemporary Art,” Le Feuvre said.

“We are a historical museum exploring the sea, ships, stars and time (see http://www.nmm.ac.uk/) and within this historical context I invite contemporary artists to develop new artworks that takes these ideas as a departure point (see www.nmm.ac.uk/newvisions) .

“The reason why I m getting in touch is that our next artist project we are developing has a very particular focus on Papua New Guinea, and I wanted to get in touch with someone who knows the subject much better than me!

“We have invited the British artist Jeremy Millar as our next exhibition: Jeremy is an artist of international influence whose artistic practice takes as its starting point important events in the history of ideas.

“For us he will be starting with a very specific incident of a journey to Papua New Guinea: ‘On the morning of 9 June 1914, the young Polish-born anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski caught a train at Fenchurch Street station bound for Folkestone, embarking on the first stage of a journey that would take him half-way around the world to attend the Congress of the British Association of the Advancement of Science in Adelaide that August. Accompanying him on this long voyage was his boyhood friend, the artist and writer Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz.

Le Feuvre said the pair planned to travel from Adelaide to New Guinea where Witkiewicz would act as Malinowski's photographer and draftsman.

“The voyage, however, was interrupted by the outbreak of World War 1 and Witkiewicz left to join the Tsarist army, leaving Malinowski to continue his venture alone,” she continued.

“On reaching the Trobriand Islands, Malinowski conducted fieldwork by experiencing the everyday life of his subjects along with them.

“This methodology would become the foundation for modern anthropology’."

“This historical context forms the basis of this project. Jeremy proposes to ask the very simple question: what if Witkiewicz would have continued on this venture?

“What photographs might he have taken in the Trobriands?

“Although Witkiewicz never reached Papua New Guinea, the region became the setting for his writing.

“His most celebrated play, Metaphysics of a Two-headed Calf: A Tropical-Australian Play, was set in Port Moresby.

Le Feuvre said Millar intended to retrace Malinowski and Witkiewicz's steps to Port Moresby in May 2009 with the very same camera Witkiewicz would have used to create a series of contemporary portraits has he continued his journey.

“He is also interested in working with a local theatre group to stage the play Metaphysics of a Two-headed Calf: A Tropical-Australian Play - rather than directing it himself, Jeremy would like to simply work with a video recording of the event, screened within the exhibition,” she said.

“I feel that this is a very important project that engages with many concepts and ideas that are not only at the heart of this national museum's activities, but also central to far wider debates and ideas.

“We are very keen to work with Jeremy on this project as we really see this project as making a significant impact on future art histories, and it will be a real honour to work with an artist of his standing.

“We will be starting to plan the trip in the next few weeks, and I really wanted to just get in touch with a few key people to see if there was any special advice they could give “about the trip, an also about finding contacts of any small theatre companies who might be interested in staging the play.”

“Thank you in advance for your help.

“This has become a somewhat long email, but it seems very important to give as much information as I can.

“There is of course so much more about the project I can say... so please do let me know if you need anything else.

“With many thanks in advance.”

Lisa Le Feuvre

Curator of Contemporary Art

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

London SE10 9NF

020 8312 6590

llefeuvre@nmm.ac.uk

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/

The Day God Dropped the Paint Box

We live on an awesome planet.

Make it an awesome day.

Peace to All and May God Bless You

Live simply.

Love generously.

Care deeply.

Speak kindly.

Leave the rest to our Creator

David Billings on the Amelia Earhart saga

Malum,

 

I have been meaning to say something about your figures and directions which you continually post on your blog........  You need to get your facts right before committing pen to paper and what you have written for the world to see is incorrect in the areas I am about to explain to you.

The basis for this email to you is that:

1. Your figure of 8 Tonnes for the weight in fuel carried by the Electra is wrong.

 

2. Your figure of 4600 Kilometres as the distance from Lae to Howland Island is wrong.

 

3. Your direction of the course "North" from Lae to Howland Island is wrong.

There are many "conversion" websites on the www. for finding out figures in Tonnes and Kilograms Metric and changing these to Tons and Pounds Imperial.  The sites will also convert Kilometers into Statute Miles or Nautical Miles

Basically a Metric Tonne is 1000 Kilograms; an Imperial Ton is 2400 Pounds (weight).

1 Kilogram (Kg) = 2.205 Pounds.

Basically a Kilometre is 1000 Metres and a Statute Mile is 1760 Yards.

I Kilometre (Km) = 0.621 of a Statute Mile.

1 Statute Mile = 1.61 Kilometres.

A simple luk-luk (by you) of the world map showing the area from Papua New Guinea to Howland and Baker Islands out in the Pacific Ocean will indicate to you that the direction from Lae to Howland is anything but "North".  In fact the True track to Howland is 078 degrees (True), which is hardly a northerly direction.  I hope you understand what I mean by "True" if you do not then ask.

Let me first explain to you "what" the Electra could carry in fuel.

The tankage of the Electra c/n 1055 was a maximum capacity of 1151 United States Gallons.  That's "U.S." Gallons (USG) not Imperial Gallons (ImpG).  The fuel was gasoline and 1 USG of gasoline weighs 6 pounds.  US Pounds are the same as British (or Imperial) Pounds.

1.  So to fit your figure of 8 Tonnes of fuel into the Electra would require the tanks to hold:

8000 Kg x 2.205 lbs = 17,640 Pounds = 2940 USG.

Current opinion is that Earhart and Noonan left Lae with 1100USG of fuel = 6600 Pounds in weight.

6600 Pounds = 2993 Kg or 2.993 Tonnes.

The normal full fuel of a stock passenger carrying Electra in airline use was 398 USG or 2388 Pounds in weight.

If we say then that on leaving Lae, Earhart and Noonan had 6600 lbs as against the "normal" 2388 pounds, then they were 4212 Pounds overweight which equates to 1910 Kg or very nearly 2 Tonnes.

Now on to the distance.

LAE-HOW as Earhart and Noonan thought was 2556 Statute Miles distant but there had been an error in the last sextant fix and Howland was actually a further 6 Statute miles to the East so the true distance was 2562 Statute Miles.

2.  If we convert 2662 Statute Miles (SM) to Kilometres (Km) we get:

2662 SM x 1.61 Km = 4285 Kilometres. (Not 4600).

Now to the direction Earhart took.

3.  There is a position report stated in "The Chater Report" which is times at 0518GMT, 5 Hours and 18 Minutes after Earhart left LAE.  It was recorded over the static of the radio as being only 247 SM from LAE which is impossible as the Electra would only have been travelling at 49 SM per Hour groundspeed.  It is likely that the position given meant that Earhart and Noonan were close to Mount Maetambe which is located on Choiseul Island in the Solomon Group.

If you have not read "The Chater Report" it is on the www, try Google.

There had been a reported storm just south of New Britain, between the east of New Britain and Bougainville Island and it is likely that Earhart and Noonan avoided this storm (it was a Low cell) by flying almost due East to pick up Choiseul before turning north-east for Nukumanu.  I hope you know where Nukumanu is as most Papua New Guineans have never heard of it.  It is close to Ontong Java and I hope you know where that is too.

At Nukumanu AE & FN would then be able to pick up their "true" course, turn right onto 078 True and continue on to Howland.  The dogleg by Choiseul costs them an extra 37 Statute Miles but saves them going through a storm.

As I say, the direction of "North" is completely incorrect.

There are lessons to be learned Malum, before you put pen to paper. 

The facts have to be correct or you will look foolish.

Incidentally, when you write that I have denied that the Ip River wreck recently reported is the aircraft I am looking for, that too is an incorrect statement.  I refuted the notion that the Ip River wreck is the aircraft I am looking for.  There is a difference.  Please get your facts right.

Lukim,

 

David Billings.              

 

About Amelia Earhart

Captions: 1. Date with destiny...Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed Electra at Lae, Morobe province, in July 1937 before her flight into oblivion. 2. Amelia Earhart...put Lae on the world map with her disappearance.
The mystery – that of the disappearance of Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan – intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.
Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July 1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her around-the-world flight.
The mystery and a long fruitless search – costing many millions of US dollars - had begun.
Today, 71 years after her final takeoff from Lae, the mystery is still to be solved.
Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them off the next morning.
Their Lockheed Electra was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland Island, 4600km to the north.
Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park, opposite the famous old Lae airport.

US embassy aware of potential crash sites

The US Embassy in Port Moresby is aware of the potential crash sites related to American losses from World War II in the East Pomio area of East New Britain province, The National reports.

In a statement issued in light of the various findings of crash sites, including one in East Pomio recently, the US Embassy said that considering the sheer size of the Pacific theatre of operations and the activity in this theatre during World War II, finding a site or sites associated with missing American servicemen was not particularly unusual.

However, until further investigations confirm the site as being associated with an American loss, the embassy was not able to comment on the recovery process, the statement said.

It said recovery operations would require a great deal of resources – personnel, equipment, money and time.

“Before the resources are committed, the US government must confirm that the site is associated with missing Americans and assess how long a recovery will possibly take.

“In general, we welcome help locating sites but ask that (locals) not disturb the sites.

“We also ask that (locals) help us protect potential sites until we can get there, which often means not advertising its location,” the embassy statement said.

The mission of the Joint Prisoners Of War and Missing In Action Accounting Command (JPAC) is to account for all unaccounted Americans from past wars.

JPAC’s mission is strictly humanitarian and team members are held to the highest standard of conduct and respect for the laws and cultural differences of their host countries.

JPAC encourages anyone with information relating to an American loss to contact them directly or through the US Embassy.

Meanwhile, a letter writer to The National, Capt Keith Hopper, said in an email that the aircraft found in the Ip River in East Pomio recently could be that of a B-17 Flying Fortress flown by Brig Gen Kenneth N. Walker, commanding officer of the US Army’s Fifth Bomber Command.