As things fall apart in Papua New Guinea

[TheAge Text-only index]

Date: July 04 2009

Dave Tacon in The Age

IT IS midday in Kerema, the capital of Papua New Guinea's Gulf Province on the country's south coast. The sun is too fierce for most of the street vendors, whose trade is busiest in the late afternoon. Not that Kerema ever gets particularly busy. It's a ramshackle coastal town of less than 6000 people at the mouth of an estuary with dark sandy beaches, mangrove swamps, two general stores, a hospital and an airstrip.

Kerema's only bank was robbed on May 15, 2008. It was an inside job organised by the entire senior staff together with local street criminals known as raskols. The bank has not reopened but has been replaced with a bank agency with prohibitively high fees for most locals.

Detective Andrew Mokoko, 35, walks the street outside the bank agency office in plain clothes, nonchalantly toting a pump-action shotgun. A local identity, he chats with passers-by and the betel nut vendors. Although he is officially on duty, he is earning a little extra as a security guard with a weapon from the police armoury.

This is explained to me by a former police officer. When I ask why Mokoko is out of uniform, the reply is: "Well the raskols often wear police uniforms."

In Papua New Guinea, corruption is taken for granted. Still, Kerema is tame compared with the country's more populous regional centres, where a largely uneducated population flock in the hope of work. Unemployment is rife. Violent crime, driven by poverty and tribal allegiance, is out of control. In recent weeks there has been sustained rioting throughout the nation. The targets are mainly Asian-run businesses — convenient scapegoats for the disenfranchised.

Commenting on recent rioting in the nation's capital, Port Moresby, Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare acknowledged the perception that his Immigration Department is so corrupt that "a six pack (of beer)" is accepted tender for a passport.

Papua New Guinea, a country with more than 760 distinctly different languages, was ill-prepared for the independence granted by Australia in 1975. To this day, the prevailing political system is based on wantok — the support of one's friends and family above all others. Superimposed into government, wantok is a system of pure cronyism and nepotism.

Although the country is blessed with abundant natural resources — a multitude of minerals, forests and fisheries — the profits most often remain in the pockets of a corrupt few who amass offshore real estate assets while their children are educated abroad, usually in Australia.

Port Moresby already has a reputation as one of the world's most unliveable cities for expatriates, partly due to an annual survey conducted and published by The Economist. Most recently, it ranked 137 out of 140 rated cities, and it's not difficult to see why. Few areas are deemed safe outside the fortified compounds that house expatriate resource industry employees and the like. The settlements, ghettos that sprawl amid the hills beyond the port, are no-go zones even for police. Gangs of raskols, no longer satisfied with robbery, rape and murder, have begun to diversify into kidnapping. The most popular targets are executives and their families. Four weeks ago, the 13-year-old daughter of a prominent Melbourne-educated businessman and two others were abducted from his Port Moresby home. They were released when their kidnappers were captured.

Residents of Lae, Papua New Guinea's second most populous town, assert that their home is even more dangerous than Port Moresby. The criminals, according to a recent police petition, have more high-powered weapons and ammunition than law enforcement officers, who are unable to even write up reports on the crime wave on broken typewriters in termite-infested barracks that have not been maintained for more than 30 years.

Even more troubling is an HIV/AIDS epidemic that is the worst in the Pacific region. An estimated 2 per cent of the adult population is HIV-positive. Despite the best efforts of Australian and international aid agencies, PNG fails to provide adequate health care for its people.

In the last week of May, Ialibu District Hospital in the Southern Highlands, which serves more than 30,000 people, was forced to close. Starved of funds, the hospital defaulted on its electricity bill and had its power cut. In consequence, about 180,000 European Union and AusAID-donated vaccines for measles, tuberculosis, tetanus and hepatitis B were destroyed.

Bodies had to be removed from the morgue. The hospital's medical superintendent, Dr Youngpu Samo, made pleas to his local MP that went unanswered. The best the hospital could do was to place public notices in Ialibu township advising of the closure, recommending the community avoid sickness and accidents.

The country's slide into chaos has not gone unnoticed. The United Nations has recommended that PNG be demoted from its list of developing countries to the unenviable position of least developed. Not only would PNG join the Solomon Islands on the list, but also the likes of Haiti, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

The small Catholic station of Kanabea is a world away from many of the ills that beset Lae and Port Moresby. Kanabea's church, rural hospital, school and handful of timber dwellings are a mere 27 kilometres from coastal Kerema. It is, however, situated in some of the country's most inaccessible terrain. Kanabea lies in the least developed area of PNG's least developed region, the Gulf Province. Sprawling river deltas, swamp and then a mountain range covered with rainforest divides it from its provincial capital. There are no roads, only perilous bush tracks passable only to the toughest bushmen.

Aside from two-way radio, the settlement's main contact and sole means of bringing in cargo is by air, a method of transportation that is expensive and dangerous. Rain clouds can envelop the mission for months on end. Air accidents have claimed the lives of two priests, two lay missionaries and several local parishioners over four decades.

AS THE single-engine Cessna breaks through the clouds, the mission comes into view. Alarmingly, so does a mountain slope directly ahead. The experienced pilots of North Coast Aviation bank hard and guide the craft in for a jolting landing on the long, grassy airstrip carved into the side of Mount Eruki.

Mission staff and about 60 members of the local Kamea community greet the plane. Young children make up the majority of the welcoming party, dressed in an incongruous combination of T-shirts handed down from Melbourne's Catholic community, grass skirts and tapa cloths — a felt-like material crafted from bark.

Such was the fearsome reputation of the Kamea that the native Papua New Guineans who accompanied the first missionaries refused to disembark fearing that they would become main course for one of their country's few cannibalistic tribes. The disdain held by many Papua New Guineans for the Kamea remains, although the arrival of Christianity and corned beef put an end to cannibalism.

All of Kanabea's infrastructure, including the hydroelectric generator, has been built by Australian charity — mainly from the Catholic Church. In some respects, the facilities at Kanabea Rural Hospital surpass those of many regional hospitals. Pilots are known to fly themselves in for X-rays rather than brave the anarchy that is Port Moresby General Hospital. Here, vaccines are kept safe by a back-up power supply sourced from solar panels.

The visiting fee for patients is about 20 cents, although garden-grown vegetables are also accepted. Until recently, the hospital had no doctor. The previous one, Australian priest Maurice Adams, succumbed to leukaemia 14 years ago. In May, Kanabea welcomed 26-year-old Dr Magdelene Taone of Port Moresby, who agreed to a three-year posting. She faces a great challenge, serving a mountain community with little awareness of primary health. Malaria leads a host of preventable diseases including tuberculosis and dysentery. One problem that is conspicuous in its absence is HIV/AIDS.

But although the rural hospital's AusAID-funded HIV/AIDS counselling centre remains empty, the disease is gradually making inroads into the mountains. Of 1000 HIV rapid tests administered last year, five returned positive in Bema, a Catholic mission, either an arduous 12-hour trek or a seven-minute flight from Kanabea, weather permitting. The disease poses a great threat to the traditionally polygamous Kamea, but for the time being, their isolation is their greatest protection. Despite this, the community is attempting to build a road to Lae.

Enga Province, in the highest part of the highlands, is unique in PNG in that its people consist predominantly of a single ethnic and linguistic group. While Enga is free of the cultural fragmentation evident in much of the country, tribal warfare is widespread and governance dysfunctional. A local-born woman, Dr Maryanne Amu, wants to help her people in the regional centre of Wapenamanda. A specialist in public health, she hopes to change health policy from inside the government. In 2007, she ran unsuccessfully as an independent candidate in elections marred by deceit and intimidation.

In Amu's account of events, the winning candidate installed his own supporters as electoral officers. When voters arrived at the polling station they found that their forms had already been filled in for them. Amu also claims that opposition groups were terrorised by thugs provided with guns by the candidate.

Of her 89 fellow female candidates, only former Australian teacher Carol Kidu claimed a seat in the 109-member parliament. Kidu's attempts to pass legislation that guarantees 20 seats for women have so far been unsuccessful. Women's rights in PNG have a long way to go in a country where, according to Amnesty International, about 150 women are killed each year in the highlands province of Chimbu on suspicion of practising witchcraft. Despite this, Amu plans to run in the next general election in 2012.

In the meantime, she is tackling her community's own AIDS crisis through the Wapenamanda Centre for Primary Health Care, which she founded in 2006. The centre has largely been funded from Amu's own pocket, with money saved from employment in Australia.

She has also engineered partnerships between her health centre and a number of non-government bodies outside PNG. One such group is Melbourne-based Cabrini Health. On the last weekend of May, Catherine Garner, Cabrini's mission integration manager, visited the centre.

She was welcomed as a dignitary in true highlands tradition in a ceremony that approached three hours. Before a crowd of more than 100, lengthy speeches were given by local leaders including a former minister for Enga. This was followed by a mumu — a feast of pig, chicken, bananas and sweet potato cooked in a pit.

As the sun set, Garner was driven to a mothers' group outside town. She and Amu sat before a crowd of about 60 on a grassy clearing in a mountain valley. An older member of the audience raised his hand to speak and said, in Engan, "Papua New Guinea is like a child that thought it was strong enough to go into the world on its own, but it was not. Now Australia is like the parent who returns to help. We thank you for coming back."

Dave Tacon is a Melbourne-based freelance writer and photographer

I'm in Lae

I'm currently in my hometown of Lae, Morobe province, and am enjoying every minute of it.

I'll post all pictures and stories of my stay in Lae.

 

Malum

Classrooms without books in Papua New Guinea

Eric Johns...someone who is passionate about putting books in all classrooms of Papua New Guinea

PNG History Through Stories, Book 2

Ahuia Ova, PNG's first anthropological researcher in the 1920s. His story is told in PNG History Through Stories

A sad but true fact about Papua New Guinea is that our young people know very little about the rich and proud history of the country.
There are books that tell that history, which should be in schools, however, are not.
A number of concerned former PNG residents, seeing this state of affairs, are now working quietly behind the scene to change this trend.
They include writer Eric Johns, Australia’s pre-eminent historian on PNG Emeritus Prof Hank Nelson, and PNG Association of Australia president Keith Jackson.
“The need is urgent,” Prof Nelson says.
“Few schools – or towns – have libraries and some schools are almost bookless.
“The one or two books on the history of PNG in a school may be coverless and one may have been written when Australia was still the administering power.
“The teachers, often facing large classes and without the promised support for major topics in the syllabus, need relevant textbooks – for themselves and for every student,” he said.
“Papua New Guineans need a consciousness of what they have in common.
“A knowledge of a shared history is basic to the building of a nation-state.”
Eric Johns worked in PNG from 1960-1973, teaching at Rigo Intermediate High School (later Kwikila HS), Bugandi High School Lae, KilaKila High School Port Moresby and the Port Moresby Teachers College.
He completed his BA at University of PNG and MA at Australian National University.
When Mr Johns was lecturing at Port Moresby Teachers College 1969-72, he was appalled by the lack of history and social studies resources available to teachers.
He found it especially deplorable that there was almost no readily-accessible information about the history of PNG.
So before he left PNG at the end of 1972, he started to correct this by interviewing a few historically-prominent Papua New Guineans, intending to write their stories.
When he retired from teaching he resumed this work, which was eventually published by Pearson/Longman as 69 stories in two volumes, PNG History Through Stories Books 1 and 2.
The books are aimed at classes below Year 10, where there is no material available for teachers or their students about PNG history.
Most of the details in his books do not exist in any other single book.
A major incentive for Mr Johns in writing these books was the fact that students of PNG were without knowledge of important, ordinary, heroic and notorious Papua New Guineans who lived during the long period before Michael Somare came to prominence.
“Citizens of every nation should know about their own historic heroes and villains,” he says.
The need for these books is enormous.
“In 2004 and 2006, Pearson Education published two history books, expecting that they would be distributed to schools throughout Papua New Guinea,” Mr Johns said.
“Unfortunately, although the books were approved as school texts by the PNG education department, they are still sitting in a warehouse in Australia and are likely to remain there for some time.
“Many other books produced by Pearson and other publishers share the same fate, sitting on shelves waiting to be sent to their intended readers, the long-deprived students and teachers of Papua New Guinea.
“The reason for this deplorable situation is simple – nobody is willing to pay for the books.
“It was different before 2002, when the Australian aid agency AusAID was a reliable purchaser and supplier of classroom materials, but since then the powers that be have taken a different tack.
“Books have been pushed aside, their place taken by consultant-driven curriculum development. “This changed policy, which has been in operation for several years, ignores the basic tenet that teachers – no matter how well designed their curriculum - cannot teach without books and other classroom materials.
“Curriculum is important, but this unbalanced aid policy has done nothing to alleviate the all too common tragic situation in PNG schools – classrooms with few or no books.
The two history books mentioned above are examples of what is waiting unread on the shelves.
PNG History Through Stories Book One and Book Two have a selection of 69 well-researched true stories about people and events in PNG’s past.
They are purpose-designed for PNG classrooms, complete with student exercises and lots of illustrations and maps.
Their purpose is to introduce students in upper primary and junior secondary levels to PNG history - with emphasis on important PNG people, and events affecting PNG people – the kind of history that should be taught in our schools.
For example in Book One the story, The Rabaul Strike, which takes place in colonial Rabaul in 1929, tells of how two men, boat captain Sunsuma, and police sergeant-major N’Dramei, decided to challenge their Australian masters by organising a peaceful and disciplined general strike in demand for higher wages.
Such action was unheard of at the time and many Australians were enraged when they woke to find that all New Guinean workers in Rabaul, except for police on duty, had disappeared overnight, having assembled near mission stations at Malaguna and Rapolo.
The strike failed and those taking place were punished severely, especially the leaders, Sunsuma and N’Dramai, who were imprisoned and beaten.
Sunsuma was unbowed by this experience and ended his days as a respected leader on his island home of Boang, off the east coast of New Ireland.
It could be argued that Sunsuma and N’Dramei should be remembered with pride by Papua New Guineans for their courage in taking on the powerful white establishment, and that their story should be known to all school students.
In Book Two another story, Ahuia Ova, is about a man from Kilakila village near Port Moresby who became prominent as Papua New Guinea’s first anthropological researcher, one of its earliest writers, a leading man of Hanuabada Village and a friend of lieutenant-governor Sir Hubert Murray.
In 1904 the renowned British anthropologist Charles Seligman was so impressed by Ahuia’s talents that he asked him to assist with his studies of the customs of the Koita people.
In the 1922-23 Papua Annual Report, Ahuia published his own study called ‘Motu Feasts and Dances’.
He also recorded stories about the origins and genealogy of the Koita people who lived in Hanuabada, and wrote articles in a government magazine, the Papuan Villager.
The story of Ahuia’s achievements, and how he managed to cope with the demands of Koita, Motu and Europeans societies, and with the opposing forces of Protestant and Catholic churches, is an example of culture clash at several levels that should interest all students.
“If only for the sake of national pride in the achievements of early Papua New Guineans, the names of people such as Ahuia Ova, Sunsuma and N’Dramei, and many others mentioned in these books, should be made known to all school students in Papua New Guinea,” Mr Johns said.
“There is also the question of what constitutes a rounded education, for how can a Papua New Guinean said to be educated who does not know about the heroes, villains and events of the past that shaped his or her own country?
“The immediate and crucial question is, how long will it be before PNG History Through Stories and the dozens of other books, written specially for PNG children but now sitting on warehouse shelves, get to where they should be – in the PNG classrooms?”
“Since completing PNG History Through Stories Book Two I have been researching and writing a history of PNG that will cover the period from prehistory to 1975,” Mr Johns said.
“It will be big, comprehensive and well illustrated, and will take me at least another two years to complete.
“It is intended that it will be a text for senior students and for anyone with an interest in PNG history.
“I hope it eventually gets into the schools!”
Eric Johns can be contacted on email eric@johns.com.au

New recreational facilities for Port Moresby, but we must take care of them

Note: I originally posted the article below on May 17, 2009, however, have decided to repost to protest against the senseless taking away of recreational facilities for our children by "wolf in sheep's clothing" politicians like Deputy Prime Minister Sir Puka Temu and business houses who have no concern for the community except filling their pockets. You can post your comments below or take a vote at right...Malum

All over Port Moresby, new recreational facilities are sprouting up, thanks to the very visionary leadership of National Capital District governor Powes Parkop.

For instance, at Gerehu Stage Two where I live, two new basketball courts are going up, and I can't wait for them to be opened so that I can take my kids to the courts for a fun arvo.

Towards the end of last year, playground facilities were set up, bringing so much joy and enjoyment to children.

The NCD Commission spends a lot of money on facilties, and the least we can do, as responsible citizens, is to have a sense of ownership and take care of them.

I took my kids to the playground a couple of days ago and was taken aback by the sight of litter including plastic bags, soft drink bottles, cigarette butts, and betlnut stains.

Please stop doing this!

Such facilties also keep our young people occupied and away from a life of alcohol, drugs, and crime.

Lutheran team in Germany

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Papua New Guinea general secretary Isaac Teo heads a four-man ELCPNG delegation which is currently in Germany.

The team, which left for Germany on Monday this week, comprises of Mr Teo, Pr Kinim Siloi of inter-church ecumenism at ELCPNG headquarters at Ampo in Lae, Siassi district president Joshua Max and youth co-ordinator Peter Konga.

They will spend three weeks in Germany and a week at Lutheran World Federation headquarters in Switzerland.

“The purpose of my trip is to strengthen relationships with our partners,” Mr Teo said before leaving for Germany.

“The other thing I will be doing is visiting the LWF in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Our visit to LWF will portray a good image of the country.

“We’re going to have a very tight schedule, one in which it will also be an opportunity to meet with former missionaries who used to work in PNG.”

Mr Teo said Siassi district president Mr Max would use the opportunity to establish contacts before Siassi celebrates 100 years of Lutheran presence in April 2011.

The team returns to PNG at the end of July.

 

Montevideo Maru tragedy remembered

Australia’s worst maritime tragedy, which intimately involves Papua New Guinea, was remembered in a stirring commemorative service and unveiling of a plaque at Subic Bay in the Phillipines on Wednesday.

This was the 67th anniversary of the sinking of the Montevideo Maru (pictured) off the Philippines coast on July 1, 1942.

Japanese hospital ship Montevideo Maru was carrying 845 troops from Australia’s Lark force and 208 civilians – 1,053 men – taken prisoner of war after Japan invaded Rabaul, East New Britain province, in Jan 1942.

The youngest was a boy of 15.

“There were fathers and sons, civilians and troops, missionaries and traders, businessmen and administrators,” Australia’s Ambassador to the Phillipines Rod Smith, who presided at the Montevideo Maru memorial service at Subic Bay, said.

“They had all been captured and interned by the Japanese in Rabaul.

“They all died.

“The youngest, the 15-year old, was Ivan Gascoigne, recorded as a clerk, the son of Cyril Gascoigne, who also died.

“The sinking of the Montevideo Maru at 2.40 am on Wednesday July 1, 942 was Australia’s greatest disaster at sea, then and now.”

The unmarked Japanese ship left occupied Rabaul on June 22, 1942, but nine days later on July 1, American submarine USS Sturgeon torpedoed it off Luzon in the Philippines.

The saddest thing is that the wreck has never been found to this day, and both Australia and PNG do not know the names of those killed, as the official nominal (katakana) roll – which might give a clue to the identities of those on board – has not been located

 “To the best of our knowledge, she carried 1,053 prisoners from the Australian Territory of New Guinea, one as young as 15,” Mr Smith said.

 “It remains one of our country’s worst disasters.

“This memorial to the Hell Ships of World War 2 now includes a commemorative plaque to mark the tragedy of the sinking of the Montevideo Maru 67 years ago today.

“The plaque has been placed here as a result of the generosity of a number of private organisations - the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles/PNG Volunteer Rifles Ex-Members Association, the Lark Force Association, the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia and the Greenbank Returned Services League Club in Brisbane.

“This tragedy is not forgotten.

“The families are not forgotten.

“These men are not forgotten.”

Call for review of Sorcery Act

By PISAI GUMAR in The National, Papua New Guinea’s leading daily newspaper

 

A CONFERENCE in Madang has called for a major review into the Sorcery Act of 1971.

There were recommendations that the act be redrafted with clear definitions.

The “Law on sorcery and sorcery-related killings” conference was held at the police training centre in Madang.

The conference was organised by the Public Prosecutions office and was attended by Divine Word University academics and officers from the law and justice sector nationwide.

Acting Public Prosecutor Jim Wala Tamate told the conference that the courts were dealing with “belief systems and not mere criminal acts, or rather, with criminal acts based on belief systems”.

He also said that sorcery was deeply rooted into customs and traditions.

Mr Tamate said that belief in the effectiveness of magical and sorcery practices were widespread in the country in various ethnic groups and levels of society.

He stated that sorcery was a very broad field because the practices were performed based on various general and personal interests including land matters, courtship, family and marriage relationships and much more.

Mr Tamate said that the subject needed proper research by knowledgeable researchers from different fields to define clearly the meaning of the various sorcery practices in PNG.

He also said that the penalties on sorcery-related crimes also had to be tougher for the sorcerers and “torturers” based on how serious the matter was.

“Sorcery should be clearly defined to help police and the courts to perform their duties effectively,” Mr Tamate said.

He added that sorcery practices had both good and bad side.

Good sorcery, he said, related to social support services to individual, family and community while bad sorcery meant killing a person without good reason.