June 2010

Since 2007 when the Friends of the Pacific established itself in Darwin and attracted a number of PNG persons from the older PNG-Australia Social group it has been somewhat dormant but a new President, a cheerful chap from Vanuatu, plans to bring it back to life by holding an 'Island Night' in June. 

Una Voce does not regurgitate stories of illegal happenings in PNG which are available to our members through reports in other media. However it should be permissible to mention something which has not yet happened. To date no diplomatic representative of PNG overseas has sold their country's embassy and pocketed the proceeds. As did the High Commissioner from Sierra Leone with a 5-storey building in a prestigious part of London. The last heard of His Excellency was that he had been recalled to West Africa "for consultations".

The introduction of steel axes to the many areas of PNG where stone still had to be fashioned into axe heads was met, it could be said, with enthusiasm by the recipients. In fact the Mokolkols, feared axemen of the Bainings, were delirious (see Una Voce, March 2002). However it was a little disappointing to see photos of tribesmen in the Highlands of West Papua engaged in a primitive inter-clan fight not using the traditional wooden shields suitably decorated but defending themselves with small sheets of corrugated iron. Progress....

A 3.5 m snake found itself part of a bride price in the South Wahgi with its destiny being consumption. The recipient preferred cash to cooking and attempted to sell it at the Kudjip market. Unsuccessful, he said that anyone prepared to pay K400 could have it and they should phone him on either of his two mobile numbers. How times change....

Education, education... a standard cry from the politicians with which we must all agree for it is the key to advancement. And the chalkies who applied themselves to uplifting the children of PNG at new government schools during the 1950s-1970s have much to be proud of. Above the former patrol post at Pomio stands a memorial to Golpak, Paramount Luluai from Jacquinot Bay who, during the Japanese occupation in WW2, unhesitatingly collaborated with Coastwatchers and rescued several Australian and American airmen who had crashed. Awarded an MBE, he was already middle-aged in 1944 and I assume only a simple pidgin-speaker. However his grandson Victor Golpak is a qualified doctor, lecturer in surgery at UPNG and currently the Co-ordinator of the PNG Cholera Response.

Reuben Taureka from Marshall Lagoon was one of the bright products of PNG education sent to the Medical School in Suva where he acquired a doctor's diploma and a Fijian wife. He became Assistant Director of Medical Services in PHD, entered Parliament becoming a Minister and was eventually knighted. His son has already distinguished himself but on a much wider landscape.

Isikel Taureka has sat since 2006 in one of Beijing's tower buildings where he is Chevron's manager for China, administering 200 staff. He had graduated in Economics at UPNG in 1976 and spent 12 years rising up the ladder in banking. He then became managing director of the PNG Posts & Telegraphs Corporation until head-hunted from Moresby by the Chevron company which sent him to its HQ in California for two years. He was sufficiently impressive to be posted to Bangkok as managing director for South-East Asia. Now he is responsible for developing a vast natural gas field in mountainous Sichuan which will be the largest foreign development in China's resource industry. A few aged chalkies who taught young Isikel can be enthusiastic about what educated Papua-Niuginians can achieve.

Frank "Biggles" Leibfried has no time for talk of "leisurely retirement". The ex-kiap turned aerobatic pilot has returned to Tasmania after spending three months in Canada where he worked with an Air Rescue team and enlarged his c.v. by learning to pilot float planes on the lakes. Resuming duties as Captain of the Aero Club of Southern Tasmania has entailed him having a word or two with young members keen to handle their planes like a Peter Manser (whose occasional hair-raising flights many Highlanders will never forget). Frank's experience as a former "God's shadow on earth" enables him to be very firm yet paternal.

I find it astonishing as others may that, if he can keep his wheels spinning, Frederick Peter Christian Kaad will on 12 September join the wonderful world of Nonagenarians. An early but heartfelt birthday wish from your one-time kuskus [clerk].