Colonel Siale Francis Diro of the PNGDF meets former foe and BRA commander Ishmael Toroama

KEITH JACKSON

Bougainville Presidential Count Update
21st Elimination - Tuesday afternoon
47,145 - Ishmael Toroama
29,896 - Simon Duraminu
20,953 - Peter Tsiamalili
20,107 - Thomas Raivet

NOOSA – Ishmael Toroama built his reputation as a bold fighter and later a commander in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) in its struggle to close the Panguna copper and gold mine and gain independence of Bougainville from Papua New Guinea in the 10-year civil war of the 1990s.

Later, in 2001, he became a signatory of the Bougainville Peace Agreement under the auspices of which last year’s referendum on Bougainville independence recorded a huge vote in favour of the province’s separation from PNG.

Phil Fitzpatrick - "This is not a book about a disabled writer. It is a book about a towering figure in the history of Simbu and Papua New Guinea itself"

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – After a remarkably short production time, the Francis Nii collection, ‘Man Bilong Buk’, has been readied for printing and we’re pleased to make an e-book available for free download immediately.

The link to the e-book can be found above this page’s masthead by clicking through the headline ‘The Francis Nii Collection’.

WARDLEY BARRY

I don't take to poetry
For fun or for the thrill –
Not anymore.

I don't take it lightly.
There's a darker feel,

An even darker story
To every line, every jot,
Every ill-gotten thought.

Ishmael Toroama

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE

NOOSA – The nineteenth elimination count in the Bougainville presidential election was completed this afternoon with the candidate who has led throughout, Ishmael Toroama, maintaining a significant lead.

Toroama is still more than 13,000 votes ahead of the second-placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu, while former Bougainville president James Tanis found himself eliminated.

The longer the count continues, the further ahead moves Ishmael Toroama, who seems to have the Bougainville presidency in his keeping

KEITH JACKSON

MONDAY MORNING UPDATE

NOOSA – After the eighteenth elimination count in the Bougainville presidential election, the leading candidate Ishmael Toroama has surged even further ahead of the field.

With the elimination of Wesma Piika and Sione Paasia this morning and the pending elimination of former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Sam Kauona, Toroama is now more than 13,000 votes ahead of the second-placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu.

The new Royal Adelaide Hospital: K5.5 billion to build and  K2.9 billion a year to operate.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - My first outstation posting in Papua New Guinea was to Baimuru Patrol Post in the Gulf Province.

In 1970 the station boasted a grass airstrip, a native materials office, a small collection of houses and miscellaneous outbuildings.

There was also a rickety wharf decked with Marsden matting left over from World War II.

An early meeting of the Simbu Writers Association. Francis Nii seated left and Arnold Mundua standing above his left shoulder

ARNOLD MUNDUA

KUNDIAWA - The 2014 Crocodile Prize awards were held at the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby in September, as they had been for the previous three years.

President of the Simbu Writers Association, Jimmy Drekore, was there, and so was Francis Nii, who had won the award for essays the year before, Roslyn Tony, Mathias Kin, Jimmy Awagl and me.

It was quite a representation from SWA, in Simbu colours too.

WALLACE PARIMAHI

Port Moresby - Wallace’s story, ‘Project Infiltration’, won the Grades 11 -12 category for Best Language Usage Story in the Paradise College ANIS Writing Competition

DAY FIFTY-TWO BEGAN with fear; the type that kept me awake at night; the type that filled me with disconcerting uncertainty; the type that was present from the beginning.

It had been fifty-two days since my carefully orchestrated escapade and too long since my unfortunate kidnapping. I had seemed to have lost track of time.

Ishmael Toroama has consolidated his position as  front runner in the Bougainville presidential election

KEITH JACKSON

LATE SUNDAY UPDATE

NOOSA – The trend is your friend, it is said, and the trend in counting votes for the next president of Bougainville remains firmly with Ishmael Toroama, who continue to move ahead of the field.

With the elimination of the fourteenth presidential candidate late afternoon it became clear that only the two leaders amongst the 11 remaining contenders can come close to an absolute majority of 71,725 votes.

The release of updated figures this afternoon showed Ishmael Toroama consolidating his position as the likely winner as he moved out to a 10,500 vote lead over second placed candidate Fr Simon Dumarinu.

Arnold Mundua

Francis Nii

ARNOLD MUNDUA

KUNDIAWA – Sometimes great people’s legacy – their influence on and contributions to society - only becomes fully recognised after their passing.

The late author Francis Nii was such a person. His passing on Sunday 2 August at the Sir Joseph Nombri Memorial Hospital in Kundiawa left a huge vacuum in the lives of the many people who knew him personally.

Wallace Parimahi - talented young writer whose winning entry in the Paradise College writing contest, 'Project Infiltration', will be published in PNG Attitude tomorrow

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA
| PNG Paradise College | Innovative School of the 21st Century

PORT MORESBY - I first heard of Paradise College when the principal, Mr Safak Deliismail, contacted me in 2016 to be a guest speaker at their ANIS Writing Competition awards.

I couldn’t make it at that time but three years on I am teaching at Paradise College in the subject I love to teach, Language and Literature.

In the USA much presidential policy is dispensed using Twitter feed. Trump has 86 million followers (PNG Attitude has 7,000)

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - No matter how good an innovation is there will always be people who subvert it and spoil it for everyone else.

This axiom applies from something as simple as people taking undue advantage of a public welfare measure by ripping it off with false claims to the greater complexity of major frauds perpetuated by large corporations taking advantage of loopholes in tax laws.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The Bougainville presidential election has moved into its final stage with the end of counting of the 283 ballot boxes and completion of three days of quality checks.

None of the 25 candidates got even close an absolute majority of 72,213 votes so the elimination of lower placed contenders has begun.

Despite the deputy prime minister launching reform recommendations, PNG's informal economy continues to struggle

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO

PORT MORESBY - When the first audit of Papua New Guinea’s informal economy was launched in 2019, it generated a sense of optimism for the future of this important sector of the nation’s economy.

But a year later, despite legislation and policy encouraging the growth of the informal economy, its participants remain voiceless – and depressed.

The informal economy is estimated to involve 75% of the PNG population.

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - If you don't like the state of the country, commit yourself to changing it.

You don't have to be in politics to do it. If there is trash outside your fence, pick it up.

JOSEPH TAMBURE

Another day of black and gold colours 
A numerical addition to continue 
Forgetting hardships and problems 
Just to be out in colours with pride

O arise all you!

Black and gold on bodies
On buildings, cars, alongside roads
All provinces across the land
Just a day’s celebrations

JUSTIN KUNDALIN

PORT MORESBY - I’m not against Facebook fans or anything to do with Facebook but I’m writing this article because of concern for my fellow students because I’ve come to realise Facebook can be a big distraction.

As a result, many students are not performing to their potential in the classroom.

The lineage is strong - Paul Kurai in front of the yar tree at Ela Beach in Port Moresby which his father is said to have planted during colonial times

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG - Paul Kiap Kurai is probably among just a few Highlands businessman, if not the only one, who has given away a successful business entity to a clansman on a golden platter.

He gave the Neneo Construction company to his Kamainwan people of Kaiap as a gift so they too would benefit from the proceeds of his blessings.

It was an action rarely seen in competitive Highlands society.

White supremacists  empty-headedly claim ethnic diversity is equivalent to white genocide

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Just like Australia, the USA is a migrant nation. In both cases the racial and cultural diversity of both populations has contributed to both the wealth and vibrancy of their societies.

While Australia is home to the world's oldest continuous culture dating back at least 65,000 years it is now also home to a people who identify with more than 270 different ancestries.

Artist Lisa Hilli paid tribute to the FMI Sisters through her art creating a large digital photographic collage of an image of the Sisters and 45 hand-embroidered cinctures.

CLAIRE HUNTER
| Australian War Memorial

CANBERRA - When the Japanese invaded Rabaul on New Britain in January 1942, a group of 45 Daughters of Mary Immaculate (FMI) Sisters refused to give up their faith.

Instead, they risked their lives to help save hundreds of Australian and European missionaries and civilian detainees who were held captive by the Japanese for three and a half years, first at Vunapope and then in the dense jungle of Ramale.

"The biggest challenge ahead as we break with the past is to continue the struggle to decolonise our minds which keeps us in bondage. Those that do not believe that we can own and run a mine like Porgera are influenced and shaped by our past colonial history" - Gabriel Ramoi

GABRIEL RAMOI

WEWAK - The theme of this year’s Independence celebration should be ‘Preserving the positive gains made over the last 45 years of political independence and those made over the last 12 months under PMJM in particular’.

A bit of a mouthful, I know, but it sums up how I’m feeling this Independence Day.

This year as we celebrate 45 years of independence we can feel a renewed sense of nationalism and optimism in the air.

The 9 Mile market outside Lae city (Michael Dom)

MICHAEL DOM
| Diplomatique | Literary Colloquium Berlin

LAE - The global pandemic of Covid-19 has had many repercussions to daily life and keeping abreast with World Health Organisation recommendations, the Papua New Guinea government has also defined the ‘new normal’ for its citizens.

But to thousands of the peri-urban poor, struggling to survive during trying economic times, the impact of policing health measures is just another normal day.

Isaac Lupari - "The system of the PNG public service is broken"

NEWS DESK
| Kalang FM News

PORT MORESBY - Acting Chief Secretary to Government, Ambassador Isaac Lupari says the public service is a threat to national unity and security.

He says the system of the PNG public service is broken.

Charlene Dinipami Nii - Francis was very  ill, but insisted on making the tortuous trip to witness his father's burial

CHARLENE NII

KUNDIAWA - It was on Wednesday 1 April that bad news came to Francis in his hospital bed in Kundiawa.

It was early in the morning when the phone rang. The caller was his cousin Duma Paulus from Diani village.

In broken tones, Duma told Francis that his father, the chief, Nicholas Tura Duma, had passed away.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

So what did you do for a crust?
Oh, the usual, public service and all that
Me too, I was in health administration
Before that I was a kiap in Papua New Guinea
That’s interesting, who do you barrack for?

I walked the high mountains and deep valleys
I reckon the Eagles will make the finals this year
I met men who had never seen steel before
Go on, is that right, is that your car out there?
And I saw men fighting with bows and arrows

Former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Ishmael Toroama - presently leading the Bougainvlle presidential count

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Former Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) commander, Ishmael Toroama, was retaining his lead in the Bougainville presidential election after the 280th count this morning.

The Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission registered 222,333 voters and 446 candidates for the election.

Cuscus and handler at Port Moresby Nature Park

LYANNE TOGIBA
| Guardian Australia | Judith Nielson Institute | Extracts

PORT MORESBY - From the heat and dust of the city’s noisy, crowded streets, the Port Moresby Nature Park is an oasis, for the city’s residents as well as the animals it keeps.

Home to more than 500 creatures and spread over 30 verdant acres, the park has spent years rescuing injured, orphaned or trafficked animals from across the country, and protected and nurtured native species, including the endangered pig-nosed turtle, and the magnificent riflebird.

Worth waiting for - the launching of the Wasa bridge

DANIEL KUMBON

WABAG – Beginning in the 1950s and until the 1970s, Kurai Tapus - the ‘bosboi’ - and his people built Wabag with spades, wooden digging sticks, picks, axes, shovels, crowbars, bush knives and with their bare hands.

It took many weeks for hundreds of men to carve winding roads around the sides of mountains or through rugged terrain or unstable swampy grassland.

John Fowke - astute critic and interpreter of the Papua New Guinean condition

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – John Fowke, an erstwhile contributor to PNG Attitude and forceful critic of what he (sometimes unfairly) perceived as humbug and banality, has died in Brisbane aged 81.

Fowke went to Papua New Guinea as a Cadet Patrol Officer aged 21 in April 1958.

In 1962 he changed career direction when he was appointed a Cooperatives Officer, working in the Goroka region.

Woman panning for gold in Bougainville

NEWS DESK
| Human Rights Law Centre

MELBOURNE - Mining giant Rio Tinto is responsible for multiple human rights violations caused by pollution from its former mine in Bougainville.

For 45 years, the Panguna copper and gold mine on the island of Bougainville was majority-owned by the British-Australian mining company, but in 2016 Rio Tinto divested from the mine, leaving behind more than a billion tonnes of mine waste.

NEWS DESK
| Transparency International

BERLIN - In many ways, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has turned the world upside down.

Besides the devastating human toll around the world, we have also been living through an increasingly disturbing reality that is marked with rising authoritarianism, reduced civic space and misuse of relief funds.

Bill Brown MBE and Fred Kaad OBE - two outstanding figures in the late colonial history of Papua New Guinea, Sydney, 2018 - KJ

BILL BROWN

SYDNEY - Fred Kaad is an inspiration. And this day, 12 September 2020, marks a notable anniversary for this remarkable man.

We salute his wonderful achievements, his steadfastness and courage and his contribution to all our lives and to the lives of so many others.

This is a tribute of respect and admiration for Fred Kaad on his 100th birthday.

On final approach at Tabibuga in a Cessna 206. The strip was 1,250 feet long and its 8 degree slope required full throttle to get to the top after touch down

JIM MOORE

WARRADALE, SA - Flying in pre-GPS Papua New Guinea was certainly an unforgiving process.  I knew a number of people who did not survive it.

Harry Balfour-Ogilvy was a kiap in our intake in November 1965. He, his wife and two infant daughters all died in May 1970 when a dangerously overloaded plane took off from Gurney in Milne Bay.

ANDREW WILKINS
| Business Advantage International

PORT MORESBY - This week saw the launch of PNG Now, a new lifestyle magazine for Papua New Guinea.

PNG Now is designed to showcase the best of PNG through reviews, guides, articles and tips.

It also offers a platform for exceptional work from some of PNG’s best writers and photographers.

The Dornier DO27 that crashed when its engine failed after taking off from Tauta

BRYAN McCOOK
| Edited extracts

Acknowledgement: The complete version of senior pilot the late Captain Bryan McCook’s article was originally published on the Professional Pilots Rumor Network. You can link to it here (requires a little downward scrolling)

THURSDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 1964 - My first task on this fateful day entailed flying a DCA aerodrome inspector from Goroka to Nondugl in the Cessna 185.

Nondugl, in the Waghi Valley, belonged to Sir Edward Hallstrom, a prominent industrialist, philanthropist and chairman of Taronga Park Zoo in Sydney. Many birds of paradise and other exotic fauna brought into Nondugl were destined for the zoo.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - We’ve only got one pharmacy in Tumby Bay. I believe it’s been in the same family since it began.

The grandfather passed it on to the father and now the father has just passed it on to the daughter.

I was in there the other day collecting some diabetic gear: a box of needles for my disposable syringes; a couple of packets of test strips for my glucose testing gizmo; and my blood pressure tablets.

ISO YAWI

A band of warriors
Bold and brave with spears
Splendour of their forefathers
Invoked deep is their courage
Faces painted traditional colours of war
All true stewards of nature!

Brothers and sisters of Morobe
Spears sharpened in Tutumang haus
They will not give up
Fighting for Huon Gulf's clear beauty
Saying no to the mine's deep sea deposits
All true stewards of nature!

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Those of us who went to Papua New Guinea, especially in the 30 years after World War II, were motivated by many things.

For me and many others who became kiaps or didimen or tisa or mastamak,* it was a sense of adventure combined with curiosity about what was then, and remains today, a culture quite unlike our own.

Mentor Malachi Nagobi and artist  Lesley Wengembo

BEN DOHERTY
| Guardian Australia | Judith Nielson Institute

SYDNEY - Alongside Malachi Nagobi, progress across the august grounds of the National Art School in Sydney is constantly – happily – impeded.

“Mal!” comes a voice, “Hello Mal,” another. Every handful of steps, another person wants to stop to chat.

PAUL OATES

GOLD COAST - In case you haven't read much of my writing, my fellow author and former kiap Phil Fitzpatrick will confirm that for many years I have been banging on about responsibility and accountability.

These are two seemingly inviolate pillars of responsible government. They are something many of us trained in the Australian public service discipline hold near and dear.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Memorial Day is the American version of Anzac Day when military personnel who have died on duty are honoured and mourned.

In 2017 Donald Trump accompanied his then chief of staff, former General John Kelly, to the Arlington National Cemetery.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - After 70-odd summers on the surface of this planet, my impression is that it is a decidedly cruel and dangerous place.

It is a place where one’s major preoccupation has to be avoiding being eaten by the savage beasts that occupy it, both in reality and metaphorically.

RAYMOND SIGIMET

We who fear darkness 
Or stoke his powers
Will come under his spell 
A pit hard to ascend 

Our breath will become his 
Giving life to him 
And all things sinister 
That imprison our will

The refurbished buildings behind the perimeter fence

ALEXANDER NARA

PORT MORESBY - Traffic at the Three Mile roundabout here in the nation’s capital is sometimes very unkind.

Especially in the afternoons and especially if you are stuck in one of those overcrowded city buses.

Overwhelmed with the heat, you slump there helplessly as the bus crawls along in the queue towards the turn.

An ailing Francis Nii leads the big bushfire rally for Australia from his wheelchair in Kundiawa. He saw the huge funds raised from this poor province as a token of the close relationship between the two countries

MATHIAS KIN

KUNDIAWA - My friend Francis Nii rang me on a Friday afternoon in early January to say he wanted to meet me about something that had been bothering him.

He briefly told me over the phone that it was about the terrible Australian bushfires and that he was surprised the Papua New Guinea government and other organisations were not doing anything about it.

Graham Hardy talking to a meeting at Wabag, late 1950s

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Over the Hills and Far Away: Memoirs of a Kiap in Papua and New Guinea from 1952 to 1975 by Graham Hardy, privately published, 2020, 207 pages with numerous photographs, $42 plus $9.95 postage, available from the author at gandphardy@gmail.com

TUMBY BAY - If I could live my life over I think I would prefer to have been born 20 years earlier.

That would have made me too young to take part in World War II but just the right age to go to Papua New Guinea as a kiap in the immediate post war period.

That period, especially in the highlands, probably represented the halcyon days of the Australian Administration.

The Papua New Guinean people still lived a largely traditional lifestyle, there remained large areas unexplored, and development after the war was still in its infancy. There was a lot happening and life was exciting.

RAYMOND SIGIMET

Have all good poems been written
That we today have none to share 
What then of the heart being smitten 
By the beauty of eyes that stare 
Or the walk that none can compare 

Have all good poems been written 
That we today have none to read 
What then of the loss that burden 
A broken heart held by a thread 
Or photo lost to time instead

A Talair Cessna over Omkolai, 1966

COMPILED BY KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – MAF pilot Dave Rogers’ recent yarn about the skills required to land on and take off from some of Papua New Guinea’s many preposterously difficult airstrips attracted much commentary and many war stories from our readers.

I’ve curated a few here, but first one of mine.

I had just become engaged to my first wife, Sue, at a grand party we had at my remote highlands school 10 or so kilometres from Kerowagi and Sue was on her way back home to Sydney to explain it all to her mother.

STEPHANIE ALOIS

You had your plans
But I wish you had involved hers
You told her you love her one moment
But disappeared in the next
You knew she’d risk anything for you
That she’ll face the world alone
But you still left anyway
Why were you so selfish?
How could you?

The haus pik - not the perfect location for a primary school but rather more edifying than the Chimbu Club

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Amongst the joys in life of most school teachers is to run into or receive a missive from a former student who has done well in life and remembers their schooldays with some fondness rather than as a dreadful chore.

Although I taught school for only three years, this kind of pleasant coming together has happened to me a few times.