Carolus Ketsimur, politician, journalist & jazzman, dies in Bougainville
14 January 2014
KEITH JACKSON
CAROLUS (CHARLIE) KETSIMUR – who died at Pamets village near Tinputz in Bougainville on Sunday evening at 69 - was a man of the finest calibre.
Carolus, who became Minister for Works in the Autonomous Bougainville Government after a long and distinguished career as a journalist, had been ill for some time and recently returned from a period in hospital in Port Moresby.
And so an illustrious, sometimes turbulent and high-achieving life is over. I’ll remember Carolus as a great journalist, an enthusiastic jazz musician and a good bloke.
Carolus was in the first group of Papua New Guinean journalists to train with the ABC in 1962 and became Director of Programs in the new National Broadcasting Commission in 1974.
He was also a talented musician – composing and recording the hit album Koitaki Cowboy – and a gifted jazzman, recording with Independence era musicians like Phil Charley and Doug Fyfe.
Early in his career, he married an Australian – a contract uncommon in those colonial days – and had two lovely children.
Like so many of those sixties marriages, mine included, the original did not last. Nor did the journalism. He left journalism to pursue a business career, becoming chairman of the PNG Cocoa Board.
In the late 1980s, with Bougainville falling deeper into civil strife and despair, Carolus returned home to be with his people, building a home outside the small town of Tinputz on the north-east coast.
Here he married again, this time to a young Bougainville woman who died tragically. Carolus started a small business, a music store, and a long personal struggle began with an island divided, an economy in tatters and his own health in bad shape.
With his life under threat from political opponents, he left his home and retreated to the bush. On a visit to Sydney a few years ago, he told me how - fearing his house would be torched while he was absent - he had wrapped his precious hi-fi equipment and record collection in plastic sheeting and buried in a hole in the ground.
When he returned home two years later, everything was intact but, ironically, the items he had hidden had been destroyed by water and mould.
Bougainville rose from its despondency – and so did Carolus. He was one of the architects of the Bougainville Peace Agreement; he restored his business enterprises; became chairman of the Tinputz Council of Elders and a respected company director; and was appointed Minister for Commerce and Communications in the Interim Bougainville Provincial Government.
He won, lost and then regained the seat of Taonita-Tinputz in the Autonomous Bougainville Government and was serving as Minister for Works at the time he died.
Carolus was the driving force behind the establishment of New Dawn FM in north Bougainville, a project I was delighted to be able to work with him to bring to fruition. He also founded the Tinputz Cocoa Festival.
Carolus’s body has been taken to Buka and funeral arrangements are expected to be announced soon.
I miss this charming, charismatic and humorous man.
Alan Grant ... loved your memories of Carolus.
Can you please email me on [email protected] in relation to a possible story on him? Thanks....
Posted by: Max Uechtritz | 18 January 2025 at 11:59 AM
Great pic of a young Carolus in this article:
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/the-radio-pioneer-who-took-parliament-s-pulse-for-the-abc-20180809-p4zwft.html
Posted by: M Madelle | 19 August 2018 at 02:58 PM
From Alan Grant – 28 May 2016
In a pathetic enforced retirement situation there is more than enough time to mull over the past.
In Papua New Guinea I had been an agricultural officer (‘didiman’) in PNG since the 1960s, posted all over the country. I had come as a £10 migrant to Oz in 1965, and brought with me a deep love of trad jazz, that is with me to this day.
Anyway, there came a time when seniority at DPI and commitments to projects brought me to Port Moresby.
Between busy rural development tasks and at same time building a 40ft sailing craft, I allowed myself to be talked into being the banjo player in a series of ad hoc jazz bands that proliferated for a time before and just after Independence in 1975.
This disparate group of expat residents came to be called The Port Moresby Jazz Band (I rather think the name was mostly my suggestion).
Our routine involved a Sunday afternoon session at the Four-Mile Club, followed by not much of a break and then the whole evening until late at the Weinkeller, a below-stairs venue at the Gateway Hotel which I think is now a restaurant.
This went on until at least midnight, the clientele mainly expat public servants; goodness knows what state they must have been in next morning for the first day of their working week.
On several of those evenings Carolus came in and joined the band and I recall his rendering of ‘St Louis Blues’ was much appreciated both by we in the band and with the lively audience.
Quite probably it was due to this connection that we later made a jazz programme for the NBC’s Time Out series.
In an extended version of this paper I will transcribe the note I made on my private copy of the cassette tape made from that full day recording session done at Studio 903 at the NBC at 6-Mile on 28 February 1978. A week or two later Pearson Batuna presented that work on air.
I am fortunate to have that tape copy, perhaps the only one in existence unless the NBC can oblige.
Later I met Carolus and his then partner, an Australian, at their place near Tinputz. By then an officer of the NPMA I was involved in redevelopment of a cocoa estate in Buka. Over the years since, I have often thought of Carolus and his family, and what must have been his horrendous situation in Bougainville.
I am remorseful and have regrets that we lost touch.
Posted by: Alan Grant | 28 May 2016 at 04:39 PM
Carolus Ketsimur was appointed an ABC cadet journalist in 1964, in the second cadet intake after Boe Arua (Papua) and Chris Rangatin (New Ireland).
In 1962 there had been only 14 people with an Intermediate Certificate in PNG, and not many more two years later.
Charlie seemed more like a poet than a journalist. He was soft, quietly spoken, gentle, and seemed intimidated by the thought of interviewing people, especially senior Administration officials.
He loved his music and was never so content as when sitting down with his guitar. It's not surprising that he left journalism and sought a business career based on his music.
It is tragic that he can be counted as one of the lives lost to the Bougainville dispute.
_________
He can be counted as such. During the civil war, Charlie had to flee and hide in the bush in fear of his life. This left him very ill and its after-effects left him greatly vulnerable in his remaining years - KJ
Posted by: Geoffrey Luck | 30 October 2014 at 02:06 PM
I am also getting interested in this work for it is a need in Bougainville.
I hope family members could help salvage the work.
Posted by: Leonard Roka | 12 August 2014 at 12:25 PM
Carolus was working on a novel about 'blackbirding', the kidnapping of islanders for the Queensland sugar cane fields just before he died. A chapter was published in the 2011 Crocodile Anthology.
It would be a fitting tribute to him if this book could be published.
Do any of his relatives know what happened to the manuscript?
Posted by: Phil Fitzpatrick | 30 July 2014 at 07:40 PM
Carolus and Julie gave my daughter a little job in the store when she went to them for a holiday. Sunny loved it and loved doing the money part.
She has ended up in banking, although it is in engineering IT, not money. RIP you lovely man.
Posted by: Liz Kinneir-Tarte (Main Williams) ex Wards Air Cargo | 30 July 2014 at 03:15 PM
Always soft spoken he is indeed one of our greatest in radio and his passion for cocoa acknowledged. We will all miss him.
Posted by: Gabriel Ramoi | 17 January 2014 at 11:12 AM
I'm greatly saddened by the death of Carolus Ketsimur. He was one of the first Papua New Guineans to join the ABC (9PA) in 1962 as a cadet journalist. Everyone liked "Charlie". He was a lovely bloke and so talented. He will be greatly missed.
Posted by: Don Hook | 15 January 2014 at 02:40 AM
Sad. Interesting account of a great citizen who had done a lot for his province and Papua New Guinea.
69 is still young but God knows best, we all will one day retire our earthly jackets for an immortal body.
Our prayers to his family and his friends everywhere.
Posted by: Corney Korokan Alone | 14 January 2014 at 09:00 AM