Ruth Fink Latukefu - Turned the tables on the kiaps in the case of Herr Dr CJ Blunge

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The esteemed anthropologist and academic Dr Ruth Annette (Fink) Latukefu (1931-2021) has died at her home in Newport Beach, Sydney, aged 89.

Ruth was born in 1931 in Frankfurt am Maine, Germany, arriving in Australia in 1939 with her parents, German Jewish refugees.

Archbishop Anton Bal - "The democratic system of government established by the founding fathers is not to be renounced in favour of a theocratic one"

GABRIEL KUMAN
| Lecturer, Divine Word University

“We believe that the democratic system of government established by the founding fathers of the nation is not to be renounced in favour of a theocratic one embodied in a confessional state. Instead the government could opt for a public declaration of renewed Christian commitment to promote cooperation between the churches and parliament” - Anton Bal, Archbishop of Madang, Catholic Bishops Conference of Papua New Guinea

MADANG - Thank you Catholic Bishops Conference for speaking on behalf of more than one million Catholics and other citizens of Papua New Guinea as a whole.

Those so-called pastors of other Christian churches - that hid behind the scenes and advised the prime minister and other politicians to amend the Constitution - had ulterior motives.

The Coral Sea Resort Casino in Honiara

PHILIP KAI MORRE
| Social Worker & Addiction Counsellor

PORT MORESBY - Gambling is a disease of addiction that can have every family member suffering from its effects.

Casinos are highly organised gambling. Gambling for corporate profit.

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

It is an absolutely disgusting move by the National Gaming and Control Board - Papua New Guinea’s gaming regulator - to sign off papers giving the OK for a new casino to be built in Port Moresby. It is even more disgusting that the Board sees fit to announce itself as a partner in the gambling business

LAE - Here’s are some questions for the National Gaming and Control Board.

How will the Board – the regulator – regulate itself as a partner and the investor in the event that there are offences committed against the law?

ANALOGY BY THE AVISAK N'GEGOS

The chiefs of 49 villages along the Avisak [Sepik River] together with Save the Sepik have organised 408 clans and 51 n’gegos [haus tambaran] into a united nation working to reject the proposed PanAust Frieda River mine

SEPIK RIVER - The Frieda River gold and copper mine can be likened to a vehicle.

When it first started, and was in the exploration stage, we the people of Avisak would see helicopters buzzing and whooshing across the sky almost every day, back and forth across the project site.

Oala Oala-Rarua while mayor of Port Moresby, 1972

MURRAY GROVES
| Australian Dictionary of Biography | Edited

CANBERRA – Oala Oala-Rarua (1934-80) - teacher, trade-union leader, politician and diplomat - was born at Pari village near Port Moresby.

He received his early education in mission village schools before transferring to the Sogeri education centre in 1948 where he was trained, and then employed, as a teacher.

Censored image. The photo of Uiaku schoolgirls was taken by PJ Money in 1908 (Australian Museum)

MOSTAFA RACHWANI
| Guardian Australia

SYDNEY - Facebook has been accused of “discriminatory and racist” behaviour after it deleted historical photos from a group that publishes archival photos of men and women from Papua New Guinea.

The group, which boasts over 55,000 members, claims photos showing traditional dress or ceremonies were deleted for allegedly containing nudity – but photos showing nudity among white people were not.

JIM ELMSLIE & CAMELLIA WEBB-GANNON
| The Conversation

WOLLONGONG - “Destroy them first. We will discuss human rights matters later.”

These are the reported words of Bambang Soesatyo, chairman of the People’s Consultative Assembly to the Indonesian military (TNI), last month.

TRACY GANAII, JUDY PUTT & SINCLAIR DINNEN
| Department of Pacific Affairs | Australian National University | Edited extracts

Link here to read the full case study brief

CANBERRA – This month, in Papua New Guinea’s national parliament, a special parliamentary committee on gender-based violence conducted public hearings and invited submissions to gain evidence on the breadth of problems and steps that could be taken to combat them.

JIM MOORE

ADELAIDE - I happened to be looking through the Classifieds in the Adelaide Advertiser on Monday (not something I usually do, I was checking for a Death Notice).

And there, on the way to the Death Notices, I saw an advertisement, a Request for Tender in fact, from the Commonwealth Department of Finance.

Camilla Wedgwood taking the arm measurement of a young boy

DAVID WETHERELL
| Australian Dictionary of Biography | Edited

CANBERRA - Camilla Hildegarde Wedgwood (1901-1955), anthropologist and educationist, was born on 25 March 1901 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

She was descended from Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), the master potter.

Aided by her famous name and the financial stability that flowed from the sale of Wedgwood pottery, Camilla was free to express her inherited independence, strong social conscience and streak of individualism.

MICHAEL DOM

a butterfly brooch
at some stage a blue present
the pin pricked my thumb
sweet sweat stains, your blouse, your hair
familiar to my big nose

An extract from Put Me On Your Tongue, a new
collection of Michael Dom poetry coming soon

Capitalism isn't working (Photo - Jonny White)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - Bernard Corden is right (‘Wages of fear – Contracting out the danger’). Neo-liberal capitalism has very adept at outsourcing hard, dirty or dangerous work to the developing world.

Outsourced to places where the political elites are largely unconcerned about the welfare of their workforce, preferring to focus on the acquisition of wealth for themselves.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION - The Old Man said he would drop Delisa at the hospital and get her at a quarter to twelve to go for lunch at Ribito Grill and Restaurant.

“You’ll meet the remarkable young man who saved my life,” he said. “I wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for him. I had passed out.”

The baret allows people from Korogu village on the Sepik to travel inland to trade their fish for buai, saksak and other crops

DUNCAN GABI
| Auna Melo

KEMBIAM, SEPIK RIVER - The Sepik River has hundreds of lakes (raunwara), maybe more than hundreds, that are 300-500 meters from the main river.

These lakes are connected to the river by narrow waterways that allow people to access the lakes from the river.

Bruce Haigh - 'The best and brightest who challenge policy or who seek to put forward policy in the face of domestic political imperatives are sidelined and rendered voiceless and powerless'

BRUCE HAIGH
| John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations

MELBOURNE - There was a time in the sixties through to the 1980s when DFAT, the Department of Foreign Affairs (Trade was subsumed in 1987), was a powerful department within the Australian federal bureaucracy.

Its branches mirrored every major department in Canberra and when it felt necessary it would intervene in policies being developed by other departments, and often enough DFAT prevailed.

BERNARD CORDEN
| Edited extracts

‘No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky’ - Bob Dylan

BRISBANE - Wages of Fear is a critically acclaimed classic suspense movie starring Yves Montand and based on a French novel, Le Salaire de la Peur, by George Arnaud, written almost seven decades ago.

The narrative remains eerily familiar across Australia and Papua New Guinea, especially if you have ever driven through the Kassam or Daulo passes on the Okuk Highway amidst a convoy of dilapidated trucks.

JUSTIN SMIRK
| Business Advantage PNG

PORT MORESBY - In the ten years of data collected by the PNG 100 CEO Survey, some trends are emerging.

We can see where improvements have been made to business conditions in Papua New Guinea, where there has been slippage, and where there is more work to be done.

MICHAEL DOM

Your face unwrinkles
You are imponderable
In your vast silence
In your deep, dark blue embrace
Who dares breach your salty keep?

Your face wrinkles up
You are implacable
In your looming rage
In your deep, dark blue embrace
Who dares test your briny breath?

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Do we older folk need to apologise to our children and grandchildren for the sorry state of the world we are bequeathing to them?

I guess the answer to that question depends on how culpable we feel and how complicit we think we have been in bringing the world to the edge of the catastrophe so many scientists believe it faces.

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA - In early May, Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape seemed to move with lightning speed to stop a developer evicting residents and destroying homes at Port Moresby’s ATS settlement.

It was an illusion. The bulldozers moved in this morning.

World War II Japanese artillery piece on Kangu Beach, near Buin south Bougainville

SIMON PENTANU MP
|  Edited

‘Only the dead have seen the end of war’ – Plato

KIETA - These are my thoughts from looking around Buin in south Bougainville every time I travel there. It is a great place, like other regions on the island.

It is also where I first saw, in 1964, the menace of war in the relics that all wars leave behind. The relics of Buin are from World War II, when Bougainville came under Japanese control.

Beach at Henry Reid Bay

GREGORY BABLIS
| Edited extracts

TOL, EAST NEW BRITAIN - Cultures around the world have different concepts of history and of time.

The historicity of a people or place crystallizes in many forms etched in the environment, landscape, language, stories and material culture. Legends, myths, fairy tales, creation stories or origin stories are just some examples.

A G SATORI

PORT MORESBY – After a long while trying to convince other people that it was safe, I could not bring myself around to it.

Jimminy the black grasshopper was there in the back of my brain saying, “Here, just read of another setback of the vaccine in Australia. Never mind that it is one in a million. You could be the next two in two million with the complications”.

KEITH JACKSON
| Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG & Solomon Islands

NOOSA - The Catholic Bishops Conference has expressed dissatisfaction at the Marape government’s lack of consultation with churches in initiating an inquiry about whether Papua New Guinea should be declared ‘a Christian country’.

“All considered, we do not deem it necessary to introduce amendments to the current PNG Constitution,” the bishops said in a statement.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION – It was a few days after The Old Man returned from Japheth and Nathan’s wedding in Lae that a strange number appeared on his mobile phone.

Unknown callers worried The Old Man. Too often he had received disturbing news that left half-eaten food cold on the table.

MICHELLE AUAMOROMORO
| Mim's Diary

POPONDETTA – On Sunday, I was admitted (again) to hospital, this time at Popondetta General Hospital.

I was down with malaria in pregnancy, so to save myself and my seven-month unborn child we were rushed to the hospital as the illness seemed severe. I was discharged on Monday at noon.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - The long and appalling history of religious influence on politics is so well documented that it is startling that prime minister James Marape should even contemplate writing a particular religion, in this case Christianity, into Papua New Guinea’s constitution.

A key axiom of any modern state should be a clear separation between church and state.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

Stethoscopes, Kiaps and the Law of the Jungle by Dr Malcolm Dunjey, Ark House Press, 2021, 162 pages, ISBN 9780645103168, US$22.99 from Ark House Press.

TUMBY BAY - This short book describes three patrols conducted in the Western District between 1966 and 1967 that were accompanied by Dr Malcolm Dunjey, who was the District Medical Officer based in Daru.

My particular interest stems from the fact that I led patrols into the same areas a few years later when I was based at Olsobip and then Nomad River.

The usual way in which a book like this is written is to gather together primary and secondary sources of information, noting key events and issues, and then develop a narrative into which those elements fit.

Monday's scene at the Rita Flynn vaccination centre (Joel Hamari The National)

MICHAEL KABUNI
| Academia Nomad

PORT MORESBY - This photo from The National newspaper confirms what I saw last Monday at the Rita Flynn vaccination centre - that foreigners dominated the place where vaccines are administered.

The sad thing is I wasn’t surprised when I saw many foreigners lining up for the vaccines– vaccines that were sent for Papua New Guineans.

David Kitchnoge - "Hold our leaders accountable by all means, but don’t unfairly bash the good guys"

DAVID KITCHNOGE
| My Land, My Country

PORT MORESBY - I am concerned about increasingly loud, twisted, short-sighted and naive views held by many people about the fight against corruption and bad practice. Some of these views may even be deliberate distractions.

It seems people think the only way to fight the scourge is to jail those who are adjudged as corrupt.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - One of the consistent jibes that Donald Trump liked to make about people who disagreed with him during his presidency was that they were losers.

The inference being, of course, that he was a winner.

Winning and losing are an integral part of the ideology of people like Trump.

Ishmael Toroama has a quiet word with James Marape at the Kokopo summit. Talks conclude with two firm positions espoused. Are they reconcilable?

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama’s declaration that the autonomous province will gain political independence from Papua New Guinea in June 2025 has left PNG prime minister James Marape with a delicate issue to negotiate.

The complexity of the challenge Marape faces became clear in two statements he made following the conclusion of the Kokopo consultations, during which Toroama had made his shock announcement that he had a firm date for Bougainville independence.

Logging ship at Vanimo, West Sepik

EDDIE TANAGO
| ACT NOW!

PORT MOREBY - The Forest Authority must stop aiding and abetting logging companies identified by the Internal Revenue Commission as defrauding the State and landowners by evading taxes.

Fraudulent practices around log exports from PNG over the past 20 years could have the cost the country as much as K21 billion.

"The government has to recognise that declaring PNG a Christian country can prove detrimental to national unity"

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - The Papua New Guinea government has begun a survey to draw public views on a proposal to change the constitution to declare PNG a Christian country.

The Constitutional Law Reform Commission is taking carriage of the task.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION - Delisa broke the news of her pregnancy to Japheth, sounding anxious as she spoke to her mother about her duties in the maternity ward of the over-stretched general hospital.

Japheth assured her everything would be fine. She didn’t have to worry. Delisa was strong and healthy. She was a sensible young woman. And she was married to a clever man.

Ishmael Toroama - “Our position on the future political status of Bougainville is clear, and that is independence”

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – In a statement that will send shock waves through Papua New Guinea, Australia and beyond, Bougainville’s president Ishmael Toroama yesterday declared the autonomous province must achieve independence by June 2025.

Toroama revealed the position of the Autonomous Bougainville Government on its political future at a summit with PNG prime minister James Marape that began in Kokopo yesterday.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - It is a guilty pleasure to read a Marxist analysis of Michael Somare's contribution to Papua New Guinea’s history.

The pleasure lies in its character as a useful antidote to the fawning hagiography which characterised many of the Grand Chief’s obituaries.

MV Ialibu - a slow boat to Lae now being replaced by an even slower boat

HAZEL KUTKUE
| Sipikriva Girl | Edited

FINSCHHAFEN - I live in Finschhafen, Morobe, where the only way to reach Lae is to travel the 80 kilometers east by watercraft.

Lutheran Shipping Services has scheduled boats which pass through Finschhafen once or twice a week.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION - Japheth remembered that morning when The Old Man and his wantok from Bumbu Oil Palm Plantation breakfasted in her new house.

Japheth had welcomed the wantok and served him breakfast, seeming to recognise him but avoiding eye contact.

Michael Somare and his wife Veronica (Wikipedia)

PATRICK O’CONNOR
| International Committee of the Fourth International | Extract

Link here to the complete article

SYDNEY - The first years of Papua New Guinea’s independence coincided with the collapse of the nationalist program of economic regulation and import substitution based on tariff protection that had been widely promoted and adopted in former colonial countries.

From the late 1970s and 1980s, governments in the so-called Third World instead sought to integrate their economies into the capitalist world market by welcoming foreign investment on exploitative terms.

Gianluca Rampolla receives the Covid vaccine (Rachel Donovan)

GIANLUCA RAMPOLLA

Gianluca Rampolla is resident coordinator of the United Nations in Papua New Guinea and says public health communications and health system strengthening undertaken during the Covid-19 outbreak, will help to put the PNG health system on a better platform to combat future pandemics

PORT MORESBY - On Friday, I received my first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

It is incredible to think that in a little over a year since the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, a vaccine has been developed and is now being administered in PNG.

Solange Dawana - "Young people can promote safe health standards by leading by example"  (Save The Children)

MADELEINE KECK
| Global Citizen | Edited

Global Citizen spoke with Solange Dawana, a first-year mechanical engineering student in Papua New Guinea, about how the Covid-19 pandemic had changed her and others’ lives

Global Citizen: How was 2020 for you and your family?

Solange Dawana: The past year has been one of the most challenging for my family and me and many other families.

Mathew Damaru - the honest cop with few friends and a lot of enemies in high places

SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country

LAE - Mathew Damaru, Director of the Police National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate (NFAC), didn’t mince words when he told a Transparency International PNG summit last week the directorate had been starved of funding.

From an annual budget of K1.2 million a few years ago, the directorate is now getting just K350,000 for its operations.

BARBARA ANGORO
| Duresi’s Odyssey

AUCKLAND - I am a Papua New Guinean woman. I am mum to a beautiful young girl child, next generation PNG woman.

Each time I read about heinous crimes committed against PNG women and girls either by people known to them or strangers, it makes my mouth go dry with fear.

PHILIP FITZPATRICK

TUMBY BAY - Politicians have many annoying habits, perhaps more than ordinary people. Where they get them is a mystery. One can only assume they learn off each other.

At the top of the list is refusing to answer simple questions. How many times have you listened to a politician on television or the radio evading a simple yes or no by waffling until the interviewer gives up?

Moses Tekwie - honoured his father and family by graduating from Otago University yesterday

OTAGO BULLETIN BOARD
| University of Otago | Edited

DUNEDIN - Moses Muhwannah Tekwie yesterday graduated from the University of Otago with a Master of International Business with Distinction.

But he had gone through unimaginable heartbreak when both his father and cousin-brother died only a short time before he departed from Papua New Guinea for New Zealand.

DANIEL KUMBON

FICTION – It was an urgent call from Japheth that alerted Delisa and The Old Man to the problem. Calls from other relatives in Bumbu village soon followed.

Japheth’s former husband had just been chased away from the vicinity of the new house.

ABC journalists attached to the PNG National Broadcasting Commission in 1975: Sean Dorney, Bruce Bertram, Albert Asbury and Bob Lawrence (Don Hook)

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The Papua New Guinea Association of Australia continues its public Speaker Series on Sunday 6 June with two guests, journalist Bob Lawrence and artist Lesley Wengembo.

The event will be held at the Hornsby RSL Club in Sydney between 11am and 3pm and you can link to the details here.

The modern bride price system, corrupted by foreign influence and culture, has made the man the centre of attention

DUNCAN GABI

MADANG - Bride price is a notable Melanesian tradition passed from one generation to another; it is a form of payment or dowry to the bride’s family by the groom.

Traditionally, bride price was a gesture of appreciation towards the parents and relatives of the family who had raised a woman with traditional moral values.