PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The Reluctant Nation

Since the 19th century, when the first European colonists reached New Guinea, the island has had a small but fervent population of cargo cultists. They build mock airstrips on mountaintops and wharves along the seashore in hopes that they will bring the material prosperity enjoyed by the plane-and ship-borne white man. Last week the white man brought to the eastern half of the island* some cargo that a good many cultists might find to be of doubtful value: independence. As Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Britain's Prince Charles stood at attention with a crowd of 10,000 in a Port Moresby football stadium, the Australian flag was hauled down for the last time and replaced by the black, red and gold standard of the world's newest nation, Papua New Guinea. Said solemn Michael Somare, 39, a policeman's burly son who is the new Prime Minister: "This is just the beginning. Now we must stand on our own two feet and work harder than ever before."
Bush Pilots. That is an understatement. The football-field ceremony ended more than 90 years of mostly benevolent foreign rule by, in turn, Germany, Britain and Australia. Except for a few years during World War II, when Japanese troops overran much of the island, Australia had governed Papua—the island's southeastern quadrant—since 1906, and adjoining northeastern New Guinea since World War I under League of Nations and U.N. mandates. Prodded initially by the U.N. and by its own dislike of the colonial image, the Whitlam government fairly rushed the reluctant colony into self-rule (in 1973) and now full independence.
In size (181,000 sq. mi.) and population (almost 3 million), Papua New Guinea is roughly equivalent to New Zealand, but there the resemblance ends. The population is scattered among more than 700 tribes, each of which has its own dialect. Most of the people hack out meager livings as subsistence-level farmers in remote rural areas. The country has no railroads and few paved roads, relying for transportation on bush pilots and 476 air strips.
On a social level, the ex-colony's semi-Westernization has left it with some anomalies: tribesmen clad only in "ass grass" (leaves fore and aft hanging from a bark belt) push shopping carts in supermarkets, and spear-carrying warriors in the hills go into their occasional battles with blaring transistor radios strapped to their bodies. On a political level, the latest fad is independence—and not just from Australia. Prime Minister Somare's new government is already plagued by two separatist movements.

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PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The Reluctant Nation