PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Toward Independence

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Toward Independence

"If you do not vote for me, God will be angry and you will go to hell." That was the imperative campaign slogan adopted by two candidates, who also happened to be pastors. A leader of the popular "cargo cult," which preaches that some day a fleet of airplanes will bring the white man's goods to deserving natives, also invoked the Almighty. He assured voters that he had been nominated by God to be the first President of Papua New Guinea. A Bougainville Island sorcerer held a conjuring ceremony to make the election go away, so that the spirits of islanders' ancestors could then run the country properly. In relatively sophisticated Rabaul, Epineri Titimur campaigned as Frank Epineri Titimur on the grounds that all politicians should be Frank.
In a weird fusion of modern democracy and Stone Age dogmatism, the 2,446,000 residents of Papua New Guinea were choosing a House of Assembly that will acquire powers of self-government—and possibly full independence from Australia—over the next four years. A reluctant colonial power, Australia inherited Papua from Britain in 1906, and took New Guinea from Germany in World War I, administering it in recent years as a United Nations trustee. The two territories, which together constitute the eastern half of New Guinea island (the rest is the Indonesian province of West Irian), were given a joint name and administration in 1949. Under U.N. pressure to loosen its paternalistic hold, Canberra has granted progressively greater powers to a local assembly and promised self-government whenever the majority of Papua New Guineans wanted it, giving them the chance to participate in general elections, which wound up this month.
The natives trekked as much as two days to the polling stations. In the Highlands, many had greased themselves with pig fat as protection against the cold, and for the occasion wore bird-of-paradise plumes, as well as their usual garb of bark or grass. Among the voters were two tribes discovered only in the past six months (another clan of 83 natives, who saw their first white man just two weeks ago, made it clear they wanted no outside interference). The chief of still another tribe, somewhat bemused by the issues, said that he would take two self-governments, provided they were not too large, since his village had little space to spare.
More than half of the 611 candidates were under 35; at least 160 had no formal schooling. Early returns counted last week showed that Papua New Guineans had decided to take on self-government—or so it seemed. The conservative, white-dominated United Party, which had sent sound trucks through the main towns with the message in pidgin "My fella vote Unided Pati, yu fella vote Unided Pati," lost some seats it had held in the last Assembly, and emerged without a majority. The Pangu Pati (acrophonetic pidgin for Papua New Guinea Party), which draws its strength from the radical young black elite of the coastal cities and favors immediate self-government, gained ground, leading to predictions that the territories will be self-governing within two years. But fully 30 of the Assembly's 100 seats went to uncommitted candidates who will now hold the balance of political power.

Even under the most stable government, Papua New Guinea will have "a mendicant economy for a long time," according to Acting Administrator Tony Newman. Per capita income is $230 a year, and world prices are low for the islanders' main exports of copra, cocoa, rubber, palm oil, tea and coffee. But the territory is also rich in timber, and geologists estimate that it could lie atop one of the world's richest mineral belts. Next month a $400 million copper mine, with a capacity of 30 million tons of ore a year, will go into operation on the island of Bougainville.
What will happen after independence? A few pessimists freely predict a bloodbath like the one that engulfed the Congo in 1960-61. They cite as portents the growing problem of urban drift, squatter slums and the occasional stoning of whites (which police attribute more to antagonism between the have-nots and the haves than to racism). Poet John Kassipwalova, leader of a tiny black-power movement at the Papua New Guinea University, has written that "in violence there is release/ Firm beautiful black hands stoning police thugs." A more realistic fear is that of fragmentation along regional and tribal lines. Primitive Highlanders fear domination by the more developed coastal towns. Papuans charge that Australian aid—$760 million in the past decade—has gone mostly to New Guinea. Proud Bougainvilleans see no need to share their copper wealth with the rest of their countrymen.
Spoiling the Magic. Even with the best of beginnings, Papua New Guinea will remain in many ways the world's most backward country, beset by Stone Age cults and customs. Any native businessman who does well, for instance, soon finds his wantoks (people of the same language group) moving into his home. Custom demands that he share with them until he goes broke, which hardly helps formation of capital. Then there are the cargo cultists, who claim 60,000 members. Just two weeks ago thousands of natives bought red cardboard suitcases, packed them with stones and buried them in the belief that the stones would then turn to money. Administrators knew of the swindle which was hugely profitable to the suitcase sellers, but were powerless to stop it, since they would then be accused of spoiling the magic.
Still another deep-seated custom is that of "payback"—the requirement that any wrong done a tribal member must be paid back in kind. Most of the 60 to 70 murders committed in the territory every year are payback killings. Thus Peter Howard, a white planter who recently killed a Jiga tribesman in a car accident, escaped death only by paying the tribe $1,200 in silver ten-cent pieces and three bulls. Had he elected to leave the country instead, another white man, chosen at random by the Jigas, would have been summarily speared in his place without being given a chance to buy off the tribe.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,910278,00.html#ixzz0oQpjhgja