Pacific Magazine > Magazine > October 26, 2007

People Briefs

People Briefs

People Briefs

Anote Tong  Photo: Bruce Southwick/ZoomFiji

Kiribati President Anote Tong was returned to Parliament in the August national election with a strong majority of 29 MPs in the 46-seat chamber. The first order of business of the new Parliament in September was electing Taomati Iuta as Speaker. Iuta, who was vice president in an earlier administration, was nominated by Kiribati’s first President Ieremia Tabai, who also chairs Tong’s Boutokan Te Koaua (BTK) party. Following confirmation of the results from Kiribati’s two-stage election (a candidate is required to win a 50 percent plus one majority, or must go to a run-off second election), a new and fourth political party, the Kiribati Independent Party, was formed by six new MPs led by former Secretary of Finance Taaneti Mwamwau. The Opposition Maurin Te M’aneaba Party has seven seats and is led by Dr. Harry Tong, the elder brother of President Anote Tong. The other is Maurin Kiribati Party led by lawyer Banuera Berina with four MPs.

Casten Nemra, the Marshall Islands government’s chief secretary and chairman of the country’s new Postal Authority, brought back good news from a regional meeting with U.S. Postal Service officials in Palau in late August. In response to ongoing complaints from the Marshall Islands Chamber of Commerce and the government, the U.S. Postal Service will be returning domestic mailing rates from the U.S. to the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia. “The classification structure to the Marshall Islands will revert back to domestic rate mail classification and domestic zip code for mail from the U.S.,” Nemra said in late September. “The timeframe for this implementation is to take effect by late November 2007, earliest, but no later than January 1, 2008.” Not all U.S. domestic mail services will be reinstated, but the change is a huge relief to local businesses that have been hard hit by both the higher postal rates and the difficulty the “international” designation posed for receiving merchandise from U.S. vendors who have historically supplied these two U.S.-affiliated nations.

Sir Barry Curtis

New Zealand’s longest serving mayor, Sir Barry Curtis, and a man highly respected in New Zealand’s Pacific community, has stepped down from the position he held for 24 years. During his lengthy reign as mayor of the world’s most populated Polynesian city, he commanded wide respect among Pacific peoples for his focus on community and cultural development. Manukau contains almost a third of New Zealand’s total Pacific population of 266,000. He holds the Samoan chiefly matai title of Seiuli and is a regular visitor to the Pacific Islands. In recent years, he helped broker a deal where Manukau City provided consultancy advice to the Tongan government after last year’s Nuku’alofa riot. “One of my guiding passions is social justice and promoting opportunity for all, no matter what their social background,” he says. “I came from a poor family. That is why I know how it feels to be born on the wrong side of the tracks. I never forget that.”

A former CEO of the Samoa Water Authority has been appointed interim executive director for the Pacific Water Association, which will relocate from Suva, Fiji to Apia, Samoa. Latu Kupa was named to his new position in September at the same time PWA Chairman Patrick Amini announced the relocation. Kupa is currently the managing director of KEW (Kupa Engineering and Water) Consultants Limited based in Apia. Kupa believes moving PWA to Samoa will bring huge benefits to his country as well as enhance Samoa’s growing reputation as a regional hub because of its model economy and political stability. The PWA was formed in Fiji in 1990 and is made up of 21 Pacific countries.

Andrew R. Yatilman, a former Lt. Governor of Yap, was confirmed by the Congress of the Federated States of Micronesia in September as director for the national Office of Environment and Emergency Management. Yatilman will head the newly created national office to centralize the coordination of all national services related to environment and emergency. The new office is one element of FSM President Manny Mori’s government reorganization plan. In his previous role as Secretary of the Department of Transportation, Communications and Infrastructure he became embroiled in disputes with the Hawaii engineering firm GMP, which had been hired to run the project management unit overseeing the multi-million dollar U.S.-funded infrastructure program in the FSM. Yatilman reportedly objected, among other things, to GMP’s charges for running the PMU. Yatilman’s concerns led to an Interior Department review, which led to GMP losing the contract and prompted the firm to sue FSM and U.S. government officials, including Yatilman, in August. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars of U.S. funding for infrastructure is on hold pending resolution of the project management unit situation.

The new General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches is Fe’iloakitau Kaho Tevi. At 37, Tevi is the youngest person to be elected to the position since the Conference was constituted in 1966. He is well known throughout the region as the Executive Secretary of the World Council of Churches Office in the Pacific with an earlier stint at the Pacific Concerns Resource Center in Suva and in a nice twist of fate, follows in the footsteps of his mother, Lorine Tevi, who was General Secretary of the PCC from 1977 to 1981. Tevi says he wants to place climate change on the top of the agenda of the Pacific churches. Delegates to the recent meeting in American Samoa that elected Tevi also voted the Right Reverend Apimeliki Qiliho of Fiji and Celine Hoiore of French Polynesia/ Maohi Nui as Moderator and Deputy Moderator, respectively, of the Pacific Conference of Churches.

A former driver at the Federated States of Micronesia’s Washington Embassy was sentenced to 26 months in jail for an illegal passport scheme that produced 50 fake FSM passports that were sold for up to $25,000 to Filipinos wanting to come to the U.S. Enrico Calderon, 42, was sentenced for human smuggling. His cousin Roehl Rivera, who escorted the Filipinos to the U.S., was sentenced to 18 months he had already served and deported immediately after pleading guilty last year. Calderon is also facing additional criminal charges, along with former FSM Ambassador to Washington Jesse Marehalau, filed by the FSM government. FSM passport holders can enter the U.S. without a visa.

Aaron Kumana

A Solomon Islander was recognized for saving the life of a future U.S. President—64 years after it happened. Aaron Kumana was recognized for his role in rescuing young U.S. Navy officer John F. Kennedy from Japanese capture in 1943 during the recent visit of the USS Peleliu to the Solomons as part of its five-nation humanitarian tour that included stops in Papua New Guinea and the Marshall Islands. Kennedy and others had survived a collision between his U.S. torpedo boat and Japanese destroyer in Solomons waters, but were marooned on an island when they were found by Kumana and his fellow scout Biuku Gasa. Kumana was forgotten until a local businessman contacted USS Peleliu Captain Ed Rhoades in August. Rhoades recognized Kumana and gave him gifts, including an American flag. “I can now be at peace since through my friend’s legacy, people have come to know me, my people and my country, the Solomon Islands,” he told reporters after the ceremony on the Peleliu.

American Samoa Governor Togiola Tulafono’s appointment of Leuga Alaimoana Turner  as director of the Department of Youth and Women’s Affairs was confirmed September 14 by the Legislature. “Her record of public service is exemplary, having been involved in many government as well as community projects,” says Togiola. “She is most impressive with her work as chief of Social Services at LBJ Medical Center where she was involved in the fight against domestic violence, especially violence against women.”

In August, Wayne Cornell became the new project director for DZSP 21 in Guam. The company is a joint venture owned by Day and Zimmerman Services Inc., Lockheed, Aerotek, First Support Services, and Parsons Infrastructure and Technology Group Inc. It was formed to administer the Navy’s Base Operating Support contract, which began on Oct. 1, 2005 and is worth an estimated $55 million for the current option year. The company handles a host of support activities for the Navy in Guam including port operations, the base motor pool, trash pickup, ordnance handling, building maintenance and utilities. In his new position, Cornell is the top DZSP official in Guam. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and retired from the Navy after 20 years of service in 1991. Since then he has held the lead positions for a number of defense contractors including Raytheon Polar Services and Baker Support Service’s operations contract with the Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai.

Marshall Islander Claudia Muller-Bradford was promoted to Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army at a ceremony at Fort Drum, New York on September 1. She was also awarded the Army Commendation Medal by Command Sergeant Major Wayne Ward for her induction into the prestigious SGT Audie Murphy Club. After graduating from Assumption High School in Majuro, she joined the Army in 1993. Among other assignments, she completed two overseas deployments in the Middle East as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. 

In Memoriam
U. S. Army Major Henry Ofeciar, 37, became the 12th Guam resident killed in the Middle East when the vehicle he was riding in came under attack in Jalalabad, Afghanistan on August 27. He was assigned to the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division based at Fort Riley, Kansas. He was a native of Talofofo. A bill introduced in the Guam Legislature would name the building at the University of Guam that houses the Reserve Officer Training Corps in his honor. Ofeciar completed the university’s ROTC program in 1993.  Pacific Daily News reports that 10 of the soldiers have died this year.
He may have been partially blind but Sakiusa Bulicokocoko’s voice seared itself into the consciousness of a generation of Fiji Islanders. Bulicokocoko, described as Fiji’s version of Stevie Wonder and one of the country’s greatest entertainers, died in Hawaii August 9, at 57. In 1970, Bulicokocoko became the first Fijian to be signed by a major recording company, RCA, after being noticed on a tour of Australia. His spectacular talent was discovered in the late 1960s when somebody told a nightclub owner of a boy from the village who was enthralled by music. Bulicokocoko composed and sang not only Fijian songs, but numbers in other Pacific languages. Some of his regional hits were Waikiki Tamure and Walkabout Chinatown. Outside of Fiji, he was particularly loved by the Tongans and once serenaded Queen Mata’aho on her birthday. The composer and musician, affectionately known as Saki and Skiu, lived his last days in Kaneohe where he was a minister of music at Grace Redemption Ministries. He also ministered to the homeless and to inmates at the Halawa Correctional Facility.

Contributors: Fili Sagapolutele,
Frank Whitman, Giff Johnson, Batiri Bataua, Peter Rees, Ricardo Morris and Samantha Magick.