PNG History at a Glance  

The first Europeans to sight New Guinea were probably the Portuguese and Spanish navigators sailing in the South Pacific in the early part of the 16th Century.
In 1526-27, Don Jorge de Menezes chanced upon the principal island and is credited with naming it Papua, a Malay word for the frizzled quality of Melanesian hair.
“New Guinea” was added to the name in 1545 by a Spaniard, Ya igo Ortiz de Retez, because of a fancied resemblance between the islands’ inhabitants and those found on the African Guinea coast.
Although European navigators visited the islands and explored their coastlines for the next 170 years, little was known of the inhabitants by Europeans until the late 19th Century when Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai spent several years living among native tribes and described their way of life in a comprehensive treatise.
In 1883, the colony of Queensland purported to annex the southern half of eastern New Guinea.
A year later, on Nov 6, a British protectorate was proclaimed over the southern coast of New Guinea and its adjacent islands.
The protectorate, called British New Guinea, was annexed outright on Sept 4, 1888 and four years later, placed under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Following the passage of the Papua Act, 1905, British New Guinea became the Territory of Papua, and formal Australian administration began in 1906, although Papua remained legally a British possession until the independence of Papua New Guinea in 1975.
Papua was administered under the Papua Act until it was invaded by Japan in 1941, and civil administration suspended.
During the Pacific War, Papua was governed by an Australian military administration from Port Moresby, where Gen Douglas MacArthur (Douglas Street in downtown Port Moresby was named after him) occasionally made his headquarters.
With Europe’s growing desire for coconut oil, Godeffroy’s of Hamburg, the largest trading firm in the Pacific, began trading for copra in the New Guinea islands.
In 1884, the German empire formally took possession of the northeast quarter of the island and put its administration in the hands of a chartered trading company formed for the purpose, the Neu Guinea Kompanie. In the charter granted to this company by the German imperial government in May of 1885, it was given the power to exercise sovereign rights over the territory and other “unoccupied” lands in the name of the government, and the ability to “negotiate” directly with the native inhabitants.
Relationships with foreign powers were retained as the preserve of the German government.
The Neu Guinea Kompanie paid for the local governmental institutions directly, in return for the concessions, which had been awarded to it.
In 1899, the German imperial government assumed direct control of the territory, thereafter known as German New Guinea.
In 1914, Australian troops occupied German New Guinea, and it remained under Australian military control through World War One, until 1921.
The Commonwealth of Australia assumed a mandate from the League of Nations for governing the former German territory of New Guinea in 1920. It was administered under this mandate until the Japanese invasion in December 1941 brought about the suspension of Australian civil administration.
Much of the Territory of New Guinea, including the islands of Bougainville and New Britain, was occupied by Japanese forces until recaptured.
Following the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, civil administration of Papua as well as New Guinea was restored, and under the Papua New Guinea Act (1945-46), Papua and New Guinea were combined in an administrative union.
The Papua and New Guinea Act of 1949 formally approved the placing of New Guinea under the international trusteeship system and confirmed the administrative union of New Guinea and Papua under the title of The Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
The Act provided for a Legislative Council (established in 1951), a judicial organisation, a public service and a system of local government.
A House of Assembly replaced the Legislative Council in 1963, and the first House of Assembly opened on June 8, 1964.
In 1972, the name of the territory was changed to Papua New Guinea.
Elections in 1972 resulted in the formation of a ministry headed by Chief Minister Michael Somare, who pledged to lead the country to self-government and then to independence.
Papua New Guinea became self-governing on Dec 1, 1973 and attained independence on Sept 16, 1975.
The 1977 national elections confirmed Somare as Prime Minister at the head of a coalition led by the Pangu Party.
In 1980, his government lost a vote of no-confidence and was replaced by a new cabinet headed by Sir Julius Chan as Prime Minister.
The 1982 elections increased Pangu’s plurality, and Parliament again chose Somare as Prime Minister.
In November 1985, the Somare government lost another vote of no-confidence, and the parliamentary majority elected Paias Wingti, head of a five-party coalition, as Prime Minister.
A coalition headed by Wingti was victorious in very close elections in July 1987 but a year later, was also toppled by a no-confidence vote led by Rabbie Namaliu, who a few weeks earlier had replaced Somare as leader of the Pangu Party.
Such reversals of fortune and a revolving-door succession of prime ministers continue to characterise Papua New Guinea’s national politics.
A plethora of political parties, coalition governments, shifting party loyalties and motions of no-confidence in the leadership all lend an air of instability to political proceedings until Sir Mekere Morauta’s government legislated several laws aimed at enhancing stability.
Sir Michael Somare’s government, whose term expires in July next year, foiled some attempts at a no-confidence vote.
His government would be the first to serve a full five-year term.

By JACOK SEKEWA

The National 09-16-06