Hulis ashamed by hijacking of coffin

Letters, Normal
Source:

The National, Tuesday, June 7th 2011

THE current saga and tug-of-war over the body of late Chief Himuni Homogo of the Tuguba tribe in the Hela region of SHP is unHuli-like and brings a lot of shame to the silent majority of the Huli people and Hela as a whole.
It is not our culture to use a dead body as a bargaining tool and such act has never been practised in our society. 
Hijacking the coffin at the Jackson Airport, after a tug-of-war in an attempt to extort more money from the government and to pursue certain self-interests is the work of desperate people.
They should not call themselves leaders as they have made the rest of us Hulis look like idiots in the eyes of PNG and rest of the world.
There are other avenues to pursue their demand but they see this as a golden opportunity to fasttrack their personal issues.
Sadly, most of them are highly-educated individuals but acting like idiots.
With great respect to the families of the late Homogo, the government has already made a contribution of K500,000 with a further pledge of K1 million.
That’s K1.5 million for one dead body.
Look at the country’s great leaders and statesmen like the late Sir Joseph Nombri, late Bernard Narokobi and late Sir Alkan Tololo, founders of our country’s constitution.
They were the very reason why we are living in a country and where the above despicable act should not be tolerated.
They were given simple burials in line with their respective customary obligations at very little or no cost at all to the taxpayers.
The Chimbus did not threaten the government for more funeral expense money with ridiculous ultimatums, the Sepiks did not use the occasion to amend an act of parliament to satisfy an individual and the Tolais did not parade the body around the city.
The government must not set a precedence here.
This bunch of idiots holding the government to ransom must be arrested and locked up, so we Hulis can restore some lost pride.
Enough is enough.

Alitag
Via email