The passing of a great leader

Normal, Weekender
Source:

The National, Monday 23rd January 2012

I  DROVE into the car park of the Shady Rest Motel at about 10am on Dec 28 last year for an appointment with an iconic figure of PNG.
I stepped out of the vehicle and gazed at the throng of people around to see if I could recognise a face that would resemble a younger version that I recalled from pictures of yesteryears.
There he was, I figured, sitting at ease beside the reception area. I walked up to the elderly person, not sure really, but thankfully his face broke into a big grin when our eyes met. ‘Yu orait yangpela?,’ he greeted me in Tok Pisin as he stretched out his hand for a firm hand shake. We made our way to a table just outside the restaurant where we ordered coffee.
Such was my meeting with perhaps Asaro’s most famous son: Sir Sinake Giregire. As fate would have it, this was to be my first and last meeting with Giregire. It was his last interview too. He passed away a week later, on Jan 4, aged about 75.
I wanted to talk to Giregire for two reasons – firstly, I have always been fascinated by accounts of people who played a role in laying the foundation of PNG. No level of education, or ounce of sophistication, could ever replace the wisdom, vision and commitment of such individuals.
That is why, for me, it is a sacrilege when the pillars of the state are disrespected. Secondly, I was assigned to rearrange the platform for the PNG Country Party in preparations for the 2012 national elections as part of a project at the National Research Institute. Out of personal interest, I wanted to meet the man behind the party’s ideas. Giregire founded the party in 1974, a splinter group that left the United Party.
Listening to Giregire’s life story was like looking through a colourful prism. The different stages of his life, from education to adulthood, depicted a chapter in his life which corresponded with an epoch in PNG’s history. While many of us remember him as among the country’s pioneer politicians with the likes of Sir Pita Lus, Sir Michael Somare and the late Sir Albert Maori Kiki. Giregire was relatively young and a businessman at the time he entered the House of Assembly in 1964 as the elected Member for Daulo/Goroka/Unggai-Bena – now three distinct electorates.
Giregire hailed from Gimisave No.1 village, nestled at the base of Asaro valley in the Eastern Highland.
His education commenced just after World War II at the Asaroka Lutheran Mission School where he did Years 1 – 6. Later he transferred to Finschhafen where he attended the Heldsbach Secondary School for three years. Malaria however curtailed his schooling in the Morobe province and returned home to Asaroka.
Living outside his province allowed the young man to be acquainted with business ideas. Giregire saw a lot of potential in agriculture in particular, a factor that was to be the bedrock of his political vision years ahead. The development of the agricultural sector became synonymous with rural development and particularly for PNG Country Party.
Initially, Giregire started by working as a mechanic in Goroka before moving to the Aiyura valley where he became an agricultural assistant.
With some assistance from an expatriate brother in-law, Giregire started his own business venture. He first set up a pit sawmill operation in Kainantu before tapping into alluvial gold mining, hence establishing a prospective gold mine operation in Yonki. Around 1958, while still in his 20s, Giregire acquired 40 acres of land back in Asaroka where he planted coffee. It was the biggest indigenous-owned plantation of the time. He also planted vegetable crops. During the course of hiring locals, Giregire also benefitted from free clan labour. His business success further allowed him to have a trucking business and a trade store that he operated out of the Asaro government station by the early 1960s.
Giregire’s business acumen could no longer be ignored. With other indigene planters, they made headways in the late 1950s when they became full members of the hitherto all-expatriate Highlands Farmers and Settlers Association. This opened the door for Giregire to encourage local farmers to get more involved in the agricultural sector. He made immense contributions in many ways – one of them being his efforts to organise local people to purchase land from expatriates and use them for agricultural and plantation purposes.
He also used his sizeable agricultural estate to provide coffee seedlings to local farmers.
On the side of politics, the 1950s started with developments that were to forever change PNG’s political landscape.
The Legislative Council, established in 1951, was the first national legislature of PNG. Over the years that followed village councils were formed around the country. Among them was the Asaro Watabung Local Government Council, of which Giregire was elected president in 1958. This marked his entry into politics.
Meanwhile, the international community and especially the UN Trusteeship Council – was urging Australia to prepare its territories of Papua and New Guinea for independence. Giregire successfully contested the first national elections in 1964.
He was then appointed the assistant administrator for the Highlands region, one of four regions of that time. Like many of his colleagues who entered the House of Assembly with him, Giregire was forced to think on his feet as he absorbed the decisive issues at the national level. Paramount was how to reconcile the political aspirations of the two territories.
Giregire wanted a united Papua and New Guinea. He recalled how he personally went out of his way to appeal directly to certain Papuan members who wanted a separate political status.
He was also a member of the embryonic legislative group during the 1964 – 1968 legislative term that convened the early discussions of a national constitution.
He was a friend and colleague to his expatriate colleagues both in the House of Assembly and in the business community, but he never fully trusted them. He would always side with nationals whom he feared were vulnerable to manipulation.
Giregire’s view of independence was aligned with his fellow Highlands Assembly Members. The Highlands bloc that time wanted a deferral of independence for the country until their region reached a degree of development parity with coastal areas. This view was further crystallised after the 1968 elections through what was called the Compass Group (short for Combined Political Associations).