Dear Betha,

I have great respect and a supporter of your father, Michael Somare over the years since my childhood. He has contributed hugely to the development of Papua New Guinea and believes that our Chief, Michael Somare loves PNG and want to see the best for PNG in the next 35 years.

But the Parliament taking away the basic right of the people and without proper debate over the Environment Act in Parliament is an insult to us, Papua New Guineans and making a mockery of Papua New Guinea internationally. There needs to be sufficient time given for debate even for the “Moses Maladina" amendments to the Ombudsman Commission. Ideas have consequences and it will have long term impact if we take away the basic rights of people. I am afraid that Papua New Guineans will take the law in their own hands if the laws that our Parliament pass is not there to protect them.

I wish your father all the best in the next few years as the PM and I hope to see him finish well.

Rob

Dear Bertha;

My name is Terry and I run a blog, www.pngblogs.com we write on issues and challenges facing Papua New Guinea. We write and post items/articles to expose corruption at all levels both government and corporate and discuss issues facing Papua New Guinea in the areas of Development, Climate Change, Crime and Good Governance.

I am very disappointed in the manner if I may say the trend your boss or dad has taken. I don’t know what planet you have come from but this is Papua New Guinea, you should know people cherish their land, it's sacred and it's something worth more than what money can buy.

If you are looking for a way out of Politics and need money, please say so that you can go out on a golden handshake, we are tired of you ruining this country, you do not own us, you are not our God, we do not answer to you or your stupid political party, you have shown us who you really are by ruining this country, you are protecting thieves, protect men who have stolen from this country, you have a stupid speaker who is a dumb nut controlling the House which is not allowing healthy debates, these very people are advising you, these thieves like Dr.Sause, Pruaitch, Lupari in the months ahead, you will not be in a comfortable zone,

I don’t know if you are a migrant from China or Singapore, because you are so much interested in the affairs of Asians in PNG then those of Papua New Guinea. Why do you go out to protect their interest ahead of the interest of Papua New Guinea? Why do we turn a blind eye on our identity for money? We need to start living within our means. The more we think about what we can get from our resources, we will be left with nothing, we will have a future where our children and our children’s children with be heartless over our choices.

In recent weeks we have seen the total annihilation of our State, Papua New Guineans are not mindful of the big picture, we have been blinded by a few incidence that has blinded our eyes from seeing the daylight robbery that is going on. We now know that Government Ministers including people very close to you were involved in the cover-up of the swindling of Millions of Kina from a HSBC Bank in Singapore, proceeds of which were revenue generated from interest from Log Exports from Papua New Guinea. Patrick Pruaitch then Forest Minister and now Minister for Finance and Treasury and a co-sponsor of alleged crime kingpin William Kapris knew the heat he was facing when revelations were leaked months leading up to the BSP Robberies, it was prime news back then but after the bank robberies hit the local news stand, attention has been taken away from that, also in the cards then Senior NA stalwart Timothy Bonga with some other MPs and now Member, was involved in a scam with members of the Taiwanese government in swindling millions of dollars from this Chinese province.

The media reported that we have had 9 years of growth, I hope it is reflected by the state of our National Infrastructures like our National Highways, the Highlands Highway in particular has seen more deaths in a year than its entire lifespan. I say the bloods of these people are in the hands of the current NA government, they had the responsibility to fix something like a simple pot-hole and yet they can’t afford to do so, why? Because money placed for the Highway road maintenance is being diverted to special consultants, I call them special interest groups who act as “go to” people in Waigani. Growth has to have a trickledown effect, is it affordable? You answer it yourself,

I don’t think you are serving the best interest of PNG; you are in there at a very opportune time, collecting all the money coming in from the proceeds of Gas, Gold and Oil.

Shame on you, if you have some decency left, recall Parliament and restore the Environment Act.

Dear Prime Minister,

The passing of the amendments to the PNG Environment Act earlier this week just goes to show how the powerful mining lobby can shape a supposedly sovereign country's future.

Perhaps the wisdom of a Native American chief known as Chief Seattle who had long gone can offer some insight and provoke some thoughts to us. Here is an account of his speech written by a bilingual white writer Dr Smith:

"I hope are indeed Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds.

My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons.

The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind- ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians, will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. He in reality he will be our father and we his children.

But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land.

Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children.

We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget.

The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return.

Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours.

But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.

Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits.

And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone."

I sincerely hope that PNG will one day (before it is too late like most other places) DO learn from the mistakes of other countries and stand up to be a brave and different nation that values what matters to your people and your soul....

All the best!

Hey Michael Somare,

Stop wasting the people and PNG's time by staying in the job which you do not know much about. You have now made a total mess of it so give it to your deputy, Puka Temu to run PNG now.

Please resign or step down now before the people take away your power which you have abused since coming into office in 2002.

Vagi Nalika

Dear Readers,

Please do not waste your time writing to Bertha. Who is Berth? She has no more idea about what is going on than her father or brother so let throw them out of the office now so PNG's sake.

Vagi Nalika