The Plight of my people - the Motu-Koitabuan

Why is a Motu-Koitabuan regarded in PNG as a lazy, good-for-nothing, timid person, who cannot even live properly in his own surrounding?

Why has all the social ills known in the modern world - hunger, poverty, malnutritition, alcoholism, prostitution, pimping, drugs, disease, tao-tore, and the list goes on -found and rife in our villages? Why is a family now nursing a 16-year old patient living with HIV? Why are we living in filth? Simply, what have we done to deserve this? Is the Good Lord punishing us for not living according to His wishes? Mind you, we did recieve the first LMS missionary, didnt we?

All these questions, and many more are going through the minds of all concerned citizens. This morning, on Kalang, Chairman of the Motu-Koitabu Assemby (MKA), Hon Miria Ikupu raised his concerns against the NCDC for not supporting the MKA with funds besides the K10 million allocated to the MKA by the Government. His plight is this: he needs these assistance to answer the questions raised above.

The Motu-Koitabuan villages are situated within and on the fringes of the city gates. All have lost their fishing and hunting grounds and gardening land. Unemployment is rife. For instance, in Hanuabada alone, there is a 95% unemployment rate. 70% of these are youths and teenagers and most have turned to crime for support. Seeing young girls, some as young as 15, stepping out off high ranged, tinted cars, during the day loaded down with plastics of food for the family is now a normal part of life in these villages as their parents shamefully pretend to look elsewhere if only in order to have a good feed. Some of these girls are even escorted to "work" by their relatives (mothers???). While the girls earn money this way, their "brothers" line the main streets of this most famous (because of hosting the first LMS missionary, the raising of the taubada's flag on Metoreia Hill, and the Hanuabada Hawks RFLC) and infamous (because of the above ills) village in PNG to sell "steam" and the spak-burus to clients, who also come from as faraway as the outlaying surburbs of NCD. This is a rot that is killing the very fabric our ancestors set for us.

The simple question is this: How can we help ourselves out of this murk? Those with the correct papers and birthrights have already shifted residence overseas. They are safe from these problems.

Remember also that beneath our "neses" lie millions of potential virus and microbes which, in the not-too-distant future, can turn themselves into diseases which can result in an outbreak of epidemic the size, which could kill thousands of residence in the city. It doesnt end there, rising sea levels can only mean one thing - that in the future, there will be no more "neses" to build houses on as the sea level will prohibit this. Where then, will these people move to? Inland? ok, inland, but to what land? None of them own any land inland? This is another problem in itself and will cost the Government Billions of kina. Try asking the Madang provincial government.

As you read this, remember that there are families in these villages who have woken up today to a very cold kitchen. Most will come out to the main street and await opportunities, others will go to visit relatives in the other parts of the village, if only, to drink a cup of tea to warm their grumbling bellies, while others will just sit outside their varendahs and dream. There are no gardens to go to because all gardening lands have either been sold off to investors or have other enterprising Papua New Guineans squatting on them; there are no fishing expeditions to go to because the price of zoom soars beyond their dreams, and yes, there are not even canoes to paddle out to sea with because all they have been chopped up for firewood.

Why and how have we come to deserve this?

May God Almighty, bless the Motu-Koitabu villages and hear our humble prayers for deliverance from all these, Amen.


LA