The "Introduction" of "The PNG APEC Story: With a prayer and a plan" (Coming soon)

 

Honiara, Solomon Islands, July 2012.  I led the PNG delegation to one of the FFA meetings in my capacity as the Acting Director-General, Economic Development Cooperation Division, of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.  It was another stifling day in the equatorial heat of the Pacific islands.  However, atop the hill, overlooking the sprawling urban centre of the Solomon Islands, I was seated amidst technical experts from the Forum Island countries in a meeting that was as informal as could be in the Pacific.  The main topic of discussion: fish, and the particular type of fish: Tuna.  I thought that the idyllic setting of this Pacific island paradise would provide me the perfect launch-pad to determine the next course of my life’s journey. 

 

What I got myself into, by the grace of God.

People often ask me when it was that I made up my mind to go up against the grain, to do something that was seen as outright impossible to achieve.  Well, there was no exact moment, but the impending return from diplomatic posting of some very senior officers, and the plight of my vision-impaired little son, which became my foremost priority from the very moment he was diagnosed with this disability, pushed me in the opposite direction.  The fact that two very senior officers from the Department of PMNEC, with the concurrence of the Chief Secretary, had gone all the way to the very top to obtain the Prime Minister’s blessings to appoint me as the head of the soon-to-be-formed PNG APEC secretariat, was also not lost upon me.  I saw this as a vote of confidence from qualified persons outside the safety zone of the PNG Foreign Service machinery.

 

In Honiara, the uppermost thing on my mind was the fact that I wanted to soar on my own, and fly in the direction I wanted.  To stay on in a somewhat very conservative government organization, still determined on living in its past glories, was not my intention.  After all, I, and others like me, had had no part in those achievements.  I also sensed the determination in my ever-cautious superior officers not to muddy the clear waters they enjoyed splashing about in (or maybe they saw me as unqualified to handle such a highly sensitive, and very high profile, national foreign policy undertaking, which they themselves had already qualified as impossibly unattainable).  I returned from Honiara that day, ready to pack up and move up the road to the seemingly hallowed grounds of Morauta House.

 

So, exactly two days after my return from Honiara, I left DFA, quietly and without any fanfare, after a solid nineteen years, and five months of dedicated service, which included a very enriching diplomatic posting in the Middle Kingdom.   One member of the Senior Management team made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade my intentions, assuring me that another diplomatic posting in the very near future would guarantee solutions to my ongoing work and family concerns.  I respectfully declined his offer, but thanked him nevertheless, for his consideration.  I needed to do this, I told him.  He smiled and wished me luck.

 

It was pure instinct, and the ever-present hand of the almighty God, that drove me out of this safety zone, into the unknown world of strategic management and planning, and high-end multilateral diplomacy.  This was combined with my determination to make something different out of the scenario, and foregone conclusion, which my highly experienced and decorated Foreign Service colleagues were already singing into my inexperienced ears; because it was me, and not them, who was continuously on the receiving end of the “free-riding” intimations.

 

I do not regard myself as overly ambitious.  I know that people would say that I must be, otherwise I would have not commanded Papua New Guinea’s frontline onslaught in the APEC 2018 policy configuration, as its APEC Senior Official.  I don’t believe I am ambitious in a selfish sense.  If I had been, I would have been cautious, and would not have risked my whole career as a budding Foreign Service Officer, just to go barking up a very high and wrong tree.  I was already into my first forages in the middle management of the PNG Foreign Service.  Some would say I had the world by the fingertips.  The last time I looked at my fingertips, they were full of grime, and dust, from the toil, and drudgery, of labouring in an organization, that had no strategic intention in the world.

 

We had been branded “free-riders” in the APEC process.  I was determined to change that perspective.  But was I so confident that I was going to pull off this mammoth task of hosting APEC in the near future?  I certainly was not.  The pecking order above me decreed that I go up the ladder, step by step, to bring this idea into fruition.  Fortunately for me, there were already those, high above, outside this perking order, and unbeknown to me, for whatever their reasons, who supported, and ensured this idea to go ahead.

 

I also knew for sure, that God had my back; and that if He was exposing me out there against this seemingly impossible task, He had a reason.  Who was I, a mere human, to doubt His blessing and directions in my life?  Of course, my actions were not a complete gamble, but I knew it was a very risky undertaking after been employed in this one organization straight out of school.  Some of my mates in the Foreign Service, upon hearing about my move, looked at me as if I was going to the moon.

 

It was all unknown territory for me from here on.  Daera and I had discussed this and she had encouraged me to take on this challenge.  This was after we had expended whatever little savings we had put away for the kids’ school fees after we returned from China, so that I could enrol myself in the UPNG pilot Masters in Strategic Management program that had come on stream in 2009. 

Daera and I at the SOM3 welcome reception held at the Helifix Hanger, Jackson's International Airport in August, 2018.  Daera was attending her first-ever APEC SOM engagement.

So, I embarked on it because hers was the only earthly support I required.  I also remembered thinking, “If this doesn’t go well for me, bugger it, I can leave the public service and go look for something under the sun, because God wills it!”

 

I fronted up at Morauta Haus that morning in August, 2012, and was granted an immediate private audience with the Chief Secretary, the venerable (late) Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc.  We connected immediately after he found out I had grown up at the Defence academy in Lae, in the Morobe province.  The Chief himself was from the Finschaffen district of the same province. 

 

The first thing he asked me that day, in fluent pidgin, after welcoming me to the Department, was, “Ako, can we really do this?” 

I looked him straight in the eyes and responded fluently, in the same vernacular, “If God wills it, it is nothing, Sir. It is already a done deal.  We just have to go through the challenges to reach it!”

“Good”, he concurred, a hint of smile on his face, most probably amused at the fluency of the Pidgin been uttered by this Hanuabadan.  The Chief himself came from missionary stock as well; his parents being Lutheran missionaries.  “Do we have a plan?” He continued in Pidgin.

“Yes, Sir, we do.  We have a 1,077-page Operations Plan.” I nodded confidently back.  “I wrote it back in 2011 out of boredom,” I smiled at him, shyly.

“Ok.  Great!  Get to it then and make it happen for the eight million Papua New Guineans.”

I had passed his impromptu language proficiency test.

 

Chief Secretary, Sir Manasupe Zurenuoc, passed away sadly, on 6 March, 2017, due to ill health.  On the evening of that particular historically significant Sunday, 18 November, 2018, as I drove home from Era Kone, APEC PNG 2018, all done and dusted, and now a memory, my thoughts went back to this majestic, and humble man, and I shed a few tears in his memory, in the quietness of the car, looking out over the horizon at the setting sun in the Fairfax harbour.  He had allowed me free rein in the implementation of my Operations Plan.  This very action had laid the foundation of success in the policy area that followed soon after.  APEC’s policy process, guides its hosting year.  Logistics, and security arrangement, are a very small, but equally crucial part, of this process.  But both are irrelevant without the policy process.

 

APEC 2018 was the pinnacle of my career in the public service.  Being of the restless kind, I started looking for other mountains to climb and conquer when General George Custer’s quote directly in mind: “You ask me if I will not be glad when the last battle is fought, as the country is concern, I, of course, must wish for peace, and will be glad when the war is ended; but if I answer for myself, I must say that I shall regret to see the war end.”  From this vintage point, it laid the foundations with the appropriate tools upon which I would build another family-enriching career in the private sector. 

 

I’d taken a big gamble, based on my steadfast trust and belief in God, and got away with it.  As Stephen E. Ambrose (1990) said, “Someone had to give the bureaucracies directions; someone had to be able to call in all the information they gathered; make sense out of it, and impose order on it; someone had to make certain that each part meshed into the whole; someone had to decide; someone had to take responsibility and act . . .” I unwittingly, became that someone.

 

Me and Dr Alan Bollard, then Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat in Singapore.

Looking back, APEC 2018 was Papua New Guinea’s finest hour in the foreign policy dominion; and I was sitting in that plane as First Officer, and Ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, the captain.  Yes, towards the end, it was indeed, ambitious to think that little PNG could referee the US and the Chinese, in their trade war, by “the rules” of the APEC game.  We found out the hard way that year, and to the ordinary eyes of the world, lost. 

 

After the successful completion of the 24th MRT. From left, Fredrik Tamarua (DJAG), Rensi Panda (Climate Change Authority), Richard Yakam (National Trade Office), me, and Eileen Aitsi (PNG APEC Secretariat)

However, my God is such an awesome God; He doesn’t forsake those who call upon Him for help, nor, those whom He has earmarked to carry out activities He Himself has ordained for success.  As such, my triumph would come the following year where, exactly 78 years to the day, when little yellow men from the Land of the Rising sun surprised the might of the US at Pearl, so too would little black men from the Land of the Unexpected, surprise and hold the seven developed, and thirteen developing member economies of APEC, to account, if only to safeguard and maintain the integrity and honesty of the APEC process, and thereby, bring its APEC 2018 host year to a fruitful close - all these to the rousing applause of the ancestors whose pride had been dented during that melee on Sunday, 18 November, 2018, and most of all to the nameless ones of Oakley, whose hopes I carried that fateful Saturday afternoon at the Heng Mui Keng Terrace.

 

I have always enjoyed risk taking, especially in the sense of thinking on my feet, and having to trust my God-given instincts under pressure.  For this, I have never for once, stopped thanking the God of hosts, for endowing me with the knowledge of thinking out and processing problems, and coming up with handful of solutions, as well as the practicability of planning out the activities towards achieving these objectives.  My cup has never stopped overflowing in this regard.  That was, and continues to be, the only blessing I have, and will continue to crave from my God, the Master Strategist, Planner, and Project manager, and in the same token, share and pass on to those willing to accept my free offering of advice and help.

 

Taking the plunge and chairing a meeting during our host year.  This is me chairing the Friends of the Chair on Urbanization.  Ms Marie Eorage-Vele (PNG APEC Secretariat) is the Chair's Assistant.  Seated behind us is Mr James Topo, from MRA.

I believe that my past years of coaching, and managing rugby teams (both codes), be it at the village, or premier grade levels, had prepared me well with the appropriate organisational ability, energy, competitiveness, enthusiasm, and optimism, in addition to the willingness to work hard at a task that was similarly intriguing and fascinating.  I’d like to think that the added bonus to this challenge was the fact that it brought out the best in all members of the teams I led, to work with the materials we had, instead of hoping for what we didn’t have.

 

I have also taken pride in telling it as it is, however unpalatable.  In my role as the Director-General of the PNGAS, and during most instances as the PNG APEC Senior Official for our 2018 host year, this trait sometimes caused tensions with the members of the CAPI, at our regular briefing sessions.  I saw it as my duty to bring in straggling agencies and departments, who were not rowing hard enough, or were just there hoping for others to row for them during the ride, to row together as a team, for Team PNG.  My Game Plan had to be implemented according to its intended purpose, simply because the 8 million people of this great nation of ours deserved it and therefore, relied on its successful implementation, period.  It was not my intention to allow this “ship to sink” just because some of the rowers, who could powerfully row on any given day, had suddenly became lazy.  Fortunately, Ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, that complete epitome of a diplomat, and Chair of the CAPI, always righted these ill-feelings for overall team harmony.

 

Amb. Ivan Pomaleu, OBE, Secretary, Department of Prime Minister & NEC, during the CAPI hand-over, take-over ceremony at the PNG APEC Secretariat, Oakley House, on Wednesday, 14  January, 2021, a few days before my departure from the Public Service.

Ambassador Matt Matthews, the US APEC Senior Official, during his farewell speech at the end of SOM1 in Santiago, Chile, summed up Ambassador Pomaleu’s character very well, when he said, “. . . I can’t imagine how a man who modelled dignity, compassion, and considerateness, better than Ivan . . .” Rightly so, too.  (Ambassador Matthews sadly passed away on Thursday, 21 May, 2020).   

 

Of course, much of the credit of our successful policy undertaking for APEC 2018 lies in the guiding hands of the majestic Ambassador Ivan Pomaleu, who, as SOM Chair of APEC 2018, steered the seven developed, and thirteen developing member economies of APEC, along the intended pathway of our overall theme and policy priorities.  Ambassador Pomaleu was a God-send to the team.  I was happily satisfied to be his battlefield commander.  I also had four courageous lieutenants, all tried and proven in the five years leading up to APEC 2018, who led the three main policy thrusts, composing of teams of hard-hitting officers from right across the public service spectrum whom they had helped me carefully select, and later trained, for this adventure.  Of these, the quietly spoken Rob was the only one I “poached” from another Department, with the full blessing of the Chief.  Ours was a fully competent organization.

 

While this book talks about my coming of age, it is also about those unsung heroes and nameless warriors who ran in the CAPI.  It is about the steadfastness of the young members of the PNGAS, who successfully reined in all the agencies and departments, all zealously guarding their fiefs, under one single objective: to ensure that Papua New Guinea’s policy obligations in APEC bear fruits. 

 

This is also the story about how I fought my way through the quagmire of sometimes outright insults, by certain very senior members of the PNG Foreign Service, and triumphed; about how they thought I was “stepping on their toes” when I advanced Papua New Guinea’s foreign policy aspirations through APEC’s multilateral terrains.  Finally, this story is about how those tasked with managing our foreign policy aspirations, completely missed Papua New Guinea’s biggest ever foreign policy exercise, big time, despite it been conducted right under their very noses, all because, they spent a good deal of their time, trying to second and or outguess my every moves, and to get rid of me from my role as head of the PNG APEC Secretariat, without evening trying to carry out their own tasks, and or to work with me to support this national aspiration.

 

I waged vociferous running battles with certain members of the CAPI, who were determined to advance their claim on the fact that any foreign policy initiative laid in their domain; and rightly so too.  On two occasions, they tried to muzzle me at the highest level, without success; and all throughout the duration of our preparatory years, right up to the end of our APEC hosting, I kept a detailed daily journal, which now forms the bulk of this book.  If only they had countered my policy proposals with alternative policy initiatives, of which I knew they had a very good many, APEC 2018 would have been conducted from its traditional abode.  Of the 139 policy papers: initiatives, presentations, proposals, and reports, contributed by PNG as part of its overall policy engagements during its APEC host year, none sadly came from this particular government organization.

 

In my role as the Director-General of the PNGAS, and later, as the 2018 PNG APEC Senior official, I was privileged to have accompanied the Foreign Minister to all his bilateral engagements on the margins of the MRT, and AMM, between 2013 to 2017, and barring AELM 2017, and 2018, was an integral part of Prime Minister O’Neill’s bilateral engagements in all the other years, except in Lima, Peru in 2016, where I was the PNG Liaison Officer for his delegation.  I was not part of the Foreign Minister’s bilateral team in 2018 simply because I was “honoured” by Ambassador Pomaleu to sit up front with the Chair as the Chair’s Assistant.  This I did during the MRT and AMM, which were chaired by the Foreign Minister.

 

As Chair's Assistant during the 24th MRT.  From far left: Dr Alan Bollard, Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat based in Singapore, Ms Jacinta Warakai-Manua (Chair's Assistant, DFAT), myself, and Amb. Ivan Pomaleu, SOM Chair.

Then in November, 2018, on home soil, Ambassador Pomaleu assigned me as Prime Minister O’Neill’s designated “runner”; and I “ran” for PNG, tirelessly, for the duration of the AELM that day; from one APEC Foreign Minister, to the other, with the full blessing of my Prime Minister, seeking consensus and general agreement on paragraphs 9, 16, and 17, of the 29-paragraph APEC Leaders’ Era Kone Declaration.  The trade blowout between the US and China didn’t help.  But I persisted.  While the US eventually agreed to support the consensus, China didn’t budge.  In the end, Prime Minister O’Neill had no choice but to omit those three differing paragraphs from the overall text, and release the Chair’s Era Kone Statement.  Still, a Declaration, without the erring paragraphs would have been another great option, too. 

 

Amb. Ivan Pomaleu, OBE, and I, minutes before the commencement of the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting at the APEC Rumana on that fateful Sunday, 18 November, 2018.

But God willed it that way that day.  Because He still had an answer to the prayers of His servants; and the ways of our almighty God remains mysterious to us mere mortals, for all eternity.  Because none of these economies ever foresaw what would eventuate a year later in December, 2019.  If PNG had been allowed a Declaration on 18 November, 2018, PNG would have joined the consensus and allowed this precedence to continue.  Then, what happened at the APEC Secretariat in Singapore that day in December, 2019 would not have happened. 

 

But my God saw it differently.  My God saw the rivers of tears that flowed out of Oakley that fateful afternoon on Sunday, 18 November, 2018 - as the deadline came to pass and I reported to Ambassador Pomaleu, my voice breaking with emotion, that one particular economy continued to maintain its stance outside of the general consensus – and felt pity on us.  What came to pass that fateful day on Saturday, 7 December, 2019 was simply part of God’s overall plans in our respective lives.  Because we had committed APEC PNG 2018 into His hands years earlier, and on Sunday, 25 November, 2018, we gave thanks and celebrated its successful completion with a “Thanks giving Service” at the Poreporena Lahara United Church, atop Metoreia Hill, in Hanuabada village.

 

I have served during a fascinating period of Papua New Guinea’s history.  My career far exceeded the expectations that I held as a young, up and coming Foreign Service officer, who wanted to discover the eagle in him.  As the Director-General of the PNGAS, I had plied my trade from Russia (2012), to Indonesia (2013), then China (2014), the Philippines (2015), Peru (2016), and Vietnam (2017), before returning to the play in front of my own people in 2018.  I had been in the APEC circuit since 2008 through divine intervention, so had had the opportunity to observe how Singapore (2009), Japan (2010), and the US (2011) did their hosts in the lead up to the Russian year, where we got down to the serious business of giving thought to hosting.

 

Above: Budding Foreign Service Officer, Mr Jude Roa during the hand-over, Take-over CAPI meeting on Wednesday, 14 January, 2021.  Below: Jude was Liaison Officer to the PNG APEC Senior Official in 2018.  Here we pose for a picture with the security detail assigned to the PNG APEC Senior Official.

My late dad, retired Reverend Ray Lahui Ako of the United Church of PNG, and one of the first four indigenous chaplains of the PNGDF to take over the chaplaincy from the departing Australian army in 1975, had ongoing health issues in the years leading up to 2018.  In 2018, his health suddenly took a downward spiral as the prostate cancer commenced its final dreadful drive in his life.  But dad held out, his undying faith in his God the mainstay; he held on, with mum’s continuous urging, fearful of disturbing and spoiling the finale of what we, as a family, had been preparing and praying for, these past five year; he held on, with mum ever-present, by him.  Dad was my rock throughout the preparatory years.  His counsel while I fought my running battles were made of gold.  He led me from the back. 

 

On Sunday, 18 November, 2018, from 10 am onwards, as he and mum watched, live on TV, all that was happening at the APEC House, they both held a prayer vigil, when they learnt of the impasse, as I ran valiantly, back and forth, through the US tornado and Chinese typhoon.  When I returned home that night, and slowly walked up the stairs, full of emotions, into the waiting embraces of the womenfolk of my household, dad was resting.  But I knew he was aware of my presence and our collective triumph that day.

 

Dad passed away peacefully at home, in the early hours of Saturday, 8 December, 2018, twenty days after watching all our preparations come to successful fruition and seeing his prayers answered by God.  I was already enroute to Santiago, Chile, for the start of Chile’s APEC host year.  I turned around quickly, and returned, knowing that this particular chapter in my life was nearing its end, while another one got ready to be written. 

 

Exactly a year later, on Sunday, 8 December, 2019, right on the hour and day of his passing, and in the quietness of that Singaporean hotel, I sat down cross-legged on its carpeted floor as Motuan tradition decreed, and as befitting a dutiful Motu-Koitabuan son, began to properly mourn the passing of my father.  As I lamented his passing, I recounted to him what had transpired at the Heng Mui Keng Terrace the previous day, and of how, all that we both had worked hard for in upholding the family’s and tribe’s honour, and the national interest, had finally come to pass, as ordained by God almighty.  His calming presence filled the room that hour.

 

Then, after thoroughly cleansing the past from my being, I left for Langkawi, Malaysia, the very next day, prepared to commence the rebuilding process, and to determine the best possible and suitable pathway PNG could take in its endeavours to ensure that the benefits of the 2018 APEC Leaders’ Chair’s Era Kone Statement could be rolled out throughout the length and  breadth of my country.

 

But it has been all along, my belief in God almighty, who has blessed me richly with the courageous men and women of the PNGAS, the CAPI, the APEC 2018 SOM Chair’s Office, and my APEC colleagues around the APEC Region.  Lifelong friendships have been forged during this journey. 

 

In doing so, I also genuflect and pay homage to the following champions, who, as Papua New Guinea’s APEC Senior Officials in their respective times, right up to 2013, tried valiantly to steer this huge ship without the required and necessary support I enjoyed: Ambassador Max Rai, former PNG ambassador to China, whom I had the honor of serving under during my posting, H.E Veali Vagi, former Foreign Secretary, and Papua New Guinea’s High Commissioner to Malaysia; Mr Leonard Louma, former Acting Secretary for DFAT; H.E Peter Eafeare, former PNG High Commissioner to Fiji, and the Pacific Islands Forum; Mr Elias Wohengu and John Emilio, senior DFAT officials, Mr Frank Aisi, and Dr Henry Ivarature.  They all sat in that Chair and dreamt of what could be.  I only ran the final leg of the journey they had started ever since that day on Blake Island in 1993.  Mine was the shortest of all journeys, compared to what they had to endure.  Many were called, but only a few were chosen.  I remain indebted to you all for this humble experience.

To the Nameless warriors of Oakley House, it has been my humble privilege to have led you on this rollercoaster ride, where I reveled in the fun, laughter, and banter, and thoroughly enjoying our regular lunches at Oakley, where we sat down together, at the same table as a family, irrespective of rank, with you all looking up to me as your elder brother, and me looking at you all with nothing but pride in my heart.  I pay tribute to your overall sense of commitment to the main objective of our job, through thick and thin.  There can be no better feeling than to know that you all had my back, and I yours, during this ride.  This book is dedicated to you all.