Patrick Matbob
On January 25, 1948, a teenage Manus islander, Pondranei, visited the American army base near his village at Lugos to barter some pineapples for cigarettes.

His customers were a contingent of Chinese and American army workers living at the base. However, things turned nasty for the young boy when four Chinese workers accused him of stealing cigarette.

They grabbed him and tied his hands on to the rafters of one of the military Quonset huts and beat him until he lost consciousness.

This form of punishment, cruel as it was, was not uncommon in the colonial days and could have gone unnoticed had it not been treated differently.

However, the Australian District Officer on Manus was determined to enforce the law and started investigating the incident with the aim of bringing to justice the perpetrators.

His actions however, sparked a long legal, political and cultural drama that pitted the governments of Australia, United States and China against each other.

Pondranei’s case is one of four featured in a book titled Day of Reckoning by Lachlan Strahan published last year.

Three of the four cases happened in the then territory of Papua and New Guinea while the fourth happened in Dutch New Guinea (West Papua).

Pondranei’s case was complicated by the fact that the Chinese who had beaten him up were labourers employed by the Chinese army.

They were on Manus under the Shanghai Agreement signed in 1946 between the United States and China which allowed China to buy United States army’s surplus property.

Manus, in October 1944, was built by the American Army into one of the world’s greatest naval bases as a launch-pad for MacArthur’s reconquest of the Philippines.

However, four years later, the US army had moved on and the United Nations had placed PNG under the trusteeship of Australia.

On Manus though, Australia’s control was still not clearly visible and was enforced by four overworked Government officers and their 10 native policemen at Inrim plantation.

At around the same time, another crime was committed in Lae. This time, several Filipino scouts who were members of the US Army and deployed in Lae as part of a US War Graves Registration unit were involved in a scuffle with a group of Australians.

Lae, then a ‘hard-drinking, hard-playing frontier town’, was celebrating the New Year at the old Hotel Cecil and the Filipino scouts had tried to gain entry to the party.

However, the colonial racial rule in the territory did not allow the local people, and those of other races to mix with the white race and that led to the Filipinos being unceremoniously ejected from the party.

During the scuffle that followed, an Australian miner from the goldfields was injured and died later from complications arising from the injury.

The Australian government officials in Lae tried to investigate the case, and punish the culprit—believed to be one of the Filipinos–however, the case became complicated by the nationalities and jurisdiction involved.

While it was clear to the Australians that they had the authority to investigate and punish the offender, the Americans believed otherwise.

They argued that the Filipino scouts were members of the American army and were subject to the American military court.

The author had picked these seemingly isolated incidents and woven them into an intriguing tale showing how the cases actually affected each other.

The same Australian judicial and administrative officials were involved in three of the four cases covered and the account provides an insight into how their decisions were influenced by a host of events beyond their control.

Race relationship between Papua New Guineans and their colonising power Australia, as well as Americans and Asians were also at stake here.

Of the case in Lae, the author wrote: “Scott’s death triggered a protracted legal and political imbroglio, which dragged in the members of three ethnic groups—Australians, Filipinos and Americans—and generated considerable tensions between Canberra, Manila and Washington.

“This messy drama was played out before the local Melanesian and Chinese communities.”

While the Australians were trying to enforce their control in the territory over foreign wrongdoers, how did they deal with their own?

Lachlan also answers this question in one of the cases involving two Australian government patrol officers—kiaps—and the local people in the Markham Valley.

The kiaps abused their powers when, in their capacity as officers of the court, ordered some accused local people appearing before them to be indecently assaulted and to have sex in public.

The dark deeds of the kiaps shocked the administration and raised serious questions about the enormous powers given to kiaps and the quality of men tasked with the responsibilities.

The Australian authorities had to deal with their own in such a way that showed no bias.

Yet they did not find it easy to apply the same law on the foreigners accused of committing crimes in the territory and were continuously frustrated by interference from foreign governments.

The Day of Reckoning is a story of historical interest where the past is brought to life in such vivid and powerful narrative and skillfully explores the complexities of international relations. It weaves together scenes of tough diplomatic negotiations, courtroom sessions, and cultural misapprehensions that make for interesting reading.

Many of the characters involved are familiar names in PNG’s history—Murray, Ward, Justice Philips, Scragg, Grimshaw, Gunter—and it is interesting to see the roles they played in these little known historical events.

One wonders whether Pondranei’s trials are still remembered today by his people on Manus or if the Markham people can recall the dark deeds of the Australian kiaps.

Even if they don’t, Day of Reckoning has immortalised the characters and their stories and popularised yet another fascinating piece of PNG’s history.

• Day of Reckoning is published by Pandanus Books, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra.