Porirua City Council is set to create a memorial for more than 1800 former patients of the local hospital buried in unmarked graves. But Pacific leaders are asking to be “meaningfully involved” in the process, including incorporating prayer, language, and ceremonial practices.

More than 50 people gathered at Porirua Cemetery last month after the council’s plans became public, many of whom are descendants of those buried without headstones.

Cemeteries Manager Daniel Chrisp said it was encouraging to see families engaging with the project.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific burial reports

Chrisp’s team has placed 99 pegs to mark the graves of families who have come forward so far. One attendee told him that it was deeply moving to photograph the site where two relatives were buried.

“It’s fantastic that we’ve got to this point, having the descendants of those in unmarked graves encouraged to be involved,” he said.

“These plots represent mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children and other relatives, so it’s important to a lot of people.”

The Porirua Lunatic Asylum, which later became Porirua Hospital, operated from 1887 until the 1990s. At its peak in the 1960s, it was one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest hospitals, housing more than 2000 patients and staff.

As part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, the government has established a national fund for headstones for unmarked graves.

Porirua City Council has applied for $200,000 to install a memorial that will list every known name.

Criticism over lack of Pacific consultation
Some Pacific community leaders say they were never consulted, despite Pacific people among the deceased.

Porirua Cook Islands Association chairperson Teurukura Tia Kekena said this was the first she had heard of the project, and she was concerned Pacific communities had not been included in conversations so far.

“If there was any unmarked grave and the Porirua City Council is aware of the names, I would have thought they would have contacted the ethnic groups these people belonged to,” she said.

“From a Cook Islands point of view, we need to acknowledge these people. They need to be fully acknowledged.”

Kekena learned about the project only after being contacted by a reporter, despite the council’s ongoing efforts to identify names and place markers for families who have come forward.

The council’s application for funding is part of its response to the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Kekena said it was important how the council managed the memorial, adding that it mattered deeply for Cook Islands families and the wider Pacific community, especially those with relatives buried at the site.

Reflect Pacific values
She believed that a proper memorial should reflect Pacific values, particularly the importance of faith, family, and cultural protocol.

“It’s huge. It’s connecting us to these people,” she said. “Just thinking about it is getting me emotional.

“Like I said, the Pākehā way of acknowledging is totally different from our way. When we acknowledge, when we go for an unveiling, it’s about family. It’s about family. It’s about family honouring the person that had passed.

“And we do it in a way that we have a service at the graveside with the orometua [minister] present. Yeah, unveil the stone by the family, by the immediate family, if there were any here at that time.”

She also underscored the connection between remembering the deceased and healing intergenerational trauma, particularly given the site’s history with mental health.

Healing the trauma
“It helps a lot. It’s a way of healing the trauma. I don’t know how these people came to be buried in an unmarked grave, but to me, it’s like they were just put there and forgotten about.

“I wouldn’t like to have my family buried in a place and be forgotten.”

Kekena urged the council to work closely with the Cook Islands community moving forward and said she would bring the matter back to her association to raise awareness and check possible connections between local families and the names identified.

Yvonne Underhill‑Sem, a Cook Islands community leader and professor of Pacific Studies at the University of Auckland, said the memorial had emotional significance, noting her personal connection to Whenua Tapu as a Porirua native.

“In terms of our Pacific understandings of ancestry, everybody who passes away is still part of our whānau. The fact that we don’t know who they are is unsettling,” she said.

“It would be a real relief to the families involved and to the generations that follow to have those graves named.”

Council reponse
A Porirua City Council spokesperson said they had been actively sharing the list of names with the public and encouraged all communities — including Pacific groups, genealogists, and local iwi — to help spread the word.

So far, 99 families have come forward.

“We would encourage any networks such as Pacific, genealogists and local iwi to share the list around for members of the public to get in touch,” the spokesperson said.

The list of names is available on the council’s website and includes both a downloadable file and a searchable online tool here.

Porirua councillors Izzy Ford and Moze Galo, two of the three Pacific members on the council, said Pacific families must be central to the memorial process. Ford said burial sites carried deep cultural weight for Pacific communities.

“We know that burial sites are more than just places of rest, they are sacred spaces that hold our stories, our ancestry and dignity — they are our connection to those who came before us.”

She said public notices and websites were not enough.

“If we are serious about finding the families of those buried in unmarked graves here in Porirua, we have to go beyond public notices and websites.”

Funding limited
Ford said government funding would be limited, and the council must work with trusted Pacific networks to reach families.

“It means partnering with groups who carry trust in our community . . . Pacific churches, elders, and organisations, communicating in our languages through Pacific radio, social media, community events, churches, and health providers.”

Galo agreed and said the memorial must reflect Pacific values in both design and feeling.

“It should feel warm, colourful, spiritual, and welcoming. Include Pacific designs, carvings, and symbols . . .  there should be room for prayer, music, and quiet reflection,” he said.

“Being seen and heard brings healing, honour, and helps restore our connection to our ancestors. It reminds our families that we belong, that our history matters, and that our voice is valued in this space.”

Galo said the work must continue beyond the unveiling.

“Community involvement shouldn’t stop after the memorial is built, we should have a role in how it’s maintained and used in the future.

“These were real people, with families, love, and lives that mattered. Some were buried without names, without ceremony, and that left a deep pain. Honouring them now is a step toward healing, and a way of saying, you were never forgotten.”

Members of the public who recognise a family name on the list are encouraged to get in touch by emailing cemeteries@poriruacity.govt.nz.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air. Asia Pacific Report is a partner in the project.

Retired politics professor and historian Robert “Robbie” Robertson, 69, co-author of the book Shattered Coups about the 1987 coups led by then Lieutenant-Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka, has died in Melbourne, his family has confirmed.

Dr Robertson wrote the book with his partner Akosita Tamanisau, then a Fiji journalist. It was published in January 1988 and he also wrote other books and papers on Fiji and globalisation.

He and Dr William Sutherland co-authored the fast moving and readable Government by the Gun: The unfinished business of Fiji’s 2000 coup.

• READ MORE: The General’s Goose: Coups, globalisation and Fiji’s reset ‘democracy’ paradigm
• Fiji’s actions threaten to unwind the Pacific’s great experiment in regional education at USP – Robbie Robertson and Akosita Tamanisau

His last book on Fiji in 2017 was The General’s Goose: Fiji’s contemporary tale of misadventure.

Dr Robertson was the second person at the University of the South Pacific to have his work permit rescinded and he was deported to New Zealand by Rabuka’s government.

Attempts to have him relocated to Port Vila were sabotaged by the then Vanuatu government.

Moved to Australia
He moved to Australia and joined La Trobe University and became associate professor of history and development studies in Bendigo.

Dr Robertson returned to USP from 2004 to 2006 as professor and director of development studies.

Subsequently, he served as professor and head of school of arts and social sciences at James Cook University (2010-2014) and as professor and dean of arts, social sciences and humanities at Swinburne University of Technology from July 2014 until he retired.

Retired professor of development studies at USP Dr Vijay Naidu and New Zealand researcher Dr Jackie Leckie recalled his contribution as a progressive and inspirational academic, and his sense of humour, Dr Leckie saying “Robbie was one of the good guys. I am so sorry that he had suffered in health recently.”

Dr Robertson is survived by his wife Akosita and sons Nemani and Julian.

It was a weekend filled with Fijian culture and tradition as the community gathered at the Auckland Museum this week to open celebrations for Fijian language week.

On Saturday morning Fijian leaders from all around the country came together for the first time to address issues that are affecting the community living in New Zealand.

With the community’s population growing fast in Auckland, the leaders were concerned that approximately seven percent of New Zealand-born Fijians cannot speak the language.

The President of the Fiji Community Association of Auckland (FCAA), Naca Yalimaiwai, said it is important for Fijian youth to grow-up surrounded by their language so they can identify with their culture and who they are.

“It’s important to maintain that reputation of who we are when we come away from Fiji,” he said.

In the afternoon, the community turned out in big numbers for the launch of the Fijian collection at the museum.

‘Fijian treasures’

The collection of ancient Fijian artefacts was officially named: ‘Nai Yau Vakaviti: Na Ka Marequiti’ which translates into: ‘Our Fijian Treasures: That are treasured’.

The community said a special blessing for the items, acknowledging the culture, tradition and skill of their ancestors.

The exhibition is a part of the Pacific Collection Access Project at the Auckland Museum. It has, for the very time, allowed communities to view an extensive look into the Pacific collections they store.

The collection will continuing viewing until July 2017.

Watch the full video story here.

Fiji Language Week runs from October 3-9, 2016. This years theme is:Noqu vosa, me’u bula take, which means my language, learn it, speak it, live it!

EyeWitness news interviewed the cast members when they visited ABC7 broadcasting studio in LA.

Cast member Lingai Kowia told the EyeWitness reporter that he is glad “my world has been shown to you in the film, so you can learn what is good from my world.”

Global success

As the first movie to ever be filmed in Vanuatu, Tanna, has continued to receive global success.

It has been picked by Screen Australia as its official entry for best foreign language film at the 2017 Oscars and was voted best direction and best feature film at the Australian Directors Guild Awards.

In August the film was dubbed a “hit” when it was screened at the Venice Film Festival where it was also voted best film and best cinematographer.

The movie will be released in Canada in October at the Vancouver International Film Festival and Edmonton International Film Festival.

The plot follows a young girl, Wawa, who falls in love with the chief’s grandson but is unknowingly betrothed to another as part of a peace deal between two tribes.

It based on a true story in 1984 that led to custom changes on arranged marriage.

• Watch the EyeWitness interviews with the cast
• Vanuatu’s Romeo and Juliet epic Tanna nominated for Oscars
• Watch the trailer

By TJ Aumua in Auckland

Filmmakers Joshua Iosefo and Corey Larry Sio found out this month that their short film Forgotten Dawn Children will be screened in Sydney later this year at the Pasifika Film Festival.

The best friends are still overwhelmed saying it is a dream come true to have a film accepted into a festival.

Originally made for final year assignment at university, Sio, the films producer, says he is “shocked but humbled” at the news.

“I didn’t think we would submit it into anything…but he did!” Sio laughs pointing to the films director, Iosefo, who is sitting next to him.

“As we were making it I was like, yeah, this is going be in a film fest!” 22-year-old Iosefo admits.

“I just had this big dream that even though this was supposed to be an end of year assignment, I wanted to make it way more than that.”

“For it to be recognised in a film festival adds value to the film,” says Iosefo.

This is especially important to a film that is based on a shamefully true event that itself, has received little value and little recognition in New Zealand’s history.

 The film follows main character, Ioane, a middle-aged man, who is haunted by his memories of the dawn raids, and the struggle of growing up as a Pacific Islander in mid-1970s Auckland.

While going about his daily life, Ioane’s flash backs, show us the unjustifiable arrests of many Pacific Islanders whose homes were raided by police in what is now today’s trending suburbs of Ponsonby, Grey Lynn and Mount Albert.

 Honoring the struggle

“The Dawn Raids is not taught in New Zealand schools- it’s not in the curriculum,” Iosefo explains.

It wasn’t until a year-12 drama teacher in high school taught him about the dawn raids when he became “obsessed” with learning about it.

“I feel that, that was quite late in my life to learn something that concerns my people and my history in New Zealand,” Iosefo says, who is a proud Samoan/Niuean.

“Hence Forgotten Dawn Children.

“I felt that there needed to be something to honor that, to honor the struggle, as well as the memories of people…memories that have just been forgotten.”

‘Our people’

‘We don’t take credit for the film,’ they both say. ‘We are just telling the story of our people and what happened.’

Twenty-eight-year-old Sio, says seeing the film come to life has created a new found respect for his Pacific family.

“It’s made me realise how strong and resilient our people are. We are some of the greatest survivors of all time. We really, really, really are strong!

“It makes me even more proud to be Samoan.”

When asked of the most memorable moment in the film, Sio said it was the last scene.

“It was this police scene we filmed on a street in Māngere. We had cops chasing five Pacific Islanders down the street-we had to shoot it so many times.

“People were coming down the street, I think people thought it was real, seeing everyone watching-that will forever stay in mind.

“We were almost done, that was our last and biggest scene and we had no energy left.”

“We were so exhausted that night,” Iosefo adds.

“I fainted in the car…while I was sitting down!” he laughs.

‘Home grown’

It took an eight-member-crew made up of fellow students in their class to make the film which they refer to as “totally home grown”.

Family, friends, and a childhood music teacher were also “shoulder tapped” and generously donated their talent, time and money to making the film.

“At least three quarters of the cast are my family,” says Iosefo.

He credits his dad, who not only acted in the film, but also played the role of transport, errands runner and provided food for the cast and crew throughout the long hours of shooting.

Both Sio and Iosefo say they will be launching a new film project next year.

In the meantime, they are still feeling overwhelmed by their films success and will be flying to Sydney in November for the screening of Forgotten Dawn Children at the Pasifika Film Festival.

We wish them all the best!

The proud nation of Fiji is awaiting the arrival of the Fiji 7s team who made history last Friday by winning the first-ever Olympic gold medal for the country. The team will return from Rio and arrive in Fiji on Sunday.

According to Fiji Village the country will hold a victory celebration on Monday, August 22, which has been reserved as a public holiday.

Plans for the parade are being coordinated by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Fiji Rugby Union.

The government has already announced that the players will get $30,000 each for winning the gold medal at the Rio Olympics.

No easy journey
The team’s coach, Ben Ryan, told Sky Sports News HQ that it had not been an easy journey to get the team where it was today.

“Day one was no money – I was not paid for five months. The union in Fiji had gone bankrupt and World Rugby had stopped any money because they were worried where it was going. We had nothing really, I was paying for the petrol for the bus to take the boys to training.

“Fast forward three years and we have got a full-time programme, we’ve got overseas coaches, we are double back-to-back world champions, and we have won Olympic gold all in the space of 24 months.”

Ryan will return to Fiji with the team but plans on moving back to England soon.

He said his time in Fiji is a moment in his career he would never forget.

By David Robie in Auckland

So the mystery is finally over. In 1983, I took this photo of a young ni-Vanuatu girl at a nuclear-free Pacific rally in Independence Part, Port Vila. She was aged about five at the time.

She was just a delightful painted happy face in the crowd that day. But her message was haunting: “Please don’t spoil my beautiful face” had quite an impact on me. When monochrome and colour versions of this photo were published in various Pacific media and magazines, a question kept tugging at my heart.

“Who is she? Where is she from and what is she doing now?”

This placard slogan became the inspiration for my 2014 book, Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face: Media, Mayhem and Human Rights in the Pacific, published by Little Island Press in New Zealand.

I would have loved to have named her in the book with the cover image of her. So this spurred me onto to more determined efforts to discover her identity.

First of all I posted the photo – and a Hawai’ian solidarity video that also showed the little girl, discovered by Alistar Kata – on my blog Café Pacific late last year. More than 1000 people viewed the blog item, but no tip-offs.

Then it was posted on other blogs.

Finally, friends at Vanuatu Daily Digest reposted my appeal – and hey presto, there she was discovered on the southernmost island of Aneityum (traditional name “Keamu”). And curiously, my wife Del and I were on that island at the same village, Anelgauhat, where she lives on last Christmas Day – but didn’t realise who she was.

In fact, we have only recognised her as “June” our village guide that day now that we have seen her photo from the island. After all, this was 32 years after I had seen her fleetingly as a child in Port Vila.

She is June Keitadi (Warigini) daughter of Weitas and Jack Keitadi, then curator of the Vanuatu Kaljoral Senta with Kirk Huffman. Her sister Shirley Loughman says June is the assistant bursar at Teruja secondary school on Aneityum.

According to Selwyn A. Leodoro, Anglican regional secretary of Port Vila and New Caledonia, one of the many VDD readers who have responded and identified her, June was very “surprised” about the search for her and keen to meet up. All going well, Del and I hope to visit Vanuatu again later this year, and we would love to personally give her a copy of the book with her cover photo.

Today June is married to Ruyben Warigini and they have three children, Letisha (21), Alphonse (13) and Ray (8), and a grandchild.

Tank yu tumas to Gwen Amankwah-Toa – she was the first to contact me – and to all those who have helped piece together the puzzle.

1983 girl found – living on Aneityum

The original Cafe Pacific posting

On Evening Report

Information on the book Don’t Spoil My Beautiful Face

By Godwin Ligo in Port Vila

For the first time in Vanuatu’s political history since 1980, three Kalsakau brothers from the same parents hailing from Ifira, Efate, have been elected MPs, according to provisional results.

The unofficial results from Friday’s snap elections indicated the three brothers – Ephraim Kasakau, Ishmael Kalsakau and Joshua Kalasakau – have secured three seats in Parliament.

They showed Ishmael Kalsakau and Ephraim Kalsakau in the six top lists for the six parliamentary seats in the Port Vila constituency while the youngest brother Joshua Kalsakau edged through in one of the Efate rural constituency seats.

It may seem a surprise for many people of Vanuatu and the region or the world but for Vanuatu, it simply was that their father, the late George Kalsakau, who was the First Chief Minister in the first Representative Assembly leading to independence from Britain and France in 1980 and a well-known politician during the early political struggle, had prepared them for this time in Vanuatu’s political history.

Their father prepared them to be leaders to take Vanuatu forward in the new political roadmap towards the political stability desired by the people.

George Kalsakau was one of the first indigenous British police chief inspectors and then Superintendent in the British Constabulary during the Condominium rule by Britain and France.

He studied in the United Kingdom as well as locally. He was highly respected by the British resident commissioners as an outstanding New Hebridean disciplined British Constabulary superintendent.

The three brothers’ late mother was the first New Hebridean female teacher who took up a teaching scholarship at the Nasinu Teachers College in Fiji. Upon returning home, she started the school that was later known as the British Primary School and today the Vila Central School.

The three brothers contested on different political tickets.

This is the first time in Vanuatu history that three brothers contested and secured seats in Parliament at the same time. It is also arguably a first in the Pacific region and perhaps globally.

Unofficial results:
The Vanuatu Daily Post reported these provisional results spread across 13 parties with 9 successful independents:
Union of Moderate Parties (UMP) 7 MPs
Graon mo Jastis Pati (GJP) 6
Iauko Group (IG) 6
Vanua’aku Pati (VP) 5
National United Party (NUP) 3
Reunification of Movement for Change (RMC) 3
Vanuatu National Development Party (VNDP) 2
Nagriamel 2
Vanuatu Green Confederation (VGC) 2
Natatok party 1
Friend Melanesian Party (FMP) 1
Leaders Party of Vanuatu (LPV) 1
Melanesian Progressive Party (MPP) 1
Independent candidates 9

Profile by Ivamere Nataro in Suva

If you’re a person who loves history and values culture then you would certainly want to meet Fiji’s Professor Alan Quanchi.

Dr Quanchi, commonly known to his peers and students as Max, is an academic by profession and is leaving the University of the South Pacific.

He specialises in the teaching of Pacific history and has been doing so for 43 years.

Growing up in rural farming areas of Victoria, Australia, Max was determined to attain his dream career. His humble beginnings and his perseverance made him the first member of his family to complete high school and matriculate.

Max, who was born in 1945, is the youngest of three brothers. According to him, he was too young to enter university so he spent two years training to be a primary schoolteacher. And if you know Max as well as I do, believe me when I say, his students love to attend his classes.

However, the saying “destiny works in mysterious ways” was exactly how life turned out to be for Max as history became a focal point of his journey when he managed to achieve a BA Honours degree and MA thesis on Fiji’s history in 1973 which, according to him was a breakthrough.

Max says his research and findings on Fiji’s attempts to cede itself to Great Britain drove him towards the study of Pacific history.

‘Hooked over Fiji’
“I was hooked after discovering about Fiji’s history,” he said.

And for the next 30 years he visited Fiji and most Pacific countries on a regular basis with a quest to quench his thirst for Pacific history and culture.

Now who would ever dream someone who played basketball, was an Australian Football League player and surfed was on his way to becoming an academic? This was possible when he received his doctorate from Monash University in Australia.

Max stated his journey could not have been possible if it were not for mentors such as Professor John Legge and Dr Jack Lacey who pushed him to become what he is today.

“They were responsible for heading me towards an academic career. They made me aware of the importance I can play, in turn, as a mentor to young Islanders.”

His passion for history was evident in how he presented himself to history critics, as he recalled in the 1990s when he responded to a speaker who argued the Pacific was a basket case and needed to learn more from the rest of the world.

“I pointed out that this thinking needed to be reversed, and that it was indeed the Pacific that had a lot to teach the world. The world needs to pay attention to the success in terms of harmony, conflict resolution, cultural maintenance and survival.”

And not only is he stern in his opinion of Pacific history, he also shares characteristics that lightsup a person’s world on a gloomy day. His humorous personality made him one of the friendliest lecturers on campus.

Sense of humour
Friends Felicia Leitupo and Wendy-Jane Powell in their description of Max stated they had only known him for a year and it seemed like a lifelong friendship.

“Max has a great sense of humour and is a very sociable person,” Leitupo says.

The jolly 70-year-old historian, according to Powell, has also adopted the rich cultural background and friendliness of Fijians. And this is true for a man who rarely loses the bula smile when extending his arms welcoming students and friends to his abode.

As a person who can create friendship with strangers, Max is also a widely respected person when it comes to the learning sphere.

Within the four walls of the classroom, he presents himself as a person with high calibre in the mastering of Pacific history.

His years of teaching in USP allowed him to not only better understand Fijian history and culture, but also engage in the publication of textbooks such as that for Year 9, Fiji in the Pacific and co-author and editor of five recently introduced history textbooks for Year 11, 12 and 13 students.

His book Postcards from Oceania, reviewed last month in The Fiji Times by Vinesh Maharaj, was launched by USP Press late last year and he said his favourite postcard was the one that reversed the gaze by having Fijian subject clothed, and the photographer naked.

Fiji archive of the past
“The postcard has disappeared now but a hundred years ago, photographers trekked inland to places like Namosi to take snaps, later converted into postcards. They are an important archive of Fiji’s past.”

He is an award-winning researcher of USP for the past two years, as well as with other small universities across the region on online course development.

Max is the author of more than 100 books, articles and reports.

A popular speaker, he has spoken on Fiji TV and over the air, at numerous schools, Rucksack Club and recently at the WWI commemoration conference at USP.

Mikaele Vakasilimiratu, formerly with the social science team at the Ministry of Education’s curriculum development unit, recalled that Max had run professional development for history teachers back in the 1990s.

“He was then co-ordinating the regional Teaching the Pacific Forum (TTPF) project funded by Japan and when he came to Fiji and joined USP he carried on in his own time with this guidance to our teachers,” he said.

Max has also taught in schools such as the University of Papua New Guinea, Queensland University of Technology and Monash University in Melbourne.

Tantalising local food
Having developed a taste for tantalising local food, Max said his favourite was “grilled fish from the market”.

But for a drink he certainly is not a fan of yaqona, although he said there were certain occasions where he had to give in to Fiji’s traditional drink.

Now that he will soon say adios to USP, he says Fiji is a “fantastic and exciting” place to live in and has a lot of potential as a Pacific country to develop.

He said he planned to continue teaching in the University of Goroka in Papua New Guinea or the University of Queensland in Brisbane and for a person such as Max who knows no barrier, sky was the limit even if the tides swept against him.

When asked about what job he would take if life did not throw him into the profession he is in, Max jokingly said he would gladly be a rock star or be part of the Miss Hibiscus pageant.

His words of advice, knowledge and friendliness will surely be missed by all who consider him a friend and if only the hands of time could turn back to the exciting interview which shows his friendly personality, I would gladly allow history to repeat itself.