Iambakey Okuk

Okuk died of liver cancer in November 1986. His body lay in state in Parliament and was then flown to major cities before being buried in Kundiawa. As with any premature death, sorcery was suspected. Riots devastated Highlands towns, including Kundiawa and Goroka, and the cities with large Highlands communities, Lae and Port Moresby, as the nation mourned the loss of their leader.

By May sitting in 1985, Okuk was back in office. He tried to work with the Somare-led government, but when no ministerial portfolios were offered, even though he had brought a sizable party into coalition with the government, he was forced to withdraw support from the government. For the first time in ten years, he was working without the parliamentary support staff and resources afforded government ministers and opposition leaders. Okuk remained a backbencher until he joined forces with Wingti and Chan to bring a No-Confidence Motion in November 1985, a year and a half from the next general elections.

He especially questioned the border treaties and cooperative operations with the Indonesian regime, the lack of recognition of the legitimate refugees from the border, whose numbers had grown to ten thousand by mid-1984, and the restriction against Australian journalists going to the border area to report on the plight of the refugees coming from West Papua.

The long-awaited United Party withdrawal from the government took place in August 1984, and Okuk put forth a motion to dissolve parliament and hold a general election. Before he could organize a No-Confidence Motion, Somare, in a surprise move, adjourned Parliament a week early while the Opposition parties were in their chambers. Another No-Confidence Motion was tabled and then withdrawn in November, and the Court of Disputed Returns removed Okuk from office in November 1984 on the grounds he did not meet the legal residency requirements at the time he ran for election in Unggai-Bena.

Competing political analysts credit different factions of the five-party coalition that came to government with the success of the motion. Premdas and Steeves, in reviewing the events in a 1983 article claimed that "It was the vigorous opposition of Okuk and the National Party [NP] that was mainly responsible for the dismissal of the Somare government in March 1980", and continued by stating that "the NP leader projected a Prime Ministerial approach, demonstrating power and decisiveness in his declarations and actions."

Other National Party candidates had also brought court cases and some had won. After his court victory, Akepa Miakwe of Bena-Bena, in the Eastern Highlands, then stepped down allowing Okuk to run in a by-election in Unggai-Bena, the constituency of his wife's clan. Only ten months after his defeat in Chimbu, he was back in Parliament as the representative for the Unggai-Bena Open electorate. By August 1983 he had resumed the Leadership of the National Party and again became the Leader of the Opposition. In mid-November, a move for a No-Confidence Motion was in the works again. The move depended on United Party crossing the floor. At the last moment, the United party declined and the motion was withdrawn.

While in the Opposition and while in government, Okuk consistently acknowledged, and kept newsworthy, the aspirations for self-determination of West Papuans. In the 1982 elections, he emphasized West Papua again; "he condemned neighboring Indonesia's transmigration program in Irian Jaya as a threat to border stability and Papua New Guinea's security, and proposed to confer a form of political recognition on the Operasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) --- the West Papua liberation movement".

In the last four years of Okuk's life, 1982 to 1986, he lost one election and won two. After losing two battles in the Court of Disputed Returns, he regained the leadership of the Opposition, and also served as Agriculture Minister again. First, a short-lived alliance with Somare was forged, during which he blocked a No-Confidence Motion in Somare, while not even in office. Finally, once back in Parliament, Okuk joined forces with Paias Wingti and Julius Chan, and supported another No Confidence Motion which removed Somare and made Paias Wingti Prime Minister.

Somare had formed the government in the aftermath of the 1982 general elections, when Chan's party, the People's Progress Party, and the National Party, under Ted Diro's leadership, were in the Opposition. Premdas optimistically applauds the democratic process in Papua New Guinea, "While most Third World countries have succumbed to electoral fraud or military coup d'état within a few years of attaining self-determination, Papua New Guinea stands apart.". The success of this process owes much to Okuk's demonstrated leadership in the handling of his defeat at the polls in the 1982 Chimbu Regional election, and the loss of most of his National Party members.

As early as 22 January 1982, Okuk had announced his campaign strategy. Assuming his Chimbu Regional seat was secure, he would concentrate his resources and campaign efforts on the National Party Candidates nationwide. Even when warned in advance of the vote splitting tactics being used against him, over-confidence made him focus on having support once back in Parliament, i.e. on being elected Prime Minister. However, clan voting blocks and changes in local politics made him vulnerable, and he lost his seat.

Many people contested the results of the 1982 election across the country. In the case of the Chimbu Regional seat, among the other allegations, the candidate who came in third place was too young to run for the seat. After considering the evidence, the court acknowledged that the candidate was proven to be underage, but declined to invalidate the election, stating that the winning candidate had not been at fault and should not be punished.

Okuk directly negotiated the purchase of the Dash-7 aircraft from the manufacturer in Canada, rather than working through brokers and agents, who were the source of the alleged "Ten Percent" commissions. With the purchase of the aircraft, air service could be provided to remote airfields, many of which were in the Highlands, which were not long enough for Air Niugini's F-27's. Many regions of Papua New Guinea are not yet connected by roads, so air service is not just a privilege of the elite, but a necessary infrastructure for development, i.e. transporting heavy payloads in and out of remote regions. Air Niugini, which had been running at a loss, was showing a profit by the time Okuk tabled the financial report in September 1981. He was a steadfast opponent of the provincial government system and the excesses created by having 600 paid politicians governing a nation of three million people.

The first major events included the re-election campaign for the 1977 election and the forming of the government. Sir John Guise stood against Michael Somare for Prime Minister. In the first two years, Okuk consolidated leadership among the Opposition, first becoming the spokesman for the Highlands United Front, and then standing against Sir Tei Abal for the Opposition leadership. In the next two years, 1978–80, Okuk lead three unsuccessful motions of no confidence against the Somare government within 20 months, leading to the final success No Confidence Motion on 11 March 1980. This generated Papua New Guinea's first change of government; Okuk became Deputy Prime Minister.

Premdas, a university lecturer and outspoken critic, described the state of emergency as enacted "almost in desperation", and "invidious", since it "was extended only in the Highlands provinces where the bulk of the support of the opposition parties was located." A deportation order levelled against Premdas then caused a constitutional crisis, which Okuk believed to be the most important single factor in the success of the fourth, successful, non-confidence motion, since it caused Somare to lose credibility. The motion passed on 11 March 1980, and nominated Chan as alternative Prime Minister. Okuk became the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation. He nominated Chan to insure the small, but possibly pivotal, vote of the PPP faction.

As Deputy Prime Minister, Okuk immediately set to work investigating the management of Air Niugini. When he had been Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation previously, he had attempted to completely localize the management of Air Niugini, and this had apparently been the reason for his reshuffle in the Somare Ministry. A member of the expatriate management of Air Niugini, who Okuk referred to as "Mr. Ten Percent," left the country soon after he assumed office. He dismissed two senior national executives, as well as the expatriate general manager. "Mr Okuk's intervention was vindicated, in part, by the release in late June [1980] of the Ombudsman Commission's Interim Report on Air Niugini which analysed the financial decline of the company and suggested that, "upon the penthouse level where management lives, we discovered a den of iniquity" (Hegarty 1982: 462).

The Chan-Okuk government received kudos for sending military support to independent Vanuatu in 1980; Okuk claimed credit for finally setting into motion this action of the government. World market prices for coffee and copper fell during the two-year tenure of the Chan-Okuk, and the government stringency which this necessitated did not bode well for the upcoming 1982 general elections. In summarizing the performance of the government, political analyst Peter King said of Okuk, "Often he seemed to be prime minister in all but name."

In mid-1979, the Somare government declared a State of Emergency in the Highlands provinces, essentially instituting martial law in those provinces, curtailing freedom of the press and freedom of assembly for innocent citizens along with those who had participated in tribal fights. Okuk stated that he would oppose this oppressive and discriminatory act with every means at his disposal. Land disputes were inevitably at the root of tribal fights, so he argued repeatedly that the only real solution lay in bringing employment and development to an area in which there was a severe land shortage, especially in Enga Province, Chimbu Province and areas of the Western Highlands.

The Leader of the Opposition was a leading conservative, Sir Tei Abal. He did not yield to Okuk's challenges because Okuk was the only member of the National Party in the Opposition. There was no constitutional mechanism for resolving a dispute in leadership, so Okuk took matters in his own hands. He chained the offices shut so that neither he nor Abal could use them until the matter was resolved, after which the matter was referred to legal experts. The finding indicated that there was nothing unconstitutional about the vote to change leadership, so by 4 May the Speaker of the Parliament directed the Parliamentary Clerk to "make necessary administrative changes which will give effect to the recognition of Mr. Okuk as the new Opposition Leader". The matter was taken up again in the next sitting of Parliament (May 1978) where another member of the United Party, with the backing of Sir Tei Abal, used the same mechanism to attempt to remove Okuk from the Opposition leadership.

The media reporting did not relate the details of what happened on 23 May 1978, which Okuk described as a confrontation in which Highlands members from both sides of government came to vote on the new Leader of the Opposition. When it came time for the votes for Okuk, the dynamics of Highlands solidarity came into play, especially for National Party Members currently part of the coalition government. Okuk remembered it as Sailas Atopare, Member for Goroka in the Eastern Highlands, who started the incident by calling to other Highlands members to join the vote, although the media did not mention him in their reporting of the incident.

The reporting in the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier on 24 May 1978 stated that "the chamber was lively before the vote". The story claimed that Clement Poiye, Nebare Kamun, and Robert Kakie Yabara were "dragged up" to the PUF benches, while Suinavi Otio had joined in on his own, and "In one exchange, Mr. Okuk and Prime Minister, Mr. Somare called each other liars." The final outcome, in any case, was Okuk was confirmed as Leader of the Opposition.

Okuk was the Leader of the Opposition for two years, from May 1978 to March 1980. During that time he attacked the government on its policies at the Indonesian border policy with Indonesia, decentralization, the foreign influence of the public service as well as the economy in general, and inadequate representation and development for the Highlands. The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier quoted him as stating "the Government was failing in its obligation to emphasize the pre-eminence of reason over force in international relations". Continuing, "Mr Okuk said the Government should show sympathy to efforts at self-determination by colonially-dominated and colonised peoples. He said he did not think the Government was giving an accurate picture of the problems in Irian Jaya."

Once he assumed Leadership of the Opposition, he set about immediately to bring down the current Somare government. He moved a total of four Motions of No Confidence in the Government within 20 months, the first only three months after he became opposition leader, on 24 August 1978 (failing with 35 ayes and 68 nays).

His decision not to take the Education Ministry stemmed from the closeness of the 1977 elections. There would not be enough time as a minister to be effective in that position. Instead, he resigned to concentrate on grassroots work within his constituency.

Even before the 1977 elections, Okuk was putting pressure on the government at every opportunity. For example, he made a motion of no confidence in four ministers with fewer educational qualifications than the ministers they had replaced in the reshuffle. After being returned to Parliament in the 1977 elections, Okuk backed Sir John Guise, who stood against Somare for the position of Prime Minister in the Second Parliament.

Okuk was elected to his first term of office as the Regional Member for Chimbu Province. In describing Okuk, Standish saw "A strong-faced intense man with a wry humour and shrewd charm, he shelters some bitter memories and can be quick to anger." (Standish 1976: 324) He characterized him as the most radical candidate but also the most well known since he participated in the 1970 by-election and campaigned in Chimbu for two years afterwards. For two years after losing the 1970 by-election, Okuk lived and worked in his home province of Chimbu for the first time in 18 years. It took time to re-establish himself after leaving Chimbu as a child to live in Hagen.

Okuk was the candidate with appeal beyond his tribal area, taking four constituencies out of seven. His nearest rival, Waru Degemba, received 57.7% of his votes from his home constituency, Chauve. As Standish has observed, "Coffee and politics are inextricably linked in the Chimbu." (1976: 314) Because of his coffee business, Okuk was perceived as opening up more opportunities for indigenous participation in the industry. Unknown to Okuk, he was perceived as having traditional claims to leadership. Only when he moved back to Chimbu did he learn that his biological father had been Palma, a leader of great repute. He had died in the late 1940s (he was approximately in his mid-forties), and Okuk had known him as a grandfather.

The reshuffle was announced on 10 December 1975, two months after independence. It was widely reported that the reshuffle was done without consultation of the coalition partners. Okuk's resignation was finally made public on 20 January 1976. In 1976, he became a backbencher in Parliament, where he waited for the 1977 elections to return him to Parliament. The National Party was split, with many members remaining with the government, after Okuk had made his decision to resign.

Okuk supported another National Party member, John Kaupa, both in the debate over expatriate management of the Chimbu Coffee Cooperative and speaking out against the degradation of Highlanders in the Highlands Labour Scheme. He presented the many cases of abuse he had observed while associated with the cooperative and argued that, "Many co-operatives in Papua New Guinea are just window-dressing for white capitalists. As far as our society is concerned, you can name any white businessman in the Highlands. They run the society. Only the name represents the Chimbu people. Who benefits from the societies—the white men. Land reform was taken up by the Parliamentary Leader of National Party, Thomas Kavali, who was Minister for Lands in 1974 when four land reform bills were passed, and Okuk spoke in support of subsidized loans for citizens to buy back plantations from foreign interests prior to the introduction of this legislation.

The Bill to which Okuk was most personally committed was the Coffee Dealing (Control) Bill of 1974. It reserved a segment of the coffee industry, specifically the purchasing of coffee on the roadside from the small growers, for citizens only. In the House of Assembly Debates, the issue of localization of the coffee industry was repeatedly addressed, and the final legislation, was foreshadowed repeatedly until the actual Coffee Dealing (Control) Bill was introduced and debated. Roadside coffee buying was regulated by the Coffee Marketing Board through the issuing of licenses and vehicle plates, and most village people were excluded. While his previous bills had passed easily with the support of the government, this bill had to be presented without government support, yet received an overwhelming majority vote by the members of Parliament.

The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation was also a prominent and influential ministry where he could pursue localization of the airlines at the same time as he was bringing his private bills. The reshuffle came at a critical time, prior to Independence, (reported by the media on 28 February 1974) and the Highlands voting block was crucial to gaining independence since it is the most populous region of Papua New Guinea. Okuk remained Minister for Transport, and Deputy Parliamentary Leader of National Party, until after Independence, in September 1975.

In 1972, two brothers-in-law, one European (Jim Collins) and one Papua New Guinean, helped Okuk break into the coffee buying business. His secondary education over-qualified him to be a mechanic but served him well in the coffee business. Again he was in direct competition with Europeans. Standish states that Okuk used his employment as an opportunity to campaign.

Once he had acquired some business capital, he expanded his business, organizing other buyers. Finally, he built the first indigenous-owned coffee factory, named Tokma after the fertile limestone mountain which had sustained his village's gardens. He bridged traditional and modern forms of political organization, participating in cooperatives as well as the traditional gift exchange. Part of the profit from the coffee business went into buying vehicles and assisting other businessmen in getting their start. In this way, helping others to establish businesses, he established himself politically in his home constituency. After developing his business, he stood against Father Nilles again and defeated him in 1972, and became the Simbu Regional Member in the Third House of Assembly.

By the 1972 election campaign, he felt that self-government was not only inevitable but coming soon. In interviews during the campaign, Okuk likened the progress to self-government to the inescapable passage of time. "You know self-government and independence is like a clock. The hands move and the time comes around. If you force it too quickly you break the clock. If you pull self-government quickly the clock is wrong. And yet you can't stop it. Self-government is coming." (Standish 1976: 328)

The 1972 House of Assembly had many new members Of the 73 members who sought re-election in 1972, 39 succeeded, and only nine of them were expatriates. After winning the election for the Chimbu Regional seat in late February to early March 1972, Okuk was first given the position of Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees in the National Parliament in the newly formed coalition government. He resigned this position less than a week after the first sitting of the new House of Assembly when he was named as Minister of Agriculture (26 April 1972) in the Somare-led coalition government.

Since the project initiated production in 1972, unexpected profits had left Papua New Guinea. "In 1972, after less than one year's operation, the profits of the company stood at Aus$28m. In 1973 net profits amounted to Aus$154.4m, and in 1974 Aus$114.6m. Papua New Guinea received Aus$29m from these profits, mostly as dividends."

Members from the island communities affected, Lapun, Momis, and Kaputin, repeatedly kept the issue before the Assembly. In one such motion, Father John Momis outlined guidelines for any future negotiations for mining ventures. On 23 November 1972, Okuk criticized the Bougainville project as not benefiting the bulk of the local population (arguing in support of Momis' motion), pointing out that Australia had negotiated the deal on the behalf of Papua New Guinea, and predicting that reform in favour of the landowners could avert violent confrontation later.

As Minister for Agriculture, he sponsored numerous bills directed at the localization of the coffee industry. The Coffee Marketing Board, although established by the administrator in 1964, had not developed along the same lines as the Copra Marketing Board; it was dominated by expatriates and responded to the needs of plantation owners and processors rather than the small indigenous growers. His initial legislation addressed the functioning of the Coffee Marketing Board. First was the Coffee Marketing Board Stabilization Fund, which he brought as a bill on 16 June 1972. Immediately afterwards, he introduced a bill to increase the size of the Coffee Marketing Board to include more growers. In the course of 1973, he repeatedly addressed the problems plaguing the coffee industry, including abuses in buying coffee from the indigenous small growers, as well as the management of coffee cooperatives.

Locally based mass movements, called 'Micronationist movements' by one scholar, had been prevalent in the New Guinea islands and in Papua. The Highlands had not experienced the organized violent or passive resistance of these other regions and did not have a unifying grassroots movement. The Highlands Liberation Front (HLF) sought to achieve the same type of intertribal unification. The organization was inaugurated in 1972 by students at the University of Papua New Guinea, from the top down rather than from a popular base, and did not generate a large grassroots following. In 1977, a new offshoot, the Highlands Unified Front (HUF), was formed at the University of Papua New Guinea and was "active in the lobbying to form a new government after the 1977 national elections, with the aim of ensuring that the Highlands was adequately represented". Highland Parliamentarians were split between National Party members in government and United Party (UP) members in the Opposition. Okuk formed a corresponding parliamentary group, called the Peoples Unified Front, "in an attempt to bring together UP members and Papuans into a coherent opposition coalition".

In the new government, Okuk resumed the Primary Industry portfolio (Agriculture Ministry) fourteen years after his original appointment in 1972. As Minister for Primary Industries, the issue which immediately brought him into a confrontation with Chan was the lending policy and performance of the Agriculture Bank. Okuk wanted the Bank to be transferred to the Ministry for Primary Industry because the Agriculture Bank was not living up to its mandate of supporting investment in smallholders.

Colebatch et al. (1971) were obviously impressed by his command of local as well as national issues: "Iambakey alone was aware of uneducated Highlanders' dependence upon Europeans and their susceptibility to European propaganda and he was the only indigenous candidate who had pondered the implications of the size of the electorate." His pluck and tenacity won him begrudging respect from even those he opposed. "There was no 'Yessir' in Okuk's political vocabulary: he was prepared to argue with the European candidates and stand up to cross-examination."

After completing his apprenticeship, Okuk moved to his home province of Simbu to start a coffee buying business and he stood in the 1970 by-election for the Simbu Regional seat. Sachiko Hatanaka attributes Okuk's election loss to Father Nilles, due to his lack of campaign funding. It was significant to the outcome of the election, however, that Father Nilles had worked in the community since before Okuk was born, and that Okuk's status in the community was unproven since he was just returning after a long absence.

Okuk's reputation grew due to his aggressive posture, as well as his organizational ability. By 1968 or 1969, he was participating in many types of political activism. When he was finishing his apprenticeship in Wabag, he became formally involved in politics by standing for election in 1968 there.

He organized a labour protest against discriminatory pay practices in 1966. As with other sectors of the public service, Australians who came to New Guinea were often not qualified for equivalent programs or positions in Australia. Duties and privileges, as well as wages, were fixed by race, regardless of qualifications.

Okuk's campaigning blended traditional and modern political methods. The claim to leadership of a traditional bigman is not "vested with authority" but is a matter of persuading a loyal "followership". The loyalty of the followership is won by past assistance in death and bridewealth payments, lawsuits and inter-clan exchange (Strathern 1966). Since a bigman is judged by his ability to manipulate wealth, not just accumulate it, Okuk's business acumen, and the assistance he gave others, was politically significant. Repeatedly in the literature, the hallmark of leadership, especially in the Highlands, has been described as twofold: big men "achieve their position through their powers of oratory and their ability to obtain and deploy wealth through transactions with exchange partners".

Okuk exemplified traditional leadership characteristics and employed traditional methods for gaining followership, but he worked beyond the geographic boundary of the traditional sphere of influence, and for goals beyond clan prestige and ceremonial exchange. He worked steadily in political activism since the first House of Assembly in 1964, standing in two by-elections in 1968 and 1970, setting up his coffee buying business and campaigning for two years afterwards in Chimbu until the 1972 elections. In the words of another analyst, "If sustained and single-minded drive meant anything, Iambakey deserved to win." (Standish 1976:326)

The First House of Assembly (1964), which was the earliest colonial governing body with an indigenous majority, established the Select Committee on Constitutional Development. Under-secretaries then worked with departmental heads, in training for Ministerial responsibilities, although: "It is true that the Ministerial Members were given very little formal authority until 1970, and that the Administration sometimes seemed to use them to endorse, rather than to encourage them to deliberate upon, certain policies." The Second House of Assembly's Select Committee on Constitutional Development (in June 1969) recommended, "That the development of Papua-New Guinea should be geared to preparing the country for internal self-government during the life of the next House of Assembly." (Select Committee 1971: 2) (Wolfers 1976: 1). The Australian Minister for External Territories stipulated in April 1971 that self-government hinged on the emergence of a "cohesive group of Ministers ... with a majority backing of the House".

Iambakey Palma Okuk CBE (5 May 1945 – 14 November 1986) was an independence leader in Papua New Guinea and served as Deputy Prime Minister, the nation's first Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, and repeatedly in the capacity of Minister of Transport, Minister of Primary Industries and Opposition Leader. He is known as Papua New Guinea's "most colourful and controversial politician". Okuk first led protests against unfair labor practices, and then once elected to office, worked to reserve sectors of the economy for citizens as a method of returning a complex economic role to Papua New Guineans. In the post-independence decade, Okuk built a coalition of minority political factions which forced a successful change of government, in which he became Deputy Prime Minister.

Okuk was born in Simbu Province in the Central Highlands of the Territory of New Guinea in 1945. He spent eighteen years in the area around Hagen, learned the local language and went to school. His firsthand experience of racism began with the deference and privilege demanded by Europeans. The ideals that he had learned were not realized, and his achievements could not overcome the constraints of racial discrimination. Although he was being prepared for higher education in Australia, he opted to take up an apprenticeship program to become a mechanic. This program allowed him to learn a trade of great symbolic significance, the control of European technology, which could be used in the Highlands (not just urban centres) while allowing him to stay and participate in local political developments.