Bougainville President Calls for Media Independence

Madang, May 12, 2012 - President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville John Momis is happy that the media in Papua New Guinea has been challenged by politicians and by the political events happening in the country.

President Momis was keynote speaker at the Media Freedom Day celebrations at Divine Word University earlier this month.

He said he believed PNG was in a favourable time despite the many problems and hardships the country faced. But in order to preach the good news, the media must know and be imbued with the good news.

Call for independence
He said sometimes the media was being "manipulated structurally" by powerful people and by money, and ironically those in power were placed there by the very people they exploited.

“So what hope is there for the resource owners, for the villagers, to have a say when the media is being manipulated by those in power?”

He called on the media to be independent.

“The media itself must be imbued with the right values. What are these values? The values have been enshrined in the PNG Constitution,” he said.

The theme for the celebration was “challenges to the media in a new environment”.

Accountability ‘for the people’
PNG blogger Martin Namorong said the free press had a role in ensuring accountability to Papua New Guinea’s national goals and directive principles as enshrined in the constitution.

“If we are to talk about media freedom, we are to talk about creating enabling mechanisms for the purposes of defending our people and promoting and preserving our Papua New Guinean ways.”

The university students celebrated the event with speeches, games and entertainment depicting the importance of the media.

Their event was sponsored by the National Literacy Awareness Secretariat (NLAS) and began on Thursday afternoon with a float around Madang town.

Placards with bold statements “Stopim birua long ol niusman-meri” and “Stop police brutality on journalists” were displayed by students on the float.

Journalism heroes remembered
PNG journalism heroes, the late Robyn Sela and Yehiura Hriehwazi, were also remembered.

Robyn Sela was an investigative journalist with the Post-Courier and a graduate of the University of Papua New Guinea. In 2003, Sela was assaulted and threatened by a soldier for her reports on the then Defence Force Secretary who was under investigation for improper conduct.

Yehiura Hriehwazi was one of Papua New Guinea’s leading professional journalists who advocated for strong investigative journalism. Hriehwazi was also a founding member of the Pacific Freedom Forum.

Chairman of the Media Freedom Day Committee Fabian Hakalits asked all present at the event to stand up and observe a minute of silence in respect of the two reporters.

Speaking also at the event was Dilen Doiki from Yumi Piksa, a local visual community action project in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

The Yumi Piksa project of the Creative and Social Media Centre at the University of Goroka received the UNESCO Divine Word University Communication and Development Award.

There were also students from the Health Management, Tourism and Hospitality, Business Studies Departments as well as Tusbab Secondary School in attendance.

The programme ended in the evening with the presentation of awards to participating departments and the trophies to the winning sports teams.

Natalie Lavi is a Divine Word University journalism student.

© Scoop Media