Word: pangu
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bear Hug. So far, the separatists have waged only a war of words, and Prime Minister Somare does not seem to be worried by them. A bearded former journalist and teacher who orchestrated his Pangu (Papua and New Guinea Union) Party into leadership of the ruling coalition in the Port Moresby Parliament, Somare often journeys back to his tribal area on the north coast of New Guinea, where he likes to "suck a couple of stubbies [short beers]" with betel-chewing friends on the white beach. A powerful man, he once broke up a brawl in the legislature by bear...
...first real move toward independence came in March 1972 when 1.5 million eligible voters, mainly illiterate, chose among 611 candidates for the 100 seats of the House of Assembly. A coalition formed by Somare's party, the Pangu Pad (pidgin for the Papua New Guinea Party) won control with 59 seats, drawing its main strength from the people of the coastal cities, whose education and contact with the outside world had enabled them to lead an independence movement. But the more primitive highlanders in the interior fear exploitation by their coastal brethren and distrust self-government...
...seemed. The conservative, white-dominated United Party, which had sent sound trucks through the main towns with the message in pidgin "My fella vote Unided Pati, yu fella vote Unided Pati," lost some seats it had held in the last Assembly, and emerged without a majority. The Pangu Pati (acrophonetic pidgin for Papua New Guinea Party), which draws its strength from the radical young black elite of the coastal cities and favors immediate self-government, gained ground, leading to predictions that the territories will be self-governing within two years. But fully 30 of the Assembly's 100 seats...
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