PAPUA NEW GUINEA JOURNALISM - BARNEY ORERE

 

IT’S BEST TO HAVE BARNZO ON YOUR SIDE

 

‘He tells it from the heart . . . .’

 

By BIG PAT

IF you are a boxer on your last fumes in the penultimate round, Barney Orere (pictured) would be the kind of trainer you would want in your sweat stained corner.

You know why? Well, here is why, Barnzo never minces his words. He will reveal your soft spots and sweet spots. His words will jab your best.

He is the kind of fighter who has been around to know the subtleties of the tricks of his trade. 

Barney Orere (MBE) is Post-Courier's championship writer. He is a specialist story teller who narrates from the heart.

The man from Eroro, Northern Province, works in the Special Projects section of the newspaper, delivering very special stories for our clients.

An adventurous heart, Barney has been around in some strange places encountering and stirring some very strange eerie eccentric feelings.

But the yarn that tickled my fancy was spun as we sat beside a slow rolling Laloki River recently with PNG’s first native army General, the long-retired Edward (Ted) Ramu Diro.

In it, Bubbly Bubu Barnzo relates with a flourish how he once divided an old people’s home in Melbourne, Australia into the Liberals & Labour political camps.

Really? Lofty was bamboozled, even flabbergasted that young Barnzo could really waylay these Aussie kanakas with an Orokaiva banzai charge.

Like most Orokaivas, he is also a lay missionary and an old school Anglican and even a profoundly very old school Martyrs Memorial former desk polisher.

This religious layman call to service once saw Barnzo in the Australian state of Victoria, which we all know is famously mad for AFL and its now popular rugby league footy team the Storm. 

The Eroro warrior was not there to cheer the Magpies or the Tigers or the Storm. Alas, what he was going to say was to stir up a storm.

In that house of lapuns, Barnzo was asked to mutter a few words. Well, being an aspiring politician, and as larrikin as a banjo banging bush kanaka ukulele farmer, Barnzo did mutter a few very long stirring sentences. 

Among the crowd, a lapun mama, quite impressively stoushed, and pointed her blood red polished nails at Barnzo: "How many soldiers do you have in your army?

Retired General Ted Diro with visitor Patrick Levo Junior and Mrs Veitu Diro at their Laloki, 17 Mile residence.

At this part of the story, General Diro was quite smug, anticipating a typical Barnzo fairytale firecracker start.

Barnzo ups his bazooka: “ahh madam, we have about 4,000, yeah maybe 6,000. Can’t really tell because you Aussies told us to downsize. Our security forces are made up of the army, the police and the correctional guys.”

The woman; whom by now Banzo is thinking is an undercover ASIO secret agent, then asks: "How many soldiers does Indonesia have?"

Barnzo replies: “I couldn’t tell you m’am for the sake of my life. All I know is that Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world and that every third or fourth person on the street has a connection to the military.”

Barnzo is not the person who will put the gauntlet down easily so his answers are brisk. The suspected secret service agent is unrelenting.

Maybe these guys want to test if Barnzo is cut out for parliament or should he be really heading for the pulpit. 

Or maybe he has a good chance of making it so the Aussies want to be on top in case they’re staring at a future something.

Anyway, the question was: In that case, if the Indonesians attack your country, what will you do?

Banzo is telling General Diro, that you could hear a pin drop. 

“Well, that’s an interesting question and a very difficult one. But let me put it this way,” Barnzo tells the curious Aussies. 

"My country does not have the Freemantle Class Destroyer you guys build in Freemantle, no personnel armoured carriers or fighter jets. But I see Australia supplies these military hardware to Indonesia. And not only that; you supply spare parts and even train them. So if as you say, the Indonesians attacked my country, I guess that would be Australia’s problem.”

Barnzo trying to cross a muddy puddle in middle of no where in the Whiteman Ranges of West New Britain. Notice his crutches.

Barnzo did not realize he had pulled a major plug. The 300-strong crowd of white heads gave him a standing ovation that quickly turned into a stand-off between political rivals – the Liberals and the Labour.

"Barnabas; if you need help, Liberals are your people, they yelled. Labour supporters did not like that; no Barnabas, talk to Labour!"

It was now an open confrontation. Some said: "look; be careful with your questions, this man is running for parliament. 

Others said: "Barnabas, you sound like a good guy; why are you running for parliament?"

The master of ceremony banged on his saucer cup with his tea spoon in an attempt to bring the dispute under control. 

Fearing the MC might break his saucer cup, Barnzo raised his arms and the crowd immediately calmed down. 

Seeing his chance, the MC quickly said: "ladies and gentlemen, that will be all and Barnzo’s job was done, because the crowd quickly dispersed.

You see, Barnzo says he’s got UFO DNA in him - which makes him a freak. He was trained in OZ so he knows these people well. And he has said some horrible things down there. One of them ended up with him chairing a regional bishops’ conference when he is not even an ordained person.  

By now Gen Diro and Lofty are not sure if Barnzo is real or a recent escapee from Bomana jail or Laloki mental asylum.

When he was interviewed for Pacific Beat in ABC Headquarters, Melbourne, he started talking about money laundering, Trans border crime, and human smuggling that would endanger PNG national security and compromise Australia’s because we are sitting at the gate, the senior woman journalist’s voice shook and her knees knocked the table. 

Pacific Beat is heard in South-West Pacific, the same area that became the theatre of war for General Douglas MacArthur to command in WWII. That was in 2005 before these words became fashionable.

Barnzo drinking kulau (young coconut juice) in Boera, the famous village where the Hiri Lakatoi was said to have originated.

Barnzo also mentioned how he trained Aussies their own Millennium song to raise money for the church, taught English to refugees for a week and how he was sponsored by the Federal Government to become the first Papua New Guinean to climb Australia’s national icon - the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This is why he is a walking cultural bridge few people realize.

“General,” he said. “You know, the white man is clever. They’re good at this because they created the press; not us. Yet our leaders have the audacity to tell lies. 

"When the Aussies want to find out if I am still the same person; all they have to do is go and find that Pacific Beat interview in their library and compare what I said then with what I say now. 

"This is how they establish trust. If you are a different person; well, that’s going to take some time until they work out how to deal with you”.

Well; I got to tell you that Barnzo is not only good at what he does; he’s bloody convincing and that’s because he has learnt the rules well. Even while he was training in the land down under, he was invited to inspect a submarine and broke a champagne bottle over the bow of an ocean going yacht to launch it. 

He was taken to the celebration in an exclusive Sydney suburb and was the only black fellow present.  His stories are so many he jokingly says it will take 12 months to tell it all.

footnote: it is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Barnabas Barney Orere (MBE) on Friday, September 20, 2024 in Eroro, Northern province of Papua New Guinea.

Farewell, old friend, our memories as neighbors on Touaguba Hill in Port Moresby will be forever remembered. - Big Pat

Papua New Guinea's world famous national birds of Paradises, a male and female.