February 19th, 2020 – Lakatoro

Today, as I arrived at work, I was told that a council meeting was about to take place in the large room across the road, and I asked if I could join.

It turns out that it was a meeting which had been called by the tribal chiefs of a particular tribe who were disputing the precise boundary of their land with the state land of the village, land currently leased out to some villagers of another tribe. The council meeting was preceded and closed with a prayer session, led by my counterpart Kevin. I think Kevin gets invited to these council meetings even though he is an investment officer (so nothing to do with land disputes), by virtue of his religious seniority. The council President explained to the tribesmen that land boundary decisions are matters for the national courts, not the council, but that pending any judgement received from the courts, the council would inform both sides of the boundary that the land was in dispute and therefore it couldn’t be used for daily activity. The tribesmen were happy, and after the closing prayer, filed out. Then the provincial government officials, myself included, hopped into the back of a truck and sped down the hill to inform the neighbouring tribe of the council’s decision. These second tribesmen said it was unacceptable as the first tribe had been trying to claim the land for three years now, and pressured one of the councilmen to put a time limit on hearing back from the courts. The councilman crumbled, and said he would give the first tribe one month to produce a valid legal judgement that the land belongs to them, otherwise after a month the second tribe could continue to use it. This was a mistake, if you ask me, as to try to get a judgment out of a Vanuatu court in under a month is about as likely as finding a cheesemonger at the local market (no dairy produced in Vanuatu). I asked Kevin later whether either tribe would turn violent if the land dispute didn’t go their way, and he laughed and said they would likely both get violent, yes.

During the meeting in the village with the second tribe, I had one of those moments whereby I was able to observe myself and the scene where we were all (about 20 people in total, me being the only white guy) sat under the shade of a Nangai tree, getting eaten by mozzies, discussing a tribal boundary dispute in Bislama, and I just thought “Wow. This is one of those moments that are completely unique. Nobody else will share this experience with me, ever. All the events that have occurred in my life have led me to this moment”. It was an amazing privilege to be there.

Anyway, it wouldn’t have been appropriate to take photos, so I thought I’d just illustrate this blog post instead with various signs I’ve found on Malekula.