In the face of such concerns, the past decade has seen growing calls for Duna unity. Campaigning in the Lake Kopiago sub-district (that part of the Koroba-Lake Kopiago electorate which is ethnically Duna) in the lead-up to the 1997 and 2002 national elections focused on the urgent need for Duna political unity to secure national representation (Haley 2002a, 2002b, 2004). Both elections were promoted locally as the ‘final election’, the last chance to gain political representation before the world’s end (Robinson 2002). In 1997, for instance, several of the candidates formulated a Memorandum of Agreement for Duna Unity (Haley 2002a), which in part read:

The role played by cultural identity and ethnicity in campaigning during both the 1997 and 2002/2003 national elections was profound. Dance festivals and dance competitions, in which much energy was spent on articulating Duna identity, were held on a regular basis, and sponsored by the various Duna candidates. Men and women, young and old, participated in earnest, with all participants being encouraged to dress in ‘pure’ Duna fashion.

In the Koroba-Lake Kopiago electorate the past two elections have produced electoral contests based very much on ethnicity, and have been concerned with who, from a Duna perspective at least, might provide for and best facilitate the advancement and unity of the Duna people, since the Duna hold the Huli directly responsible for their disadvantage and lack of services. Indeed, when Duna complain about a lack of support from successive national governments, their complaints are invariably directed towards the Huli, for they see themselves as having been colonised and governed by the Huli, and charge the Huli with monopolising access to the state.

Duna today fear that they are at risk of losing their cultural identity, especially in the face of Huli calls for a Hela province. They feel they are under the control of the Huli, and seek to represent themselves politically, to preserve the sociality and morality upon which their collaborative ritual endeavours were predicated, to reclaim control over ancestral lands transformed by mining (cf. Jacka 2001), and to (re-)make and (re-)fashion the world for the benefit of future generations.

That Duna fears and desires dramatically influenced the outcome of the supplementary elections held in 2003 might be illustrated by some observations on the elections. The failed 2002 national election saw 19 men contest the Koroba-Lake Kopiago open electorate. Of these candidates 6 were Duna and 13 were Huli. By contrast the 2003 supplementary elections were contested by 10 Huli candidates and only 2 Duna candidates. This came about because four of the Duna candidates stood aside in favour of Petrus Thomas, a first-time campaigner. They publicly stated that they stood aside for the sake of Duna unity. Thomas, a well known Mendi Muruk and one-time Kumul (national) rugby league player, campaigned without money on the platform that Duna people were suffering. He promised not to play politics but instead to unite the Duna and improve their situation. Duna people were generally of the view that he did not support a Hela province. Such a project, they knew, would not improve their lot. The other Duna candidate, Ben Peri, endorsed by the United Resources Party, actively supported the Hela movement, as did several of the Huli candidates.

The Huli have a clear demographic advantage in the Koroba-Lake Kopiago open electorate. In 2002 it was home to some 43,500 Huli, Duna, Hewa and Bogaia speakers.^[7] Of these, 24,850 (57 per cent) were Huli speakers, 16,055 (37 per cent) were Duna speakers, 2,310 (5.3 per cent) were Hewa speakers and 285 (0.7 per cent) were Bogaia speakers. In the light of this, the results are quite remarkable. First, the two Duna candidates between them picked up two thirds (66 per cent) of the votes cast, despite the fact that Duna make up only 37 per cent of the electorate.

An examination of the ballot box counts reveals that Thomas and Peri both picked up large numbers of Huli votes. In Peri’s case this had much to do, I believe, with the fact that he was endorsed by the disgraced former SHP governor, Anderson Agiru,^[8] and because he has backed the Hela province movement with its calls for a greater share of SHP’s resource wealth. Thomas, however, picked up the votes of disgruntled and what I would call marginalised Hulis — perhaps what Goldman (this volume) has termed ‘naturalised Hulis’, people who are now choosing to emphasise their Duna connections over their Huli ones. Indeed Thomas picked up many votes in the bilingual census units, which strongly suggests that there is not as much support for the Hela province as its promulgators would have us believe.^[9] Further evidence for this is the fact that the 2003 results saw Hami Yawari (from Kutubu) elected as governor, against the trend which has seen the regional seat held by a representative of one of the three big ethnic groups.

Whilst it is clear that the Huli continue to seek a separate province, it should not be assumed that all the Hela peoples support this movement; in fact they do not. For more than a decade now the Duna have been calling for a ‘pure’ Duna province and have been seeking to differentiate themselves from their Huli neighbours. Duna do not want to be part of a Hela province, and are angered when Huli spokesmen presume to speak on their behalf.

If it is indeed the Somare government’s intention to split the Southern Highlands, then serious consideration should be given to the formation of a Huli province as opposed to a Hela province, for the formation of a Hela province may well exacerbate the emergent ethnic conflicts, which have been brewing for decades. Alternately, consideration should be given to the formation of electorates which map more closely the ethnic divisions within the province; this would ensure a political voice for groups such as the Duna who currently number more than 30,000. Such discussion may, however, be purely academic as in 2002-2003 the Huli went from holding four seats in the National Parliament to holding only two, and this may well mean that there is now far less likelihood of progress towards a Hela province during the 2002-2007 parliament.

Whatever the case, there is no doubt that the Huli will continue to press for services in their areas and will continue to push for their own province. Back in 1978, the late Andrew Andaija called for calm, urging people that what they needed was services and not necessarily a province of their own. If Papua New Guinea’s leaders were to provide the basic services Andaija fought for, then much of the discontent in the western end of the province would be quelled and the ethnic conflicts which are brewing might also be averted. The creation of a Hela province will not solve the Southern Highlands’ woes, rather it will merely serve to fuel ethnic conflicts of a different kind.