Yaki Kuvalaki and the Fight for Independence

Yaki Kuvalaki was born the son of a Viafa chief on the island of Tiavu in 1927. Educated at the Henry Haughty General School, he proved himself both an able student and an excellent athlete. Plans were made for him to complete his secondary education in Australia but these were interrupted by the Second World War. The Japanese invaded the Ventiaks in 1942 and Kuvalaki was one of 1500 young men taken to work as slave labour on the island of Kiribati. Almost half of those abducted died and the struggle for survival which Kuvalaki and his fellows endured forged in him a fierce pride and a deep-seated desire for independence.

After the war, he took up his studies again and, despite being now twenty years of age, spent two years in New Zealand at Auckland Grammar School. Again he showed his intelligence and ability, graduating in the top five pupils in his final year and gaining a scholarship to Oxford where he studied History and Economics. He returned to Ventiak in 1953 with strong anti-colonialist views. He had become convinced that only by education and economic development could his country achieve independence from foreign influence, which at that time was represented by Australia acting on behalf of a United Nations Trusteeship. The possibility of achieving this, he decided, was to be found in appropriate exploitation of the phosphate resources. He, therefore, sought employment in the Ventiak Mining Company offices, beginning work as a clerk but rapidly rising to the position of supervisor and administrative manager.

In 1961 Kuvalaki married Mumona Atavala, the daughter of the Kibava chieftain, Fevuleva. Such a union between a Miamalauan and a Tiavuan was still unusual at that time and proved highly useful in Kuvalaki’s burgeoning political career. It provided valuable connections across two of the three main tribal groups and simply, by its existence, could be seen as an example of the unity which the Independence Party wanted to achieve. It was, in fact, also an extremely happy marriage. The Kuvalaki’s had six children and shown such obvious solicitude for each other that the whole family became something of a national institution. Some observers have maintained that without Mumona, Kuvalaki would have spent many more years in opposition than he did. Voting against the Ventiak Independence Party was like throwing out the family values which the villages valued so highly.

During the sixties Kuvalaki gradually became increasingly involved in independence movement. Together with Charleston Tefak, he founded the Ventiak Independent which they proclaimed as the country’s first newspaper. It is doubtful whether the Independent had much direct effect on the semi-literate population but it had immense importance as a rallying point. From the beginning, it had an editorial policy of publishing at least some items in one or other of the islands’ four native languages in every issue.

In 1966 Kuvalaki was arrested for political agitation and spent a brief in prison. He lost his job with the phosphate company in consequence and from then on devoted himself full time to the cause. At first, he and Tefak made little reference to the issue of phosphate mining, concentrating their attention on the political question of self-determination. As it became clear, however, that independence would be granted, they shifted their ground and began openly to demand payment for continued mining rights. Nationalisation of the mines became a key plank in VIP policy and Kuvalaki became determined that every Ventiakian should share in the prosperity they could be used to generate.