Amata fondly remembers the late King Taufaahau Tupou IV
September 14, 2006

Reprinted from American Samoa Tribune

His Majesty King Taufaahau Tupou IV will be laid to rest Tuesday on his home island in the Kingdom of Tonga. Tonga is part of a triangle of islands that along with Fiji and the Samoas forms the very core of Polynesia so it is no surprise that over the years the leaders of Fiji, Tonga and the Samoas have been close.

I was fortunate to personally come to know King Taufaahau because as a young crown prince, he and my father, the late Gov. Tali Peter Coleman were among the group of young, educated island leaders in the mid-1950s as the Pacific was starting to emerge from colonialism in the aftermath of World War II. Over the years this great and gentle monarch and my father grew to be close, personal friends.

I saw then Crown Prince Tungi for the first time in Pago Pago when I was a small child, when my Dad became the first and only appointed native-born Samoan Governor and later when he became the first elected Governor of American Samoa. I remember when Prince Tungi (Princess Mata'aho did not accompany him on this particular trip), my parents and my siblings and I drove to the airport for a swim where the water was deep so that Tungi could do his swim laps, long before the land was filled in to become the Pago Pago International Airport and all that was there then was one airstrip. We children would watch Prince Tungi from underwater as he snorkeled and we marveled at his ability to pick two of three of us up all at once with just one large hand when he came out of the water.

I especially remember the time he came to Pago in 1982 for the official opening of the South Pacific Conference my Dad was chairing. The Conference had been in decline for a number of years as a meeting for heads of government, having been eclipsed following the establishment of the South Pacific Forum a decade earlier. But, since American and French territories were not eligible for Forum membership and were being left out of important regional policy decisions, Dad had hoped to reverse that trend and restore some of SPC's luster.

So he personally telephoned all of the heads of government in the region and the meeting wound up with eight of them, the most who had attended an SPC in years. Naturally, Fiji and Samoa rallied to the cause, and so too, did King Taufaahau as a favor to Dad.

One of my fondest memories ever was the evening before the official opening of the Conference when Dad invited all the heads of government up to Government House on Maugaoalii, not for a formal reception to mingle with dignitaries but just an exclusive, informal gathering of old friends. I volunteered to help serve the refreshments just so I could be in the presence of so many leaders whose names already are in the history books, including Sir Robert Rex of Niue, Nauru's President Hammer deRoburt, Cook Islands Prime Minister Sir Thomas Davis, Ratu Mara, HRH Malietoa, Governor Pedro P. Tenorio and of course, King Taufaahau and my Dad.

What an incredible evening. The drinks flowed freely as they reminisced about political battles won and lost over the years and told stories and jokes late into the evening. Ratu Mara told the "story of the necktie" about the coming of the British to Fiji. At one point, the King pulled out his balalaika and started strumming it and everyone joined in song.

With that, the King, my Dad and the others all burst out in genuine laughter at Mara's joke, even though they had heard that story a hundred times before. And the King played on. I was sorry that my Auntie Tali Mabel Coleman Reid already had passed away because she would have been there playing the piano, as she had done in the past for Mara and the King, whom she also had known back in the 1950s.

What a wonderful evening of old friends. Most of these eight men had known each other for almost 30 years by that point and, perhaps surprisingly to me, given their seniority, all still had many years of service to give.

Bob Rex, Hammer deRoburt, Ratu Mara and Dad are gone now and His Royal Majesty has joined them in that great South Pacific Conference in Heaven.

It is memories such as these, memories of King Taufaahau, Ratu Mara and my father with other leaders of their generation, the founding generation, that I cherish. Whenever I am called upon to deal with thorny issues today, it gives me great strength to remember the problems they faced with such courage and determination and to recall how they solved them with dignity and grace. They knew how to deal with the two worlds in which we live and their leadership is an inspiration.

They had the enormous challenge of leading their people into a modern world while balancing development with preservation of our strong but fragile cultures.

King Taufaahau Tupou IV was a leader of world class stature. I am a better person for having known him. He will be missed not only by his people but by us all. May God rest his soul.

Amata Aumua