Samoa’s Tupua Tamasese dies

Press, 11 July 1983, Page 8

Samoa’s Tupua Tamasese dies

PA Wellington Tupua Tamasese Lealofi IV, Deputy Head of State and former Prime Minister of Western Samoa, died yesterday in Apia. Announcing this, the Prime .Minister, Mr Muldoon, said that Western Samoa had lost “one of its most loved and respected leaders.”

“Tupua Tamasese devoted his life to the service of his country, first as a doctor and then as a political leader,” Mr Muldoon said. “Despite the relative shortness of his political career, he earned the great respect of many leaders in and beyond the Pacific.”

Tupua Tamasese, a foundation member of the South Pacific Forum in 1971, was a frequent visitor to New Zealand.

Tupua Tamasese had been treated at Auckland Hospital in April for diabetes and a heart problem. He died of complications arising from these conditions.

The royal title Tamasese was conferred on Lealofi, then a doctor aged 41, in 1963.

In 1971 Tupua Tamasese became a foundation mem-

ber of the South Pacific Forum and in 1976 he headed a delegation to the United Nations to mark Western Samoa’s admission as the 147th member of that body. Tupua Tamasese’s father, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi 111, was killed by the New Zealand police on December 28, 1929, during a protest march by the Mau political movement.