Beheaded hospital mission worker had NZ links

By MARY-LOUISE O'CALLAGHAN and NATASHA HARRIS

A former accountant at the Auckland Adventist Hospital has been beheaded in a Machete attack in the Solomon Islands.

Lance Gersbach, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, was murdered on the island of Malaita, where he was spending a year as the volunteer business manager of Atoifi Adventist Hospital.

The Australian missionary, who may have been unwittingly caught in a long-running and bitter feud over land, was found dead by a hospital doctor on Sunday. Police say he was struck from behind.

Seventh Day Adventist spokesman Larry Laredo said last night: "He was fully aware of the dangers of going to the Solomon Islands but he was very keen to serve others and he had worked for the Church before, in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea."

Mr Gersbach and his wife, Jean, a nurse, have two young daughters, Louise, aged 11, and Anita, 8.

"His family are coping with this. They're shattered and shocked, but they are receiving care and support," said Mr Laredo.

Mr Gersbach, who had a successful accounting practice in Newcastle, New South Wales, worked at the Auckland Adventist Hospital in St Heliers from 1992 to 1994. His wife worked as a nurse at the same time.

Friends and former neighbours yesterday described him as a man who loved sport, especially cricket and running, was willing to help the neighbourhood and was deeply committed to his Christian faith.

His former boss and neighbour, Dr David Rankin, said Mr Gersbach was a quiet, hardworking man.

"He was always staying late and he was always happy to go the extra mile."

Dr Rankin recalled Mr Gersbach's love of opera: "He'd open the doors of his lounge and boom out very loud opera music all over the neighbourhood ... You could always tell when he was frustrated when you could hear it."

The murder has again focused attention on the Solomons, where the Government is bankrupt, many services have collapsed and whole areas are considered lawless.

Last week, the ANZ Bank evacuated two senior managers and suspended operations after death threats.

New Zealander Kevin O'Brien, a Fletchers construction foreman, was stabbed to death last year. One of his Malaitan workers has been charged.

New Zealand diplomat Bridget Nichols died in Honiara last year but an investigation found she had fallen on a knife.

It was Sunday when Mr Gersbach, who had been in the Solomons for three months, set off down the steep hill from Atoifi Hospital, keen to put in some extra work on the site of a proposed new mission shop.

The new business manager of the Atoifi mission was left alone clearing a drainage ditch. Two companions went home for lunch.

The church's Malaita mission treasurer, Mr Teddy Kingsley said: "Mr Gersbach was there doing some extra work and that's when the murderer came in."

Like every other health and education institution in the Solomons, the 80-bed Atoifi hospital had been pressed for funds since the coup of 2000 which stripped the nation of decent leadership and any semblance of financial administration or even adequate policing.

Mr Gersbach's task was to find a way for the mission station to do more to support itself, and one of the first steps was to build a new mission shop, a trade store stocking the basic necessities for life in the villages of Malaita.

It was a certain winner in an area short of such businesses and with a captive market in the hospital patients and their families who come from all over the Solomon Islands.

The only problem was that the tribe who are the traditional custodians of the land did not feel the arrangements made by the Church for leasing were adequate or fair.

Police and church officials in the islands are almost certain that this was behind the beheading of the softly-spoken Australian who had also worked for three years at the Sopas Hospital in Papua New Guinea.

There appear to have been no witnesses to the murder, which took place not far from the hospital but down a steep slope hidden from view.

A police official admitted: "We don't have a lot of details. But it is known that there has been some bad feelings for a long time over the land the SDA [Church] had got."

The Gersbach family plan to take the body back to Australia today after the Seventh Day Adventist community farewell him at a special memorial service in the morning.

Pastor Martin Losi said yesterday: "We are so sad and so devastated that such a thing could happen, especially at this time when we are all working so hard to rebuild the reputation of the country."

The Australian Church yesterday pledged to continue its services to the Solomon Islands.

Four expatriates working as Church volunteers at the hospital declined on Sunday to be evacuated to Honiara.

Another New Zealander, Dr Arnold Rauvenheimer, from Pakuranga, is staying on at the hospital.

It is the second time a Seventh Day Adventist Church worker has been beheaded in the Solomon Islands in less than a year.

Last September, a deacon in his early 40s, Martin Reuben, was found by his wife decapitated on a beach.