HE WAS Papua New Guinea's great political survivor, but Sir Julius Chan ended up savaged by the "dogs of war" hired to earn him his place in history.
Sir Julius (57) stepped down yesterday after a 10 day political crisis sparked by his decision to hire 70 African mercenaries to crush a dirty little war on the island of Bougainville and reclaim a once lucrative copper mine.
Lined up against him were the army, politicians of all political persuasions and many ordinary people angered not just by the mercenary fiasco but by the poverty, corruption and high unemployment that blights the South Pacific country.
As late as Tuesday, it appeared that the urbane Sir Julius, the strongman of Papua New Guinea's turbulent politics, had managed to weather the storm after he survived a parliamentary motion of censure against him.
But armed soldiers and protesters who blockaded parliament house after Tuesday's victory helped turn the tide, and yesterday an emotional Sir Julius stood up before his colleagues in parliament and ceded to the inevitable.
"Sometimes you have to choose and I have chosen to defuse the situation to hopefully allow due process of the law to take its normal course," he said.
At a news conference an hour later, Sir Julius said he accepted responsibility for the crisis but was unrepentant for taking tough decisions vital to the future prosperity of his country.
"I have looked cold blooded at times because a developing country has sometimes got to take some very tough decisions.
In two terms as prime minister he helped shape his country's transition from an Australian territory to a nation boasting some of the world's major resource projects.
Prime minister first from 1980 to 1982, he has held many senior portfolios in his 24 years in Papua New Guinea's parliament both before and after independence in 1975. After the 1992 general election, he outlined his "Robin Hood" strategy as finance minister to tap the nation's booming resources industry to create jobs in agriculture.
Ninety per cent of the country's 4.3 million people live in rural areas and only 14 per cent are in formal employment outside subsistence farming.
Since then, he has steered Papua New Guinea toward greater control of its resource projects, pushed ahead with a major privatisation programme and refined plans for a stock exchange.
Relations with Australia have been difficult - Sir Julius has criticised Australia for making its annual US$250 million aid payments tied to specific projects.
He was angered as well by Australia's refusal to give his government the kind of military hardware, especially helicopter gunships, needed to quash the nine year Bougainville rebellion.
In July 1977 he contested the first post independence election as leader of the People's Progress Party and was elected deputy prime minister.
But three months later he withdrew his party from the government after a dispute with then prime minister Sir Michael Somare, regarded as the father of modern Papua New Guinea.
In 1980, Chan was made a knight commander of the civil division by Queen Elizabeth for his work in administering his country.
In March that year Chan toppled Somare in a no confidence vote and became prime minister, a position he held until he was defeated by Sir Michael in a general election in 1982.
He was re elected prime minister in August 1994 on a dual platform - ensuring national security and ending economic mismanagement.