Nineteen years and counting in Papua New Guinea

Urgent threats to PNG's WORLD HERITAGE sites posed by SABLs

I am concerned, as are many others, over the fate of proposed UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE sites in PNG, to which I hope to add the Karawari Caves. These illegal SABLs are not simply in violation of landowner rights, but present direct threats to some of these sites deemed to have global significance for their historical and biological value.  Below I am attaching a statement to this effect from the former World Heritage consultant to the Department of Environment and Conservation, Peter Hitchcock.

SPECIAL AGRICULTURAL BUSINESS LEASES (SABL) AND WORLD HERITAGE

In 2006, the Government of Papua New Guinea nominated seven areas to the World
Heritage Tentative List, a precursor to future full nominations to the World Heritage List.
http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/state=pg Places on the Tentative List are not
necessarily already protected but instead represent a signal to the international community
that PNG possesses areas of ʻOutstanding Universal Valueʼ - World Heritage - and that
under the World Heritage Convention PNG has committed to protect these areas of its
natural and cultural heritage.

 

Tentative Listed Sites
The seven areas of PNG that have been placed on the World Heritage Tentative List are:
• Huon Terraces - Stairway to the Past
• Kikori River Basin / Great Papuan Plateau
• Kokoda Track and Owen Stanley Ranges
• Milne Bay Seascape (Pacific Jewels of Marine Biodiversity)
• The Sublime Karsts of Papua New Guinea
• Trans-Fly Complex
• Upper Sepik River Basin

ʻThe Sublime Karstsʼ is a ʻserialʼ site comprising three separate areas - Muller Plateau and Hindenburg Wall in the highlands and Nakanai Mountains in New Britain.

Protection of Tentative Listed areas:
Only parts of some of the listed areas have any form of protection. Part of the Trans Fly is
reserved as Wildlife Management Areas which remain in customary ownership. None of
the Upper Sepik site has been protected. Only a very small part of the Nakanai Karst
section of the Sublime Karst has been protected (Kavakuna Cave).

SABLʼs and World Heritage Tentative List:

The SABLʼs presented on website http://www.pngsdf.com/sabl/ reveals that a number of
the areas sold as SABLʼs impact on several of PNGʼs World Heritage Tentative List Sites.
Three examples so far identified are presented herein.
Upper Sepik Site (map above)
Three SABLʼs (white edge) in the Sepik overlap with the ʻUpper Sepik Basinʻ (red edge) as
nominated to UNESCO World Heritage Committee as an area that PNG wouldseek to protect.

The owners of the three SABLʼs are shown (from west to east) as:

• Wammy Ltd
• Nuku Resources Ltd
• Nu n g awa Ra i n f o r e s t Management Alliance

 

Sublime karsts (Nakanai):
The Nakanai Karst section of the Sublime Karst site does not specify a boundary, only the karst -
the cavernous limestone of the Nakanai. A total of 5 SABLʼs are located on the Nakanai Karst
and includes more than 80 kms of ocean frontage (map above).

The ownership of the five SABLʼs on the Nakanai karst are indicated on the map.
The Nakanai Karst extends from the sea coast up to more than 2,000 metres elevation on the Nakanai Mountains. Some major underground rivers and caves have been explored by international expeditions but much of the Nakanai karst remains unexplored. The caves already discovered and explored put the Nakanai karst of Papua New Guinea into a world class for caves and fully justifies the area having been nominated to the World Heritage Tentative List in 2006.
Only one small reserve has been established in the Nakanai, a Wildlife Management Area over the massive Kavakuna cave.

Threats to Karst:
Karst is fragile and can be highly problematic for any development, especially where highly cavernous as in Nakanai. Runoff from roads, logging operations, oil palm refuse all threaten the pristine caves below.
A further threat to the Nakanai karst and caves is the issue of a large mining Exploration License over the karst, possibly including Kavakuna Cave. Exploration is reportedly for limestone mining for cement manufacture. The license is held by Port Moresby based Melanesian
Resources Limited.

For more information on the Nakanai Karst and Caves visit:
http://www.speleogenesis.info/directory/karstbase/pdf/seka_pdf9532.pdf
http://wn.com/Nakanai_Mountains
http://www.petzl.com/en/outdoor/news/in-field/2012/03/23/caving-wowo-expedition-inpapua-
new-guinea
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/09/raging-danger/shea-text
http://garamut.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/caving-in-papua-new-guinea/
http://explos.fr/wowo2012/Anglais/Theplace.html
http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/Au/Papua/EastNewBritain/Minye.htm
http://www.wondermondo.com/Countries/Au/Papua/EastNewBritain/Nare.htm
http://www.speleogenesis.info/directory/karstbase/pdf/seka_pdf9528.pdf

Kikori River Basin / Great Papuan Plateau
The Kikor i River Basin Tentative Site is located partly in Southern and We s t e r n Pr o v i n c e s . A specif ic boundary was nominated to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.
Two SABLʼs have been identified as overlapping the boundary of the Tentative Listed area, both in Western Province.
The main threat that might arise from sale of the SABLʼs will be logging and oil palm development.

Dirty Tuna at the WCPFC

Business: Dirty politics at WCPFC derail conservation effort Future of tuna worrying Robert Matau Dirty, ugly tuna politics reared its ugly head again at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting in Guam in March. To the disappointment of WCPFC’s Pacific nation members, mostly those of the Parties to the Nauru (PNA) sub-group and green campaigners, a number of conservation measures were removed to the benefit of Distant Waters Fishing Nations (DWFN) members of WCPFC. High seas pockets labelled the Pacific Common, previously closed as a conservation measure to protect tuna stocks, were reopened at the meeting. Lack of progress too was scored in a proposal by PNA to cut overfishing of big-eye tuna, a popular sashimi fish, to protect whale sharks or to have a four-month ban on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs), which result in bycatches of young tuna and other species. The WCPFC meet quashed these proposals although they would still apply in PNA waters but getting pushed back at that level of regionalism—where DWFNs are non-Pacific nations that fish in Pacific waters while PNA and its parent body the Forum Fisheries Agency share and discuss common issues regarding fishing in the Pacific—was a little disappointing. “When large scale commercial fishing interests drive governments at this Tuna Commission, it is difficult to make any progress towards conservation and management of tuna,” said PNA director Dr Transform Aqorau. He was particularly disappointed at the failure by WCPFC to support the PNA proposal to ban the setting of nets around whale sharks, although there were some hope in Japan’s promise to revisit the issue in December. “We have clearly seen this at the latest Tuna Commission meeting but all is not lost. The PNA is hopeful a new conservation and management measure can be agreed in December.” Greenpeace campaigner Duncan Williams who attended the meeting shares Aqorau’s sentiments, dubbing the meeting as one of the worst outcomes for tuna conservation the WCPFC has seen. “After over a year of talks and advice from scientists concerned that current efforts for managing “at risk” tuna populations in the Pacific were failing to achieve desired results, the WCPFC decided to ignore its scientists and delay negotiating new, stronger conservation measures,” Williams said. “The small islands nations desperate to retain the closure of the Pacific Commons and strengthen the ban on FADs were no match for the powers of the distant waters fishing nations lobbying efforts led by Japan, EU, Korea, China and Taiwan. They simply vetoed many of the sensible proposals or skillfully steered negotiations towards the watered-down outcomes we have now.” By its failure to support well-meaning and necessary conservation measures, the WCPFC, influenced by the might of bigger parties like Japan, European Union, Korea, Taiwan, China, has now turned the Pacific Commons into “a free-for-all” tuna fishing ground, said Williams. “Following pressure by Japan, the commission also failed to put a stop to the practice of fishing vessels indirectly targeting whale sharks for tuna despite pressure from Greenpeace and other nations wanting to protect these iconic animals from such a barbaric practice,” Williams added. “It also refused to extend the ban on FADs, despite WCPFC’s scientists recommending the current three-month ban be extended by up to six months. FADs are responsible for the wholesale death of baby tuna, sharks and turtles and are a major cause for the decline of the valuable big-eye tuna.” He said the WCPFC swept aside discussions to limit albacore tuna fishing, increasingly at risk from longline fishing boats migrating from the Indian Ocean, without licenses and no doubt will be fishing illegally. Sari Tolvanan, Greenpeace International ocean’s campaigner, said work to defend our oceans will continue, as tuna brands and retailers increasingly support Pacific communities in protecting their tuna resources. “US retail giant Safeway pledged not to source tuna from the Pacific Commons for its private brand, joining other progressive businesses in advocating what these delegates here should be delivering and that is a future with ample tuna, viable fishing industries and healthy oceans for everyone,” Tolvanen said. WWF also expressed dismay at the rapid growth in long-line fleets in the Western and Central Pacific that target southern albacore tuna. Daniel Suddaby, Tuna Manager of WWF’s global Smart Fishing Initiative, said they were heartened that a joint WWF and other conservation organisations submission in the closing minutes of the meeting that the commission take urgent action on the conservation of albacore had drawn the support of Japan and the Pacific islands countries and territories. “Progress towards sustainable management of tuna stocks has been frustratingly stalled and in some cases gone backwards,” Suddaby said. “By not implementing good fisheries management, the WCPFC is showing a worrying lack of precaution for the future of one of the world’s most important tuna fisheries.” PNA members are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. It controls the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery and around 30 percent of the global tuna supply. The WCPFC is a regional fisheries management organisation whose members include Pacific nations, non-Pacific nations fishing in the Pacific, and other parties with fishing and conservation interest in the region.

Dirty Tuna at the WCPFC

Business: Dirty politics at WCPFC derail conservation effort Future of tuna worrying Robert Matau Dirty, ugly tuna politics reared its ugly head again at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting in Guam in March. To the disappointment of WCPFC’s Pacific nation members, mostly those of the Parties to the Nauru (PNA) sub-group and green campaigners, a number of conservation measures were removed to the benefit of Distant Waters Fishing Nations (DWFN) members of WCPFC. High seas pockets labelled the Pacific Common, previously closed as a conservation measure to protect tuna stocks, were reopened at the meeting. Lack of progress too was scored in a proposal by PNA to cut overfishing of big-eye tuna, a popular sashimi fish, to protect whale sharks or to have a four-month ban on Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs), which result in bycatches of young tuna and other species. The WCPFC meet quashed these proposals although they would still apply in PNA waters but getting pushed back at that level of regionalism—where DWFNs are non-Pacific nations that fish in Pacific waters while PNA and its parent body the Forum Fisheries Agency share and discuss common issues regarding fishing in the Pacific—was a little disappointing. “When large scale commercial fishing interests drive governments at this Tuna Commission, it is difficult to make any progress towards conservation and management of tuna,” said PNA director Dr Transform Aqorau. He was particularly disappointed at the failure by WCPFC to support the PNA proposal to ban the setting of nets around whale sharks, although there were some hope in Japan’s promise to revisit the issue in December. “We have clearly seen this at the latest Tuna Commission meeting but all is not lost. The PNA is hopeful a new conservation and management measure can be agreed in December.” Greenpeace campaigner Duncan Williams who attended the meeting shares Aqorau’s sentiments, dubbing the meeting as one of the worst outcomes for tuna conservation the WCPFC has seen. “After over a year of talks and advice from scientists concerned that current efforts for managing “at risk” tuna populations in the Pacific were failing to achieve desired results, the WCPFC decided to ignore its scientists and delay negotiating new, stronger conservation measures,” Williams said. “The small islands nations desperate to retain the closure of the Pacific Commons and strengthen the ban on FADs were no match for the powers of the distant waters fishing nations lobbying efforts led by Japan, EU, Korea, China and Taiwan. They simply vetoed many of the sensible proposals or skillfully steered negotiations towards the watered-down outcomes we have now.” By its failure to support well-meaning and necessary conservation measures, the WCPFC, influenced by the might of bigger parties like Japan, European Union, Korea, Taiwan, China, has now turned the Pacific Commons into “a free-for-all” tuna fishing ground, said Williams. “Following pressure by Japan, the commission also failed to put a stop to the practice of fishing vessels indirectly targeting whale sharks for tuna despite pressure from Greenpeace and other nations wanting to protect these iconic animals from such a barbaric practice,” Williams added. “It also refused to extend the ban on FADs, despite WCPFC’s scientists recommending the current three-month ban be extended by up to six months. FADs are responsible for the wholesale death of baby tuna, sharks and turtles and are a major cause for the decline of the valuable big-eye tuna.” He said the WCPFC swept aside discussions to limit albacore tuna fishing, increasingly at risk from longline fishing boats migrating from the Indian Ocean, without licenses and no doubt will be fishing illegally. Sari Tolvanan, Greenpeace International ocean’s campaigner, said work to defend our oceans will continue, as tuna brands and retailers increasingly support Pacific communities in protecting their tuna resources. “US retail giant Safeway pledged not to source tuna from the Pacific Commons for its private brand, joining other progressive businesses in advocating what these delegates here should be delivering and that is a future with ample tuna, viable fishing industries and healthy oceans for everyone,” Tolvanen said. WWF also expressed dismay at the rapid growth in long-line fleets in the Western and Central Pacific that target southern albacore tuna. Daniel Suddaby, Tuna Manager of WWF’s global Smart Fishing Initiative, said they were heartened that a joint WWF and other conservation organisations submission in the closing minutes of the meeting that the commission take urgent action on the conservation of albacore had drawn the support of Japan and the Pacific islands countries and territories. “Progress towards sustainable management of tuna stocks has been frustratingly stalled and in some cases gone backwards,” Suddaby said. “By not implementing good fisheries management, the WCPFC is showing a worrying lack of precaution for the future of one of the world’s most important tuna fisheries.” PNA members are Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. It controls the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery and around 30 percent of the global tuna supply. The WCPFC is a regional fisheries management organisation whose members include Pacific nations, non-Pacific nations fishing in the Pacific, and other parties with fishing and conservation interest in the region.

Anguurruk market, Star Mountains, West Papua, 1989

Posted yesterday

Yesterday this was posted on one of the fb forums.

26.4.12
Good morning nbc news, just this mornin i received news from an individual working for a private organisation that a person claiming to be from an ngo called their offices yesterday asking them why they were at work, saying they should not be at work, should be on strike etc. While i cannot reveal my source, it gets me thinking that if this happend yesterday then how many other organisations, non government, private or otherwise, as well as individuals have also received these phone calls from this individual claiming to be frm an ngo group? My source tells me that as well as this call, reports have come in from their employees around the city that others on the streets, private individuals as well as themselves since tuesday were being harrased, have been harrased, intimated etc on their way to work by so called supporters of this pngtuc protest. If nbc news has time, could the team investigate these reports or perhaps interveiw the general community in the city, inviduals and organisations in general to see if these whether these reports of harrasment and intimidation to organisations as well as individuals are isolated incidents or actualy have been widespread in the city since tuesday. If i am able to get more detailed information from my source i will post here. Cheers and thankyu, take care and have a good day. Imelda.
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Local landowner companies are not the landowners, writes Andrew Lattas

Andrew Lattas

Local landowner companies are not the landowners

My own experience of landowner companies in Papua New Guinea (in the Kaliai area and in Pomio where different forestry concessions operate) is that the local landowner company is often made up of different kinds of villagers keen on development. Some are educated individuals who find the life of gardening hard and arduous, others can be remote villagers who are desperate for some roads, while other villagers are drawn in by the high cost of school fees and low cash crop prices. Many villagers who initially support logging can change sides once the project starts, when they see the poor quality of the roads and bridges, and the low royalty payments.

Generally the initiators of the project are locals who end up being financed by an overseas contractor (often RH). They will hunt for an interested contractor who is able to fund their legal, travel, accommodation and entertainment expenses whilst in town. The local member of parliament can also put a fair bit pressure on the directors to go with a contractor with which he has existing ties.

My experience has been that the landowner company generally receives a "premium" and even “advance” payments from the overseas logging company to cover its startup costs and its ongoing running “expenses.” The initiators of the project generally choose the directors and it is often on the basis of their ability to be complicit and silent with regard to the allocation of Premium money within the company. There are generally no minutes or records of how the money is used and this in turn serves to create an internal culture of solidarity, collaboration and collusion between directors. Some of the money is used to keep junior directors bound in relations of debt to the general manager and other key directors of the company who control the purse strings. Many directors in the landowner company can be illiterate or only able to read basic Pisin. They will be unable to read legal documents in English and, consequently, will depend heavily on educated directors for information. This will privilege certain individuals and groups within the landowner company, generally, those who have contacts with politicians and the government bureaucracy.

The Premium money that the landowner company receives from the overseas logging company is nominally to cover its expenses, but it also operates as gift that co-opts the directors and obligates them to the overseas contractor at the expense of their local ties to villagers. The landowner company is expected to manage public relations for the Malaysians. It is that the landowner company that should be seen publicly as calling in the riot squad to come and remove road blocks and to arrest those responsible. It is also expected to distribute covertly the necessary gifts to placate opposition and prevent organised protests.

In the Kaliai area, the contractor provided free trips to Malaysia for key landowner company directors for their “good work.” My experience of some of the Arawe directors on the south coast of West New Britain is that "gifts" from the contractor plus a popular critique of the corruption and inefficiency of state development, can generate fierce loyalty by some directors to the overseas contractor. The local landowner directors (especially at the start of the project) can be effective in mobilising people’s discontent with state officials and institutions.

The directors of the landowner company are not so much elected as chosen by each other largely through their perceived ability to work together, that is, to be on side and unquestioning of the key director and the overseas contractor. Some times they are local big men or clan leaders but more often they can claim in a token way to represent certain key clans or areas. Meetings are rare and not advertised, and if votes are held in the local landowner company, they are to ratify agreements achieved beforehand through other means. The overseas logging company can play a key role (through money and legal means) in empowering certain directors so that they become the managers and spokesmen for the landowner company. The end aim is that the local landowner company operates as the public relations arm for the foreign contractor in its interface with the wider public, and also with local villagers. The latter involves producing a process of divide and rule whereby Melanesians confront each other over their support and opposition to logging. This serves partly to undercut the transformation of economic conflicts into forms of racial conflict between Melanesians and Malaysians.

Above all the local landowner company is not the landowners.

As the project proceeds, the landowner company can meet increased opposition and criticism from local villagers. It does not take villagers long to recognise that the directors are not operating for the public benefit but are a privileged group looking after themselves. The directors in turn recognise that strong local opposition means that the project might have a limited term and so some directors can then choose to operate on the basis of needing to get whatever they can as quickly as they can. This generally means subordinating themselves to the most powerful and wealthiest participant, the overseas contractor, who demands quick solutions to local disputes that disrupt production and the export of logs. The two main ways of ending disruptive disputes are intimidation through the riot squad or through strategic gifts of money, goods, and jobs to key opponents so as to compromise and co-opt them.

My experience of landowner companies is that they use an ideology of democratic representation and nationalism to perpetuate some of the most exploitative relations on behalf of foreign companies. They are a scam that siphons off money that might otherwise go to villagers, and instead the landowner company looks after key local players, namely, politicians, local big men and vocal opponents who are bought off by the landowner company’s gifts. The landowner company can also use its substantial financial resources, motor vehicles, boats and personnel to become powerful political brokers at election time. This is now the looming threat in Pomio where the existing member who is being investigated for corruption has been a strong supporter of logging, oil palm development and the appropriation of land through lease-lease back agreements

See my article on landowner company politics in the Kaliai area
2011. Logging, violence and pleasure. Neoliberalism, civil society and corporate governance in West New Britain. Oceania 81(1): 88-107.

Andrew Lattas reports on Pomio

I have just left the West Pomio area in East New Britain where I was able to interview and verify reports from coastal villagers at Totongpal, Kaiton, Mu and Lau. At a public gathering in the men’s house, Totongpal villagers described how they were systematically beaten by the task force (riot squad) for opposing logging on their own customary land and the development of an oil palm industry which many reject as a massive form of land appropriation. At Mu, villagers told of how the riot squad visited them unexpectedly at nightfall, holding machine guns and forcing them to sign documents without villagers being given time to read the documents (an ordinarily difficult exercise without electric lighting but more especially given that the documents were in English and involved legal language, for villagers are only literate in Pisin). All of the coastal villagers to whom I spoke (including village elders and clan leaders) have not seen copies of the lease-lease back agreement (or Special-purpose Agriculture and Business Leases, SABLs) whereby their customary land is to be leased by the local landowner company to the government which will then lease it out for oil palm development. Villagers do not trust explanations given by the local landowner company which is funded by the Malaysian logging company. This funding is not public and transparent, meetings or minutes are not publicly available, and villagers have not even seen a copy of the logging agreement between the Malaysians timber company and the local landowner company. When I asked the Chairman of the landowner company for a copy of the lease-lease back agreement, he told me it was too unsafe to keep a copy in Pomio and that the only copy that existed was with his lawyer in Port Moresby. It is difficult to see how villagers can verify and agree to a contract when the actual legal document is not public and locally available and exist in what is an expensive distant destination. Currently, the task force has four to five personnel permanently based at the Malaysian logging company camp at Drina plantation. The police are fed, housed and transported into and around Pomio by the Malaysian company. They are heavily armed, and wear military camouflaged clothes and strong boots. They receive a special monetary allowance from the Malaysian company for being stationed in Pomio. Much Australian aid has gone into training PNG’s task force which in Pomio currently operates as the brutal private army for a foreign company that is not just taking valuable timber but threatening to take control of land. When they enter villages opposed to logging, the police verbally abuse the men as holding up development, as ungrateful for the rice they eat, and with gross sexual references. The extra judicial punishments inflicted by the police include beating villagers with sticks and rifle buts, whipping them with fan belts, and locking them in iron shipping containers that lack ventilation, temperature control and toilet facilities. These punishments are meted out to villagers who do no more than just cut down a tree across a road or stream on their own customary land so as to stop logging and to protect drinking water. In Pomio, the task force has undertaken so-called “awareness campaigns” against marihuana and home brewing. At villages supporting logging, this has involved verbal educational campaigns but this was not the case at the village of Totongpal which has opposed logging. Villagers tell of police arriving at nightfall with guns and then assembling all the youth who were beaten with fan belts and thick sticks. It did not matter that many of these youth belonged to Protestant denominations such as Assembly of God, One Way and Jehovah Witness which prohibit any use of alcohol and drugs, they were nevertheless beaten. So were a few elders who questioned what was going on and some of these elders belonged to the same Protestant denominations. Youth are one of the major groups setting up road blocks, so it is not surprising that they were targeted for this “awareness campaign”. This was also something made clear in the tirades of verbal abuse that police directed at villagers. Some workers at the Malaysian logging company camp where the police reside noted how the task force personnel had that night drunk alcohol and smoked marihuana at the camp site. Something which is backed up by village accounts of the personal demeanor and behavior of the task force. Though the task force, the Malaysian company and the local landowner company present opposition to logging and lease-lease back as coming from the Kivung movement, as a product of a backward cult mentality, this is far from being the case. Indeed, Protestant churches and educated non-Kivung followers often ask the movement to assume a low profile to prevent such caricatures which use a "cult label" to dismiss and ridicule widespread popular opposition to this new form of exploitative development. A new kind of state has emerged in Papua New Guinea, with the corruption of state structures exceeding all previous limits. In Pomio, it is not just the task force which that is perceived as having been bought of by a wealthy foreign company. The same is the case with the leading personnel in the district government and the local government councils. Their personnel can often be seen dining at the Malaysian camp and then receiving large unexpected gifts of cargo. Currently, the local district administrator has been suspended and is being investigated by the ombudsmen over the misappropriation of district funds. The district administrator and the directors of the local landowner company have often appeared in the national media to legitimate claims by the task force that there is a law and order problem in Pomio. I have worked in Pomio since 1995 and I have not seen this law and order problem. Pomio is one of the safest areas of Papua New Guinea and is one of the reasons that international tourists ships often visit the area. On a daily basis, I walk alone on the main dirt roads and bush tracks as have many other white expatriates who have also never experienced any violence or criminal activity. Currently an elderly aid volunteer and his wife who are over 60 are stationed very close to where the beatings by the police force took place. Like myself, they walk unaccompanied and unarmed in the area, they sleep in open village houses, chat in the men’s houses, swim in neighbouring fresh streams and receive gifts of food from villagers concerned about their health. It is outrageous that Australian aid should be going to training and equipping what has now become a private army that has very little respect for human rights. More Australia aid money needs to go into the everyday management of the Task force which is nowadays protecting and sponsoring a brutal form of land appropriation. It is very easy for Pomio villagers to stop the logging and oil palm project with peaceful road blocks. It is only the violence of the task force which is under the control of the Malaysian loggers that allows the current injustice to proceed. In the Kaliai area, where I previously studied opposition to logging, the local landowner company was conscious of needing to take responsibility for calling in the riot squad so that blame did not fall on the Malaysians. However, in the Kaliai area, the Malaysian company was unable to get the support of local state officials such as councilors, magistrates, and district administrator. This is not so in Pomio where to everyone’s shock some local state officials have been participating in fabricating a non-existent law and order problem. This has seriously undermined trust and the legitimacy of local state structures. These state officials are using law and order problems elsewhere in Papua New Guinea to redefine as crime and violence what are legitimate local disputes over land and resources. As I was leaving the field on the MV Vanmark from Pomio, a speed boat brought onboard 10 youth from Lau. They had been arrested for cutting down a tree to stop company boats using and polluting a stream from which villagers ordinarily collect drinking water. In a show of defiance and solidarity, 15 young men initially claimed responsibility, even though only one could have only come foward. When I asked them why they did not run off into the bush, they noted how it would have been easy to do so but they feared that police anger and violence would then have been directed at local women (mothers, sisters, aunts) and at elderly men. It is the love of kin which led these young men to come forward voluntarily for arrest and it is these collective sacrifices which build up local solidarity. Though en route the young men could easily have overwhelmed or escaped from the two police escorting them to Kokopo, they traveled compliantly, allowing the police to wander unhindered around the ship and in fact the police were hardly ever near their prisoners. I bought dry biscuits for the young men and gave them money for food in town whilst other passengers gave them cooked sweet potato. We chatted and slept next to each other on the long voyage from Pomio to Kokopo. Such are the new dangerous rascals and criminals from Pomio.

A safe and just space for humanity: Oxfam Discussion Paper

A safe and just space for humanity
CAN WE LIVE WITHIN THE DOUGHNUT?
Kate Raworth
Oxfam

Humanity’s challenge in the 21st century is to eradicate poverty and
achieve prosperity for all within the means of the planet’s limited natural resources. In the run-up to Rio+20, this discussion paper presents a visual framework – shaped like a doughnut – which brings planetary boundaries together with social boundaries, creating a safe and just space between the two, in which humanity can thrive. Moving into this space demands far greater equity – within and between countries – in the use of natural resources, and far greater efficiency in transforming those resources to meet human needs.

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is committed to growing a better future – and as a priority that means ensuring food security for all. But it also means cultivating a broader notion of prosperity in a resource-constrained world. Oxfam believes that, over the next decade,
we need a rapid transition to a new model of prosperity, one which delivers economic development, respects planetary boundaries, and has equity at its heart.* In the run-up to Rio+20, this Discussion Paper is a first exploration of what such a model of prosperity might look like. It builds on a long tradition of thinking on sustainable
development – from the Brundtland Commission, to the 1992 Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 – and is inspired by the more recent approach of planetary boundaries put forward by the Stockholm Resilience Centre. The framework set out in this paper does not represent Oxfam policy; rather an idea put forward by Oxfam to stimulate further discussion and debate. The ideas presented here have been greatly enriched by suggestions and critiques from
government representatives, scientists, economists, and development specialists. But the framework remains very much a work in progress. Oxfam welcomes feedback on its strengths and weaknesses, uses and potential, and hopes that the ideas will contribute to an enriched debate on sustainable development.
Please send feedback to kraworth@oxfam.org.uk or add a comment on the blog about this paper at: http://oxf.am/oef . The blog will remain open for comments until 30 June 2012.
*

The Tragedy of the Tuna Commons

From Islands Business April 2012
Letters:
PNA’s self-promotion misleading
The on-going self-promotion by the PNA as the Western and Central Pacific’s saviour for tuna is blatantly misleading and a farce.
Continually playing on their “disadvantaged” situation as developing economies and small Islands States, it is only the PNA member countries themselves that have continued to license fishing vessels to fish in their EEZs (Exclusive Economic Zones) in their greedy effort to maximise foreign earnings from the tuna resources that migrate through their EEZs.
Of course, the DWFNs (Distant Water Fishing Nations) have provided that effort—but that would come to an end if the PNA didn’t keep offering the DWFNs the opportunity.
Pew, Greenpeace and WWF still don’t get it—the high seas pockets were never closed for conservation reasons.
The PNA placed a condition of access to their EEZs on an undertaking not to fish the high seas purely for economic reasons—to force more revenue generating effort into their zones. Simple evidence of this is in the increase in EEZ effort, in vessel days, since the closures were introduced (and by more than 30% since the PNA agreed to the original hard limit in 2004). And the PNA wants more.
Far from their conservation rhetoric, the PNA has suddenly changed its tune with the US on the multilateral treaty renegotiation.
As soon as the US dangled US$58 million/year in front of them, the PNA immediately started to sing a different tune—to the extent of inviting the US to support the PNA’s idea of revising the 2004 hard limit up to 2010 levels!
The commonsense approach would be to use the US position to leverage similar commitments and returns from other fleets—including reducing their effort to prevent a blowout in agreed hard limits on effort—but too many of the PNAs are too close to some of the other fleets to be able to take that route.
PNAs are deluding themselves and unfortunately taking others, including the future generations of Pacific Islanders, along with them.
- P J Johnson, Papua New Guinea

The state of the cable offshore Madang

Our fiber optic cable--an opportunity we cannot afford to lose

Fiber optics for a cyber future

Today’s CIMC forum was well worth
attending, especially because participants were able to get beyond some of the
typical civil-servant-speak that comes illustrated by very dry powerpoint Venn
diagrams and bullets about today’s policy and how it is marginally improved
from yesterday’s policy…and beyond the drone of ‘We should, the government
must, we need to, they have to, it should be…’ and so forth---to almost
practical ideas. Very exciting to hear Joseph Suwamaru today, who left the
telecommunications industry to get a PhD at DWU on the social and economic
impact of ICT and mobile telephony in PNG (great thesis topic), who presented a
model that seemed almost too easy to be true, but one that points to a way
beyond this awful private-public morass in ICT today, which has some of us
paying ungodly monthly fees for internet services that cost one-one-hundredth
as much in Australia or elsewhere, and where rural mobile phone users must walk
to the mountain top and to ledges named ‘Hello-Goodbye’ and ‘ID23’ to catch a
network, only to waste all their money on calls that drop to message services.

Joseph Suwamaru’s brilliant idea
involves pooling all the available private and public ICT capabilities, and
enhancing the current fiber optic opportunities (which
include---unbelievably—accessing the papa fiber optic cable that runs from Guam
to Sydney and comes near shore right by the Kalibobo lighthouse here in Madang)—to
provide PNG with world class communications, and in so doing, solve most of our
service delivery bottlenecks in one swoop. He spoke about the mobile phone
applications being used today in India, Uganda, South Africa and
elsewhere---including SMS pop quizzes from Health Departments on the causes and
symptoms of HIV/AIDS, as part of their public awareness programs; laparoscopic
surgery performed by teams of surgeons online in real time from different parts
of the globe; curricula distributed by internet; education in general moving
online…it’s a revolution that could be sparked by the simplest adjustments from
Telikom and the national government.

During lunch Paul Barker
interrupted my rambling on about this with a digital image from his camera. “Is
this the cable you mean?” he asked, and there it was: the frayed and miserable
fiber optic link offshore Madang, apparently damaged not long after it was
installed—and yet to be repaired.

The gaps in
service delivery are enormous, and sometimes they seem to parallel the yawning
gaps between these symposia and what happens on the ground. Talk for whom? So
much jargon, so much tedium. And it is not relieved by the MPs and Department
heads to fly in and out to open and close such for a only, never spending
enough time to be fully briefed on the few good ideas that arise from
them—maybe reading the book edited a year or so later.

But as we search for ways to
connect people to markets, to health services, to education, we are reminded
that the ICT developments of the urban elite are continually ticking away, and
that there are enormous benefits to be seen already, even from the minority of
fully connected PNG citizens. That imagined community is powerful, if not fully
democratic.

In the past ten months Papua New
Guinea has been thrice devastated by catastrophe, and plunged into a sustained.
Constitutional crisis. The social media is having a field day. In August of
2011, after Sir Michael had languished for months in a Singapore hospital
following heart surgery (during which time his son and heir apparent announced
his retirement from politics), a coterie of disaffected younger politicians
seized office, declared his seat vacant, and installing Peter O’Neill as PM.
Coming barely weeks after the Egyptian Spring, and in the midst of global cried
for democracy, the founding father of Papua New Guinea never looked more like
an aging dictator than he did then, as cries for transparency and democracy
created a groundswell across the country and bubbled up loudly in the very new,
very raw social media.

Until then, PNG’s public discourse
was print media, and the print media had been dominated by two newspapers, one
wholly owned by a Malaysian logging giant and an overt supporter of the Somare
regime. Barely a handful of social commentators had taken to the web by then,
forming blogs and web discussion groups, and talking amongst themselves, as NGO
voices. But since August this entire scene has exploded, as facebook and fb
chat groups crackle with daily rants about the current and former
administrations, and who is to blame, who is to succeed the current
Constitutional crisis (as Sir Michael continues to fight for his seat in the
courts). Now, though, the discussion is growing ever more boisterous as scorned
girlfriends, loose cannons, self-appointed authorities of all stripes begin to
de-friend other voices and scabrously libel each other on the net in ways that
would and could never happen in traditional PNG societies, where face to face
courtesy is absolutely de rigueur. Every morning I wake up excited by the
prospect of mud being slung across the networks of PNG social media. A growing
number of smart phone participants have begun contributing from remote sites as
well, wherever they can pick up the signal supplied by the ubiquitous Irish
mobile provider, Digicel.

The whole discussion has had deep
melancholic strains, too, as the country has endured a succession of man-made
disasters that seem to be the legacy of neglect and corruption from the former
administration (which has been rumored to have bled PNG of roughly 500 million
$US in the past decade). While the national elites were busy feathering nests
overseas, and accumulating impressive real estate portfolios, they were also
inviting bizarre domestic investments that have left us with controversial nickel
mines, industrial ports, half-built casinos; a sport stadium, private jet and a
palace for the Chief; not to mention lavish state affairs for their new Asian
partnerships. As if the ancestors had been angered, we have now seen a Dash-8
crash with families of university graduates all killed; a landslide that
smothered three entire villages in the area where ExxonMobil is drilling for
liquefied natural gas; and just recently a ferry disaster that lost perhaps as
many as 100 young children returning from the outer islands to school on the
mainland. Poor oversight, bad maintenance, and blatant corruption have played
their part. And people are fed up.

The social media has never before
been so anti-social, so angry and active. The Melanesian way involved restorative
justice rather than retribution and vengeance, and so people continually strive
to find a working solution rather than to punish the guilty. But that process
is never polite, and always includes a fair degree of cross-allegations and
libel, with demands for outrageous compensation. The new social media couldn’t
be better suited to its purpose here.

Extreme compensation as perverse socialism: who pays? who gains?

So we have the current price of peace in the Western Highlands: K100,000

And with that, an entire tribe will have no money for school supplies, transport, kerosene, salt, rice and secondhand clothes so they can pacify another tribe which claims collective offense for an accidental death of a young man not everyone knew. If you think the 2012 version of this wealth redistribution is as socialist as it may have been even twenty years ago, come back in a year and ask how men members of the beneficiary tribe actually received part of this K100,000. Will we find one overpriced Land Rover being driven by the local councillor of this man’s village?---perhaps a man with no biological or direct social connection to the deceased? What about the hundreds of employers and relatives pressed to advance wages and/or loans without any expectation of return---what do they get in return? Who credits their log book? What accountant will write that off? What party candidate will pledge to step in and make reparations to all the contributors to this huge pay-off who have absolutely no current or historical connection to the victims or the perpetrators’ clan? How many scores of children unrelated to this cause will now be denied school or project fees?—necessary surgeries?---visits to distant grandparents?

It is well past the time we need to reconsider the impact of big cash compensations on the larger community. Time to ask: Who gains?

 

News	Thursday 05th April, 2012

Dei tribe sets compo history

By Mal Taime

THE people of Nilka tribe in Dei Council District in the Western Highlands Province has set history to pay more than K100,000 compensation with pigs and cows to Moge Andaklimb tribe on Tuesday.
The compensation ceremony was made following a killing that occurred early this year.
The incident occurred after a man from Nilka tribe and Andaklimb were drinking at MMS Lodge in Mt Hagen and had an argument which ended up in a fight that led to the death of Kansol Paraka.
Both men are married to two sisters and were living in their wives’ village.
The relatives of the victim had set a good precedence and did not want to take the law into their own hands to take revenge.
However, it took only seven weeks for the people of Nilka to contribute to raise the money with other goods to pay compensation.
They paid a total of K100,000 in cash, 100 pigs, eight cows, five goats, one possum, one python and two cassowaries to the relatives of the victim.
The relatives of the victim accepted what the Nilka people gave to them and said it was a pre-planned incident.
According to the Nilka people, when the victim was at Mt Hagen General Hospital they contributed and gave K500 towards hospital expenses but he died.
The incident feared the lives of Dei Council for not travelling to Mt Hagen to do business and other activities.
They spent over K150,000 to buy pigs and also contributed some cash and gave it to the relatives of the victim apart from the K100,000 compensation payment.
Businessman Max Kumbamong said on this earth people always encountered problems and urged people to know how to manage themselves.
He said Godly chosen people should not encourage problem because problems displace people and caused damage to properties worth thousands of kina.
Former Western Highlands governor Paias Wingti was given the privilege to hand over the money bag to the peace mediators to give it to the relatives of the victim witnessed by Mr Kumbamong, who will also run for the regional seat against other prominent leaders.
Mr Wingti said it was very important to negotiate for peace because it would unite people at all times. He said if people refuse to negotiate for peace ceremony in any trouble-related issues there would be unstable society that would dismantle everything and no development would take place. Mr Wingti said peace was very important and if there was peace in Western Highlands tangible developments would come about in the province contributing the country as a whole.
He said this trouble was an unexpected one because the two brothers did not plan for it and thanked the Andaklimb people for not taking the law into their own hands to retaliate.
Mr Wingti commended them for allowing justice to take place because this was the only solution to solve every problem.
He also thanked the relatives of the suspect for taking a few weeks to contribute cash to pay compensation.
He said Western Highlands was the central province to other Highlands provinces and it must be a trouble-free province.

 

 

The Meakambut, Penale, Ewa, Alamblak and Sumariop get a check up

Back from the Karawari Cave Arts Project, having brought one of our major donor reps, Catherine Sparks, and her daughter Kireni, to visit some of the communities. Great travelers, keen observers, and good natured with everyone, we loved having them.

Some of us were especially happy to meet Kireni, as you can imagine.

We’ve now expanded the reach of our Karawari Cave Arts project to include villages that have indirect relationships with the ancestral caves, all along the Arafundi and Karawari Rivers. This means that, beside Tembakapa (the new Meakambut village), Imboin, Awim, and Moinene, which have been our principle base camps, we are now working with Sikayum, Kambua, Yaramat, Gumms, Tiariva, Latoma, Chimbut, Binam, Munduku, Amonggabi, Kundiman, Yimas 1 and 2, Wombrumas and Yamindim, representing a rough total population of around 5500.

They have not all received water tanks (yet), or solar panels (yet), but thanks for Dr Samiak, they have been given basic meds for this season. Dr Louis Samiak, the pediatric surgeon who has conducted all our village medical patrols, this time delivered a total of 70 kg of medicines to Village Health Volunteers in all these villages.

No aid posts and no fuel to get to any clinics in the region, these villages lose people every year to some of the most ordinary of ailments: childbirth, malaria, flu, physical traumas, and infections. Before we can talk about a sustainable means of protecting these historic caves of theirs, we need to keep them alive and happy.

Indeed, these are some of the most resourceful and cheerful people in PNG, not so much despite their lack of services, but because of how much they have accomplished without any government help whatsoever over the last twenty-plus years.

There are cocoa fermentaries, churches, community schools, womens groups, and fishing/hunting cooperatives all along these rivers which contribute to the general well being of the community---but cannot solve the problems of hunger and disease that occasionally knock these communities sideways during the rainy season’s flooding, or following natural disasters.

For many of them, the village remains a semi-permanent site, and moving from hunting grounds to wild sago stands, back to the village, and out again every few months, keeps them from slipping into abject need.

Their bush is still a supermarket, their culture a driving force. These villages represent four language groups: Penale, Alamblak, Ewa and Sumariop, and both the Alamblak and Sumariop retain the clan totems of their slightly western (Blackwater) origins: cassowary, eagle, crocodile, hornbill, cockatoo, flying fox, pig and bird of paradise clans are spread all across both river systems.

And while we have been recording some of the Penale sago paintings of Awim, noting how much they borrow from their Alamblak neighbours, we can also note that enterprising Alamblak carvers are now making Ewa-style carvings in more stylized forms for sale to the intermittent tourist trade.

They live in a landscape of Dr Seuss shapes, great leafy tall trees swamped by heavy curtains of vine: the entropy overcoming enthralpy everywhere. This bush is the perfect symbol of community life here, too, as people get ahead by great ambitious deeds, and are held back by so many social responsibilities. In the end it is a wall of wildly ranging leaves and hues of green all knitted together by the endless vines and bamboo shoots. Some wind around trees like Christmas tinsel, others drape like the strings of a maypole.

After the rains, a whole wave of trees and vines and epiphytes fall over like the hanger rail in your closet that has just collapsed. A messy heap of biodiversity that can never be replaced by secondary growth after oil palm or some other counter-productive crop.

Our plan is now to purchase solar refrigerators for the few aid posts in the area, to hold childhood vaccines the Village Health Volunteers can administer. This round we also brought Peter, a young Meakambut man, back to Awim to travel in a week or so to the Boram Haus Sik in Wewak, and have his cataracts removed, if possible, by the ophthalmologist there.

We also want to write pamphlets for each of the cave art communities to add to their school curricula: stories about the history of their caves and their culture, something to instill pride in their past and a conservation ethic for their future.  Which reminds me: we showed the Meakambut their pictures in the February National Geographic, and tried to translate the story of Lidia (pictured here) being saved by the heroic threesome from Nat Geo, but somehow no one could remember those visitors actually bringing her to an aid post in Munduku, as the magazine says. "Like wounded refugees from a jungle war, they depart single file down the slippery slope. It will take them six hours to machete their way to the Manbungnam River, where we have a dugout canoe with an outboard motor waiting. From there it's another six hours downstream to reach the clinic. We have little hope that Lidia will live."

Strange, I myself remember carrying Michael's malarial son, as Pasu carried Lidia, and the rest of my team trudged down the mountain in about 4 hours to our canoe, then drove 3 hours to Munduku clinic where there was no medicine to be had, as we could not fulfill the command of the Nat Geo team to have Lidia airlifted. They stayed in the caves to finish interviewing the Meakambut.

Lidia remembers two things: she was scared to death when one of the team put her on a drip; and she was told, to gales of laughter, that the National Geographic men stripped down to nothing for a swim in the Arafundi! ---Scandalous! Naked white men!

We imagine her drip was no more terrifying than this pilates-Dickensian contraption Dr Samiak brings along to measure the children---who no doubt think they're being fitted for a coffin...

...when they're not being weighed for sale at the market.

Here Eric and others study Da Vinci's female portraits and their lovely lips.

Women in all these villages have also asked us to help them start sewing projects, so we also plan to find hand powered sewing machines for them, and bring in skilled seamstresses to teach short courses for each village.

The little tyke (above) has an older relative who just did the following to a child in Awim:

Finally, we also plan to purchase HF radios for Awim and Moinene villages (one on each of the Arafundi and Karawari Rivers) that can communicate with a radio in our office in Madang for regular updates and emergency communication. Our hope is that this will allow us more reliable communication than the mobile phone networks, and enable us to know immediately when and if there are mining or logging threats to the perimeters of these community’s land boundaries.

For the time being, however, my three sons, Jeffrey, Edward and Chris, have taken to terrifying small children in the Karawari River, just to keep in practice.

Chief injustices

hy·poc·ri·sy/hiˈpäkrisē/

Noun:

The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

hypocrisy noun artfulness, charlatanism, charlatanry, deceit, deceitfulness, deception, dishonesty, dissembling, double-dealing, duplicity, false profession, fraud, fraudulence, fraus, front, guile, hollow pretense, imposture, improbity, insincerity, perjury, pharisaism, pretense of virtue, pretension, quackery, sanctimony, show, trickery

The Post Courier  23.3.12

Trio out on bail

Chief Justice takes the bench as cops swamp the Court house

By TODAGIA KELOLA  23 March 2012

POLICE Commissioner Toami Kulunga and two of his senior officers were yesterday released on bail by the Supreme Court on contempt of court charges.
Mr Kulunga, his deputy Simon Kauba and Director of Special Services Superintendent David Manning were each released on a K500 bail by the Supreme Court, comprising the five most senior Judges of the country, including the Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia, DCJ Gibbs Salika, Justices Bernard Sakora, Nicholas Kirriwom and Les Gavera-Nanu .
The three top cops were hauled before the court, charged by the Supreme Court for contempt after they were alleged to have defied two Supreme Court orders made on November 10, 2011 and February 2, 2012 which basically ordered that police refrain from harassing, intimidating or arresting Chief Justice Sir Salamo Injia.
The three men were alleged to have ordered the arrest of Sir Salamo recently in a matter involving the estate of the late Judge Timothy Hinchliffe, however Sir Salamo had successfully taken out a permanent stay order effectively stopping the proceedings against him.
Some concerned lawyers yesterday said it was not proper for the Chief Justice to be sitting on the bench in the case involving the very people who ordered his arrest and prosecution.
On Wednesday, Parliament passed the controversial Judicial Conduct Bill, designed to deal with ethical behaviour of judges by giving Parliament power to deal directly with the judicial arm.
Yesterday’s proceedings started with a huge presence of policemen who filled the court premises and surrounding areas including the Judges private car-park.
The road leading to the court house was swarming with policemen, many fully armed and in battle gear.
This didn’t go down well with the five men judges and the three police officers were ordered to issue an instruction for their men to immediately vacate the court premises and be stationed some 500 metres away from the court area.
The judges raised concern that the presence of armed policemen within the vicinity of the court area is a direct threat and a form of intimidation on the judiciary.
“Courts should not be put in a situation to be intimidated or threatened. Courts and judges should be allowed to act freely and should not be threatened in any way” said Chief Justice Sir Salamo. [i.e.:” I should be able to sit on any court I wish to, we are above the law and any ridiculous notion of conflict of interest!”----- Recall that on Thursday 2/2/12, the Papua New Guinea National Executive Council suspended Chief-Justice Sir Salamo Injia for the second time, and the move was countered by the Supreme Court on the same day, by a stay order Injia himself signed!] “There is no security threat, just the sight of armed policemen is intimidating,” said Deputy Chief Justice Gibbs Salika.
The three senior police officers were ordered to the dock and details of their alleged acts of contempt were read out to them. The three have been charged with six alleged acts of contempt.
After hearing their charges they were asked if they were ready to make their defence but they all said they were not ready.
Their case has been adjourned to May 7. Registrar of the Supreme and National Court Ian Augerea who is prosecuting the contemnors is been represented by Davis Stevens while the three alleged contemnors are been represented by Michael Wilson from Warner Shand lawyers.

Sir Michael slams passage of Judiciary Bill

By GORETHY KENNETH

GRAND Chief Sir Michael Somare has slammed the passage of the Judicial Conduct Bill and is saddened by the continued unconstitutional behaviour of the O’Neill-Namah Regime.
Sir Michael is in his East Sepik electorate where he is duty bound and visiting his people. [presuming anyone still recognizes him there].He was very concerned yesterday when advised of the passage of the Judicial Conduct Bill in Parliament this week.
“It is important for Papua New Guinea to immediately hold General Elections to put an end to the barrage of unconstitutional acts, like the latest passage of the Judicial Conduct Bill,” Sir Michael said.
“It is obvious that Mr O’Neill and his followers are avoiding the judgment of the courts. But it is offensive and absolutely inappropriate to put self interest ahead of the greater interest of Papua New Guinea.
“I would like to remind these members of Parliament that people of Papua New Guinea gave them that privilege to represent them in the National Parliament. [i.e.” Despite my attempts at a military counter-coup, and my own use of the Supreme Court to reclaim my pay-packet, I now acknowledge the people of PNG have given them the right to represent the country as PM”]
“I therefore urge them to stop interfering with the court process by making unconstitutional retrospective legislation. You cannot right a wrong using your numerical strength in Parliament. [Hold on: didn’t he just say they the support of the people is what gives them the right to serve? ] They bring great shame to our democracy by their constant menace and meddling with the independence of the judiciary.
“We have done leaps and bounds as a people. We united under one country, one flag in 1975. We showed the world that despite adopting a foreign system of government we have respected the Constitution that we had tailored to suit our diverse cultures.
“I call on the public service especially the disciplinary forces to distance yourselves from this insanity by elected members of Parliament. You must not take part in assisting them to defer the General Elections.
“I urge the disciplinary forces to not deny every Papua New Guinean the right to vote. We have held elections on schedule since independence and this election should be no exception.
“These members of Parliament have shown how they will wield power and the judiciary is only the beginning. I believe shortly they will turn their attention on the Office of the Electoral Commission.
“I support my Attorney-General, Sir Arnold Amet in commending Australia’s Foreign Minister Bob Carr who broke Australia’s silence to encourage free and fair elections in Papua New Guinea. [i.e.:”Look South!!!---Now that I’ve been demoted I can no longer maintain an ambivalent look-north policy that reduces Carr’s imperious comments to irrelevance…”]
“I call on the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Nations and all development partners to support the people of Papua New Guinea to exercise their right to vote during this coming General Election,’’ said Sir Michael.

 

Why are we building Korean Hotel in residential Madang?

 

Korean Land Grab on Regina Avenue in Madang

Goodbye Gagasi Lagoon. Yesterday the corner of Bougainville Ave (Double Road) and Regina Avenue in the middle of residential Madang was a patch of local banana gardens, planted after someone cleared a few local settlements years ago in the James Yali-eviction craze. Today it is a construction site.

A consensus of rumours has it that it will soon be a 5 star Korean resort.

How is that? At what cost did the Provincial Lands Department cede this plot to a Sepik man, who sold it to a foreign developer?

An Urban Landowners Association meeting has been held and neighbours of the area have begun to shake off their kumu malu malu past to ask who did this and what for? What will be their fate? Those civil servants and workers who live at three corners of that intersection in older broken-down beaver-board houses are now wondering what will become of them?? Where will all the Korean workers live? All the car parks, pool areas, outdoor restaurants and big concrete sculptures be placed---in their front yards?

What happened to zoning in this lovely old seaside town? Today we noted the destruction of yet another German-era rain tree only slightly further down Regina Avenue, presumably for sport or firewood. There goes the glorious shade and oxygen production.

And now the local gardens of all those minimum wage workers who toil in offices around this small town have been razed for a project with dubious local value. Ask  hoteliers around Madang what their current occupancy rates might be . Ask the owners of the Madang Star Hotel which opened only a few months ago down the road at Regina and  Bauhinia Avenues what their occupancy rate might be? When they are over 50% occupancy are any of the visitors tourists who might be patronizing local villages and town businesses? Or are they workers for foreign logging and mining interests being lodged at expatriate standards?

The single biggest problem with the downstream-driven economic model for Madang is the boomerang effect, where all the supposed revenue of a project and its spin offs; all the retail profits; all the real estate, transport and hospitality benefits fly right back to the mother country rather than trickle down to nourish a parched local economy.

We talk about SABLs and backdoor giveaways elsewhere in the country. Here in Madang this kind of Lands Department corruption happens just down the street!!

Obla Di Obla Da. Bra.

I am pleased to say I have survived a road trip with a collection of distaff barristers this past weekend, to a political function in Lae. The terms of our travel, outlined by our fearless leader, were that if we failed to reply Yeee Haaaw immediately after ‘Road Trip!’ was announced at any time, we would be forced to draw a number for one of the following dares:  

1. Kiss a male within an hour who is not your relative
2. Demonstrate a certain oral act on a bottle
3. Do a sexy dance in front of a man (not to me confused with epileptic fit)
4. Kiss a politician (preferably not known to you) before midnight
5. Pretend to have a vomiting fit for one minute in public
6. Sing the chorus of Like a Virgin with, appropriate hand actions, loudly in public
7. Pretend you recognize an ex lover in a stranger and talk for 1 minute
8. Ask a stranger to zip up your skirt, blouse, dress, intimate attire

I can honestly say I survived the trip without serious humiliation, although I still insist that my rendition of Like a Virgin was not in any way half-arsed; that the last waiter in the Bombe Alaska dessert parade WAS my lover, whatever his objections; and that I was really in fact vomiting for a minute after being served mystery pumpkin croquettes.  

No one believes me. But the loquacious Governor of that Province had prepared us all. He delivered a prayer before the glorious meal that, as is his wont, expansively thanked the lord above for all his many benevolences and ‘conspiracies’ and blessed this ‘pee and prayer’ before seeking the Lord’s protection not only against our political enemies and any people hiding in the bushes, but anyone who might so envy the political good fortune of the current administration to slip something sinister into our food tonight: May the good lord above all ‘eliminate these ingredients for us.’

Thank god I flagged the croquettes.

So many high points, and few of them from the speeches.

Once again, ‘tropical formal’ could be widely interpreted, not least by Yacht Club regulars who couldn’t be pried from the bar in their dockers and blundstones while a K2000/plate benefit for the PNC Party carried on before them; or Party President Korowa who sported the classic cocktail attire for public figures, a cotton shirt pulled tight like sails against the wind in back, and lending the illusion of parthogenesis (look that up!) in front. But of course in his case, his smile makes up for everything.

It is somehow appropriate that the son of an Irish kiap should hold a fundraiser on St Patrick’s Day in the informal capital of colonial New Guinea, where an esteemed Member of the Tourism Board and Taim Blong Masta business community felt relaxed enough to respond to the 3-piece Cuban band singing ‘Guantanamera’ ---with a hearty “SHUT UP!”

Next came the door prizes, which were also cleverly in keeping with the ‘club chook raffle’ theme as numerous lovely ladies from a female law firm (extremely well coiffed and attired, I must say) received bag after bag of Lae Biscuits, baseball caps, t shirts and water bottles. Fortunately the Chinese members of the community were able to snap up both the big prizes---r/t tickets to Hong Kong and Singapore (although some may have been given one way).

Don’t get me started. It was indeed a regal affair. And I mean that in the most Tudor of ways, as we found many a grand man making eyes at a lady across the room while raising a goblet of mead with his wife or her husband...(Off with their heads!)

 

Spouses in stilettos, and in Mrs Haiveta’s case, spike heels with their own spikes (prompting her to warn people who drew near---‘Watch out, Im a lethal weapon!’…putting us much in mind of a predecessor of hers who used to wield pistols before Air Niugini hostesses…---a footnote here: we have learned from leaked emails that Asma al-Asad has a penchant for Christian Louboutin £3,000 crystal-dusted stilettos, and pairs with spikes sticking out of the tips, and of course that the freewheeling Asads were planning a binge at Harrods while protestors were being slaughtered outside their front door--leading us to conclude either a] there is a Harrod's shoe department called ‘stilettos for the wives [and would-be wives]of despots ’, and b] Mrs. H has a future in the Middle East).

A quick rainstorm through the open windows turning quite a few guests into wet t shirt contestants. We noted the brother of a Rabaul shipping magnate feasting on his chicken leg while his brother’s ships went up like Bombe Alaska in Buka Passage.

The Cuban trio closed their performance with what I now consider the most appropriate of appropriate campaign songs. Obla Di Obla Da. Bra. La la la la Life Goes On. At first I thought their dulcet tones were being accompanied on a deep flute somewhere near my table, perchance a Huli wigman?-- only to find a fellow celebrant busy enacting Dare #2.

Obla Di Obla Da. Bra. Lalalala life goes on.

 

The Blue Chip Boys

We have our new tag. Remember the Hole in the Budget Gang? Don't they look dull and dated now. Almost peurile. So yesterday.

  

Our new mob of heros is getting their glamour on, and alot of that has to do with the way they party.

There are redundancies of course. But we fully expect the new mob to keep the bar raised, keep the bright suits bespoke, keep the chips flowing, and not least, keep those pretty pretty croupiers and showgirls coming.

Believe me, I know they're not easy to please. Some can get alittle tetchy, especially if you interrup their shift at the tables with some of that sweet love patter you guys are so good at.

We do believe there are excellent style models for this new look, this new aura. The Blue Chip Boys tend to borrow their sartorial chic from one Hollywood era:

and their class from another:

But we do want to offer a few words of advice on this new image. Act your age. Not your shoesize.

We do believe that it is possible to ask the Professor Higgin's question: Why Can't A Woman be More Like a Man? with a certain dignity.

So do be careful. One thing's for sure. Every Australian you have spurned professionally or socially is keeping an eye on your behaviour now. From the one-armed bandits.

WikiLeaks reveals what Australian Intel makes of PNG

 

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

[alpha] INSIGHT - PNG - Feedback on analysis - CN65

Email-ID	5060472
Date	2011-08-05 05:05:33
From	clint.richards@stratfor.com
To	alpha@stratfor.com
List-Name	alpha@stratfor.com

SOURCE: CN65
ATTRIBUTION: Australian contact connected with the government and
natural resources
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: Former Australian Senator
PUBLICATION: Yes
SOURCE RELIABILITY: A
ITEM CREDIBILITY: 1
SPECIAL HANDLING: None
SOURCE HANDLER: Jen

Please see my comments in orange below.
The real challenge for PNG is that it is too corrupt to develop
efficiently. The new government won't make this any worse, but won't make
it any better either.
What will happen is some stability, and an end to governmental paralysis.
Most of the last eight months in public life there have been spent
preserving the government, not moving the country forward.
We see this as a good move. How good a move will only be known once the
cabinet is unveiled, but we hope for a good Treasurer. Many of the other
posts will be filled by people who are, quite frankly, under-qualified for
the offices they hold.
The other issue is that the standard of the political class is clearly
lower than it was fifteen years ago. The old guys got corrupt and lazy,
and outdated. The newer guys have been obsessed with personal wealth, and
lack the respect for the offices they hold, which the previous generation
had. This, at least, was the view presented to me privately on Wednesday
evening, by one of most senior diplomats.

On 04/08/2011 12:23, wrote:

here is what i have so far. the PROCESS by which they ousted Abal is a
little confusing to me, so i wanted to run this by yall to make sure it
is correct and accurate.



The Papua New Guinean parliament on Aug. 2?? yes held a no-confidence
vote against the government of acting Prime Minister Sam Abal, who has
held the post since his predecessor, Michael Somare, resigned in
December 2010. Somare has not resigned, per se, but merely stood aside.
He had already been mired in a controversy requiring him to meet a
Leadership Tribunal for failing to make statutory financial returns.
Abal is replaced by Peter O'Neill, who previously headed the Works
Ministry and the Treasury.he was elected by a vote of 70 to 24. I
understood the vote was 77 to 31, with the Speaker not casting a vote.
To do this they first had to have a similar vote to suspend standing
orders to allow the no-confidnce vote to happen.



Somare ruled the country for the better part of 35 years, and (amid
latest corruption charge and following the reportedly poor health
condition) he installed Abal, a long term ally to Somare to ensure his
continued influence after he formally resigned (I think he always
prepares for coming back to power, and appointment of Abal would help
his return). But as Abal leaves office, so does any residual power
Somare may have maintained. O'Neill may represents a stark contrast to
the Somare regime, seen by many as corrupt, and because of his
Australian and Papua New Guinean heritage, he could take a more
pro-Australia stance than that of his predecessors (let's focus more
from OZ's side, something like: OZ will see the opportunity to work with
the new administration, changing from Somare's administration which took
a more anti-OZ stance) Agree with that. Aus will see O'Neill as more
cooperative. Incidentally, he is deeply personally indebted to my
colleague, Ben. . Moreover, the two figures hail from different tribes
(the word tribes here is not right; they are from different provinces,
and different ethnic groups), the dynamics of which will play a
significant role in domestic politics under the O'Neill administration.



A New Prime Minister



According to a STRATFOR source, a dispute between Abal and Foreign
Minister Don Polye - I think this guy was ousted already, along with
resource minister willian duma, and O'Neill was changed from treasurer
to work minister during reshuffle in May-- both members of the reputedly
fractious Engan tribe (try "grouping" instead, as Enga is a province) --
rather than concerns of Somare's projecting power through a handpicked
replacement precipitated the no-confidence vote. Unhappy with the
dispute, the Papua New Guinean parliament voted to vacate the prime
minister's post. (Somare has been receiving medical treatment in
Singapore for the past few months and, according to the Papua New
Guinean Constitution, the prime minister's position can be vacated if he
is absent from parliament without leave for more than 90 days. The
parliament was thus able to proceed with a no-confidence vote, even
though Somare designated Abal as the acting prime minister.) Notably,
the parliament was also unhappy with Abal's ousting O'Neill from his
position as _______ some months earlier.the latest reshuffle took place
in May, Don Polye and O'Neil were both ousted by Abal, which severed as
a catalyst among parliament



Parliament was able to vote for a new prime minister, and a number of
lawmakers secured enough votes for O'Neill to win. According to the
source, the lawmakers sought more than a simple majority; they wanted
enough votes to give O'Neill a decisive victory so that the new
government would be able to move forward with confidence. O'Neill is now
in the process of forming a Cabinet, which could include former Prime
Minister Mekere Morauta as treasurer, and the source said O'Neill is
thought to be capable of bringing stability to his position until formal
elections take place in 2012. worth to mention the business camp, which
O'Neill belongs to (he used to be a successful businessman), served a
big role into the reshuffle. O'Neill has significant telecommunications
interests, most particularly in mobile phones. His father was an
Australian kiap(local government administrator and magistrate), and his
mother was from the Southern Highlands.



Abal's government has challenged -- unsuccessfully -- the legality of
the move. Arthur Somare, the son of the former prime minister, has said
he intends to file a new suit, and the Supreme Court will hear a
separate case filed by Abal. STRATFOR sources say the court will uphold
the legality of the vote, solidifying O'Neill in his new position.

not sure what way we want to frame the following up pieces, here is my
suggestion (feel free to ignore if you already have one)

the latest upheaval follows internal power struggle for months without the
country's strongman, and questions were raised over the future of Somare
and any changes from his decade power.

One of the priority for O'Neil is to maintain the country's stability.
Peter O`Neill is a member of Pangia, Lailibu-Pangia. Somare's strong fist
over the country have successfully helped unify the country, which have
nearly thousand tribes and languages, so the domestic situation
post-Somare period remains questionable - Jen, can we have any insight
over how tribal issue play into current politics? is the current situation
likely to be calmed down or far from ending? It will never end. The
other thing is that political parties in PNG are merely groupings of
convenience. Many MPs change their political party immediately after
being elected because they get bought by a rival party.

Also, O'Neil promised to fight against corruption. though he is corrupted
(from insight), and he has significant business investments in mobile
phones, among other things, so it is unlikely that his stepping into power
could represent big change the country's investment environment O'Neill is
a strong proponent of the PNG LNG project, and other LNG projects, which
eh sees as vital for the cash to build the country. PNG LNG is largely
American and Australian owned, with Exxon Mobil, Santos and Oil Search
holding the majority of the shares..

Also, Somare's last term represents significant shift of anti-OZ, peaked
Moti Affairs, This period (2003-2007) has seen a steadily growing
influence of China in Pacific nations, taking full advantage of PNG-OZ
ramification. - our source indicated that O'Neill won't be anymore
pro-western than anyone else up there, but I guess OZ may see if there
would be opportunity to shift a strained relation under Somare - see from
Gillard's remark on the new administration. so we are still wondering if
OZ wants any change with new government

Just attaching a bit research did about two years ago regarding China-PNG
issue (not sure if it will be helpful)

Michael Somare, 74 years old, is the dominant politicians in PNG since it
was independent from Australia in 1975, and so far served as PM for four
terms (reelected in 1982, 2002 and 2007). The PNG election will be held in
2012, and Somare was talking about retiring for sometimes, but instead
setting his son Arthur, the minister for state enterprises and acting
treasurer, as his successor.



Deputy Prime Minister Dr Puka Temu and two senior ministers - Culture
Minister Charles Abel and Forest Minister Belden Namah, defected to the
opposition on July 19 and prepared a no-confidence motion to the
parliament at 14:00 July 20. The move follows a court ruling last week
that found several parts of PNG's political integrity law were
unconstitutional - freedom of speech, freedom of movement. As a result
from the ruling, MPs are free from party restrictions to move around and
vote in a no-confidence motion against the sitting prime minister. This
is dated.



PNG Political Integrity Laws:

The political integrity laws of Papua New Guinea came into affect for the
2002 election and the aim was to bring about political stability in a
country where governments had chopped and changed pretty regularly through
no confidence votes. So these laws bound members of parliament through
their parties and if their parties had supported the government to form a
governing coalition, they were pretty much bound to vote along government
line.



PNG-China:

Somare has long been seen as close to Malaysian logging interests and
accommodating to Chinese entrepreneurs setting up entertainment venues.
However, in June this year, He banned reporting and discussion of
environment law charges that could allow a Chinese miner to pump waste out
to sea.



PNG Nickel Mine Project:

Chinese financed Ramu nickel mine project in PNG's Madang Province was
approved by PNG government ten years ago, and the company claims it has
already spent more than a billion dollars into the project. However, the
project was opposed by landowners and environmental groups. Last week,
Supreme Court failed to lift the injunction stopping construction of a
system to dispose of mining waste in Madang's Basamuk Bay. Somare,
representing the government's stance, met with local landowners, but
failed to reach an agreement on the issue.




PNG-Australia:

Somare outraged Australia in 2006, when he ignored an extradition request
for Solomon Islands attorney general Julian Moti to face child sex
charges. Moti was then flown to Solomon Islands on a PNG Defense Force
flight and Australia then cancelled ministerial level talks in Dec. 2006
and banned senior PNG ministers from entering Australia.



Following Australia's intervention in Solomon in 2003, Australia laid out
plans for an Enhanced Cooperation Package (ECP) for PNG to send more than
200 Australian police as well as senior bureaucrats to PNG, but the idea
was strongly opposed by Somare.



It looks like Australia has been trying to overthrow Somare for several
years, at least back to 2007 election in Howard's administration




Earlier July, Australia seeks PNG support on regional asylum seeker
processing center, following objection from East Timor, to have PNG's
Manus Island as possible site for the center. As an effort to offer PNG in
return for the support, Australia is talking with PNG on a huge gas
project that worth 16 billion and due to begin production in 2014.
Astralia sent Trade Minister Stephen Smith in talk with PNG Public
Enterprises Minister Arthur Somare - Sr. Somare's son - on July 1, to
discuss providing technical and advisory support as PNG establishes
sovereign wealth funds. Australia also pledged 450 million aids to PNG.
But PNG government on July 10 rejected proposal. This will be problematic
under O'Neill as one of his close advisors is a rather dodgy Norwegian(!),
and former Telstra sales rep, who wants this for himself.





MSG - Fiji Issue:




China - OZ - South Pacific:

Relations between PNG and Australia were seriously strained during Howard
administration, following a series of diplomatic incidents, peaked with
Moti Affairs. This period (2003-2007) has seen a steadily growing
influence of China in PNG, as well as other South Pacific nations, taking
full advantage of PNG-OZ ramification.



China's interest in PNG lies in three areas: 1. mineral resources, timber
and fishing, in particular, China and PNG signed investment deal in Ramu
nickel project that worth 651 million dollars; 2. Geopolitical importance
of creating a breakpoint from U.S-Japan-Australia naval containment; 3.



In fact, as Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said -
which is in consistent with my friend, China's aid to PNG "tend to focus
on prestige projects in a `chequebook diplomacy' competition, applying
less rigorous standards of transparency, accountability and governance
than other donors". My friend says, in those Pacific countries - same as
African countries, standards don't apply when it comes to investment.
There was pre-study, and post-investigation, despite many items don't meet
standard, the report still recommend a pass due to "political
considerations". China's investment during 2005-2007 are primarily
concentrated in infrastructure projects. According to a report The Dragon
Looks South, China's aid to PNG increased from 6.1 million dollars in
2005, to 14.1 million in 2006, slightly decreased to 10.7 million in 2007.




--
Jennifer Richmond
STRATFOR
China Director
Director of International Projects
(512) 422-9335
richmond@stratfor.com
www.stratfor.com

Graduation at DWU ...remembering the plane crash victims

Graduation was hot and overlong, as always in the tropics, but it was still a nice ceremony and a pleasure to see everyone dressed in their school robes. I believe intending educationalists should consider their tertiary institutions on the basis of the robes you will have to wear annually forever after. First prize for forethought on this matter must go to Br Bill McCarthy who, as always, looked handsome and perfectly coordinated in his ensemble, with a hat worthy of a mad hatter's tea party.

But before I get too distracted, let me congratulate Ms Roberta Morlin who won the Joseph Rainbubu Memorial Award for Excellence in Research in Arts, PNG Studies, this year. We are so pleased when Dr Anastasia Sai, the excellent anthropologist who runs the Department, picks a young woman! Below is a shot of all of us, including Roberta's Mum in back, Anastasia to the right, and at the far left Joyce Rainbubu, our own Office Manager and the sister of beloved Joseph, that bright shining young man who died too young but not before starting my research company with me, and so in whose name we happily present an award each year (or Joyce does).

We have no idea who the man with the cigarette might be in the background, but we can confirm that in the foreground are Nancy Dominic and her cousin Samantha Mapat, two stellar grade 2 students in Madang, and of course potential Joe Rainbubu Award Winners sometime 10-plus years from now. To be sure, we would be proud for them to receive any award, as there are so many now handed out every year to graduates at DWU (all copycats, of course, after we established the award tradition), but might be mystified if they received the RD Tuna award 'for a female student with good conduct and behavior who is actively involved in the promotion of PNG women, especially in business and industry'-- because it seems such a tough role to fill. I suspect RD raised the bar on us when they learned the first academic excellence award was named for the young man who led the very first study of their tuna cannery here in Madang, uncovering everything from safety and hygiene lapses to labour law violations. I can only imagine that their 'good conduct' award would be intended for anyone but Joe Rainbubu and his cohorts in that investigative report.

We so impressed by the printed matter DWU produced for this graduation, and especially the yearbook with a page dedicated to the memory of the 'Fallen 28' which tells us:

"13th of October 2011, marks two events in which the Divine Word community will remember for the rest of our lives. A day that some of us will smile about with the thought of the Thanksgiving as a reunion and celebration of the final year students successfully completing four gruesome years in the University whilst for others, we will hold that day as a painful and unforgettable experience in which we lost our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, brothers and children."

That was the day, of course, when an Airlines PNG Dash 8 delivering families of the graduates from Port Moresby crashed on the Rai Coast, leaving no survivors.

"We remember our loved ones among the 'Fallen 28' in our prayers, namely the Matlams, Geoffrey and Clothilda Bula, Jenny Bal, Mrs. Miria Renagi and others."

Congratulations everyone! We close with a poem from the program, by Lorraine Basse of CA4, called My Protector, My Hero:

Save Bongu from Andrew Sallel and Raicoast Holdings---they helped our plane crash victims and now they're losing their logs.

Dear ActNow, PostCourier, Greenpeace

 I congratulate you on the excellent job that you did in Pomio. Because of your news coverage and exposure, the Pomio landowners finally got justice. Justice that has been denied to them for so long.

I hope you can do the same for another group of oppressed landowners. A company is illegally logging in their land, without their consent, and exporting their logs.

The illegal logging is happening at:

Bongu Village, Block 1 Raicoast

Astrolabay, Madang Province

(Near the crash site for Airlines PNG, Madang)

The logging contractor G&S Limited, is blatantly and openly logging and cutting logs without consent from the landowners.

There has already been TWO high powered gun fights in the area, over this logging dispute between the landowners and the contractor.

In December 2011, the landowners managed to get a court order stopping the harvest and export of the logs.

But the contractor is ignoring this, and still proceed to harvest.

 

Now, they are preparing to export the logs. On Monday (6th Feb 2012) this week, the logging vessel is already at the logpond.

The landowners are prepared to mobilize and arm themselves to stop the shipment, using any means necessary.

However, I hope that this can be resolved peacefully, through exposure and awareness in the media.

Without violence and gunfights that may result in loss of life and property.

We appeal for you to write and expose this in the media

The landowners are already engaging their lawyer to file damages against the contractor, for illegal logging of resources.

They are confident of winning the court case. Unfortunately, the court is just resuming from their break.

If the disputed logs are exported, the landowners will never see any money, even if they do win the court case later.

They will only get a hollow victory.

Like what happened to the unfortunate landowners who won 250 million kina against Concord Pacific in 2011, for illegal logging.

We hope that with your media exposure, we can put a halt to the current log shipment, and wait for the coming court case against the contractor, G&S Limited.

The landowners managed to get sympathetic forestry officers in Madang to support their cause.

At great risk to their jobs, these officers made copies of forestry documents which exposes the illegal conduct of the logging contractor.

There are two main documents

(a)        confidential report (by madang forestry staff)

(b)        investigation issues (what the landowners are hoping to expose in

media, which will result in an investigations)

 I sincerely hope that you can help the landowners get justice.  On behalf of Block 1 Landowners, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts

 Fuguman Gao -           7209 8758 (disputing landowner spokesman/clansleader)

 PS:       the illegal LOGS shipment is happening NOW. RAICOAST MADANG PNG,

THIS WEEK. 6th FEb 2012.

 The illegal logging is happening at:

 Bongu Village, Block 1 Raicoast

Astrolabay, Madang Province

(Near the crash site for Airlines PNG, Madang)

Just in case you missed seeing the connections, here are three key documents showing the cancel and transfer of Raicoast Logging license.

 license cancellation    5th july 2011

license transfer           18th July 2011

new contractor plan   27th july 2011

 All within July 2011 itself.

 G&S Limited have dug their own grave, making serious mistakes, in their desperation to export their illegally harvested logs.

 Timeline of Events

 

1.         On 9th Dec 2011, Mr Fuguman Gau (on behalf of the landowners in Block 1), got a court order

            The court order stops harvest and export of logs in block 1, raicoast madang.

 2.         This court order was served on G&S Limited immediately. A copy was also given to Forestry Madang.

 3.         G&S Limited ignores court order. They have 2 task force police on  deployment at campsite. This allows them to resist and ignore landowners.

 4.         Forestry Madang unable to do anything, because of interference and directions from Forestry Moresby.

5.         Gunfights happens for 2nd time (dec 2011), because landowners are angry due to plain and open logging happening, despite valid court orders.

 6.         First gunfight happened in Oct 2011. Governor James Gau told landowners to stop violence, and use proper channels.   Note that James Gau is the BROTHER of Fuguman Gau, and also part of the affected landowners.  But he is also the governor of Madang. James himself told landowners to stop violence, and proper channels (court system).

 7.         Logging continues due to G&S Limited having task force police at campsite, and support from some landowners who want royalty for christmas/new year.

 8.         G&S Limited fails to submit monthly logging volume report to Forestry Madang.

            Due to court order Dec 2011, preventing production and export of logs in disputed area.  If the monthly logging records are submitted to Forestry Madang, G&S Limited will be formally in contempt of court order Dec 2011.     G&S Limited is better off keeping production figures a secret.They'll be able to deny that the logs are harvested from disputed areas.

 9.         6th Feb 2012, log vessel arrives at madang port for inwards clearance. A barge also arrives for inwards clearance.

10.       Log vessel and barge sails to Block 1, Raicoast, and proceeds with loading of logs for export.

11.       Loading authorization issued by Forestry Madang, due to directive from Forestry HQ Moresby.

 12.       7th Feb 2012, Fuguman Gau, with the help of police, serves Dec 2011 court order on Captains of both vessels.

13.       7th Feb 2012, Fuguman Gau also serves copy of court order Dec 2011 on Forestry Madang. Forestry Madang head, Mrs Eileen, issues loading suspension.

 This where things get interesting.

 14.       8th Feb 2012, G&S Limited mysteriously produces their court order,staying Fuguman Gau Dec 2011 court order.

15.       G&S Limited court order allows for harvest and export of logs, until further hearing in Madang courthouse. Earlier hearing date is 13th Feb 2012.

16.       With this new court order, G&S Limited continues with loading of log vessel and barge.

  Here are the facts that shows the huge mistake that G&S Limited made, in their haste to complete logging.

 1.         Fuguman Gau obtains court order on 9th Dec 2011.

2.         G&S Limited court order was (supposedly) obtained on 23rd Dec 2011.

3.         G&S Limited court order was obtained with the help of lawyers based in Madang.

 4.         G&S Limited was served court order on 10th Dec 2011 by Fuguman Gau (served on campsite manager).

5.         Forestry Madang was also given copy of Fuguman court order on 10th Dec 2011.

6.         G&S Limited NEVER PRODUCED their court order in their defense, in Dec 2011, or Jan 2012.

7.         G&S Limited ONLY produced their court order on 8th Feb 2012, when the vessel captain was served by Fuguman Gau on 7th Feb 2012. And also when their loading authorization was revoked by Forestry Madang on 7th Feb 2012.

 8.         According to customs staff, and forestry staff, they have never seen G&S limited court order, until 8th Feb 2012.

 9.         G&S Limited only obtained the court order on Feb 2012, and backdated it to 23rd Dec 2011.

 10.       G&S Limited cannot backdate it EARLIER than 23rd Dec 2011, because Fuguman Gau court order is valid for AT LEAST 14 days from 9th Dec 2011.  Before G&S Limited can challenge it.

 11.       G&S Limited also cannot backdate it LATER than 25th Dec 2011, because it's a long weekend of national holidays (christmas 25th, sat, sun, easter).  And the national court will be on recess on 1st jan 2012 till 1st Feb 2012.

 12.       There is also no time for G&S to get intervention from Moresby supreme court, because of the political upheaval in Moresby in Dec 2011 and Jan 2012.

 13.       Furthermore, it is VERY UNLIKELY that Goroka national courthouse is open on the 23rd Dec 2011, TWO DAYS before long christmas holiday.

14.       It is also VERY UNLIKELY that G&S Limited can find a lawyer to take their case TWO DAYS before christmas.

 15.       If the true date is put, which is Feb 2012, G&S Limited would be in contempt for harvesting and exporting logs since Dec 2011 and Jan 2012.  In defiance of Fuguman Gau court order.

16.       G&S Limited has also never submitted any production records since Dec 2011. This allows them to

             (a)        break court order dec 2011 (no one can tell source of logs)

            (b)        shortchange landowners for royalty (declaring lower grade species, and different volume)

            (c)        backdate records after breaking court order, so they will get away from any financial liabilities.

 17.       To export ALL the logs that they harvested, G&S Limited has no choice except to backdate the court order as far back as possible.  In their case, it's 23rd Dec 2011.

 18.       G&S Limited only produced their court order on 8th Feb 2012, despite (supposedly) having it since 23rd Dec 2011.

 In summary,

 1.         G&S Limited only rushed to obtain the court order on 8th Feb 2012.

2.         They have no choice but to backdate to 23rd Dec 2011, to export the maximum possible logs.

3.         It's very unlikely for the courthouse to be open on 23rd Dec 2011, or for lawyers to be available on 23rd Dec 2011.

4.         G&S Limited HAVE PURPOSELY not submitted any production report, to get away with maximum shipment of illegal logs

5.         G&S Limited only produced court order on 8th Feb 2012, when their loading was shut down.

 G&S Limited have dug their own grave, making serious mistakes, in their desperation to export their illegally harvested logs.

 PS You requested these information:

 (a)        volume of shipment

(b)        area logged (in hectares)

(c)        who brought in the contractor G&S Limited

(d)        what arrangement

Answers:

 (a)        Volume of shipment

 I'm unable to provide this answer. As mentioned in my past emails, G&S Limited has failed to submit compulsory monthly harvest records.

And they get away with this because Forestry Moresby is overriding Forestry Madang

 There's a sizeable amount of undersized kwila and taun logs (banned from export under Forestry Act), which they are still exporting.

 (b)        Area logged (in hectares)

 Referring to maps of logging area in Block 1, they applied for only the colored area. of 607 HA.

But that area is the mountaneous area. Lousy species (softwood) Instead, G&S Limited is logging OUTSIDE the applied area (NON COLORED), because of the more valuable hardwood in the non-mountain areas.

 (c)        Who brought in G&S Limited

 The culprit is one faction of the permit holder for the logging area, Raicoast Holdings Ltd.

 Raicoast Holdings brief history

 1. The logging rights is held by a company, Raicoast Holdings Ltd 2. Raicoast Holdings Ltd is NOT a ILG company. It's a general trading company 3. The directors of Raicoast Holdings DOES NOT represent landowners from within the logging area 4. Instead, they are made of paper landowners from Madang 5. Raicoast Holdings got the logging permit, due to political connection

6. Since 1998, all the royalty paid has been mismanaged and abused.

None have flowed down to the villagers in the logging area.

7. There's been constant in-fighting among directors, for the money.

8. 10 years later, the resource owners in the logging area are opposed to logging, since they don't see any money or benefits.

9. Hence the current situation.

 The current ringleader of Raicoast Holdings is Andrew Sallel.

 (d)        What arrangement

 THere is no proper arrangement. It's do or die year for Andrew Sallel and his logging contractor G&S Limited.

 There's court decision coming soon (Feb 2012), to remove Andrew Sallel from Raicoast Holdings, due to financial abuse, and illegal shares transfer.

The other directors are going to sue Andrew Sallel for financial mismanagement. He'll have to refund all the stolen Raicoast Holdings premium.

Knowing his time is limited, Andrew Sallel brought G&S Limited.

And together, they are very openly breaking every rule in logging to get the maximum harvest, before his time is up (and G&S Limited with him)

 If Andrew Sallel is out by Feb 2012, G&S Limited will be terminated by the other faction of Raicoast Holdings.

This is the reason why G&S Limited is willing to take so much risk, break so many rules, and do illegal logging outside of the approved areas.

Time is running out. For Andrew and G&S.

 Believe it or not, Andrew and G&S limited conduct is so bad, by logging standards, that Rimbunan Hijau (RH) is showing concerns over what they are doing.Because in the event of any investigations, the repercussions may also affect RH (because RH logging area is very near to Raicoast)

 

 

Dr. Samiak the Karawari's wokabaut medic

We are always honoured to take Dr. Louis Samiak, surgeon and former CEO of Boram Hospital, along with us for a medical patrol through the Upper Karawari and Arafundi Rivers. He is one of PNG's great unsung heroes for his unflinching efforts to bring medical care to these parts of the East Sepik where the aid posts have been understocked, understaffed and in most places absent altogether. In some places like Latoma, and the rest camp where we found the Meakambut, Dr. Samiak is the first medical professional they have ever seen.

In light of the current National Geographic story featuring the Meakambut people which appears to suggest these nomadic peoples are starving for protein and terribly ill, we wish to point out that this is the second patrol of Dr. Samiak where he has recorded remarkably good health for these populations still living entirely off their bush. Small of structure, vulnerable to malaria, TB and pneumonia, these populations are nevertheless not afflicted by any serious dietary or genetic problems, and it is vitally important to reinforce this fact because any suggestion that removing them from their bush, or vice versa, might be construed a favour. Indeed, the fact that government services have never reached them and yet despite all this they endure and even thrive, is a mark of how rich and important that bush remains.

Our company has been paying the school fees for five of these villages, from Community and Primary through those lucky enough to get to High Schools elsewhere, as well as Code and training for prospective teachers, APOs and Village Health Volunteers---and we are thrilled that the government has now stepped in to cover these costs (or most of them), which allows us to bring more meds, more water tanks (we brought 10 this time, with 20 forthcoming), more solar panels, school materials and basic agricultural equipment to all of them---because these are the guardians of the very large, very culturally and historically important Karawari Caves which we are recording.

Please also note that within these photos is a shot of Lidia and Pasu, who are featured in the Nat Geo article, looked hale and hearty now, as proud parents of a newborn baby girl. Dr. Samiak pronounced her healthy, and is not exploring how to bring innoculations to the babies in all these villages.

Contempt: how it works as a fashion statement

We understand that Sir Michael is charging thirtyfive members of ONeill's government with contempt of court this week, and that this includes all the usual suspects with Rolex watches, who , in some cases, still have orange jumpsuits in their closets somewhere---but we are personally very concerned that Tiffany Twivey (who may escape the charge as they appear to have misspelled her name as Tiffanney---for which we counter-charge with an F for spelling folks) will have to experience a fashion transition no woman in her right mind should ever consider (except of course if you are Lindsay Lohan). We have threrefore been trolling softporn sites and other illustrations of more glamorous garb for girl prisoners in the hopes of inspiring a seamstress somewhere to come to poor Tiff's aid right away. Some options are below, and we might also suggest that each one of these would look very nice with Tiff's abbreviated white court wig (for lack of better accessories). Handcuffs are probably optional (as William Kapris). We are open to suggestions on shoes and cap.

National Geographic 'discovers' the Karawari caves

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/02/karawari-cave-people/jenkins-text

Just back from the Karawari today, so Ive only just now seen the Nat Geo article and have calmed myself from the usual sense of outrage that accompanies these things---beginning of course with being labeled an anthropological researcher rather than, for example, an anthropologist (like Borut Telban), and rising in level of potential hysteria through the bizarre creation story the writer seems to have been told that has judeo-christian overtones (all sin began at a certain time...) to the mention of all the game being gone in their bush...and their sense of having personally caused Lidia's illness by sorcery!!!...to the appalling fictionalization of what actually occurred with this young woman Lidia, who was indeed very sick and sent ahead to me in another camp down the mountain a bit (because the writer refused to have me accompany them to see Pasu's family, as they were too 'focused' on me) where we read a note pinned on her from their so-called photo assistant who was in fact a 'physician's assistant' illegally practicing medicine in PNG of course requiring us to airlift her out right away! We went ahead and carried her, with Pasu and others down the mountain to the canoe and took her to Munduku aid post where they diagnosed pneumonia but had not meds, and in the course of this spent so much of the Nat Geo's precious motor fuel that they were livid when we got back to Awim and they couldn’t go on that evening to the lodge but had to rough it with us for a night. They then put the terrified Lidia on a drip for no real reason but to seem like saviors, and left her with us in the morning, so we had to nurse her back to health (not a problem). They were a bafflingly arrogant and disruptive team of voyeurs who seems deeply disgruntled that a white woman had any role as a liaison between them and these noble savages.

 We conducted another medical patrol through all the villages, Meakambut included, with the ex CEO of Boram Haus Sik, Dr Louis Samiak, and checked out all the new babies and everyone. Lidia has a baby girl and is fat and happy, as are others. We have put some in school, and have helped supply farming tools, seeds, etc for their emergent village of Tembakapa. It is absolutely true that as of 2008 they were hunting and gathering only, returning to wild sago stands at intervals, and then (as now) finding a steady amount of game in the bush, but are convinced that settling down in Tembakapa is the way forward for many reasons and are moving only periodically from place to place (we saw them a few days ago in a camp by the river, for example, where theyd been helping the Impoin and Yimas people bring garu bark to market). Dr. Samiak says, in concordence with earlier patrol reports of the area, that the Meakambut are now and have always been remarkably fit people.

This is what I just wrote to the fact checker who contacted us during the editing of the article:

I want to thank you for your hard work as fact checker on the Meakambut cave article. I just got back from the field today and read the article, along with emails from colleagues who were apparently sent earlier versions to read that, they tell me, were even more outlandish and fictional, and even described me as having ‘furtive’ blue eyes. So thanks for getting as much right as you could. It does irk me that the writer would call me an anthropological researcher rather than an anthropologist (which he calls Borut Telban), and omit the small fact that I was the one to take Lidia to the aid post far downriver, thus spending so much of their precious Nat Geo fuel in the motor canoe that the team was none too happy they had little left afterwards. I do also want to say again that the ‘photo assistant’ amy toensig brought was a physician’s assistant and, while well-intentioned, succeeded in terrifying that young girl by putting a wholly unnecessary drip on her just to show that he could I suppose. She is fine, fat, and the mother of a small baby as of last week. We have, not incidentally, brought the head of the Wewak Hospital on patrol to see them twice so far, and he has both times said that they are remarkably fit, in fact, and not ailing as the writer says in the article. They have plenty of game in their bush and still hunt regularly (it is precisely this biodiversity that we are working so hard to maintain, thus the mention that they have hunted out their bush seems strange to us). There is also obvious fiction in the creation story either the writer concocted or our worker, Josh Meraveka, told him (although I have to imagine that the former is the case as this story is nowhere else recorded by Joshua)—how all people acquired sin somehow (strangely Judeo-Christian) after leaving the origin stone. You can reassure the writer that he was not in fact the cause of Lidia’s illness or sorcery, and that the team’s presence very briefly in the Meakambut territory has had no horrific psycho-social impact on them, other than the fact that villagers who accompanied them from other villages love to describe how the writer and photo assistant stripped off entirely naked to swim in the river, shocking everyone on the Arafundi (a very traditional culture, if apparently ‘without clothes’ to outsiders). We so appreciate the time and effort everyone took to come see the site, and the Meakambut, but it should be said that people living in very fragile environments are extremely vulnerable to carpetbaggers, storytellers, and fictionalizers, and the next time such a remote population is covered by the magazine they should consider issues of cultural sensitivity and experience in similar situations before selecting a team. I know the photog and the writer thought I was ‘furtive’ in the end because they found everything so expensive, and that I spent too much of ‘their’ budget on my team (perhaps), but their like or dislike of me should not have ever entered the story. I am familiar with people resenting the fact that a white woman becomes their interlocutor for remote people, when they want to make ‘first contact’ as adventurers themselves, but it is not to no reason that I live here, raise children here, and spend 1/3 of my time in the Arafundi/Karawari area with these people: even a mere ‘anthropological researcher’ comes to know one or two things eventually, and should be consulted on the facts of a story about her field site, rather than treated as a ‘fixer’ for their expedition.

 

 

Every Grand Chief deserves a crown

We learned today that two former parliamentarians and a former police commissioner are recipients of the Grand Companion of the Order of Logohu in the 2012 New Year honours list. The award carries with it the title of grand chief. They are Sinai Brown, former member for Gazelle in East New Britain, Sir Akepa Miakwe a former member for Unggai-Bena in Eastern Highlands and former police commissioner and former chief ombudsman Ila Geno.

Now that this special Order of the Grand Chief (Poobah) is growing, we feel it is time to introduce some heraldry and, at very least, a hat.

Having spent some time will milliners, set decorators and museum curators over this, a few possibilities present themselves. We could always follow custom and go with a more secretive, or exclusive, would-be Duk Duk look.

Or we might spare a nod to the Commonwealth, which of course is what these honours are all about.

Certainly some of the copper and nickel mines facilitated by our Poobahs could be asked to contribute. And of course, still on the Commonwealth theme, we might consider a nice fascinator, again with a flora/fauna focus.

But it wouldn't be PNG if we didn't propose something alittle more syncretic---both utterly modern, and completely traditional at the same time.

Quite a few Poobahs of the region have borrowed the kumul feathers of our home to create their own pomp and circumstance.

And there is no dearth of local options.

There is of course a traditional of highlands wear during the Queens Honours.

And yet some of the more wistful possibilities are definitely lowland.

Yes, I know, we all have our favourites. Whom amongst us wouldn't want to see the first and the new Grand Chiefs donned in sulus and great balsa wood headdresses? But in the end, I do believe that simple is elegant, and nothing could be more in keeping with the irony of multiple Grand Chiefs than a beautiful and democratic headdress of the least exclusive order.