Mission & Justice

27/8/08

The Australian government’s three-year pilot Pacific seasonal workers’ scheme should not be described as demeaning for Papua New Guineans, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Immigration Minister Sam Abal said yesterday. “It is not the same as indentured labour or black birding. “This is a conscious government-to-government-sponsored scheme where individuals and the host entities would be fully aware and enter into an arrangement,” Mr Abal said in response to yesterday’s criticisms in the media. He said the PNG Government was appreciative of Australia’s inclusion of Papua New Guineans in the pilot workers’ scheme.

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Kevin Pamba & Jason Som Kaut; 27/8/08

Three Chinese employees of China Metallurgical Construction Company (MCC), the developers of the Ramu Nickel resource, were savagely attacked by about 100 armed landowners at the Basamuk project site at Rai Coast last Sunday morning. They are recovering in Madang town. Work at the Basamuk refinery and wharf site had been stopped and police and senior company officials are in the area to control the situation. In a separate incident, Papua New Guineans working up at MCC’s proposed nickel mine site at Kurumbukari in Usino-Bundi have stopped working while Chinese nationals working there have been evacuated to Madang town in fear of attacks over the weekend. The three Chinese injured at Basamuk were evacuated to Modilon General Hospital in Madang where they were treated.

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Eric Tapakau; 27/8/08

The Panguna Landowners Association will continue to promote peace and reconciliation as part of the peace agreement, chairman Michael Pariu said. Mr Pariu said the group will not be deterred by factions from within the Panguna area who claimed to have authority and disrupted the reconciliation process already firmly underway. Mr Pariu was responding to media reports by Ioro Constituency Member in the Bougainville House of Representatives Dr Benedict Pisi and Me’ekamui government of unity chairman Philip Miriori that there should not be any reconciliation in Panguna.

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Editorial; 27/8/08

“Customary compensation should not be used as an excuse to let a guilty person escape punishment.” In a series of comments published in The National yesterday, Judge Panuel Mogish made one of the strongest statements to date relating to compensation payments and the role of the nation’s law. The National has long held similar views and warned of the growing practice of using compensation payments as a substitute for the processes of the court. We recall cases where the victims of assault or rape have received nothing but a token gesture in compensation payments, while relatives have made a fortune from the process and the guilty party has managed to avoid a court hearing. Like so many other traditional customs, today’s compensation payments are too often simply a way of extorting money from the system.

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Joshua Arlo; 27/8/08

Homicide arising out of domestic arguments between husbands and wives is a prevalent offence in the community and must be met with a very stern sentence, National Court judge Justice Panuel Mogish said. The judge said this last Friday when sentencing Nicholas Aia Aisi, a 54- year-old grandfather and father of eight, to 10 years in jail for killing his wife. He hit his wife when she was trying to save her daughter from being beaten with a bamboo by Aisi. The killing occurred on June 4, 2007, when Aisi came home drunk and a domestic argument started. “This woman was your wife, the mother of your children, entitled to your respect and support and protection.

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Dennis Badi, 25/8/08

The Sepik River Catchment offers a diverse range of experiences with nature and local communities. It is among the largest wetland and most intact freshwater areas in the Asia Pacific. Communities here have realized the value of biodiversity conservation in disadvantaged communities where basic government services and means of income generation are limited. However, the Sepik River is increasingly under threat due to human activities and potential resource developments from forestry and mining projects. If the operations of these projects are not managed sustainably then the infringing threats can lead to communities losing their biological and cultural richness that has been an integral part of the Sepik River people.

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Editorial; 20/8/08

If the report from Lae yesterday is true – and there seems no reason to doubt it – we can only react in disgust at what appears to be a situation straight out of medieval Europe. The National carried a story of “dead babies and animals, and waste water from the Angau Memorial Hospital morgue … meandering their way down the storm water drains in Lae to the beach”. To this appalling collection of waste is added household refuse, oil slicks from Lae’s maritime role and human waste form the many villagers who use the coastal verges as a convenient latrine. Is there any wonder that Papua New Guinea’s child mortality rate is the worst in the South Pacific?

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Alison Anis; 20/8/08

An international AIDS conference has been told that Papua New Guinea had failed to cure HIV/AIDS and will need to focus more on prevention, care and treatment exercises. Former parliamentarian Dr Banare Bun said there was no denying that PNG had the highest recorded cases of HIV/AIDS and the fastest infection rate in the South Pacific. He was speaking after arriving from the 17th international AIDS conference in Mexico last week. The PNG 46-member delegation, led by parliamentary HIV/AIDS committee chairman, Jamie Maxtone-Graham, comprises representatives from various HIV/AIDS organisations and Government agencies, development partners, faith-based and civil society organisations. Among them was outspoken Autonomous Bougainville Government speaker Francesca Semoso.

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20/8/08: http://www.postcourier.com.pg/20080820/wehome.htm

Taking land from customary landowners through trickery, bribery and divide and rule tactics for administration and business purposes without proper compensation by both German New Guinea and British Papua is a legacy that continues today. Former parliamentarian Ben Micah told the Waigani Seminar last week the old people who had witnessed the arrival of white men and who witnessed such actions rencounted the stories to the leaders of the movements who had been exposed to and educated by the colonial system. Mr Micah said those early experiences were no different to the cries of customary landowners for equitable benefits from the exploitation of natural resources. “They are no different to Rex Dagi’s historical challenge of BHP in the high court of Australia with regards to environmental damage caused by Ok Tedi mine,” he said. Mr Micah said this was no different to the demands made by Francis Ona and the Panguna landowners in 1988 which were badly handled by our politicians and developed into an unnecessary conflict which brought the country to its knees. He said this showed the Independent State of PNG no longer represented and did not exist to serve the true interests of the Melanesian people.

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20/8/08

Papua New Guinea will benefit from an Australian forestry aid package worth K5.4 million. The package is to help developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region reduce greenhouse gas emissions by tackling deforestation and forest degradation. Australian Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke announced the funding following a meeting with PNG’s Minister for Forests Belden Namah in Port Moresby yesterday. Mr Burke will meet Indonesian Forestry Minister MS Kaban in Jakarta tomorrow. The funding is the first to be provided under the four-year Asia-Pacific forestry skills and capacity building program, which will commit up to K37.1 million in total to assist Asia-Pacific with the sustainable management of their forests. The program will fund an initial 18 projects in countries including PNG, Indonesia, Vietnam, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

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