AusAID Fuels Bougainville Mining Tensions

Rio Tinto stands to make big profits if the Panguna mine on Bougainville reopens. In recruiting advisors with strong links to the mining giant, AusAid isn’t helping the peace process, writes Kristian Lasslett

Last week The National – one of Papua New Guinea’s major newspapers – featured a full page advertisement attacking the AusAID-funded legal adviser to Bougainville, Anthony Regan, who is also a fellow at the Australian National University.

Written by two former Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) ministers the full page spread claims that Regan, along with ABG President, John Momis, have engineered a “top-down [mining] policy” that will “take ownership, control and all decision making away from the customary landowners of Bougainville”.

Mining is a sensitive issue on Bougainville. The decade-long civil war that pounded the island during the 1990s, taking somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 lives, was triggered by Rio Tinto’s mammoth copper and gold mine, whichlandowners accused of destroying their environment and fracturing Bougainville’s tightly knit communities.

Given the intimate role Rio Tinto played in supporting brutal defence force operations during the war’s early years, the mining question to this day elicits a strong response on Bougainville.

In this tense post-conflict environment, AusAID’s recent efforts to assist the island’s government to resolve the mining question have been anything but adept.

It can now be revealed that one of Regan’s ABG co-advisors, Griffith University Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh, has direct links with Rio Tinto, a company that stands to make a large financial windfall were the mine on Bougainville to reopen.

O’Faircheallaigh’s appointment was trumpeted in an upbeat announcement on Griffith University’s website in September 2011:

“The last time the Bougainville Copper Mine was open, a civil war broke out in Papua New Guinea. This time help is at hand to re-open one of the world’s largest open-pit mines with the assistance of Griffith’s Department of Politics and Public Policy Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh. Professor O’Faircheallaigh has twice been contracted through Coffey International [AusAID service provider] to examine mineral policy options and start preparations for negotiations.”

Absent from this media release – pithily titled “Griffith academic negotiates a mine field” – is mention of O’Faircheallaigh’s close association with the research project at the epicentre of a recent controversy involving Marcia Langton and her Boyer Lectures (“Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: Economic Empowerment, Wealth Creation and Industrial Reform for Sustainable Indigenous and Local Communities”). Along with Langton, O’Faircheallaigh is a chief investigator on the $480,000 study, which is part bankrolled by Santos ($45,000), Woodside ($30,000), and perhaps most controversially, given O’Faircheallaigh’s role on Bougainville, Rio Tinto (Rio’s support is for an undisclosed amount, but on the project’s website it is described as “substantial financial assistance”).

It is worth adding that O’Faircheallaigh’s immediate employer Coffey International, who acts as an implementing service provider for AusAID, draws a large chunk of its revenue from the mining, oil and gas industry. Rio Tinto is one of Coffey’s major clients.

These financial links between Rio Tinto and those operationalising AusAID’s programme on Bougainville, which arestarting to be unravelled in the social media, are bound to be poorly received on the island.

And it comes in a particularly tense period in Bougainville’s post conflict history, where AusAID-funded advisors are coming under sustained fire. Indeed, in February Anthony Regan was publicly rebuked in Papua New Guinea’s national press by former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Sam Kauona. Matters then deteriorated last week with the full page advertisement.

One source of potential tension, recently highlighted on PNG Exposed, are the significant sums being paid to contract Regan’s services. In one instance, AusAID paid out $41,951.25 for a six week “Bougainville Strategy Review”.

But it is not just about the significant sums, Kauona and other senior political figures appear to view Regan as a partisan force. For example, in 2003 Regan publicly defended Rio Tinto against allegations of collusion during the war: “Despite some claims to the contrary,” Regan wrote, “there is as yet no credible evidence that BCL [Rio’s PNG subsidiary] took any direct part in the operations against the BRA [Bougainville Revolutionary Army]”. In a footnote Regan adds: “For example, in the claims made in a class action launched in 2000 in a U.S. court by some Bougainvilleans against BCL.”

This is a surprising claim given that the latter legal challenge is built on a significant body of evidence, including affidavits from towering figures in PNG’s political landscape, such as Michael Somare (former prime minister), John Momis (former minister, current ABG president) and Jerry Singirok (former commander of the PNG Defence Force). The testimony is corroborated by a large cache of internal BCL records.

Yet this is not the only surprising statement Regan has made with respect to the Bougainville conflict. He has also employed curious methods to question the conflict’s death toll.

One of the worst killers was the military blockade placed around Bougainville by the PNG government in May 1990. Nothing was allowed onto the island, not even humanitarian aid. Thus one scholar noted that it was stiffer – and more indefensible – than the sanctions placed on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

The death toll ballooned accordingly; women and children fared worst. Using records kept by Bougainvillean medical staff, Lissa Evans, from Community Aid Abroad’s Disaster Response Desk suggested 3000 people died needlessly in 1990-1991 alone. Indeed the situation was so parlous that Médecins Sans Frontières publicly condemned the PNG government for letting civilians die.

So it came as a shock to peace activists in 1999 when Regan suggested to an Australian parliamentary inquiry that the positive health effects of the military blockade may have in fact outweighed the deaths resulting from untreated illness or injury. Here is the quote:

“… [T]here is some evidence that deaths from untreated illness or injury may well have been offset to a significant degree – or even outweighed – by the improved general health of the population in areas under blockade. There are numerous reports from people who lived in such areas to the effect that improved general health standards were related to two main factors. The first was a diet far more healthy than before the conflict. It was free from most processed foods, fats, high salt and sugar contents, and without alcohol. The second was much increased physical exercise than prior to the conflict. This was due to such things as the need for subsistence gardening and increased walking due to lack of motor vehicles.”

To my knowledge there is no method in the social sciences that would offset the general health “benefits” of forced work and exercise, against deaths resulting from the denial of medicines and surgical equipment.

It is perhaps not surprising, in light of the above positions, that Regan’s AusAID advisory role on Bougainville has been criticised by major power brokers on the island.

Exacerbating tensions is last month’s announcement that O’Faircheallaigh and Regan will receive a $613,267 grant from AusAID to research “illegal mining” on the island. According to Griffith University:

“The research materialised as a spin-off from Professor O’Faircheallaigh’s involvement with the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) in preparing for negotiations to re-open a once profitable Rio Tinto copper mine closed after an armed rebellion by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army in 1989.”

Leaving aside that the Australian Government has ignored Rio Tinto’s well-documented criminogenic role on Bougainville, this announcement is already inviting strong criticism by Bougainvilleans in popular social media forums. One Bougainvillean commentator reported, “If they want to study illegal miners on  Bougainville there is no better place to start than with the illegal establishment of the Panguna Mine itself”, while another noted, “Bottom line, Australia, as always since colonial times, is only trying to protect its interest in Bougainville”.

While this AusAID research project might indeed have laudable ends – the summaries provided thus far certainly suggest this may be the case – nevertheless, the study is almost certainly going to be politicised owing to the investigators’ links and public position on the war.

In this respect AusAID cannot ignore public perception on Bougainville, or for that matter in Australia. Strong feelings of injustice remain. And rather more palpably, from a security perspective, significant actors on Bougainville resent the enduring role Rio Tinto and the Australian Government play in the island’s political economy.

Using Australian taxpayer dollars to fund advisors and organisations who are either linked with Rio Tinto or who have made divisive statements on the war, is not going to play well in this tense environment. Moreover, funding research into “illegal” mining by local alluvial prospectors is bound to prove similarly controversial while the likes of Rio Tinto, and indeed former Australian governments, escape formal scrutiny over their egregious role in the hostilities.

Consequently, AusAID’s celebrated contribution to the peace process on Bougainville may well unravel and be forgotten, if it continues to fumble about much less capably with the mining question.

BCL AND PANGUNA MINE

BOUGAINVILLE Copper Limited (BCL) announced on the 8th of April 2013 that it is ready to re-open the Panguna mine in Bougainville at its annual general meeting (AGM).

The company has estimated that it will cost about K11 million to start-up the mine and it will take about six years to start production.

When the mine had been closed down in May 1989 we seen notices around Panguna and Arawa, [“Mine closed until further notice from the jungle”] so last week as the news comes up Mekamui news sent a text message to Meekamui Government, who is also in charge of the Morgen check point, if they have given the green light to BCL to reopen the mine? Blaise Iruinu a Meekamui Government Officer replied a couple of hours later saying in PNG pidgin” NOGAT TRU EM BAI STAP OLSEM”. [“No, it will remain closed”.]

BCL is trying everything possible to reopen the mine and at any cost, including the major announcement on the 8th of April, and one of great interest to people interested in communications, was that BCL will fund infrastructure improvements to expand radio broadcasting capabilities in Bougainville.

The project will be undertaken with the Autonomous Bougainville Government, who will co-fund it.

Peter Taylor said that the expanded service will carry multiple programs to parts of Bougainville which currently receive few or no radio broadcasting services.

“We believe this initiative will greatly improve the flow of information and facilitate dialogue,” Mr Taylor said. He pointed out that BCL will fund only the infrastructure and have no influence over the management of the service.

“It is not a BCL radio network, but rather a public facility accessed by local broadcasters and the ABG,” he said. This is an important caveat, as BCL wants no say in the content of information.

Currently, radio broadcasts are barely accessible outside Buka, and reach only 10% of the province. The people of Bougainville are ill-served by broadcast communications.

With this set up they will have someone in their pay roll to broadcast what it will be like when BCL returns, the developments, benefits in words only etc for the grassroots in the rural areas to believe BCL’s lies however, the rural people had enough of BCL that’s why in 1989 it had been kicked out from the Island for his dirty role destroying environment, polluting rivers and sea.

When that happens they will say that only a minority is saying no to the reopening of the mine, than arm police and send them [in this case it will be Bougainvilleans] to remove the checkpoint at Morgen junction; bloodshed might follow, which we want to avoid at all cost.

In the early 1960s when the Company first came in, there had been a big NO to mining till some top clan leaders got some money and because of respect to the leaders by the people they calmed down which later blew out during the late 1988 uprising.

Even today if you go up to the Panguna mine area and talk with the people from the villages, who are the ones which will suffer most when the mine reopens, they will tell you, we don’t want mining It’s the leaders talk. Unfortunately, the 1960s ways will not work out these days, when from one man’s greed for money all the land for food became gravel. Clan leaders will be targeted by their people and its very, very risky these days.

To avoid any further bloodshed on the Island, leaders like President John Momis and other pro mining leaders on Bougainville should look for other alternatives rather than mining.

TINY BULGA WINS DAY AGAINST MINING GOLIATH

Tiny Bulga wins day against mining Goliath

The tiny NSW town of Bulga has won a three-year battle against mining giant Rio Tinto when a court overturned a state government-endorsed decision to allow it to dig an open-cut coalmine next to the town.

A Rio Tinto subsidiary, Coal & Allied, had been granted approval to mine bushland next to the town which had been created as an ”offset” a decade ago. It was to have created 150 mining jobs and extracted 18 million tonnes of coal a year, in the community of 300 people.

In a scathing judgment, Justice Brian Preston, chief judge of the Land and Environment Court, criticised the government’s approval of the proposed Warkworth mine in the Hunter Valley, which he said could damage Bulga’s ”sense of place”.

Planning Minister Brad Hazzard said he was seeking legal advice on what action might be available to the government. Rio Tinto said the community’s ability to challenge the government’s decision was ”significantly obstructing investment and job creation in NSW”.

The challenge was brought by the Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association, representing the views of most of the town’s residents, with help from the Environmental Defender’s Office of NSW.

The publican at Bulga’s only hotel said she awoke on Monday to a text message that read: ”Bulga is safe”.

 Margueritte Hannaberry, who owns the Cockfighter Creek Tavern on Putty Road with partner Paul Burgess, said the pub was in the acquisition zone for the proposed mine, meaning it would have to have been sold.

”Everyone on the progress association is over the moon. It’s a massive relief,” she said. ”We’ve got a lot of happy people who were born and bred in Bulga.”

Mr Burgess said the mine would have destroyed the town. ”The town would have been fairly uninhabitable anyway, cut off from Jerrys Plains and Denman and really a shell of itself.”

In his judgment Justice Preston said he was not persuaded by the economic analysis offered by the company. ”The project’s impacts would exacerbate the loss of sense of place, and materially and adversely change the sense of community, of the residents of Bulga and the surrounding countryside,” he said. ”I am not satisfied that the economic analyses relied on by Warkworth and the minister have addressed these environmental and social factors adequately.”

The mine would have had ”significant and unacceptable” effects on plants and animals, and would generate serious levels of dust and noise, the judgment said.

It was to have removed a nearby ridge, wiping out a quarter of the remaining Warkworth Sands Woodland, a refuge for endangered plants and animals.

The acting managing director of Coal & Allied, Darren Yates, said in a statement: “The fact it has now taken 3½ years to get an outcome on this project – and that it can be overturned notwithstanding a rigorous government process – shows that the planning system is failing to deliver timely and predictable outcomes.

”This outcome is a blow to our plans for the Mount Thorley Warkworth mine and the jobs of the 1300 people who work there, at a time when the Australian coal industry is struggling to remain globally competitive.” The new mine, which would have added to Coal & Allied’s existing operation in the area, would have created 150 more permanent jobs, the company said.

The mine was approved in February last year after being considered by the NSW Planning Commission and the NSW Environment Protection Authority.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/tiny-bulga-wins-day-against-mining-goliath-20130415-2hw5n.html#ixzz2QcKYLdxr

LANDSLIDE AT RIO TINTO’S KENNECOTT UTAH COPPER BINGHAM CANYON MINE.

Check the Photo Gallery out here:

http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/photo_gallery_spectacular_landslide_2R7DWhtpaSrkZ3BqIlAcyI

 Spectacular landslide at Rio Tinto copper mine

There are fears Rio Tinto could be faced with around six months of repair work on its largest copper mine after a spectacular landslide at the Bingham Canyon open cut mine in Utah forced it to suspend mining.

 

Kennecott Utah Copper Bingham Canyon Mine after a landslide. Utah Copper has suspended mining inside one of the world’s deepest open pits as geologists assess the mine.

ARAWA

When I was a small boy I used to go to the lookout stone called Sirivianare and watched Arawa growing into a busy and bigger town. But before going into the story I would like to say that there is no word from the Nasioi language which Arawa came from, so I tracked down what it means. During the old colonial days a white man came and when he saw an old women from Apiatei he asked her what is the name of this place, she replied in Apiatei, Aa raba, which is a question meaning, who are you? The white man called the place Arawa thinking that the old woman had told him the name of the place.

Anyway, in my early teens I sometimes accompanied my Papa and went to town as he usually laboured for the Europeans who worked at the mine. In those days I loved ice cream and chocolate biscuits with a chocolate cake that comes in a tin called big sister. We used to follow the bush track down straight to the end of town at section 16 which is still in use today.

As the development taking place was racing fast more and more PNG mainland citizen came to Arawa looking for jobs at the mine and the provincial governments as well as plantations. This led to the creation of the squatter settlements outside of section 16 and section 17 the place called Tongkuru and Damapongto and the bush track became dangerous to follow especially near town where the two rivers meet called Emang tave. Emang Tave was taken over by the squatters and we never followed the bush track from there anymore but a bit further up.

At the same time it became very dangerous for our mothers and sisters, aunties etc; they became victims of rape. Also the old people were targeted with younger man too for their belongings like money or any valuable things they carried going back and forth from the village and town.

The town that I thought will be nice and peaceful became a foreign town because by 6pm it became dangerous if you hang out loosely. Nevertheless the town itself was clean and attractive. During my late teens we used to hang around Arawa and mainly on Fridays we got drunk upstairs at the Auronava squash court by giving some money to the operator to let us drink there. Sometimes we ended up fighting with the PNG squatters. The Bougainville conflict just happened on time to save us from being pushed further inland up the mountains as the squatters were taking more areas outside Arawa. From Singpeng tave down towards Arawa village, down below Koaru waterfall. They didn’t even respect the black inhabitants in and around Arawa.

When the uprising became hot and Arawa turned into a battlefield I usually went to my favourite lookout Sirivianare and watched PNG security forces, choppers and armoured cars patrolling the streets and shared tears of regret that if mining and squatters were not here our beautiful Arawa would not be up in smoke.

INVESTIGATION into “ILLEGAL MINING” on MINERAL-RICH BOUGAINVILLE ISLAND funded by AusAID

Griffith University researcher Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh will lead an investigation into illegal mining on mineral-rich Bougainville Island, starting in June. AusAID has awarded the Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the School of Government and International Relations $613,267 to carry out the three-year project with his colleague Anthony Regan from the Australian National University. The project, which is funded as part of the AusAID Development Research Awards Scheme, will document the economic, social and environmental impacts of illegal mining. It aims to identify policy issues that arise and suggest legal regimes and policies that can generate local benefits from mining. The research materialised as a spin-off from Professor O’Faircheallaigh’s involvement with the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) in preparing for negotiations to re-open a once profitable Rio Tinto copper mine closed after an armed rebellion by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army in 1989. “There is a significant problem with illegal mining in the region. We were aware it existed, but initially had no idea of the scale of the problem,” Professor O’Faircheallaigh said. He explained that illegal mining at Bougainville ranges from the activities of international, publicly-listed companies to alluvial mining of the region’s river beds by several thousand locals. “There are also many who engage in mechanical, hard-rock mining without approval. We discussed this with a legal refinery in the region who told us they know the gold going through the refinery is just the tip of the iceberg.” Today it remains a region laden with minerals but bereft of the government regulations more familiar to the developed world. “Safety is a major issue. Without regulation and permits, it means no safety training, no site inspections. People get hurt. We know at least one person has died as a result of illegal mining. “The economic impacts on the government of a developing country are considerable. We will run a series of workshops in Bougainville to identify the problems and highlight the benefits of taxing mining activities.” Recognising the potential benefits, the ABG and Papua New Guinea government have indicated their support for the project. “Engagement with government and with local miners is very important. Miners have to be persuaded it’s in their interest to be regulated. “Good relationships are critical to a project like this. That’s where we have an edge. We know the place, we know the people. We have established relationships with local stakeholders. We have already laid a good deal of the groundwork. A PhD scholarship for a Bougainville student will help us build on that groundwork and develop local research capacity.” Professor O’Faircheallaigh is optimistic that the strategies developed from the research can be applied to areas in South America, South East Asia, Africa and the South Pacific where illegal mining is also a significant problem.

———————————————————————————————————————————-

 Clive found this article on the net, dont know if this is Australia sticking its nose into Bougainville’s bussiness or not, you mining your own land is not illegal mining, but you would think that $613,267 AUD from Ausaid would be better spent educating local mining practices, and providing equipment to do small scale mining yourselves, anyway hopefully you will meet these blokes and get some help. P.C.

Hi P,

you are right, that money could have been spent a lot better and it shows again how Australian Aid money gets waisted and funneled down the wrong channels and doesn’t reach the people in need. They are all connected to the big mining industry, Anthony Regan came to Clive’s Film Premiere “Saving our Land” at the Legislative Essemble in Canberra and had pro mining arguments.  I haven’t met Professor Ciaran O’Faircheallaigh but he is already advising the Autonomous Bougainville Government on options in relation to the possible reopening of the Bougainville copper mine, and Shell on development of an Indigenous Strategy for Shell’s Upstream and Downstream businesses in Australia!

He also has these other “recent research grants”: (info from Griffith University)

• 2012-14  Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (with C. Althaus) ‘Indigenous Leadership in Bureaucracies’  C$63,000.
• 2010-2013 Australian Research Council Linkage (with M.Langton et al) ‘Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: Economic Empowerment for Indigenous Communities’ $480,000

PS: How can it be in the best interest of an Indigenous Peoples to be regulated? Here again we see the paternal approach of the white man who thinks his ways are superior and he knows whats best for the black indigenous society.

FOR A FREE AND INDEPENDENT MEKAMUI/BOUGAINVILLE!!!

BJ

WEAPONS OF DEATH

In 1993 the PNG security forces came back to Arawa and started bombarding the nearby villages and bushes to scare BRAs away and villagers to come to care centres thinking they will have no way to run and hide. However, the opposite happened the villagers run further upthe mountains and lived in fear, but above all in peace and harmony with the nature. They cooked in the night to avoid the PNG security forces from seeing the fire smoke and launch a mortar or spray from a helicopter, which was mounted with M 60s machine guns.

I started writing songs of the struggle, strumming my guitar and many teens and old fellows alike in that time teamed up with me who had interest in music or could play the guitar etc. Charlie is a talented guitarist from Tavidua village near old Toniva Township and married to a girl from a village near mine. One Sunday we played some great tunes and from then on I did never see him again till his death.

Fortunately his name became a household name in the surrounding bush camps and as far as his area, because one day he and his younger brother somehow for reasons known only to them, decided to surrender to the security forces care centre in Arawa. While at the care centre for sometime the soldiers trusted them and above all by late Daniel who was the Resistance Force Commander from my area. Daniel was also the nephew of Charlie’s wifes father.

Daniel surrendered to the security forces earlier for reasons I don’t know even today and he was given 2 weeks training by the security forces to become the resistance force commander and have a bit of weapons knowledge etc. Coconut news around the bush camp was that he [Daniel] had been killed by the security forces. The coconut news became bullshit when one day Daniel armed to teeth led a platoon of soldiers to my village up the bush track.

We were in Arawa setting up an ambush in section 16 when Daniel and the soldiers from Kiriano based near Rumba SDA Mission went up to the village. They gave a heartbeat pain to one of my nephews Robert when they held him up. Robert saw Daniel, talked with him and he let him go free.

God only knows what would have happened if we were back home that night. Maybe they would have burned down the houses, a normal act carried out by the armed forces when we shot one of them. From then on we knew that Daniel was the Resistance force commander from our area.

With the family relationship and connection Daniel gave all the trust to Charlie and his brother, so every night they used to go to bed leaving Charlie and his brother in charge with M16 and the hundred rounds mini machine gun. When they came across this trust they told themselves that when they have the chance they would dash for freedom with the weapons.

One fine night they got that chance so they dashed for freedom with the two high-powered weapons something the BRAs had been trying to get hold of every chance they came across to defend their land and the people.

They fled up our bush camp hideouts, unfortunately not long after the hardcore BRAs took the weapons from them as usual. Only their names became famous. In Arawa Daniel was in trouble, the soldiers ordered him to bring back the guns or else he will be killed. He and some young guys from the area with just one-shot gun followed Charlie and his brother up the villages and bush camps. An old man from the bush camp was in the garden getting some food when he saw Daniel and the boys, upon returning to the bush camp he reported them to the BRAs.

News travelled fast so it reached the Kerei Valley BRAs couple of kilometres on the other side of the mountain. A section of the Kerei Valley BRAs came over and shot at the boys, the boys fled with no bullets wound but only minor injuries from sticks, stones etc. Daniel fled following another track and was unlucky when a lone Kerei BRA who followed his boys later came up that same track. When Daniel saw him, he begged for him not to shot him but the BRA guy pulled the trigger of his 5 rounds shot gun and shoot him through the tummy and left him there to die.

To him Daniel was a resistance force commander and on the enemy side who had been causing troubles in the area. Before Daniel died a lone BRA reached him, he was asking for water but it was far from any stream so he was pushing some bush leafs through the hole the bullet had made and apologized to the BRA guy for what he done when he was with the soldiers. He held the BRA’s hand and finally closed his eyes when death took him away, later people from the bush camps came and buried him near Daita village.

Talented musician and brave Charlie committed suicide from married problem later when peace returned back on the Island.