Sometimes it is hard to understand how landowners get so frustrated. How they feel so voiceless and easily dismissed. But then other times, as in the case of the grand mysterious Pacific Marine Industrial Zone project, the explanations are right out there in the open. There is Francis Gem being sniffed at by the Minister for Commerce and Industry as he shouts his objections to the project at a Rempi forum recently, followed by a scene of astonishingly bad form on the part of Sir Arnold Ahmet---such that he was forced to publicly apologize for racist remarks made to MP from Sumkar (the very District effected by the PMIZ) surrounding the latter's objections to the project. It is part of the standard process of foisting bad development on remote villagers that investments are made out of sight, in foreign locations, at the end of private jet junkets, and that these come to constitute the inevitability of a project against all constititonal and logical objections. Justice Cannings' ruling in the Ramu Niko case put exactly that message into words: The fact that so much money has been spent to date, on the presumption that a commenseurate amount of money will be made in the future (even when this is uncertain, and likely never to enrich the landowners anyway), means that no grassroots voices will be entertained. In fact, as we see from the item above in Friday's Post-Courier, the real objections to a major project---based on threats to livelihood, human rights concerns, environmental issues, among other things---are too unwieldy to engage.
Instead, interlocutors tells us again and again that the landowners don't really object to the project (whether it be a special economic zone certain to destroy the fishing, the wellbeing of the communities, the food security, clean waters and health of the area or a nickel tailings disposal plan that will certainly cause human and maritime devastation)---they just want it done better.
Patronising?
Some of us who have attended multiple landowner meetings on the PMIZ have heard from local people already employed by the companies involved speak more openly to their brethren about this being their only chance at development, that we should all put up or shut up and stop complaining, and sneering at the more grassroots in attendance that they are just hankering for a better piece of the pie.
There is also a growing belief amongst well-fed bureaucrats whose children attend private schools and who do not live in the effected areas, that any and all challenges to the validity of a large scale project come from foreign instigators, insidious cabals of non-Papua New Guineans with global agendas who have clearly been able to persuade the masses against their better interests.
But this argument does not bear up in the face of the new digitial activism, and the growing field of indigenous NGOs dedicated to human rights, conservation, better governance and self-reliance.
For example, the following document just arrived by email from the group Asples Lain Madang:
Here below is an English version of the advice from Chief Yamei Diwag of Dagenbag Clan, Baus Village, within the Sum Inland (Yabnid speaking) region of Madang province:
"I will be dying shortly, water is not like gold, nor copper or another mineral dug out from the belly of the ground. Water is forever, I am mindful of all of you my children here present and others not present, I am mindful also of my grand children, great grand children, and generations yet unborn, all of you and all of them will not have water, if you give it away to those people (company) who are urging you to give it away to them... Never give it away, because if you even think about or consider that offer by them (company), that is the beginning of your death and that of your children and generations after you." Chief Yamei Diwag, 20th August 2011
Should there be need for further information, please do contact the two people below:
Samuel Tuwol on 71627123
Lazarus Daimas (Caritas Madang) on 72862230
thnx
aspleslain Madang network
Sum Inland People Declare They Are No Party To The Controversial PMIZ Project
On the eve of an injunction suit levelled against the controversial Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ) on 26th August by plaintiffs representing their peoples in the project’s coastal and maritime impact area, the Sum Inland people, located just inland of the project’s immediate impact zone have declared again that they were no party to the project, nor did they have any intention whatsoever to do business with the project. Their strong stance was voiced out by practically all their leaders present at a meeting held at Guwildig village on Saturday 20th August 2011.
The villages of Guwildig, Sigu, Labdim, Venal, Abab, Barimfog, Baus, Bareoidig and a few more,
including Baiteta (which in fact is made up of settlers originally from those other villages above, who have migrated over during colonial times, mainly in search for social services), constitute the Emnam (speaking) tribe, located toward the eastern part of the Adelbert Range, Madang Province.
In recent weeks the Sum Inland people and leaders have been troubled by visits from certain agents and/or middle persons, representing the PMIZ project. One such visitor, John Bundo, disclosed that there were definite plans underway to facilitate economic partnership between the Sum Inland people and the PMIZ project. That partnership was focused mainly on tapping into the water and forestry resources of the tribe to supply the project’s need for those resources. The project would need reliable supply of water and electricity as well as timber for building, construction and maintenance.
Yamei Diwag, flanked by two grand children, is in his mid 80s, could be the oldest man alive within the Emnam speaking tribe. Yamei is chief of Dagenbag Clan of Baus village, and when he was allowed to speak his mind, toward the end of the 20th August meeting, his two minute oration summed up his tribal leaders’ stance NEVER to accept the offer to do business with the PMIZ project.
Most of the Emnam speaking people (between 50 and 75 percent) live outside of their tribal lands. In 2008 the tribe initiated a move to encourage its members living in Baiteta, (inland of Rempi village), as well as Rempi, Talidig and Banab areas along the north Coast region of Madang, to move back up to their traditional lands. An association (Sum Inland Association) was formed for that purpose of mobilising their people to go back home, join up forces and see to their own development, the self reliant way. They have sought out and engaged an outside partner, Caritas Madang (within the social services office of the Catholic Archdiocese of Madang), to work with them on their self reliant focus to achieving their own development.
Numerous gorges such as the one in this picture above (middle), that allow fast flowing streams to run through, serve as natural land boundaries of clans within the tribe. Such streams feed into natural reservoirs, four of which (Agilmayatag, Samahbululuh, Barohag and Gaunab) have been earmarked, without the tribal owners’ notice nor consent, for a water development project to feed the PMIZ project’s water and electricity needs.
Kayeyeh water fall, just below Guwildig village is one of quite a few such water falls within the region of the Emnam speaking Sum Inland people.
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