This is the title of a report by Alan Oxley, the RH consultant and apologist, detailing the crimes against objectivity committed by Greenpeace in its campaign against the logging giant. Greenpeace will do, we assume, whatever it takes.
The truth seems to be that Rimbunan Hijau will do whatever it takes, and in their case, it takes a lot more sludge and money and compromised values. They have been in the country for almost as long as I have, and in that time most of us observers have watched the system of influence and patronage balloon through national politics, down to provincial politics, to middle management civil service and even, in the last most tiresome episode of the story, through the field of journalism.
Development is a dirty business. It’s not nice, and it’s not clean even in the best of times, especially where you have people scrambling for promises to be lifted out of poverty and physical isolation. PNG is certainly no worse than most developing nations when it comes to compromised integrity, tacky dictatorial posturing, bullies in uniform, and covering one’s self in either a flag or a cross. People who preach love and righteousness and issue venomous attacks on their critics are not unique to development either, but maybe they just look meaner, more desperate.
A couple of years ago I wrote a piece on my blog about this history of the Chinese in PNG---nothing authoritative or even comprehensive. But the Post Courier picked it up and printed it, except that they printed only part of the essay and for some reason the Malaysian owners of The National newspaper ran their own condemnation of me personally, calling for my deportation as a racist American expatriate, etc. They were fired up about my blogs in general on the tuna industry, as The National has been a stalwart defender of these canneries as engines of ‘growth’ in Lae, Madang an Wewak. My counter-arguments are always on the basis of primary research on social impacts in each site, and research done, not incidentally, by Papua New Guinea ethnographers for the most part.
Now and again in the social media I get attacked by National reporters for being anti-development, anti-growth, anti-capital, and of course, anti-Papua new Guinean. Someone a few weeks ago wrote that I should (once again) be deported because I’d done more harm than good in PNG. ( I wish that this were the real criteria for deportation, because in that case we would certainly not still be fighting Rimbunan Hijau.)
On my blog, too, I do have to erase the occasional racist and sexist rant from someone who clearly has a lot of personal demons, always a comment along the lines of my liking black dick, being a loser, having no credentials, etc. No more or less than a lot of bloggers get I imagine. This sort of ugliness is almost always effective because people averse to entertaining such dialogue instantly shut down---if only temporarily. This has definitely happened to me in the past.
Recently, however, I’ve been wondering what exactly ‘whatever it takes’ might be for RH, because social media flak over their sailing to Pomio on the Esperanza, supporting landowners and NGOs in a fight to rout yet another of RH’s 60-plus subsidiaries logging primary forest in PNG. In the name of oil palm. Or, as we are always told (and if you go to the RH website and link to publications there is a small library of reports by Alan Oxley and his ‘consulting’ firm, ITS, on the subject), in the name of development and economic growth.
Other writers have captured the details of this Pomio fight better than I, and the discussion threads on FB pages have been crackling with excellent points, even scholarly citations, from members of the PNG conservation community, including Kenn Mondiai of Eco Forestry Forum. They are better placed than I to explain the anti-RH landowners’ history and position.
Whatever it takes, scatologically
But the point of this commentary now, is that the pro-RH position has taken a really bad turn for the worse. First, as we all know, the company flew in an s award winning social commentator/journalist from The National to have a look at the project and report on the RH arguments against Greenpeace coming into the area. Dutifully, and as many of us learned on repeated FB posts thereafter, we learned that this person has mouths to feed, he is a single parent, and must dance to the tune of his employers, and so forth. Besides, he has also said firmly, RH is the only entity offering ‘development’ to these wretched ‘taim bipo’ villagers.
There’s a big backstory here about the Kivung cult in Pomio, which dates from the Second World War, but which reemerged in the sixties. At risk of simplifying, the cult emerged (like so many across Melanesia) from disappointment in both the church (here, Catholic) and the government, and their endless promises of a better life---infused as these are, of course, with the misleading metaphors of the ‘bounty’ of the lord, the ‘rewards’ of modernity and so forth. Desperate for change, steeped in the ‘laws’ of both the Administration and the church, these community groups really are development organizations intent on finding the key to social change on their own terms. In the case of Kivung, their mechanism was exchange, and the system of indebtedness that runs throughout Melanesian life. The cult members gathered money and gave it to others, to form an indenture, an obligation on their part, to give back---and to bring the cargo. This centered upon the charismatic leader Koriam, but later involved Malmal’s Alois Koki and Kolman Molu (whose sepulcher is a Kivung shrine in Pomio today).
As G.W. Trompf writes (in Payback, 1994, Cambridge, p266):
By 1978 Kiving members were persuaded by Alois Koki (currently custoduian of the fund) to embark upon what must stand as the grandest piece of participative reciprocity in the history of all the movements…: generous donations to help in both national and international disasters, with K6000 to the Papua New Guinea highlands famine relief, and K4000 to the Brisbane flood victims…Using the money this way quite evidently ‘betokens the leaders’ desire to enter into reciprocity with powers which have large financial resources’, and which may hopefully choose in return to bestow their benison upon the Kivung. Predictably, the Kivung has been prepared to put money into development within its own region and on its own terms (but in 1974 the national government rejected their offer of K26,000 to build a new [and first] high school in the Pomio area, as a dangerous compromise); predictably, too, the Kivung leaders turned their backs on East new Britain Provincial Government pressure to provide financial succor for earthquake victims on the Gazelle in 1985.
Trompf summarizes the movement as follows (and I think this is pertinent to what we see in Pomio today).
The Pomio Kivung…reflects a fascinating combination of reprisal and concession towards the agencies of change…Whether in confrontation or subtle withdrawal, it wreaks quiet vengeance on the ‘officials of interference’; it defends the right to punish its own detractors. Yet, the stringencies of its lo, as well as exploration it makes of possible reciprocities with agencies quite outside its jurisdiction, are part and parcel of expecting the new order of positive payback—of rewards hailing, above all, from the returning dead. There is a recognizable structure and inner consistency found in this movement’s logic of retribution...(Ibid).
I wonder if RH can understand the hornet’s nest it’s stepped into. Famous for broken promises and boomerang ‘development’, for roads that go to trees not villages, and for schools and aid posts that never materialize, Rimbunan Hijau is the living and breathing embodiment of the development curse. They are the Cargo that desperate and government-neglected over-evangelized communities have hopes and prayed for. No doubt there have been Kivung collections up and down Pomio and offerings made to these great Malaysian demigods for the goods and services they will one day, when all the trees are gone and all the oil palm planted, will finally receive.
Good luck to em.
In a recent late October exchange on blog, Kenn Norae Mondiai was doing his best to explain to journalist Malum Nalu that the promise of development by RH was indeed little more than a promise.
Iam an Eastern Highlander, have worked in the logging industry and seen the problems and empty promises and poor quality roads, bridges, schools and others and left in 1994 into the NGO sector. I have travelled PNG rural areas seen people's hardships and issues, while Pomio is on the front now directly to the north in Open Bay another subsidiary of RH is logging the forests there while disregarding the struggle going on there between the coastal Nakanais and the inland Mamusi people over land and timber royalty. Malum should fly back there on Tropics Air and report to us what is going and also why over the years many developmental infrastructures that RH has agreed to in the timber permits never gets build ??
I headed a EU funded program (Islands Regional Envir & Community Dev Prog) from 1995-2001 in the West Pomio area from Irena down to Uvol covering the area currently logged by RH building infrastructure at Palmalmal worth between K0.75-K1.25 million and building peoples capacity and training them and providing technical support on community based Ecoforestry operations. The whole area where the logging taking place under SABLs now was under that program, it was creating employment income generation, training educational awareness on environmental issues and it was full filling the Govt policy on value adding and landowner participation in the forest industry, PNG Forest Authority was fully aware of that successful project, it brought cash into the village communities and people were fully engaged protecting the forest and not destroying it like what RH has done now.
It's the work of a few greedy vision less people like John Palrulrea Chairman of Memalo Holdings who is arrogant hardcore Kivung Association Member Riding on the Cargo Cult principles layed down by the former Kivung leaders who died including the late Alois Koki.
Just across Jaquinot Bay, see what logging has done under the Inland Pomio TRP, the Pomio peoples environment is spoilt and the road under the Timber permit to link Pomio with Bialla is not completed. Interestingly John Palrulrea is or was a renegade Board member of the Magasaki Landowner company, he saw money flowing from timber operations and with that dream has fooled people of west Pomio through RH for the current operation.
Thanks to the landowners of Mauna, Bairaman, Puapal, Irena, Lau, and Malmal who can see the benefits of Ecoforestry and have stood firm and opposed RH and logging and thanks to Jacob Samo & Paul Pavol the champions of the Pomio people through their Pomio Potong Paga Association and last but not the least to Greenpeace and NGOs for their actions to bring the peoples plight against illegal logging and land grabbing under the pretext of SABLs and Agroforestry.
Kenn Mondiai
Chairman of the Board
PNG Ecoforestry Forum
In a follow up he explained that:
I lived on Pomio for 7 years, have not read the reports in the National because I don't buy it, Any development should be people driven and sustainable with protection of the culture and tradition of the local communities whilst ensuring environmental protection and sustainability.
RH is a logger they came into PNG rapped and ripped our forests, they bribed and corrupted our bureaucrats and politicians. They have no respect for our country's laws and our people's customs.
They have failed in many of their timber project agreements and permit obligations all over this country.
In Pomio FYI oil palm is not a viable crop as the top soil is too think (less then 10cm thick) and the base is coral limestone, RH if they are a serious oil palm developer will stick with their Wawoi Guavi Project where oil palm is suitable why go to Pomio, well it's only for the valuable stands of kwila, Malas, Taun and many high value timber species just near the coast "no need for road construction" RH uses less money to make money at the expense of the people's ignorance. Greenpeace actions are commendable, I would have been there on board Espenanza unfortunately was overseas. Don't believe RH they will never seriously develop an oil palm plantation in west Pomio, once all the trees are harvested they will also depart giving all kinds of excuses that oil palm is not feasible due to soil fertility "something we already know" Greenpeace and NGO action is good because we know RH's dirty tactics in PNG ... Our govt is fucking corrupt and they will not do a thing. Kenn
Mr. Nalu has been forced to come out and defend himself. Writing in response to his critics, he stated on PNGexposed BLOG:
To all those who have said such nasty things about me, just because I went to Pomio, a place that time has forgotten, I challenge you to risk your life on a small plane like me, fly to Palmalmal, walk up the mountains and talk to the people of Mamusi, who still live as their ancestors did!
When the blog, PNGexposed, started to run stories critical of RH in Pomio, they began to receive comments from a character named Brice Copeland (with an email address by that name). That’s not a typo, although it is close to the name Bruce Copeland, an Australian Kokoda Trail trek leader, ‘military advisor’, and holistic-living HIV advisor--with whom Malum Nalu had a heated exchange in 2009 by email, regarding references to each other in blogs and the press: one calling the other a neo-colonial with cargo cult mentality, the other defending his homophobia in the press by calling other AIDs advisors, newspaper editors, and critics in general anti-family gays, etc. The name, just a typo away from the known individual, has been used on PNGexposed to flog some of the most hateful and paranoid sentiments ever known to ‘social’ media. Eventually the blog called out Malum Nalu directly and asked if he was using this cover to slander his own critics and make this character even more loathsome than ever. It has truly become a circus of homophobia, racism, misogyny, flogged family values, pity-me tactics and false bravado.
Following the Pomio protests, no one has heard from Copeland himself. On the other hand, we have heard quite a bit from one of The National’s leading reporters. This person has accused the blogger Martyn Namarong of being nothing more than a buai seller and thus having no right to critique his coverage of RH in Pomio. And yet, most of us curious about the Greenpeace protest, as about so many contemporary issues in PNG, have increasingly turned to Martyn’s smart and thoughtful posts in The Namarong Report. As Peter Rongotha recently wrote in PNGexposed:
[Namaorng’s] blog on the ongoing crisis in Pomio where RH’s behavior has been terrible against our own citiziens, where RH has lied about Greenpeace breaking custom laws and where they are trying to make out that everyone loves logging in the area is typical for RH. Remember local landowners in Pomio did the right thing. Instead of resorting to violence like RH – they went to the Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Special Agricultural Business Leases (SABL) testified on their own behalf and returned home. And when they got there RH sent in the thugs, dressed as police. It’s not the first time RH has done this, but this time, thanks to the social media – which Mr. Namorong pointed out, people are not remaining quiet.
Nalu’s pitiful report made serious allegations that Greenpeace had broken PNG Customs regulations by entering Pomio District. He also claimed Greenpeace had caused friction in the Pomio community when in fact the friction between landowners had been incited by RH and its landowner company “Directors” who, in fact, arranged for supportive landowners to act a logging company security due to the confrontations between Gilford’s (an RH subsidiary) Malaysian staff and landowners opposing the logging.
Besides the obvious in regards to Nalu and what he “reported” and why is the response from him and his supporters and those of the people supporting Namorong. Nalu, who began his sorry defense by trying to make himself a hero saying he risked his life by going out to Pomio, tried – and failed – to make fun of Namorong. He responded by pretending to laugh – a sure sign Namorong got to him with his analysis. He said Namorong was a buai seller turned blogger and suggested he go back to selling buai. In other words Mr. Namorong you nailed him and upset him. Now Nalu supporters jumped on the bandwagon calling him low-life, scum, questioning his sexual preference and laughing amongst themselves.
However those that were supporting Namorong’s right to report or supporting what Namorong had to say never got to that low level of name calling and trying to down Nalu. They stuck to the issue at hand. As I was watching this I then realised there is a change going on in PNG – and its a big one – and it is reflected in the response of Nalu and friends to Namorong. There is a new generation of Papua New Guineans and they are thinkers – they are not small boys with egos like Nalu displayed in his defense nor are they like those that supported Nalu by name calling. The new breed think, analyse and try to engage in constructive dialogue. They give a damn about PNG and they want to do something about it and they will. And when they see what happened in Pomio when, once again, RH comes in plays the bully its always been – they are not going to shut up. They are seeing it, calling it out and they are moving towards action.
As if this soap opera were not ugly enough, today things got a lot uglier. Lydia Kaliap, who, with her husband, runs a music and arts academy for settlement kinds in Port Moresby (an initiative that, not surprisingly, has won admirers from home and abroad, government and media alike---as a true example of what an NGO can do to make positive change)—has been on FB ;sharing’ and commenting and calling out The National for its bias reporting the Pomio crisis.
As Lydia revealed today, the first day she began to FB her opinions, she received the following email:
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:48:31 +1000
Subject: Black cock whore!
From: brucecopeland65@gmail.com
To: cuma-png@live.com
Black cock whore!
White cocks can't satisfy so you head up to PNG!
31/10/11 – sent to Lydia only—from the same address:
“Your mouth, ass and cunt stink, Lydia, that we can smell it from a mile away!”
And another to her from the same address:
“We are watching your every move and every word you say Lydia, and when
we strike, a rocket will be placed into your dirty black cock-loving
anus! We are watching everything you say on Facebook and other
websites, You have been warned!”
The same day, the following was sent to a massive list (as you can see):
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:48:51 +1000
Subject: Lydia Kailap
From: brucecopeland65@gmail.com
To: aholistics@hotmail.com; cuma-png@live.com
CC: benelong@bigpond.net.au; yhriewazi@spp.com.pg; seroro@spp.com.pg; huggibear@ourbrisbane.com; toole@burnet.edu.au; johnfowke01@bigpond.com; boonah.vista1@bigpond.com; ahayes@online.net.pg; andyng@thenational.com.pg; ben_manoi@hotmail.com; billjames@gmail.com; bill.shorten.mp@aph.gov.au; bnangoi@spp.com.pg; editorhealth@gmail.com; brucies_mum@hotmail.com; claire.thoms@unifem.org; ctaimbari@pngtourism.org.pg; corney.alone@gmail.com; ulgdavid@hotmail.com; esorom_daoni@health.gov.pg; mkariko@gmail.com; elizabeth.cox@unifem.org; elizabeth.reid@runbox.com; erastuskamburi@rocketmail.com; evanagirao@gmail.com; evoscs@bigpond.net.au; fsk_star@hotmail.com; garyjufa@yahoo.com; gerardjm@chariot.net.au; henry@savethemales.ca; jacqui.badcock@undp.org; jimmielijah.mose@gmail.com; jkbougainville@gmail.com; jollygudfela@gmail.com; kevin.rudd.mp@aph.gov.au; kumaran98@hotmail.com; leashaw@bigpond.com; leskay@beneserve.com.au; aabarachiel@daltron.com.pg; lorraine.manua@ombudsman.gov.pg; lkapi@thenational.com.pg; lyndalscrivener@hotmail.com; m_aret@hotmail.com; mdaure@thenational.com.pg; megsmogs@hotmail.com; bupnghivaids@global.net.pg; mjacka@global.net.pg; nemken@global.net.pg; npascoe@spp.com.pg; bwellspng@gmail.com; rondegraybirch@gmail.com; svetali@cpm.adventist.org.pg; patrickjwright@me.com; phukahu@gmail.com; pbarter@mtspng.com; sapuri@daltron.com.pg; papuatauna@hotmail.com; sharne.black@yahoo.com; watsons@unaids.org; sujata55@hotmail.com; tedwinsmith@yahoo.com.au; kunduthomas@yahoo.com; phsaf@hotmail.com; pohromo@hotmail.com; tkuligi@hotmail.com; wellnesslodgepng@gmail.com; holmes@burnet.edu.au
>
“Friends, media, I want you all be to be cautious of an Australian conwoman who goes by the name of Lydia Kailap, AKA Cuma PNG.
She is contesting for Moresby South and is going through every means to get votes.
I also appeal to Gary Juffa, Customs and Police to thoroughly investigate her.
This is urgent!”
“Attached is a picture of the woman and her black lover. Police: Please arrange to have them arrested.”
“They sould also be checked for drugs.”
“This old white bitch is also responsible for the spate of attacks against RH and The National over the last couple of days.
Please move in to arrest her and her husband for defamation as well as inciting trouble.
She and her foul mouth should be deported immediately.
She is also the one who has been making false accusations against police.”
“Come out Cuma PNG, aka Lydia Kailap, you cannot hide! Peter Jackson, you should be ashamed of yourself for taking rubbish from this conwomen and putting on your blog. Your ass might be sued too!”
Give this writer the Crocodile Prize!!!
IF this is the troll who has been using the alias of Bruce or Brice Copeland ---the same troll who has morphed into a handful of other PNG and expatriate personae to slam everyone even slightly critical of Rimbunan Hijau---and IF this troll is the same person who pleads family values (and screeches these values even louder than the real Copeland himself)---and who then whines on FB about being slandered as gay, but then slanders others as the same—
Then I think we are looking at the Kivung Cult Curse Writ Large. It is THIS kind of conflation of righteousness and delusion, of gender roles and transgressions, of colonial fears of miscegenation and pity for the poor and helpless----that is fertile ground for soulless monopoly capital: We give you our kidness, our professional reputations, our infinite hospitality, our land, our logs, our future, RH---and what will you give us in return?
A closing note: the photos here come from a trip ca. 2007 to Pomio, when the widow of Kolman Molu greeted a group of tourists from a small Australian vessel, bearing valuable shell rings and wearing the clothes of her deceased husband. Coincidentally, I was alsong with the former Eastern Highlands kiap, John Coleman, and his wife, who had long retired from coffee and advertising in PNG to the Gold Coast, and were back on a cruise. As we walked through the shrine for Kolman Molu, saw his photo embedded with a brief historical plaque on his grave, it struck Coleman that this man had worked for him so many years ago, in Kainantu. That he had returned home to Pomio and taken Coleman's own name, Kolman, to embark on his career reinvigorating the Kivung. This was a strange, uncomfortable, circle closing, Coleman felt, and it saddened him to see how much had not been done in his former assistant's New Britain home, even after all this time. We watched as the Kivung members handed irreplaceable shell valuables to complete strangers, as tokens of their visit, in a typical gesture of reciprocity that would never ever be fulfilled.
The circle draws tighter now, roughly 5 years later, as we learn how much more Pomio is willing to give away for no guarantees of return.
The National Journo is the CULPRIT! He pissing in his pants, having seen FB posts. He must be hung on his balls.
Posted by: AJ Lambo, UK | November 06, 2011 at 02:11 PM
To Mr. brucecopeland65@gmail.com, you are a fucking asian sucker in PNG. If I get to know your real identity I will burn you down with your car. You the fuck are you to promote RH and Asian cunts in PNG......inap...wait till we identify you...this is not china or USA where you will run away or hide away...bai yu still kam ples klia yet ok!!!
Posted by: Papa Graun | November 07, 2011 at 02:44 PM
good post Nancy, thanks for filling out some blanks. keep on speaking the truth as you see it. my dad always said, if you never lie, you never have to worry about your memory!
lets not stoop to their level. and let's look after each other. best, deb
Posted by: deb chapman | November 11, 2011 at 07:03 PM
Nancy,
Read from start to finish.Keep it up,I am a blue blooded Moveavean and no amount off foul mouth PNG man that hides behind pen names or real names for that matter will stop me from voicing my two bob;those that sale PNG for few bobs like the persons you have mentioned above are not worth anything;they are not worth mentioning at all.They are only fit for the dump heap.Dont give up,you are worth alot more then them worthless idiots..full support.
Posted by: judy Avoa Warrillow | November 15, 2011 at 08:14 PM
Thanks a lot to the people who supported against this move in West Pomio.This John Parulrea is the same as his clan mate Peter Kaiopuna who was kicked out in 2008 by the Land owners of Inland Pomio TRP.Now this Peter Kaiopuna is hiding away in Pom or Aussie from police for possesing 80 hardcore pornography movies from these asians. Shame on you guys. This type of people should be hanged for their wrong doing with these type of ASIANS. Who they think they are. Fuck u guys harim. Papa graun Tru
Posted by: LINUS BAI | December 28, 2011 at 05:34 AM