Nineteen years and counting in Papua New Guinea

From Zambia to PNG: we have our eyes on NFC

 

This week Divine Word University is hosting a symposium with the ANU's State Society and Governance Program in Madang, on Asian (read: Chinese---but also Filipino) investment in Papua New Guinea. Rumour has it that a foreign investor persuaded DWU to change the name of the symposium from the forementioned to something more 'equable', which resulted inthe following announcement and roster of speakers:

 

Divine Word University, Madang, 18-20 October 2010

Culture and Pacific-Asia Partnerships in Resource Development

 

 

Community Members, Students, and Academics are invited to attend.

Topics and speakers include:

The origins of capital in natural resource extraction: does it matter?

Asian fisheries investment in the Pacific: Asian and local identities

The Australian native title agreement-making landscape: Engaging in-between and negotiating cultural difference

Ecological spirituality for Papua New Guinea: Traditional Melanesian beliefs, Christianity, and science

Asian investment in PNG’s ‘agroforestry’ sector: What’s new and what’s not?

The representation of the Kurumbukare and Basamuk people in the PNG Media

Look North Policy, Asian investment, and Papua New Guineans: A trinity formed for development?

Dependency culture and hand-out mentality in mineral resource development in Papua New Guinea

Tribal partnerships and developing of ancestral Maori land

The concept of reciprocity in resource development: the Melanesian way

Extractive industry challenges to rural communities

Who is responsible? Responding to social impacts of mining in Papua New Guinea

We are not anti-Asian—just victims of poor governance

Chinese resource projects in Africa: a change in behaviour?

Waku in Solomon Islands: Asian investment and diplomacy

The Evolving Relationship between the FSM and China

Who are the Chinese? Understanding the new Chinese diaspora the Melanesia way.

The Politics of Resource Ownership and Resource Development in Papua New Guinea: an overview from the 1960s to the present

Fuqing Dreaming: the construction of diaspora identity among the ‘new’ Chinese in Papua New Guinea

 
Merriden VARRALL
Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University

Views from the inside: how do future Chinese elites see the world?

Sharing revenue from the PMIZ project among different landowner groups

Changing partners: Power, politics, and the rise of China in Oceania

The impact of foreign direct investment: Landowner associations and the Ramu nickel project

Customary rights, national law, and the management of Visayan fisheries in the Philippines

Overseas resource investment and China’s foreign policy

Natural or Unnatural Partners? The effects of inequality on Gende society and their relations with mining companies

 

The origins of capital in natural resource extraction: does it matter?

Laura ZIMMER-TAMAKOSHI
PNG National Research Institute

ZHAO Hongtu
China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations

Xavier WINATA
PNG Studies Department, Faculty of Arts, Divine Word University

Kate BARCLAY
University of Technology – Sydney

Glenn BANKS
Institute of Development Studies; School of People, Environment and Planning; Massey University


Cynthia ZAYAS
University of the Philippines at Diliman

Terence WESLEY-SMITH
Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa

Eva WANGIHAMA
Catholic Archdiocese of Madang

Graeme SMITH
China Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney;
State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project, The Australian National University

Jerome SEMOS
PNG Studies Department, Divine Word University

Samuel ROTH
PNG Studies Department, Divine Word University
Gonzaga (Zag) PUAS
College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University

Clive MOORE
School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics; University of Queensland

Cristelle MAURIN
Department of International Law, University of Paris–Panthéon Sorbonne

Patrick MATBOB
Communication Arts Department, Divine Word University

Martha MACINTYRE
Department of Anthropology, University of Melbourne

James LAKI
Peace Foundation Melanesia

Robert LAKA
Social and Religious Studies Department, Divine Word University

Tanira KINGI
AgResearch, New Zealand

Simon KENEMA
Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews

Benedict IMBUN
University of Western Sydney

Joel HAMAGO
Communication Arts Department, Divine Word University

Colin FILER
Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Program, The Australian National University

Priscilla EPE
Department of Social and Religious Studies, Divine Word University

Toni BAUMAN
Aboriginal Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Today we learn from the news that China has just signed an MOU with Madang's Yandera mine, Marengo Mining Ltd, as the financier and engineer for the project. This comes on the heels of the new submissions in the Ramu Nickel case for an injunctionagainst MCC'sd deep sea tailings disposal program---and new revelations about the nature of State coercion against plaintiffs in the previous case. It also follows the bold statements by Hon Belden Namah on the real natureof the Ramu mine, its tax holiday, transfer pricing plans, and zero-sum benefits to be afforded either the State of PNG or the landowners of Rai Coast. The implication being screamed at us is that any 'deal' made between the State of China and the State of PNG was effected between individual players and as money spent, cannot be undone now. In other words, China has PNG by the short hairs.

　

 

Date: October 18 2010

Marengo Mining Ltd says a Chinese firm will secure financing for its flagship project in Papua New Guinea, which could become one of the world's largest copper mines.

Marengo on Monday inked a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with China Nonferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd (NFC) for financing, construction and development of the Yandera project in PNG's Madang Province.

Marengo said NFC may also take a stake in the Perth-based company and the project, which also contains molybdenum and gold.

Marengo said in a statement that Yandera would be a large-scale, long-life operation, with production anticipated to start at about 25 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), eventually ramping-up to 50Mtpa.

Beijing-based NFC may also buy concentrate from the project, which was expected to commence exports in the 2013/14 financial year, Marengo said.

"It is important to note that the MOU also contemplates NFC facilitating project finance and concentrate off-take for the project, together with potentially investing either in Marengo or the project, or both," Marengo managing director Les Emery said.

NFC president Wang Hongqian said in the statement that Yandera would be one of the world's largest new copper mines.

Marengo expects to complete a definitive feasibility study for the project by the end of this year, secure project financing by November 2011 and start project construction in the first half of 2012.

Marengo in broad deal with Chinese firm

The other party to the MOU is Perth-based mining engineering group, Arccon WA Pty Ltd, which introduced Marengo to NFC

It is therefore timely of us to look back at some of the work of NFC in Africa---for Zambia.  Below are excerpts of news items collected by the watchdog web site www.business-humanrights.org under the heading NFC. We learn that Yandera can expect from NFC much the same as Ramu Nico has come to expect from MCC: 'slave' wages and conditions, poor safety and sanitation, and always a company official explaining to the press that the problems are 'cultural' and that Chinese workers have come to expect these abysmal conditions, why can't the host community?

 

 

 

Title: Zambia Opposition To Target Mine Cos' Labor Practices

link status: missing location
Visit: Zambia Opposition To Target Mine Cos' Labor Practices

Author: Nicholas Bariyo, Dow Jones
Dated: 20 Aug 2008

Zambia's main opposition party will target mining companies with poor labor practices if it wins the coming presidential election, its vice president told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday... Chinese investment in the country's mining industry has for some years come under international scrutiny, with the country accused of disregarding safety regulations and mistreating Zambian workers. NFC Africa [part of China Non-ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering & Construction (NFC)] owns the Chambishi copper mine in Zambia...

 

Related topicsfor: The Weinberg proposal: A scientific consulting firm says that it aids companies in trouble, but critics say that it manufactures uncertainty and undermines science...

　

Title: Zambia miners 'see little reward'

link status: ok (opens outside this page)
Visit: Zambia miners 'see little reward'

Author: Orla Guerin, BBC
Dated: 06 Jul 2007

Now [NFC Africa Mining's Chambishi mine] employs 2,000 people...But in spite of soaring copper prices, some miners are paid only $100 a month. They complain of exploitation - "slave labour" in the words of one. The mine's deputy chief executive, Xu Ruiyong, speaks of "local friends" and says there is a cultural gap. "Maybe we think it's normal, but other people think it's too harsh," he adds.

link status: ok (opens outside this page)
Visit: Zambia miners 'see little reward'

Author: Orla Guerin, BBC
Dated: 06 Jul 2007

Now [NFC Africa Mining's Chambishi mine] employs 2,000 people...But in spite of soaring copper prices, some miners are paid only $100 a month. They complain of exploitation - "slave labour" in the words of one. The mine's deputy chief executive, Xu Ruiyong, speaks of "local friends" and says there is a cultural gap. "Maybe we think it's normal, but other people think it's too harsh," he adds.

Title: China's African embrace evokes memories of the old imperialism

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Visit: China's African embrace evokes memories of the old imperialism

Author: John Reed, Financial Times
Dated: 28 Sep 2006

Today China - as an emerging economic colossus hungry for raw materials - is back in Zambia as a direct investor. Like past foreign patrons, the Chinese are taking no chances with their new prize. In July six workers at the Chinese-owned Chambishi mine were shot and wounded after rioting over wages...Labour relations [at the mine] have recently improved since the implementation of a new collective bargaining agreement...In April 2005 a massive and still unexplained blast levelled an explosives factory on the [same] premises, owned by China's NPC Mining Africa, killing 46 people...Chinese investors have also been criticised for deploying poorly-paid and under-equipped Zambians in dangerous jobs. In June Zambian authorities closed the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mining Industries, based in southern Zambia. This followed reports that workers were being sent underground without protective clothing or boots.

Related topicsfor: The Weinberg proposal: A scientific consulting firm says that it aids companies in trouble, but critics say that it manufactures uncertainty and undermines science...

　

Title: African resentment against China grows [Zambia]

Visit: African resentment against China grows [Zambia]

Author: Reuters
Dated: 09 Aug 2006

When Chinese investors bought struggling copper producer Chambishi Mining Plc, miners in this Zambian town gave them a heroes’ welcome for averting its closure...Three years on, resentment is rising openly against the new owners, NFC Africa [part of China Non-ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering & Construction Co. (NFC)], as workers complain about pay and conditions...Last month miners destroyed property at the mine in a violent protest during which Chinese managers opened fire, wounding five workers, according to miners and police...Tensions over labor practices are relatively new but spreading...Some of the more common complaints against Chinese firms include poor pay, lack of safety clothing or boots for workers in textiles, copper and coal mining industries...In 2004 the Zambian government asked Chinese managers at Zambia-China Mulungushi Textiles Ltd, in northern Kabwe, to stop locking in workers at the factory at night...And in June authorities shut down Collum Coal Mining Industries Ltd, in southern Zambia, saying miners had been forced to work underground without safety clothing and boots.'''''

Title: China's African embrace evokes memories of the old imperialism

Visit: China's African embrace evokes memories of the old imperialism

Author: John Reed, Financial Times
Dated: 28 Sep 2006

Today China - as an emerging economic colossus hungry for raw materials - is back in Zambia as a direct investor. Like past foreign patrons, the Chinese are taking no chances with their new prize. In July six workers at the Chinese-owned Chambishi mine were shot and wounded after rioting over wages...Labour relations [at the mine] have recently improved since the implementation of a new collective bargaining agreement...In April 2005 a massive and still unexplained blast levelled an explosives factory on the [same] premises, owned by China's NPC Mining Africa, killing 46 people...Chinese investors have also been criticised for deploying poorly-paid and under-equipped Zambians in dangerous jobs. In June Zambian authorities closed the Chinese-owned Collum Coal Mining Industries, based in southern Zambia. This followed reports that workers were being sent underground without protective clothing or boots.

Related topicsfor: The Weinberg proposal: A scientific consulting firm says that it aids companies in trouble, but critics say that it manufactures uncertainty and undermines science...

　

Title: African resentment against China grows [Zambia]

link status: ok (opens outside this page)
Visit: African resentment against China grows [Zambia]

Author: Reuters
Dated: 09 Aug 2006

When Chinese investors bought struggling copper producer Chambishi Mining Plc, miners in this Zambian town gave them a heroes’ welcome for averting its closure...Three years on, resentment is rising openly against the new owners, NFC Africa [part of China Non-ferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering & Construction Co. (NFC)], as workers complain about pay and conditions...Last month miners destroyed property at the mine in a violent protest during which Chinese managers opened fire, wounding five workers, according to miners and police...Tensions over labor practices are relatively new but spreading...Some of the more common complaints against Chinese firms include poor pay, lack of safety clothing or boots for workers in textiles, copper and coal mining industries...In 2004 the Zambian government asked Chinese managers at Zambia-China Mulungushi Textiles Ltd, in northern Kabwe, to stop locking in workers at the factory at night...And in June authorities shut down Collum Coal Mining Industries Ltd, in southern Zambia, saying miners had been forced to work underground without safety clothing and boots.

Related topicsfor: The Weinberg proposal: A scientific consulting firm says that it aids companies in trouble, but critics say that it manufactures uncertainty and undermines science...

　

Title: China's investment, clout in Africa cause concern

Visit: China's investment, clout in Africa cause concern

Author: Laurie Goering, Chicago Tribune
Dated: 19 Feb 2006

All told, Chinese investment on the long-neglected continent has mushroomed from $10 billion in 2000 to $18 billion in 2003...China's willingness to deal with rogue regimes, to overlook public corruption and to push ahead with projects regardless of safety and environmental concerns risks African lives and undermines African institutions and Western efforts to promote good governance, analysts say. [refers to Mulungushi Textiles plant, NFC Africa-operated Chambishi copper mine]

Related topicsfor: The Weinberg proposal: A scientific consulting firm says that it aids companies in trouble, but critics say that it manufactures uncertainty and undermines science...

　

Title: Death toll in blast at Zambia mine climbs to 51

link status: ok (opens outside this page)
Visit: Death toll in blast at Zambia mine climbs to 51

Author: Shapi Shacinda, Reuters
Dated: 21 Apr 2005

[A] blast at a Zambian mine...killed at least 51 people..."...We do not believe that anyone inside the blast area survived,' said Wang Aide, managing director of the Chinese-owned BGRIMM Explosives Plant, on the premises of Chambishi copper mine...BGRIMM Explosives, a division of Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, is a major supplier of explosives for Chambishi, owned by China's NFC Mining Africa Plc, and other copper mines in Zambia...NFC Africa is 85 percent owned by China Non-Ferrous Metals Industries Foreign Engineering and Construction Group (CNFC China). Zambia's ZCCM Holdings Plc holds the remaining 15 percent stake.

www.business-humanrights.org

　

　

Zambia miners 'see little reward'

By Orla Guerin 
BBC News, Zambia 

Thomas Mumba loved to sing in the church choir and dreamt of recording a CD of gospel music.

At 23 he did not drink or smoke. He preferred to spend his time worshipping his Lord.

His mother Justina hoped his future would be far from the mines that pockmark the landscape of Zambia's Copperbelt.

"I wanted him to become a pastor, or a reverend," she said, "because of his good morals. People loved him very much."

Instead, Thomas lies buried near the gates of Chambishi mine, which is run by NFC Africa Mining, a Chinese state enterprise.

He was killed two years ago, together with 45 workmates, in a blast at a subsidiary mine.

“ They came to make profit, not to look after the lives of the people who were giving them profit ” 
Justina Mumba

African nations are used to being plundered - the West perfected the art. Now the new scramble for Africa's resources is coming from the east.

With a voracious economy to feed, China is devouring raw materials - oil, copper, cobalt and zinc.

And it is wooing governments, including those who trample on human rights, with soft loans, aid and arms sales.

For all its taking out of Africa, it is putting a lot back in - creating jobs, making investments, building roads, railways, and hospitals.

Beijing maintains it is a "win-win" situation.

Many Zambians have their doubts, especially those in the Copperbelt.

'No-one listened'

Thomas's grave and those of his work mates form a semi-circle on a patch of neglected ground.

After the explosion, Justina did not have a body to bury.

"We didn't identify even a finger or a toe," she says.

"He was in pieces."

She says that before his death, Thomas and other employees were concerned by safety standards at the factory, but no-one listened.

"He was saying I'm afraid, because anything can happen," she adds.

Kneeling at his grave, Justina mourns for a devoted son who was also the family bread-winner.

She claims the Chinese care more about money than safety.

"They came to make profit, not to look after the lives of the people who were giving them profit," she says.

It is a short walk from the graveyard to the entrance to the mine.

Inside, the management gave us a guided tour above ground, although we were only allowed a glimpse below.

'Cultural gap'

They are keen to show the positive side of Chinese investment.

Before they came, the mine was a monument to decay.

“ Maybe we think it's normal, but other people think it's too harsh ” 
Xu Ruiyong 
NFC Africa Mining

Now it employs 2,000 people, and crucially for Beijing, it makes a profit.

But in spite of soaring copper prices, some miners are paid only $100 a month.

They complain of exploitation - "slave labour" in the words of one.

The mine's deputy chief executive, Xu Ruiyong, speaks of "local friends" and says there is a cultural gap.

"Maybe we think it's normal, but other people think it's too harsh," he adds.

Mr Xu says part of China's purpose in opening the mine was to help the local economy, but there is little sign of improvement in the township of Chambishi.

'Cheap labour'

In his cramped two-roomed home, one young miner told me about his struggle to survive on what he earns at the mine.

His children are not going to school, because he cannot afford to send them.

He has planted a tiny vegetable garden to try to feed his family.

"The Chinese believe in cheap labour," he said.

"They are just here to take our copper."

And he said workers could not open their mouths to any Chinese boss for fear of losing their jobs.

"At the moment, I am desperate," he said.

"As soon as I find employment somewhere I will leave the Chinese."

Hands-off approach

The Chinese are not the only foreigners exploiting Zambia's raw materials, but they are the ones who arouse the greatest fear and hostility - in spite of their increasing stake here, or perhaps because of it.

“ For poor African governments, China can be an attractive partner ”

Beijing is about to pour another $300m into mining and manufacturing here, according to a recent announcement by the Zambian government.

That is on top of $900m which China has already earmarked for the Copperbelt.

Many jobs are promised, but the Mineworkers' Union of Zambia is concerned about what kind of jobs they will be.

The union's president, Rayford Mbulu, says the Chinese still have the worst safety record and pay the lowest wages.

But for poor African governments, China can be an attractive partner.

It does not demand reform, and takes a hands-off approach - that makes a change from institutions like the World Bank.

'No strings attached'

And it is a selling point for Zambia's Finance Minister Ng'andu Magande, who welcomes deals with no strings attached.

“ So far in Zambia, I haven't seen the strings - if they are there, they are nylon ones ” 
Ng'andu Magande 
Zambian Finance Minister

"I think that is where perhaps Chinese investment, at the moment, is more attractive for us," he says.

"So far in Zambia, I haven't seen the strings. If they are there, they are nylon ones. I don't see them. They are very thin."

But African economies are already suffering the downside of Chinese investment.

It comes in the form of cheap Chinese imports and Chinese labour.

And there are political concerns, like Beijing's cosy relationship with the governments of Zimbabwe and Sudan.

Before leaving the Copperbelt we saw illegal miners in action - young boys in flimsy shoes, risking their lives, hoping to feed China's endless hunger.

Africa's people tend not to benefit from its riches.

The fear is that Beijing is just here to take what it can get.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6267754.stm

Published: 2007/07/04 18:01:12 GMT

 

 

THIS is what it means to be Honourable (thank you Hon Belden Namah, MP)

 
 

Accept no imitations

 
 

Seventeen years ago I was briefly running the Karawari Lodge on the Karawari River in East Sepik during a lull in visitors, and the then-World Bank rep, Sir Ali Alikhani, came for a visit. Dapper and gentlemanly, this relic of the Shah’s reign in Iraq regaled me with stories about dining on sevres china with Ben Gurion, holidaymaking with the Pahlevi family, and entertaining Margaret Mead (whom he found charming).

 

In turn, of course, I was mesmerized by this man. But we came to an impasse of perspectives when he began to propose that Sepik art be cultivated as a craft export, perhaps for shops like Pottery Barn and Conran’s overseas. I found myself explaining to this lovely gent that these carvings and masks and gables and staffs were already part of a blue-chop market around the world, not so much the pre-Independence auction market, but the hierarchic collectors realm where objects that are presumed to be old, although cannot be verified as such, can fetch very good intermediate prices, which drives collectors to buy containers’ worth on a regular basis, to this day. It was a hard sell, because Sir Ali, I believe, found the carvings bizarre and original, but hardly collectable. Not exquisite like a Persian miniature or stylized like Indonesian woodcarving. In the end, he wrote a cheque for a water tank to a young man in the village, someone who had no bank account, and who blurted a ballpark cost off the top of his head, and who was ultimately destroyed by the burden of raising the real amount to buy and ship a tank into his remote village. ‘We believe in direct grants to small entrepreneurs,’ I was assured by Mr World Bank, who clearly saw himself as the new Grameen.

 

But I won’t forget his surprise at learning the Sepik handiwork was not just another forest timber product for overseas retail.  He didn’t seem convinced by my arguments, but must have had this confirmed later. He might have asked 4 out of 10 European and American tourists who visit the Sepik, as elsewhere in PNG, and continue to buy these hoary souvenirs in village markets on the belief that they have a value beyond the ordinary souvenir for being culturally authentic---still largely in ‘use’ in the villages, and virtually the same as the object collected ten minutes before Independence that now fetches six figures at Sotheby’s Oceanic art auctions.

 

Papua New Guineans are so attuned to this market that they have mastered the explanations all tourists want to hear. Not so much the lies about this just being found in the old men’s house, or my grandfather made it, but that it is true to this village, this clan, and has a story of its own, a living significance, something entirely contemporary and yet antique---thus more than a Navajo rug,  a Ming vase, or an Ibo talisman. This is an ethnographic object, carvers are saying. It is our culture now just as it was our culture hundreds of years ago. It replicates nothing dead or long ago. It is an object of sustainable value.

 

Now, I was watching a documentary on the business of Chinese forgeries just yesterday. I learned that the faking of Nikes and Adidas, the bootlegging of cds and watches and handbags, long ago transmuted into such a billion dollar industry that customs detectives have to let a vast majority of the manufacturers get away with it. Apparently brands that went to China in the nineties, hiring clever Engrish (or German or French) speaking reps on the ground, made a lot of money initially, only to lose it to the reps when they effected to establish their own forgery businesses. Now, despite the impotent laws against piracy and fraud, there are entire provinces of China dedicated to the industry of fakes. And this business actually represent as much as 80% of the export trade for China. There exists what one interviewee described as an entire ‘shadow value chain’ where multinational fakes are of such apparent quality that the ‘brand’ has been entirely undermined. What is a Gucci handbag these days, and why spend $2000 on something that can be imitated with some integrity for $200?

 

But appearances are not everything, of course, and the news has taught us just how unscrupulous the forgery industry can be, especially when it comes to powdered milk, and eggs (I learned that there are fake eggs being exported that are made from dangerous industrial chemicals), and, the most sinful of all, medicines.  In PNG many of us buy the bootlegged meds from the market knowing they have been stolen or resold from government aid post supplies. But few of us are aware that Chinese fake medicines are also out there---and not just fake artimeter, or fake aspro, but fake chemotherapy drugs, and fake heart meds, and so forth.

 

 

Nor is this just wealth creation for the new China. Famously, the sharpest thing a Communist party leader ever said was Deng Xiaoping’s edict, ‘To get rich is glorious’ ---instantly anointing himself as Deng Xiaobling and giving every former CP member license to make a killing.

 

But the fastest way to get there has been to exploit the weak labour and human rights, and creating a slave labour force that rivals only the industrial revolution in England. Children of primary school age, elderly people, and waves and waves of young people driven from the farms to town (transforming one famous ‘fakery’ centre, Shenzhen from a small village to a metropolis of slums in barely 30 years) now work for less than $30/week and live in overcrowded unsanitary warrens, sometimes sleeping under the very machines they spend their days operating. 

 
 

And as the new capital environment expands and mutates, it now exports this cheap labour force to Chinese investments overseas. Thus, in one segment of the documentary, we see police from Birmingham or somewhere else in Britain raid a small flat that appears to house thirty Chinese pornographic CD bootleggers and their very sophisticated operation that takes in millions per annum for its owners, and pays these workers (who are for immigration reasons never allowed to leave the flat) as indentured servants---that is, pays them nothing until they work off the cost of their passage.

 
 

Now this leads us to today’s PNG. Consider the proposed PMIZ for Vidar Wharf just north of Madang town, with its glowing promises of self-sustaining harmony, electricity, customs, water, and 30,000 or more Chinese workers (as stipulated by the Chinese Ex-Im bank loan that has just recently been signed by the Gabriel Kapris-led ‘Friends of Chinese Money’ social club). 

 

Consider our medicines, our milk, our eggs, our construction businesses. Consider the integrity of our manufacturing in general, and the emergence of a cheap labour force that will barely compete with the indentured servitude of Chinese workers, and thus need to reduce their wages and benefits to compete.

 

Consider for a minute the best practices that do not already exist in the tuna industry, for which the PMIZ is planned: where some say 40% of the stock is illegally transshipped by poachers offshore. Where RD Tuna is already building workers’ housing  within customary villages, bound to look like millionaires row when the Chinese workers start to bunk down. Where there are pre-existing sanitation and healthy and safety issues for the one plant that has been here for years. Where the efforts to stem HIV and other infectious diseases has not even gotten off the ground. Where villagers are forced to earn a non-living wage because they find it hard to exist as subsistence fishermen and women. Where all the promised spin off businesses have long ago reverted back to the Filipinos. Where non-national fishermen aboard company vessels responded to a New Ireland Fisheries Officer’s complaint regarding the netting of dolphins but pushing this man overboard to drown.

 

And there are other matters to consider, having to do with the very identity of PNG in the world market. What is the PNG imprimatur?  What, if not authenticity? Are we facing a future of chipboard ‘rosewood’ and fool’s gold? Are we eventually going to known for PNG products made in China? Or just PNG products that might as well be made in China?

 

Think of that well-established market in ethnographic handicrafts.  I don’t want to be around when the first Sepik carvings are stamped ‘Made in China’ and given little index cards explaining in Engrish the story of the clan and how it was born from the Septic River. (I recently glimpsed a Chinese-made PNG flag on display in the Madang police station that read ‘Papa New Guinea’).

 

Nor do I want to consider the parallels in PNG to the Burberry’s story covered by the documentary. Apparently the esteemed old British label which had kept the village by the same name and its 300-plus inhabitants alive for generations was failing under the cost of production until recently, when it decided to outsource the labour in China. The village has spiraled into poverty, and Kate Moss’ rebranding of the company, along with Chinese workers, have recast this signature label as the UK’s top fashion brand in the global market.

 

I see an Oprah home décor spin-off, in tandem with an ‘authenticity’ label like Ralph Lauren, or Pottery Barn, pitching the ubiquitous Sepik mei mask for the new global middle class. And villages like Tambanem, already suffering from the demise of Sir Peter Barter’s tourist boat, recast as the home of certain mud, nassa shell and kambang filigree pieces---like the sevre china factories, Burberry’s village shops or Venetian glass ateliers or the global mall—becoming the Lourdes of authenticity pilgrims for the next generation. But when visitors come to Tamabanam, they will not have to live in the village itself, but a simulacra of the village somewhere downriver, with a museum that loops old Mead and Bateson films, and dioramas of the incremental changes in the ‘patternware’ of Tambanam over time. And the boldest of guests will opt out of the aircon rooms for the more authentic mat and mossy netting experience, even if en suite.

 

And on their way to the Sepik Authenticity Zone, they will pass through what once was Madang, where hundreds of street shops hawk bilums and baskets and small plaster statues of Kalibobo lighthouse with ‘Madang’ etched in Mandarin down the side. And amidst a growing population of ‘legitimately migrated’ new shopkeepers, one will now and then be able to find an old villager with broken earlobe, standing in as the PNG version of Shenshen’s Vincent van Gogh, the most imitated artist of the Chinese forgery market. This old man, your uncle Albert, will recall the days when his work really meant something, and when polite collectors from Australia, Europe and the US ripped the people off with much greater respect.

 

And here and there you will still see glimpses of what is utterly, unmistakably and inimitably Papua New Guinean.

 

 
 
 

Wis Krap

The measure of cultural distance between America and remote PNG has, at either ends of the spectrum, an American Republic media-darling Tea Party celebrity, Christine O'Donnell-- who was once a 'witch', who considered becoming Hare Krishna, and whose father was Bozo the Clown [no joke, really]

 

--and the unnamed Chuave women of so many news accounts here in PNG in the past few years. 

 

Today there was another one, in the Post-Courier:

 

Sorcery, used as an excuse to torture and kill

Four people are dead. They were brutally tortured and while they were crying out in agony, their tormentors tied their legs and hands, then threw them into the fast flowing Waghi River.
Their bodies have not been recovered. Two of those killed were an elderly married couple, hardly strong enough to defend themselves against the attack.
The deceased were accused of using sorcery to kill a village chief. This happened on September 4 in Wangoi, Chuave in the Chimbu Province.
This is not the first time that the Police have reported this barbaric behaviour of our people. Over the years we have read about people, usually the elderly and the defenseless, who fall victim to people who do not seem to have any respect for human life.
And these attacks and killings are spreading throughout the country, that is it becoming a big concern for human rights organizations in the world.
The tortures and killings of sorcery suspects are just a part of the problem in this issue. What is not often made public is the damage done to the reputation and standing of the family members of those accused of being sorcerers.
Children of sorcery suspects live in fear all their lives because those who believe in this age old witchcraft business think that the sorcerers pass on the ‘powers’ to their children.
In the case of girls, it can be very frightening. A girl who comes from a family with such a damaged reputation stands to face the same fate, like that of her parents, later in life. For her, education is the key to her survival, for when she is educated, has a job and is earning money, her community values her more and that acts as her shield.
For the poor villager, her days are numbered. She could be the next victim when someone dies.
These attacks and killings, will continue to be part of the larger problem of violence against women and girls that is pervasive and rarely punished in this country.
How long do we have to wait for the government to bring an end to such attacks and killings of innocent people? It is apparent that the Sorcery Act, if there is one in place, has no teeth.
When a lot of innocent people are killed after what are literally witch hunts, it is clear that the government is not doing enough to protect its own citizens and maintain the rule of law.
The police and the judicial authorities have to step in immediately before more people continue to face this kind of vigilante violence.
Public awareness to address misconceptions that HIV/AIDS and the other diseases are linked to sorcery also needs to be addressed by all concerned with this problem.
The public health system in the country has the capacity to deal with all kinds of medical problems and those suffering from any ailment should be taken to the hospitals, health centres and aid posts for treatment.
The tough economic times we are living in also contributes to the spread in the sorcery attacks and killings. People nowadays spend much of the time worrying about their own problems that they neglect the sick and elderly, who are left to fend for themselves at most times.
Combined with this is the cost of medical treatment at hospitals, making it harder for villagers to afford, that the sick are left in the villages to die.
Often in these cases, sorcery is blamed by relatives of the deceased, to hide their shortcomings from the community.
Sorcery killings is a human rights issue and the we must act now to end this rash of killings, related to allegations of sorcery.

 

Sorcery in PNG today

 

 None of us would presume to have all the answers, nor even all the data, on this subject, which is rapidly changing and which pervades everything from political and religious, to economic life across the country. Especially for women.

 

 There are two main types of sorcery in PNG: poison, or sympathetic magic, and sanguma.

 Sympathetic magic includes marila or love magic, in which nail clippings, hair, food scraps and so forth can be used to cast a spell on someone at a distance. This category hasn’t. Fortunately, been much expanded in a modern world so we can share biros, silverware, cold drinks and even seats without much worry still.

 Highlands medics sometimes treat sorcery caused by poisons with emetics and laxatives—as functional equivalents of traditional medicines. Pangia call this tomo, and it also includes a marila component that women may give men and vice versa. This kind of illness involves stomach upsets of mild nature, and can be treated with vomiting.

 

 ‘Leavings’ sorcery is sympathetic magic. We always discard all our leavings to prevent sorcery---food gets thrown into water. These cures are more investigative, like a CID event, and nothing to do with a hospital. Manam Islanders always accuse women of marila, supernatural pulling power. 

 But sanguma is men’s work, and is very serious and mainly fatal, so of an entirely different order. This involves an expert sorcerer, in most cases someone who has been trained in the vocation, and traditional (not so long ago) an initiation which would require him (mostly him) to kill his first child and thus subsume that power unto himself. This is typical of the north coast and Sepik all the way to the Siassi and Huon Peninsula.

 

 When Madang people talk about sorcery they are talking about this, and in present day they are also talking about specialists coming from, say, Bagasin, and new forms migrating from Bogia, for example that involves the sanguma man coming to you while you sleep, slitting your throat and thus making you unable to speak. Ppeople also say Raikos is filled with sanguma, whereas Madang proper is less so. Sometimes you can put kavuvur for something around a house to transform the sanguma man from invisible to visible at night so you can defend yourself.

 Sorcerers waylay a victim and transfix them. They can hunt people down, for example, find a woman in her garden and copulate with her, then kill her and take her heart out. Or the kidneys are pulled out ---one may be placed in the victims mouth, and the person’s insides are said to be stuffed with leaves. He or she is sent home after being sewn up magically, and is told to cook and eat the kidney. Or the victim is given amnesia of the event, or perhaps only told the date when they will die.  He/she may be left in a zombie like state that relatives are powerless to interfere in, and die without medical care. Raikos sangumamen use pigs, dogs and black ants as their cover. Bagasin use flying kokomos at night.

 

 In Western Province a slightly different thing occurs, a combination of sorcery and sympathetic magic. A victim is caught with the help of an unwitting third party, usually a relative, who can provide droppings, the smoke or hair of the target without knowing it. But then when the victim dies, the third person also suffers torments by the spirit of the deceased—a prolonged illness, weight loss, mental problems, physical decaying is some cases, or more direct pain and communication with spirits. As a result, people with classic symptoms of HV/AIDs these days are mistaken for those who may have had a hand in sorcelling someone else.

 The direct effects of sorcery are no more heinous and unjust sometimes than the indirect ones, as, for example, when a bereaved parent gets blamed for his child’s death because of some land dispute, or something he himself has done. When people are blamed for sorcery without evidence the effect can be devastating for an entire family, clan, community, as I can personally attest for my own family.

 

 What people like Linus Digim Rina, the Head of the Anthropology Dept at UPNG, and a Trobriander, suggests is that we look at the effects and not the causes, that we walk backward from the tragedy of a primary or secondary death (an original victim or an accused sorcerer who has been hurt). Some of the worst tragedies come from rumours and witch hunts, where people have taken on the role of jurors without sufficient evidence.

 If the original sorcerer has not confessed (in pride) or he/she leaves no hard evidence, then the repercussions are potentially more of the same: he or she may be hounded and killed in counter-sorcery, or bloodlust, or perhaps cast out in shame. Signs of weakness or empathy in mourning can also suggest sorcery.

 Thus we have two issues to confront: whether sorcery has been the cause of an original calamity, and whether a second calamity can be vindicated as payback for sorcery. The first is especially difficult to ascertain, and the second becomes an issue of restorative justice.

 In that great divide between evidence and faith, it really doesn’t matter what someone’s objectives are, if they perform acts that are perfectly legal and have no direct bearing on someone’s health or well-being, it remains a matter of faith only that they have committed sorcery or witchcraft. If I pray for rain, by the same token, and it rains, you can berate me, but you cannot convict me of anything.

 

 Women are twice victimized by restorative justice

But in this day and age when women are being strung up in trees, buried alive, set alight, and generally demonized as witches; and when men continue to confess to acts of sorcery, the idea that we might convince anyone out of a magical system of beliefs is impractical. But when people admit to a crime, they must be investigated, and when it becomes clear that he or she did cause physically or by coercion allow another to brutalize someone, to make them sick or even kill them, then a crime has been committed entirely independent of the sorcery act.  Whatever the social outcome of the crime---if it allows peace or relives strain in a community—it is still a crime and must be treated as such.

 We live in a country where restorative justice is most effective, and therefore people everywhere continue to justify sorcery/sanguma/poison in terms of the betterment of the community. But this runs counter to western jurisprudence, and it is becoming far-fetched to see PNG communities as autonomous entities anymore---they are cast out across the country as people from one language move and work everywhere else, and their borders grow porous as daughters move in with their husbands and men marry women from elsewhere, not to mention development projects bring migrants right into your lap. We now have Kerema and Tolai and Sepik people in one compound in the settlements, even here in Madang, breeding new ideas about sorcery and competing in different ways with this instrument of social control—which is magic—to define the larger community.

 More importantly, women are more often the victims of restorative justice than they are the beneficiaries, as anyone in village court will tell you. They are martyrs to the peace of a community they only married into. And the first ones to be named as cause when things go bad.

 Sorcery is a social regulator, the original form of jurisprudence. For fear of sorcery people gag themselves, stay inline, and most importantly in today’s PNG, fear success for the jealousy it inspires. All of us everywhere have at one time or another said about him or her that he’s courting revenge by being so bigheaded. And by that we don’t mean a verbal reprimand, we mean samting blong ples. And when his wife, her son, or their pig dies, we smile smugly, and feel like saying I told you so.

 

 But increasingly if we hear that someone has put samting blong ples on this person, we are shocked, and saddened. We know he or she worked hard for that car, or loved their child, and was not deliberately courting bad luck for wanting to get ahead.

 We can talk about the many reasons sorcery is on the rise---terrible infrastructure and even worse health services, new diseases with unknown symptoms, greater mobility and exposure to other diseases, not to mention fears and prejudices against others, etc. A mushroom of social change which allows enormous variety of behaviors that never existed before and suddenly may be considered to attract sorcery. A rise in ‘blame the victim’ mentality as these behaviors come to confuse us. Breakdown of taboos so that men and women eat together, step over each others things, and even touch each other in wholly unprecedented ways---in public. Emergence of social classes, so that the village wife and the husband’s female colleague are now, more than ever before, from two very different worlds, and where jealousy is an everyday, sometimes uncontrollable experience, especially when we hear about people getting rich by kickbacks and palm greasing and simply being in the right place at the right time. Yu laki! ---That makes me un-laki!

 
 But to be clear: I can whinge that she has stolen my boyfriend, but if I stab her with a knife I am guilty of a crime. If I engage a known sangumaman or poisonman to make her sick or ugly or turn her head away from him, I am guilty of what? It’s hard to say. If I engage the same poisonman to make a marila to bring my boyfriend back, I am not guilty either, am I? But if I do so and it causes his new girlfriend to commit suicide, or causes him to recklessly swim the strait and drown, in an effort to reach me, you might say Im guilty. Or liable to some degree.  But what if I engage a sagumaman to kill my rival, and she does die in he sleep, the doctors say of a heart attack (she was a fat highlander who ate too many lamb flaps anyway), and if the police find this sangumaman and he confesses to the crime but supplies absolutely no details, and her body lacks any marks whatsoever, can he be indicted? Can I be? Is intent to kill the same as murder?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gilligan's island just got toys!

Dolls cause quite a stir in Buka

 

Post-Courier Friday October 1st

By Patrick Levo

A  blue turquoise ocean with gentle waves lapping on the white sandy shores of palm fringed coral islands, Add a ‘shipwreck’ in the distance and two ‘castaway’ dolls. Indeed a laid back scene of Pacific serenity and an imposing backdrop for a Crusoe type epic but not quite the script for a dramatic Hollywood blockbuster just yet!

 

However in this picturesque idyllic playground, a recent shipwreck and the story of its castaway survivors have the local population in an uproar.  It is brewing as the hottest love story with an insidious sex appeal slowly enveloping the forested atolls of Buka and developing somewhere on mainland Bougainville.

Mention the name of the offending ship—Le Feng—and you will get inquiring looks from the locals of Buka passage.

 
 

That might just also be the appropriate title for the developing story if there is ever an attempt to shoot a sequel to the current episode involving angry villagers demanding justice, bemused police offering little or no leads and a bunch of youths high on home brew intent on having the time of their lives.

The stars in the cast are the castaway dolls and since April, the dark skinned island youths have guarded these with some intrepid enterprise and elementary Watson zeal in evading police and their own people.

Now Buka police have launched ‘Operation Le Feng’ in an attempt to rescue the lost castaways—a pair of bubbly obedient twins who once commanded the satiable sex needs of their oriental crew members.

 
 

It all began in April this year when the Malaysian registered logging ship MV Le Feng, traveling from Panama to Solomon Islands, encountered engine problems compounded by cyclonic weather and struck Hahamui reef between Matsungan and Petats Islands off Buka Island.

Various attempts to refloat the vessel were unsuccessful and the Chinese crew members—unable to communicate with local officials due to language difficulties—packed up and left, leaving as ghost ship parked on the reef to this date with their most ingratiating passengers—two lifelike sex dolls.

The people of the nearby islands finally boarded the unguarded, stranded ship and stripped it bare of all valuable assets including lifeboats, food, gas and anything they could lay their hands on.

According to eye witnesses, youths from one of the islands –just like the pirates of the Caribbean—clambered aboard the 50 metre vessel one dark night, and during a thorough room to room search under torch light, came upon a locked cabin.

Smashing it open in the hope of finding some hidden treasure, they were horrified to locate two human sized figures.  Closer inspection by the astounded ‘rescuers’ soon revealed that these were not life sized rescue training mannequins but spicy sex dolls used by the mariners for absolute ‘pleasure and pain’ on the high seas.  Now the ‘sex slave dolls’ are the talk of the islands as womenfolk in whispered tones refer to them as ‘raba mama’ or ‘rubber pumps’  while officially, police desperately search high and low after the Le Feng dolls—illegal sex toys under PNG law—and their seemingly invincible captors.

 

Adding to the hilarious and deepening mystery of the ongoing doll hunt, a senior Buka policeman said: “Yes, we were initially looking for this ‘raba meri’ for our prisoners but we have not succeeded. We are already told one has been sold to mainland Bougainville.”

A concerned community leader Rebecca Hamis said: “These rubber women should be removed and destroyed because young boys are also being exposed to it and their minds are disturbed, find it and get rid of it before we have more social problems.”

Whatever you call them, they are made for one thing and that is to entertain men without complaining and that is probably why the police response has been half hearted as the stretched out force has bigger more stressful human problems to worry about on a daily basis.

According to one islander, who seemed to have appreciated the rubber mama’s erotic appeal, the dolls are power operated, and can do what normal women perform.

 

“Rubber mama can sing, she can perform like a real woman,” the man, who asked not to be named, said.

According to our friend, rubber mama can say: ‘come here baby, come and make sweet love to me!’

 

Stranger things are happening which is compounding a rather rubbery situation. Since power is needed for the dolls to sing love songs, portable generator sets have suddenly gone missing in villages on Buka.

One genset owner said his power unit went missing one dark night ‘only to turn up a few days later,’ alas with its full tank of diesel all used up.

The general consensus among the populace is that youths under the influence of homebrew or drugs –commonly referred to as druggies—are pinching the gensets to power up the dolls and ‘have a good time’ in the bushes.

 

Police leads are few but they believe one doll was recently traded for a large sum of money to buyers on mainland Bougainville while its twin is doing the cheap rounds of cocoa patches in Buka.

Cheap sex dolls are inflatable and usually made of welded vinyl, resembling men or women with artificial sex organs. It seems the Le Feng castaways were cats in a more expensive mould of latex or silicone and the druggies of Bougainville are having a delightfully lustful time.

 

Meanwhile, the ship is still sitting on the reef, its owners fined K36,000 by the Buka District Court in April while its two shipwrecked ‘sailors’ are lifelessly being hounded and pounded into oblivion by the druggy pirates of the Buka Pasis.

 
Hey wait. I think I found the toy.