In an excellent example of inverted transparency, corrupt officials have now taken to demanding acquittals from those they hope to patronize. Unfortunately Rai Coast landowners have failed to submit receipts for dirty handouts, and those with actual backbone, who have persisted in courting the MCC, are having their personal bank accounts investigated.
So the stages of due process in PNG landowners vs Goliath cases (FYI) now are: insults and drunken slurs, suborning plaintiffs with threats to their selves and families; direct deposits into bank accounts by third parties; and finally manipulating bank officers to investigate private bank accounts.
It is now a punishable offense, in some ways, to avail the court system.
NOVEMBER 8, 2010...2:38 PM
Minister orders investigation into private bank accounts
Mining Minister John Pundari has ordered a highly secretive and unlawful investigation into private bank accounts to try and uncover how indigenous landowners are covering their legal bills.
Pundari and the PNG government are highly frustrated that their successful intimidation of one group of landowners has not led to the ending of legal disputes over the controversial Ramu nickel mine’s marine waste dumping plans.
Instead, the mine owners are now facing a second court case with well over 100 landowner plaintiffs who have already secured a court injunction stopping any waste dumping.
Informed sources within government have revealed that Pundari has now ordered an investigation into the bank accounts of the principal plaintiff’s, their lawyers and supportive groups and individuals.
Such an investigation is completely unlawful as there is no suggestion of any criminal conduct by the landowners who are simply exercising their legal and constitutional rights.
This action by the Minister follows other authoritarian measures from the government in its attempts to defend the Ramu mine, including its attempts to ban public demonstrations and media debate and its draconian and unconstitutional changes to the Environment Act as well as the use of intimidation, threats and violence.
And from yesterday’s Ramu Nickel Mine Watch, a scene that couldn’t be scripted, between one forceful amb kunt and her former student disembarking from a flight in Madang:
Peter Pena warned to stay away from Ramu plaintiffs
Port Moresby lawyer, Peter Pena, was confronted and warned to stay away from the plaintiffs in the Ramu nickel mine case and to not go behind the back of their lawyer Tiffany Nonggorr, when he arrived at Madang airport on Friday. The warning came from Ms. Nonggorr, who along with several plaintiffs including lead plaintiff Louis Medaing, were waiting for Mr. Pena outside the terminal building.
It is believed Pena was the orchestrator of the plot that removed the orginal plaintiffs challenging the mine's marine waste dumping plans.
In front of witnesses, Nonggorr was seen to introduce Medaing to Pena and explained to Pena it is unethical and a breach of the lawyers’ Professional Conduct Rules for a lawyer retained by a party in a case to approach or contact another party directly. She told Pena if he wanted to contact any of her clients he had to go through her. The warning came because Mr. Pena had earlier this year contacted one of the original plaintiffs and engineered his and the other plaintiffs withdrawal from the case. Pena was retained by and is believed to have been acting on Mining Minister John Pundari’s instructions, after Pundari himself had made unsuccessful trips to Madang in an attempt to bring the Ramu case to a close.
According to those who observed the discussions at the airport, Mr. Pena listened politely to Ms. Nonggorr, but was clearly uncomfortable. Trying to get away as quickly as possible he boarded the wrong bus at the airport - getting on the Divine Word University (DWU) bus rather than the bus for Peter Barter’s Madang Resort where Mr. Pena was spending the weekend.
Mr. Pena operates his own law firm in Port Moresby. He is known as Prime Minister Somare’s personal but behind the scenes legal council. He has been heavily involved in the Exxon-Mobil LNG project and acted for the Prime Minister in the Julian Moti case
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