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Thursday, February 13, 2014 cook Islands News
Land grab inquiry names company PorT moreSBy – a commission of inquiry in Papua New Guinea has recommended an australian-led company involved in obtaining leases over more than two million hectares of traditional land be investigated for criminal misconduct and conspiracy. in 2011 a public outcry over the rorting, mainly by logging companies, of a leasing scheme intended for small agriculture projects, prompted the PNG Government to set up the commission of inquiry. Three commissioners were set the task of investigating how 11 per cent of PNG’s land mass came to be leased, mostly for 99
years, often without permission of landowners. The largest of the land grabs involved four leases for more than two million hectares belonging to tens of thousands of people in PNG’s Western Province. it was orchestrated by a small PNG-registered, Queenslandled company called independent Timbers and Stevedoring Limited (IT&S). The commission report, which has just become public, found IT&S “manipulated” the supposedly independent lease approval process to obtain control over four Special agricultural and Business
Leases, or SaBLs. commissioner Nicholas mirou found documents prepared by the company were “deceptive and clearly fraudulent” and recommended that further investigation be undertaken to establish if “international racketeering over land acquisition has been committed”. PNG government agencies responsible for monitoring and approving the project were found to be guilty of “gross negligence”. commissioner mirou spent two weeks in Western Province listening to testimony from landowners and found the majority did not give consent
to the leases. “one of the fundamental requirements under the Lands act itself is consent. if you don’t have consent of the landowners, obviously, it is the prerequisite for an SaBL lease to be granted,” he said. he was particularly touched by a pastor’s wife, Waeya Bugaebo, who crossed mountains and swamps on foot to give her testimony. “She walked, actually walked eight days to come to Kiunga to give her evidence, and she cried, and said, ‘look nobody told me, my people about the lease. We had no idea about this SaBL process. Now our land is with
the company,’” commissioner mirou recounted. The commission of inquiry has recommended the four leases be revoked. The IT&S project began life as a plan to build a road 600 kilometres from the Western Province town of Kiunga to the PNG capital, Port moresby, and to pay for it by harvesting logs along a 40-metre road corridor. Landowners were keen for the opportunities road access would bring and happy to lease a narrow passage through the forest. But the commission found that by the time all the paperwork was finished, Lands Department officials and execu-
tives of landowner companies had unwittingly signed approval for the leasing of more than two million hectares. The four leases obtained for the IT&S project were also found to have failed to provide reasonable access for hunting, fishing, gardening and other necessities of life. commissioner mirou says many communities did not discover their land had been leased, until he took his hearings to Kiunga. If it goes ahead the IT&S project, by the company’s own admission, will be the biggest logging project PNG has ever seen. - ABC
Land dispute sees villages destroyed PorT ViLa – around 500 people including women and children have been evacuated from villages and stations around malua Bay area on malekula, Vanuatu, after their homes were burned down following a land dispute. reports from North West malekula claim that over 60 houses have been burned and whole villages destroyed since January this year. So far police have yet to comment on the situation but reliable sources said there is lack of law enforcement in the area primarily due to poor road conditions sealing off the area from the Lakatoro Police Station.
as many as 60 houses were burned to the ground by men allegedly armed with guns and knives. The men allegedly travelled to the area from malo where they currently reside. a case concerning ownership of the land in dispute is understood to be pending before the court. “a report was made to the police right after the shooting and damage to property, however, the police did not come to the site to investigate and did not make proper reports for necessary action to be taken,” stated a concerned resident of the affected area.
“on January 27, the same group, now comprised of 12 men, arrived again fully armed with knives and guns and set ire to houses in three villages, namely malua Bay main station, malua Bay Naraside river and alpalack Village.” There are alleged instances of shooting by both parties with no information of casualties. Tension in the area is still believed to be very high with the security and safety of the people in the areas being a major concern. “Victims led and have been living in the bush with no proper shelter, bedding, clothes,
Judicial funding to stay WeLLiNGToN – New Zealand has announced it will not withdraw its funding of Nauru’s judicial system, despite the island government sacking its only magistrate and cancelling the visa of the chief justice. Nauru’s only magistrate, Peter Law, was deported from the country last month and its chief justice, Geoffrey eames, has had his visa cancelled. Nauru’s Justice minister David adeang and home affairs minister charmaine Scotty have been in Wellington, after New Zealand’s Foreign minister murray mccully issued a “please explain” letter over Nauru’s judicial crisis. mccully had threatened to suspend the $US600,000 a year
which keeps Nauru’s judicial system running, but after the meeting he said the funding would continue. “i was influenced significantly by the fact that if New Zealand was to withdraw, we would be handing to australia the entire task of providing development support for Nauru – which i don’t think is a good outcome.” he says the australian government did not pressure him to maintain Nauru’s funding. The Nauruan government has faced accusations of a political motive behind the moves, but has rejected that as an “attack on Nauru’s sovereignty”. mccully says that while he does not condone the actions of
the Nauruan government, he wants to work towards a solution, not “rake over the past”. he says Nauru’s ministers gave him assurances about the integrity and transparency of future judicial appointments and processes, and New Zealand maintains the right to suspend funding should this not happen. mccully also raised concerns over media scrutiny in Nauru, after it last month hiked journalists’ visas from a$200 to $8000 dollars. he says the Nauruan government needs to consider the role of transparency in rebuilding conidence. - ABC
cooking utensils, access to communication or transport,” the resident said. “The police authorities have been informed of the situation
minister has defended moves by the government to raise a visa fee for visiting journalists. Last month Nauru hiked the journalist visa application fee from $a200 to $8000. The minister, charmaine Scotty admits the move is a response to the signiicant damage that foreign media person-
nel inflict on Nauru through their negative coverage of the island’s role as a venue processing asylum seekers on australia’s behalf. The minister says journalists seem to have made up their minds in advance of arriving to vilify Nauru. “With all the bad press that they come and do, we have extra
hard problems in regards to the local community and the visitors that are called transferees. “We have community programmes for them, community outreach programmes which are being severely held back through the really bad press, the people in Nauru are getting really afraid of these people.” - RNZI
News from the Paciic region ‘We’ve got the Paciic covered’
and still waiting for a response team to stabilize the situation and maintain law and order as soon as possible.” - Vanuatu Daily Post
Clearances remain for local leet PaGo PaGo – The american
Samoa governor, Lolo matalasi moliga, has decided not to waive required clearance for the locally-based Tautai longline ishing leet ishing in the territory’s exclusive economic zone. all fishing vessels arriving
into american Samoa are subject to immigration, customs, health, public safety and agriculture clearances. Lolo says the longline fleets had asked the local government to eliminate certain clearances because Tautai ish within the
territory’s exclusive economic zone and never leave american Samoa or US waters. he says the government cannot grant this request because some local vessels ish in waters that are over 80 kilometres away from the territory. - RNZI
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