The government has ignored serious human rights concerns raised by various United Nation’s representatives about the huge SABL land grab and its impacts on customary landowners. Instead of acknowledging and addressing the concerns the government is instead pushing ahead with changes to the Land Act that will make the situation even worse by retrospectively endorsing the illegal leases.

Between 2003 and 2009 over 5 million hectares of land, more than 12% of the whole of Papua New Guinea, was unlawfully taken from customary landowners and given to foreign companies using fraudulent agriculture leases. 

In a letter dated February 2014 [pdf file 4mb], four different United Nations institutions raised concerns about the impact of the land grab on indigenous communities and the serious breaches of human rights.

The letter was signed by the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food, the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Right to Safe Drinking Water and by the working group on Human Rights and Transnational Corporations.

United Nations Special Rapporteurs and working groups have a specific mandate from the Human Rights Council to monitor, advise, and publicly report on human rights issues that come under their specific areas of interest.

In their letter the envoys expressed concern at the impact of the SABL land grab on the ability of rural people to maintain customary land use patterns, sustain their traditional way of living and livelihoods, to access land and to secure their right to food and right to water. 

They also raised the anomalies and human rights abuses in the process of leasing the land with respect to the lack of consultation and consent and alleged fraud and misrepresentation and with respect to situations of violence and intimidation against landowners who have expressed opposition to the SABL leases and the associated logging activities.

The letter drew attention to the numerous applicable international human rights norms and standards that the SABL land grab endangers, including rights in the:

• Universal Declaration on Human Rights
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• Convention of the Rights of the Child
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women 
• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and
• Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights

The envoy’s noted the work of the Commission of Inquiry that reported in 2013. The Commission recommended ‘the SABL setup be done away with entirely’ as it did not believe ‘any reforms could satisfactorily remove the loop holes, inadequacies or permissive ambiguities used to abuse the SABL process and hijack land use’. 

The letter also referred to the comments of the Prime Minister that the Commission of Inquiry revealed “a shocking trend of mismanagement and corruption in all stages in the process” and “the policy on SABL had failed miserably”.

In the two years since the letter was written there has not been any positive change or action by the government to provide the victims of the land grab with any effective remedy. Indeed the position has become worse with logging operations penetrating deeper in to the SABL areas, log exports increasing in volume and communities becoming increasing disillusioned and fractured over the continuing incursions into their traditional land, the lack of action from government, the failures of the judicial system to deliver any remedy and the continuing abuses by police officers.

That situation could become even more dire with the government proposing amendments to the Land Act that will retrospectively endorse the illegal SABL leases and allow them to continue for their full 99-year term.

In the meantime the United Nations envoys are still waiting for a reply from the PNG government to their letter.