Source: PNG Blogs
Once again (it’s happened before), Papua New Guineans have let citizens of other countries stand up for the rights of all of us.
Sometimes citizens of other countries become concerned enough about our situation in PNG dealing with corruption and being taken advantage of by foreigners that they stand up and protest in their own countries on our behalf.
There might be a Papua New Guinean or two in the photo above, which was taken in Malaysia recently, but its mostly Malaysians protesting to support Papua New Guineans. The full story is on PNG Exposed and also ACT NOW PNG. They are protesting against a Malaysian company that is trying to land grab in Oro Province, pretending to bring oil palm (which the people of Collingwood Bay don’t want, seeing the social ills and migrant problems it has brought to other parts of Oro Province). The company’s name is Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK).
Malaysia is hardly known for protecting the people’s rights to free speech or to protest. They use their Sedition Act (a law against those who might try to overthrow the government) loosely to sometimes catch people who are simply protesting. In other words, there is some risk in openly protesting like this in Malaysia.
Nevertheless these brave Malaysians were protesting on Malaysian soil in front of the company that intends to do great damage to the people of Collingwood Bay, Oro Province, through their intended SABL land grab.
The Collingwood people themselves aren’t sitting down. Again and again they have gone to court against one land grabber after another. They are doing everything they can against this Malaysian company but it is like David facing Goliath.
There we see the protest in Kuala Lumpur, but do we see any protests on the streets of PNG, not necessarily about the Collingwood Bay issue, but about the general SABL issue, one of the most tragic events to happen in our lifetimes? Through legal means, more than 13% of all PNG land has been lost to foreigners in less than 5 years.
Where are the protestors against this? Nowhere to be found! It seems we won’t do a thing even to defend what most helps us. We don’t even protest against what will end up hurting us the most, but rather sit on our arses and watch citizens of another country come to our defence.
What is the best word to describe this crazy situation with us? Do we do nothing to protest injustice because we’re lazy? Ignorant? Apathetic? Paralysed and weak with malaria? Or just plain dumb?
It is sad that so few other Papua New Guineans have shown the compassion enough to support the Collingwood Bay people or for that matter, any of the tens of thousands of people who had their land tricked away from them with the SABLs. Will you ever see Papua New Guineans protesting in front of parliament on behalf of another group of Papua New Guineans, coming from another country, on any issue? Yes, it happened 15 years ago with respect to Bougainville, but don’t count on it happening today. Why not? The question still beckons!
Think about that situation and then wonder why the terms ‘educated’, ‘intellectual’ or even ‘Christian’ are used to describe urban people in our country who are given the facts of the injustice, clearly have the means to join like minded people to fight that injustice, but at the end of the day can’t be bothered to do a thing.
- Elizabeth1's blog
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