Australia is a haven for dirty money, money stolen from countries like Papua New Guinea, according to research by Professor Jason Sharman which will shortly be published in a new book, The Despot’s Guide to Wealth Management.
Lands Minister Benny Allan admits that the issue of the 99-year land leases has not been fully understood. He made the admission in Parliament yesterday when answering a question from Kairuku-Hiri MP Peter Isoaimo about colonial leases and what was being done about them.
"There's a lot of confusion with the leases," Allan said.
This is a beautiful piece illustrating two-folds of Africa that the world percieves, a continent teeming with life and overflowing with resource - rich, fertile land, and a continent ravaged by disease, poverty, war and corruption. These similar sentiments are a farmiliar sentiment many in the world share about Papua New Guinea. You be the judge, who is suffering, are we really being manufactured to become rich or manufactured for the rich?
It is appalling to learn that customary land-owners, the 'original' inhabbitants of the land, Australia, have become 'vulnerable populations'. Already denied the basic services most Australians take for granted, they are on notice of dispossession without consultation, and eviction at gunpoint. All this for large-scale mining which does not and has not benefited the Aboriginal people on whose land it takes place.
This is a good read for understanding the model of development that Papua New Guinea has adapted and the pros and cons of what we are dancing to today. This enlightens the forge of struggle tangled by a growing system of class and the thrive for profit making breathing life to corruption at all "elite" levels.
