There is great confusion in Papua New Guinea over whether a Commission of Inquiry has been appointed to investigate the issuing of Special Agriculture and Business Leases over more than 5 million hectares of customary land.

The Acting Prime Minister, Sam Abal, announced on May 6 that he would be setting up a Commission of Inquiry, but no instruments appointing the Commissioners or any further details were released.

From LNG Watch

Last week we posted an article which raised questions over whether electoral politics in its current form constitutes democracy, that is does it enhance the capacity of each individual to participate in the economic and political decision making processes that condition their life. We suggested decision making takes place at hermetically sealed levels, which ordinary people are excluded from.

By Brian Thomson

Thirty-six years after the people of Papua New Guinea gained the right to govern themselves they are still waiting on a government that gives them a fair share of the country's considerable resources.



"We have so much need for basic government services  in the midst of the all mines, all the riches being extracted from our land," says Ombudsman John Toguata.

From the LNG Watch blog

"We declare our first goal to be for every person to be dynamically involved in the process of freeing himself or herself from every form of domination or oppression so that each man or woman will have the opportunity to develop as a whole person in relationship with others".


By Peter Korugl*



On May 5, Acting Prime Minister Sam Abal announced that a Commission of Inquiry (COI) was to be established into the issue of Special Agricultural and Business Leases (SABLs) over customary land in Papua New Guinea.


Abal said the COI would investigate the granting of SABLs to ensure that all legal requirements were followed and that the leases were being used for the purposes intended in the Lands Act.


Martin Maden asks some very important, relevant and timely questions about capitalism, the Global Banking System and their adverse effects on the cultures of the Pacific in his article below.

Spotted on the PNG Mine Watch blog

Many commentators are talking excitedly about the unprecedented riches that will come from Papua New Guinea’s resource boom. Phil Mercer writing for Voice of America (see below) is just the latest.

But who is REALLY going to reap the benefits from Papua New Guinea’s oil, gas, gold and silver?

Papua New Guinea is chasing a development dream based on a failed, foreign, neo-liberal economic model. Along the way it is loosing its sense of family and is drifting away from what once really mattered - Papua New Guinea is letting its children down.

While vast, foreign owned, extractive industries rip out our forests, gold, silver, oil and gas, common preventable illnesses claim hundreds of lives every week and none are more vulnerable than the young. 

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins San Frontières (MSF) has published a new report, Hidden and Neglected: The medical and emotional needs of survivors of family and sexual violence in Papua New Guinea, which highlights the urgent, unmet medical and emotional needs of survivors of family and sexual violence in PNG. The report recommends concrete action in order to meet these needs.