A community leader from Rempi, furious over the absence of government representatives and ministers at the villagers own Pacific Marine Industrial Zone Forum, yesterday issued a scathing attack on Papua New Guinea's Commerce and Industry Minister, Gabriel Kapris, and Environment Minister, Benny Allen, accusing them of bulldozing the project and bypassing landowners.

Villagers living on and around the site of PNGs first Special Economic Zone, the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone in Madang, frustrated by a lack of government information and awareness about the project are hosting their own Forum this week to learn more about what is proposed for their land and seas and what the likely impacts will be. This is a report on the first day of the Forum.

By Nancy Sullivan

The signature of the Secretary for Lands, Pepi Kimas, appears on the gazettal notices for leases taking away customary landowner rights to over 3.4 million hectares of land.

This appears to contradict Kimas's claims, Post Courier 5 April, that his Department is not responsible for the huge loss of land through 99-year Special Agricuture Business Leases over the last 5 years.

The United States Department of State has published a damning picture of human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea in its Annual Report.

Papua New Guinea Customs Commissioner, Gary Juffa, has spoken out against more tax concessions for foreign companies, saying he would not mind if such concessions were given to PNG companies but these concessions are going to giant off shore contractors who are merely seeking to hike up their profit margins so their executives can enjoy lucrative bonuses at the expense of the people of PNG. 

BY WARREN DUTTON*

I AM DESPERATELY afraid that our Liquefied Natutral Gas Project could turn out to be the sickest joke that the world has as yet played on PNG.

We must turn the undoubted revenue that will flow from the LNG Project into real wealth that will genuinely benefit all our people and especially our rural majority.

From Radio Australia 

Land alienation is a problem not just in Papua New Guinea but across Melanesia, and it has the potential to have a catastrophic affect on Melanesian society, according to one of the region's most experienced anthropologists.



Kirk Huffman, a former Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre and a Research Associate at the Australian Museum says, when it comes to land, even well-meaning investors and aid donors in Melanesia have the wrong model of development.