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No justice for mining affected communities in Papua New Guinea

The Hidden Valley gold and silver mine in Papua New Guinea has polluted the Watut river with acid forming rocks and soils. The increased sediment flows in the river have impacted the lives of thousands of people living downstream of the mine. Gardens have been flooded and destroyed, incomes from alluvial mining have plummeted, fish and other aquatic life, an important food source for local people, has been killed.

But there is no legal sanction for the mining company, jointly owned by Harmony Gold and Newcrest Mining. 

Its executives continue to fly around the world in business class luxury, its managers live in air conditioned comfort while local villages have no electricity, sanitation or running water. 

Meanwhile frustrated local people, forced to seek compensation and restitution through a court system heavily biased against them grow increasingly angry at the indifference to their suffering from the mining companies, politicians and bureaucrats. 

The people request mining company permission to send a scientist into the mine site to collect water samples so they can learn more about what is happening to their river but are refused. The Department of Conservation pays tens of thousands of dollars to a foreign consultancy company to report on the pollution, but local people are refused a copy of the scientists report.

Then the mining company sends it own officers into communities to collect their own river water samples. The officers have no rights to enter the land. The mining companies don't ask permission. The officers are trespassing but come with a police escort.

Local people, seemingly defenseless and abandoned against another invasion from the mining company, stone the miners vehicle and smash a windscreen. Retribution is immediate, arrests, criminal charges, fines and then imprisonment.

The mining company has caused millions of kina in damage to the property of indigenous landowners. Has severely impacted on the lives of thousands of people. But the law and the State turns a blind eye to this criminal damage on a huge scale.

The angry, frustrated, abandoned indigenous VICTIMS strike back with the only weapons they have, stones picked from the ground. They cause a few thousand kina of damage to a car windscreen and they are arrested, charged, fined, imprisoned.

Where is the justice?

Comments

ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON!!! And so what do we do? Is justice given or taken - hmmmm

Yes, there will be more destruction of the Watut river in the longterm. Sediment build up will increase and this would lead to overflooding. What needs to be URGENTLY done now is for the people to ask the company to form a foundation to save at least 10% of the revenue from the mine as a "future generation Fund" for the future of the people affected by the pollution of the Watut and Markham Rivers, so that when all the gold is gone these moneys can be used for investment in sustainable and profitable ventures that will benefit the future generation of Watuts and their neighbours . The experiences from Jaba and Kawerong Rivers in Bougainville and the Ok Tedi and Fly Rivers are a good example.
Thank you.
Waibaisan