Seething And Bubbling In

Fiji’S Volcanic Goldmine

Vatukoula, the Fiji goldmine in a volcano, has been seething and bubbling with industrial unrest for [years, writes Seona Martin in : Suva.

The situation finally erupted in January when the Emperor Goldmining Com pany laid off 770 men and precipitated a Fiji mine workers’ union strike and what amounts to nationalisa tion of the mine.

Haggling over the price to be paid by the government was conducted by the new Minister for Economic Plan ning, Sir Vijay Singh, who is [also Fiji’s Attorney-General.

With him on the government team were an economist and a geologist.

The Prime Minister, Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, laid down a time,limit of eight weeks for the first round of talks. He said there had been many views as to where the govern ment would find the money to buy “the so-called $l6 million assets” of the Emperor mine.

But the latest accounts from company secretary Mr H. N.

Mills put Emperor’s assets at $l2 million. Even he said it was unrealistic to expect the government to pay this much.

Ratu Sir Kamisese said the figure would depend on negotiation “and we all know we are buying a losing concern they have been telling the world”.

In theory, things should be looking up for the mine at present. The 770 men laid off have not been reinstated by government, presumably making the payroll a viable proposition, and the price of gold is enjoying a rising trend

which experts say could well continue this year and rise from U 55176,375 an ounce (the January price) to US$2OO an ounce.

Whatever the final price settled on, it seems clear Fiji intends to pay something, and probably more than a mere token. Ratu Sir Kamisese has said a “fair price” will be paid.

The government is anxious to avoid the reputation of being yet another Third World country which na tionalises industry at the drop of a hat or a profit level.

Ratu Sir Kamisese said the government had backed the Vaukoula mine in past years to the tune of several million dollars a year because it had been advised Fiji got benefits of $2.3 million a year at Vatukoula, Tavua and other areas, plus foreign exchange of $8 million a year.

It does not want to do any thing which might scare off difficult-to-lure foreign in vestment and the Prime Minister has studiously avoid ed using the word “na tionalisation”, referring to the operation as a “takeover”.

Local businessmen, at any rate, seem convinced. Fiji Chamber of Commerce spokesman Tom Hill said both the mine takeover and the nationalising of the sugar industry were unusual cir cumstances virtually forced upon the Fiji Government.

The government could really do little else in either case.

Mineworkers’ Union secre tary and budding politician, Navitalai Raqona, says he has achieved “what he set out to do, to get the mine nationalis ed”. The day of the takeover he described as the happiest of his life. Happy for him, but perhaps less so for the 770 men who were laid off, and their families.

Some have already found work with Fiji’s Pine Com mission; others pin their hopes on short-term contract employment in New Zealand, and others really do not seem to know what to do.

Hardest hit are non-Fijians, who do not have a home village to which they can

return and live off the land— people like the Rotumans who have virtually severed all links with their tiny home island 800 km from the main Fiji group.

Some of those laid off have spent up to 30 years in the company town, living in company houses and taking part in the still highly-stratified community life.

While distinctions these days are mostly identified as economic, those on the lower levels tend to see them as racial.

Some of the sectional signs Fijian Village, Rotuman Quarter, Part-European Hall, European Section still exist in minds and terminology, if not always in black and white,

Vatukoula is a world in miniature with all the social, class and race differences which exist in the wider Fiji, But confined within the sharp edges of a volcanic crater they can be much more explosive, There is bitterness about some of the living conditions of the town, and the sort of distinctions which keep golf club and bowling club for salaried staff members, keep the various sections of workers apart and keep the union club high on a hillside suspiciously far out of the main township.

It is still to be seen what changes there will be when the company town becomes a

fully-fledged government

town.

Chief haggler Sir Vijay Singh