Panguna's uncertain future

By Brian Tobia

MINER, Bouganville Copper Limited’s recent announcement to quit the Panguna mine in the North Solomons province is a blow to the indigenous landowners of Panguna and their dreams for a stake in the mine when it reopened. Indeed it is an investment decision by BCL to quit after a decade of waiting for peace to come to Bouganville - resurrection of the island from the nine-year civil war so that the mine could be reopened.

BCL had waited and cannot wait for-ever while the government and Bouganvillean leaders prolong the peace process with their petty politics. But the announcement made by the company had shattered all the hopes Bouganvilleans had - this is to participate as shareholder in the giant copper mine.

The miner stated that it is set to quit the Panguna mine after failing to gain access to the site for almost 10 years.

“After a decade of planning for a return to the mine site and being no closer now to realising the plan, the board has started to look at alternative strategies for the company,” it said in a statement.

“Among the range of possibilities is the divestment of the Bougainville assets,” it said.

The mine was shut down in 1998 amid increased rebel activities on the island.

The company said a combination of factors had eroded its optimism that the mine redevelopment could be achieved in the short to medium term. “The prices of copper and gold are lower today than when the mine closed. Company plant and equipment has been badly damaged,” the board said.

It said while the main issue for Bougainville is its political future, BCL’s historic association with the conflict “is an enduring issue”. BCL board’s statement that “the main issue for Bouganville is its political future” is not true - the conflict started because the landowners wanted equal benefits from the copper mine and a shareholding in the company was what they were looking forward to having.

“The mine may have a better chance of re opening and therefore be of greater value to owners other than BCL,” the board went on

to say. Who are the owners? The are mining giants, RTZ and CRA and of course the invisible owners are the landowners.

So after the massacre of thousands of indigenous Bouganivilleans and mass destruction of the island’s ecology, will the government of Papua New Guinea allow RTZ and Conzinc Rio Tinto, Australia (CRA) to reopen the Panguna Copper Mine when normalcy returns.

This is the question that is always at the forefront of the minds of Bouganvilleans and other interested parties while the Australian and PNG Governments and RTZ CRA executives are very silent about it.

Thousands of Bouganvilleans (men, women and children) and others died in the nine years of civil war on the island of Bouganville which is only several kilometres from the neighbouring country of Solomon Islands. The war really started because the landowners were dissatisfied that they were not receiving fair amount of benefits from the giant Panguna Copper Mine.

The idea of Bouganville’s independence or break away from PNG just sprung after the civil war started.

While Australia and PNG brood over the claims that independemce for Bouganville is going to affect regional security, the real reason for the two governments hostility on Bouganville literally lies underneath the land at Panguna - copper ore which is one of the biggest in the world.

In the centre of the island at Panguna, RTZ-CRA owns an enormously profitable copper mine - the mine begun in 1966 (before PNG became independent) and provided 11 per cent of PNG’s Gross Domestic Product.

A weekly Australian tabloid called Green- Left has quoted a statement made at a RTZ shareholders meeting several years ago as saying that the “right to land depends on the ability to defend it”.

And so the Australian and PNG administrators and CRA in league took the land from the people. And women resisting the theft of their land to create a port facility were clubbed by riot police sent by Australian government.

The rainforest which provided the local

people with their subsistence was destroyed to make way for Bouganville Copper Limited’s Panguna Mine which CRA controls a 52 to 56 per cent shareholding.

Land was taken at the point of the gun and whole villages were destroyed to make way for what is then the largest human made hole.

The mine is a half-a-kilometre deep and seven kilometers in circumference with a wall of waste dumped into the Java River.

The Financial Review reported that the value of CRA’s Panguna Mine sharply increased by $4B million on January 20, 1994 and speculators on the Australian Stock Exchange valued the mine at that time to about $144 million.

With the peace process slowly progressing and normalcy returning to Bouganville and a silent pondering of the shareholders to reopen the mine, it is anticipated that the value would further surge.

Both the governments of PNG and Australia should pressure CRA Minerals to transfer the ownership of the Panguna mine to the Bouganville people.

This is what Bouganvilleans wanted and this is what they had fought for since 1989 independence was a secondary item for the rebellion by rebel leader Francis Ona and his followers. Ona’s group which later became the outlawed Bouganville Revolutionary Army, forced the closure of the mine in early 1989 because the government and CRA did not hear their pleas for fair compensation for the damage done to their homes and environment.

What they had wanted also was the fair share of the benefits from the Panguna mine and a shareholding in the mine.

Nines years of war which was propelled by these demands and seen many Bouganvillieans lose their lives, many had survived tortures, hunger and diseases because goods were not getting into the island. But would the Bouganvilleans allow the Panguna mine to be opened again with a change in the shareholding structure which would ensure that the landowners would have the shareholding in the mine.

BRA commander, Sam Kauona, said in

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May 1997 that the rebels might support the reopening of the giant Panguna Copper Mine.

The rebels would consider a deal to reopen the mine “provided independence from PNG is on the agenda”. Now that independence is out of the question with optimism for greater autonomy, is Mr Kauona considering to support the reopening of the mine with a deal for the landowners to have shareholding in the mine? But is CRA also going to consider this favorably, considering the fact that the war erupted of the landowners dissatisfaction over less benefits from the mine?

Former Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan had proposed to buy out RTZ-CRA’s 53.6 per cent stake in the mine in order to bring back normalcy to the trouble-tom island but the

developers had not yet received an offer from his government or other succeeding governments for that matter.

BCL chairman, Barry Cusack had also made it clear in a shareholders meeting in 1997 that the company would treat Panguna Mine “as a green field project if operations ever recommenced there”.

This v/ould mean undertaking a complete new feasibility study to reconfirm the size of the ore-body, depreciation of the assets, an environmental study and social and economic cost study. He said any plans to re-open the mine would not be considered before at least 2000. This plans never came about and BCL is quiting. So the Bouganville landowners would wait patiently on the decision of the owner (RTZ and CRA). ■