***********************************************
WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Solomon Islands--Forest Crisis Documented by Australian Radio
***********************************************
Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
January 27, 1996
OVERVIEW & SOURCE
Following is an unofficial transcription of a Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio program concerning the
resource plunder occurring in the South Pacific in general, and
the Solomon Islands in particular. Forestry issues have been
having a much higher profile in the region, with the Australian
Government recently cutting off forest aid to the Solomon Islands
on the basis of harvest rates twice the sustainable level, on a
very small resource base.
The following item was transcribed by an Australian journalist
from the ABC radio program, and I am sending it on exactly as
received. It is a SENSATIONAL article, and one you should take
the time to read. For additional information on local and
international efforts to conserve the Papua New Guinea and Solomon
Island rainforests check out the following URL's with your World
Wide Web browser:
Gaia Forest Archives:
http://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu/research/pngfores/
Solomon Islands Directory (over 30 articles):
gopher://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu:70/11/research/wforests/sislands
Papua New Guinea Rainforest Campaign (over 500 articles):
gopher://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu:70/11/research/pngfores
Pressure must continue to stop the devastating logging occurring
in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea; largely, but not
exclusively, by Malaysian and other Asian timber companies.
Intensive industrial forestry operations like have been practiced
in Asia are also moving into Africa and Central and South America.
Clearing of rainforests, or any forests, wantonly and totally
destructively is wrong.
As our, and others, campaign efforts continue to gain momentum,
each of us must think what we can do to bear witness to what is
happening to forests worldwide. There must be a way to bring
about righteous management of these ancient and priceless
rainforests, while helping local inhabitants actualize and
maximize their own human development potential. Building a just
economic and political order will be a prerequisite for
sustainability of the planet's remaining ecosystem engines. The
forests of the South Pacific are one such center of biotic
activity. They must not be allowed to disappear as so much of the
world's ecological brilliance has, unheralded and unknown, as the
Northern countries pillaged the planet.
g.b.
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Unofficial Transcript
Background Briefing
Radio National
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Sunday, January 14, 1996
Words: 6,500
(The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has not released a
transcript of this program for legal reasons. It was recorded and
transcribed by a Canberra-based journalist.)
Announcer:Just after Christmas the Australian Government took
the rare step of withdrawing part of our multi-million dollar aid
package to the Solomon Islands. The move follows widespread
allegations of corruption and mismanagement, particularly in the
area of forestry, levelled against the Solomons Government.
Welcome to Background Briefing Summer Season. I'm Helen Thomas.
Now, the funding that has been withdrawn is a $2.2 million
allocation to the Solomons Timber Control Unit, and the Aussie aid
switch off comes at a particularly turbulent time for our northern
neighbour, a political struggle that has involved media
repression, industrial tension and perhaps even murder.
Kirsten Garrett was in the Solomons last September.
Garrett:The canoe bounces across choppy water between islands.
It's astonishingly beautiful. The Solomons are a scattering of a
thousand postcard islands, set in a turquoise coral sea, white
beaches, gentle lagoons, rustling coconut palms. We're going to
see Stanley Sade, headmaster of the Fly Harbour school. He's
trying to get certain information out but Solomon Islands radio
has been told by the Prime Minister, Solomon Mamaloni, not to
broadcast what he has to say.
Sade:Myself have sent them the message in a press release but
it was not released in the radio, over the radio broadcast in the
Solomons. So I just have the chance of meeting Kirsten that I have
sent this message to her. Then I report to her and she was happily
try to take this to the Australian Broadcasting service.
Garrett:Okay, I will take it back and we'll put some of it
anyway to air on Background Briefing in Australia. Is that what
you would like?
Sade:Yes. I really like that one to be broadcast over the
radio so that people can hear what's all about. I thank you very
much.
Garrett:The press release reads in part, 'The Lavukal people of
chiefs never held any meeting to consider customary land logging
proposals. We want to make it clear that we have had enough of our
land, resources and other blessings from our Almighty, which have
been deprived from us and our children and their children and
exploited by unscrupulous traders and settlers. Our cries were not
listened to by politicians. They only serve foreign loggers, their
brothers, for the love of money and forget the future
generations.'
Garrett:Dominating these islands of paradise are the big boats
that sail out of here, each loaded with thousands of logs of
irreplaceable rain forest timber and the capital, Honiara, which
has only one rutted main road but so many cars there is a
permanent traffic jam, is practically fermenting with intrigue,
bitterness and corruption. Joses Tuhanuku, a cabinet minister in
the last Government, is now in opposition.
Tuhanuku:The people in the logging industry, as far as I am
concerned, they are a bunch of crooks. There is no other way to
describe them. People who are smart in business, they make money
because they are smart, that's their chief character. But we are
dealing with people who are actually crooks.
Garrett:Joses Tuhanuku is not the only one who talks like this.
Justice Tos Barnett said it in 1988 in a forward to his 27 volume
report on logging in Papua New Guinea. He wrote of loggers roaming
the countryside with a self assurance of robber barons, bribing
politicians and fooling the land holders. Even Australia's
Minister for Pacific Affairs, Gordon Bilney, talked about it in
Melbourne.
Bilney:All that said, we are increasingly concerned by the
problem of public maladministration, including corruption, in some
pacific island countries. Corruption is a cancer that robs a
country of its resources. It destroys the trust between
governments and people and it gravely threatens the long term
economic and social integrity of the countries which harbour
that corruption. People look to governments to act in the interest
of all citizens, not just a privileged and powerful minority and
history, I believe will judge particularly harshly those
individuals in Government who abuse positions of trust to line
their own pockets at the expense of their fellow citizens.
Garrett:Australia's fear is not only humanitarian. There's also
the issue that if these small pacific countries use up all their
resources the corruption and breakdown of society will get worse.
Already money laundering and drug trafficking is a big problem
throughout the Pacific. Eventually if populations continue to grow
and societies break down completely it's been suggested that
Australia may have to take people in as refugees. Joses Tuhanuku
was the first ever to go public about attempted corruption when he
was a minister in the Sir Francis Billy Hilly Government. He was
offered $US3000 by Tony Yeong, an employee of the Berjaya Group,
one of Malaysia's biggest business empires. He refused.
Tuhanuku:In the logging industry bribing people is part of the
industry. They have been bribing ministers of the Government. They
bribe landowners. They bribe certain chiefs. They bribe our
provincial ministers and so on. So bribery is actually part of the
logging industry and the reason is that most of these Malaysian
logging companies that operate there, probably that is how they do
business. In fact the person who tried to offer me some money, he
said that their company, it is a practice in the south pacific,
that they usually give some small present to government people who
assist them or facilitate what they are doing in the various
countries. So, actually it is a practice that is not restricted to
Solomon Islands. But I would say that in the logging industry
bribery and all other corrupt practices is part of the whole
thing.
Garrett:So they must have been very shocked when you refused?
Tuhanuku:Yes, this person was really surprised. He could not
understand why I could not accept it because probably in Solomon
Islands it may have been the first time because he was someone who
was already dealing with a lot of politicians at a national level
and a provincial level. But I could tell that he was expecting me
to receive what he termed as a gift.
Garrett:Tony Yeong admitted handing over the money. He denied it
was a bribe but resigned from Berjaya and left the Solomons. But
things didn't end there. During the next few months the Solomons
were in a state of turmoil. Sir Francis Billy Hilly, Prime
Minister over an uncomfortable coalition Government, had come in
with a swag of new ideas. The country was dragging the third world
chain. Malaria is rampant, only one in five people can read and
write, health services are poor. And on top of it all an expensive
Westminster system of Government inherited from the British.
Above all, the loggers had moved in with a vengeance after
Malaysia decided to put the breaks on logging in Sabah and
Sarawak. Billy Hilly and his Government started to clamp down on
it all. They wanted higher duty on timber, they wanted to stop
whole logs being exported and for timber to be processed inside
the Solomons, making control easier. And Australia was willing to
help with expertise and aid money. But the Solomons Government
under intense pressure began to crack. Eventually enough members
crossed the floor to bring the Billy Hilly Government down and
Tuhanuku says he knows why.
Tuhanuku:Now one thing that I know is that a lot of the members
of Cabinet and backbenchers who left the NCP Government and who
are now ministers in the present Government, they were lured
actively by logging companies. There is a company here run by
someone who used to be a Malaysian and who now claims to be a
Solomon Islands citizen and he is the person who coordinated all
that. This person by the name of Robert Goh, he is the person who
actually facilitating all the payments to be given to ministers
to leave NCP Government and to join the present Government. And I
believe that Robert Goh organised or coordinated all the money
that was given to mps, whether ministers or backbenchers of NCP,
to cross the floor, to join the opposition in order to have the
numbers and topple the Government.
Garrett:Now you are able to talk quite frankly about the level
of kickbacks and loopholes and bribes and sort of general
skulduggery going on. To an outsider it is surprising that given
that it is such common knowledge that nothing happens.
Tuhanuku:There is the general feeling of anger but people do just
do not know what to do.
Garrett:There is also an element of fear. The Solomon Islanders
don't have a culture of violence but tensions are running high as
the villagers show their resentment of timber companies being
given huge and cheap licences to clear fell indiscriminately. Many
people have bodyguards and there are an increasing number of
demonstrations and activism against loggers. There's talk of a
general strike. Some politicians have been brought before the
courts for bribery and corruption but the charges often go
nowhere. This month seven cabinet ministers are up on charges but
no one expects anything much to happen. Joses Tuhanuku when he was
in Government two years ago suspended one Malaysian company,
Sylvania, from logging near Marovo Lagoon. The reasons were
illegal and highly damaging practices. At the South Pacific Forum
in 1994 the Keating Government backed Tuhanuku with a debt for
nature swap. Australia would pay a $2 million debt if logging was
stopped around the lagoon, said to be one of the most beautiful
places in the world. A world heritage listing would be pursued. At
the same time Keating threw down a gauntlet with a stack of
Australian financed forestry research. He said that the Korean,
Indonesian and Malaysian loggers were guilty of environmental
piracy in the Solomons. Dr Mahathir, Malaysia's Prime Minister,
came back immediately, saying that this is an example of how a
jealous Keating believes that the South Pacific belongs to
Australia. Remember, this was all in mid-1994. From Solomon
Mamaloni, then in opposition, the pro-logging press releases shot
out daily. 'I call upon my friend Keating to put up or shut up and
stop interfering with the domestic affairs of Solomon Islands. He
should look after the wellbeing of aborigines in Australia before
making comments about the Government and people of Solomon
Islands. I do hope that the Australians employed at the ministry
of natural resources are not responsible for supplying statistical
information which is unofficial and fabricated.' Another sally
from the Mamaloni camp was that if Australia is so worried about
the environment why don't destructive Australian companies pull
out of Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile, Mamaloni made his move to rest
power from Billy Hilly even warning that Australia was about to
invade and had a ship and a Hercules plane and the military on
standby. It was all over by October. The suspension on Sylvania
was lifted and with Mamaloni back in power logging at Marovo
started up again. The Keating deal is off. Here is the Solomons
Foreign Affairs Minister, Danny Phillips.
Phillips:We see Australian assistance to Pacific Island Countries
as very, very important. But I think it is also where AusAid,
which areas monies are targeted toward is very, very important.
There is some sort of discord in what the country wants and what
Australia wants.
Garrett:It is probably no secret that Australia is looking at
logging policies in the Solomons and that one of the things that
both Paul Keating and the minister Gordon Bilney have talked about
is what they see as unsustainable logging in the Solomons. They
want that reined in, I guess.
Phillips:Australian AusAid money has been used for research work,
getting status down and trying to show us that these are the areas
that you need to work on. What people don't seem to understand is
that our revenue at the moment from the logging industry itself is
between 70 to 80 percent. That is producing $80 million a year.
Aid money, as we all know, is not in cash. They are in materials,
they in form of people,and I think to do a policy abruptly may
cost more damage to a small country like Solomon Islands than
good. If we suddenly stop logging now we have to forfeit $70 to
$80 million.
Garrett:People will say, won't they, that if those statistics
being collected are right that the logging will stop very suddenly
anyway in five or seven or 10 years because there will be no more
trees at the current rate of logging.
Phillips:That is true. We also believe, you know, the statistics
are saying something which is quite true.
Garrett:So even the Foreign Affairs Minister admits that they're
trapped and Danny Phillips also says that the figures put together
by the Australian aid and research are accurate. But his Prime
Minister says that they are not accurate and he hasn't hidden his
blustering irritation at these pesky Australian reports. He is
likely to be pleased that the Timber Control Unit will close down,
though it will mean 16 less jobs for local people. After all in
the past Mamaloni has savagely attacked the Timber Control Unit:
'The so called talented Australian consultants are engaging in a
disastrous campaign which obviously is calculated to discredit our
commercial partners who have invested substantial capital in the
forestry sector. These Australian consultants are found to be
engaged in openly injecting racial prejudice into Solomon Islands
society. We have been subjected to a campaign of blatant lies and
distortions of unthinkable proportions.'
Garrett:Mixed in with all this is the issue of racism, raised,
as your heard, in that press release, that it is a racist fear of
Asian economic power that drives Australia to take this highly
moralistic stand. Paul Chatterton.
Chatterton:I don't it is a racist thing at all. A small group
of particularly Malaysian businessmen, but they're not just
Malaysian, they're Chinese, they're Taiwanese, businessmen who run
logging operations across Melanesia who are ripping off landowners
and ripping off the country that they are working in. There is a
fairly common pattern that I see of exaggerated promises made to
landowners, small bribes to communities and then the bulldozers
roll in and they see nothing for the logs that are taken out.
Garrett:So your point is that there is nothing particularly
racist about it, it is just a fact that they happen to be
Malaysian. They could just as easily be German or Danish or South
American.
Chatterton:Well, that's right. We're working closely with
Malaysians and Taiwanese and Hongkong based people to try and
change it as well. There are a lot of people in those countries
who are very upset about how their countrymen are operating in
Melanesia. So, it is not a racist thing. It is a particular group
of businessmen who are using very corrupt practices.
Garrett:It is a problem though, isn't it, in these magazines
that I've shown you and the cartoons I've got here that the logger
is depicted as a fat, greedy, ugly Asian eating trees and
depriving the local people of their resources.
Chatterton:That is unfortunate. I think it tars all Asians,
all Malaysians, with the same brush which is a bit sad. And I
know, I've sat in on meetings where NGOs, community groups, have
been discussing the use of these sort of images and there is an
internal debate within Melanesia about whether they should use
these. On one side people say it is racist, on the other side
people say, well it is. This is the easiest image we can get
across to communities of this particular type of business person.
it is a difficult one.
Garrett:AusAid did subcontract some work some years ago where
these cartoons were used but they have withdrawn them now.
Chatterton:Yes. I think we certainly shouldn't buy into any
racist images. It does no one any good.
Garrett:The thing is it's quite important because it can be very
easily used as a distraction from the main issue which is that the
logging is happening and that is having a cataclysmic effect on
island countries throughout Melanesia.
Chatterton:That is exactly right. The situation is going crazy
across Melanesia. I have spent two weeks in the Sepik in PNG
watching a Hongkong based company bribe communities and get them
to sign the back page of a contract that they saw none of the
other pages of.
Garrett:What about the charge that Australia is being
hypocritical because we too have large companies operating in
these countries, copper being the obvious one.
Chatterton:That is right. Our record in the mining sector is
pretty atrocious. You just have to look at Bougainville, at Ok
Tedi, at Porgera which Mount Isa Mines has input into, Lihir is
about to open up which will have disastrous effects. We are
calling it Ok Tedi by the sea. It will pump an enormous amount of
tailings into the Pacific Ocean. Australia has got a dreadful
record. All that says is that we've all got to clean our act up.
Garrett:That's Paul Chatterton who heads the World Wide Fund for
Nature projects in Melanesia. There are diplomatic trip wires for
the Australian Government across the region. The largest logging
network in the Solomons is dominated by the Fuzhou clan of ethnic
Chinese. This is one of the biggest and most successful networks
in business right across Asia. In the Solomons it is some
businessmen from this very powerful group that are being accused
and Joses Tuhanuku is scathing about some of these people.
Tuhanuku:Let's take some the people we are talking about.
Actually they are not Malays in terms of being a race. They are of
Chinese origin who moved to Malaysia so many generations back and
some of them are living in Australia, probably they have already
taken out Australian citizenship, or they are there on permanent
residency and my impression is that these people, some of them
even come to Solomon Islands and decide they want to be Solomon
Islands citizens. My impression of these people is that they have
no loyalty to any of these countries. They are there to serve one
person and that is themselves. So these people here, they are
people without conscience ...
Garrett:That's a pretty big thing to say.
Tuhanuku:They are there to make big money, however they make that
money does not matter.
Garrett:Do you feel free to say that, to make that kind of
accusation in the Solomons?
Tuhanuku:Well, the thing is that my reading of the people that I
have been dealing with is that, you know, they are the sort of
people who will do anything to make money. And that is why I say
that there is no boundary to the method they are quite willing to
employ. And I don't think they will say, this is not straight,
this is not correct. If you are willing to bribe a minister to
change the Government, if you are willing to bribe the minister to
give you a licence, why would you think it is not correct to
employ other methods but conceded by people normally as a crooked
way of doing things or dishonest. I mean if you think that those
things are all right you can do anything.
Garrett:Pulling out of Honiara Harbour is exciting. The ferry is
full of cargo and people returning to their villages with food and
clothes, mats, cooking things, petrol and video players. We're
heading for the Russell Islands. At Yandina we change to a canoe
with an outboard motor. And further out in the islands we go past
the Pavuvu logging site. So we have pulled over close to where the
logging camp is and it is hard to tell how many logs, a couple of
hundred, no there are some more over there, maybe a couple of
thousand logs, but it's very difficult from this distance to see
how big they are or get any feeling at all for what kind of trees
they are but just piles and piles of logs, some huts with
corrugated iron roofs. Everything looks quite from here. There is
just sort of a big open space down by the sea. The logging goes on
inland and we can't see it from here but they tell me that that's
where they would be now. We won't go too close because there are
field police in there and Malaysian company people and they don't
like you to get too close. They probably wouldn't like it if they
knew an outsider was on the boat. They try to keep everybody away.
And then to see Nelson Ratu, former Premier of the Central
Province, who lost his position because he insisted on a detailed,
black and white logging agreement.
Ratu:My provincial executive looked through the proposal, the
proposal for logging on Pavuvu and my executive have decided
against it because of the impact logging issues or logging
problems bring about. So we decided not to allow or issue any
licence to the Maving Brothers to log on Pavuvu. This does not
mean that we totally do not want any development to happen within
central province but I think the important part is that we should
see that there is a proper agreement is reached in black and
white, signed by the Provincial Government, so whatever problem
may arise later on we can easily fix it up. In the end I did not
issue a provincial business licence to Maving Brothers. Finally
they find a way to get rid of me.
Garrett:Nelson Ratu was surprised that people who'd been against
logging quite suddenly were for it.
Ratu:This is where one area I believe that they must have
been influenced by certain leaders of the Government so that
finally turned around and went against me. I do not totally put
out the question of influencing by money.
Garrett:So logging went ahead on Pavuvu and now the top soil
washes into the streams and the sea. Families on nearby islands
are still trying to stop the logging. There have been raids to
burn bulldozers and Jocinta Lovasa went over with some New
Zealanders from Greenpeace to get evidence, among other things
like they are logging to close to the river banks, they
found that up to 80 percent of the trees logged were too small.
Lovasa:We went on Sunday early in the morning about five. We
went across, then they went up to the bridge. They photographed
that bridge and then look around and photograph all those trees
that they cut and the way the bulldozers have pulled the logs
across the river bed. Then they came back. Then we went to the
camp. They counted two heaps of logs, one was 106 and out of 106
only 23 were over size. The rest were all under size. The larger
heap was 216 and out of that 216, 83 were over size. The rest were
under size. There are a lot of logs but 80 percent or 90 percent
were under size.
Garrett:Back in Honiara things are tense. The Governor of the
Central Bank, Rick Hou, is being investigated for mismanagement
because he has refused to lend the Government any more money.
Taxes are going up again, the roads are bad, the cost of living
has doubled, and gossip and stories of cosy deals and rake offs
and who suddenly seems to have an inordinate amount of money is
common. Even the churches have begun to talk politics for the
first time. This is Archbishop Adrian Smith.
Smith:People are beginning to want to, as it were,
departmentalise us. They want to see the church as something that
happens on Sunday, but I think that the churches feel that they
must touch every part of life and the prophetic role of the
churches demands that we speak if we think that the people are
being cheated or denied their rights.
Garrett:One of the issues with forestry is not only the trees
will be gone and therefore a source of income but the breakdown of
village life and of family life. Is that what you are alluding to?
Smith:Yes because the selling of resources is creating a whole
new social problem. Before the people who were chiefs in the
society, they were more or less custodians on behalf of the
people. And now the term landowner is being used and that term is
being used in the sense of exclusive. So a few are getting the
benefits while the large number of the population are just being
left out.
Garrett:And unions are getting edgy. The Solomon Islands are 80
percent unionised. An irritant for years has been the Asian
workers brought in to do work that the Solomon Islanders could do.
Tony Kangaei.
Kangaei:When we check up some of the payrolls in the logging
industries we find out what they have been claiming is not
correct. The legal minimum wage here in the Solomons is 74 cents
per hour and some of the Asians who come in here and work as chain
saw operators, dump truck drivers are paid $10 per hour. It's not
cheap.
Garrett:Is there bitterness on the ground over this issue of
importing of Asian labour?
Kangaei:Of course. There is high opposition to having Asians in
the camps because they know nothing about Solomon Island culture
and customs of the place that they usually cause troubles within
the camps and a few Asians have been stabbed, have been harmed by
nationals because of that.
Garrett:Now at the same time the economy of Solomon Islands is
in crisis really. The Central Bank, it's at loggerheads with the
Mamaloni Government, there's a new tax - two cents in every dollar
of all transactions which is effecting ordinary people very much.
Kangaei:Those Bills are immoral bills. We have never seen such
bills come into place in history. We are calling on the Government
to throw those bills out. If they continue on to impose those
bills there will be industrial unrest in the country.
Garrett:And the unkindest cut of all. The Governor of the
Central Bank has cut off the money.
Hou:What the Board of the Central Bank has done is basically
stopped further advances and credit to the Government. Lending
from the Central Bank to the Government is governed under our law
and this law requires us to lend to the Government to a certain
limit only. We have reached that limit and that's what the Board
has decided. We are not here to break laws, we are here to operate
legally and do things within our means but ensuring that we don't
break any laws. If you ask me why people still saying there
may be an answer, well I don't see a lot of answers except to cut
down expenditure.
Garrett:Solomon Mamaloni has come up with one answer which is to
change the laws so that the Central Bank can lend more money. In
other words he will legislate to raise the ceiling. That's his
answer.
Hou:That is a very quick answer and a very short term one and I
think anyone should know that what is being proposed here is just
for the Central Bank to open its doors to more lending and as such
what will be happening is us printing more money. Everyone knows
that when we start printing money where the value of this money is
going to be. It is going to be more and more worthless.
Garrett:Your own personal situation is a little bit uncertain
because Solomon Mamaloni has made it quite clear that he would
like to get you out of the way. He sees you as an obstacle at the
moment.
Hou:I don't know how seriously he is, I mean everybody has heard
him say he is going to establish a tribunal to investigate the way
I have been conducting affairs in the bank. I am looking forward
to answering what ever questions the tribunal would ask me.
Garrett:In the midst of all this in the hills above Honiara is
the office of the BRA, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. It's
unofficial but it's tolerated. There are about 2,000 Bougainville
refugees in the Solomons. The BRA Embassy is in a big house next
to the one owned by the previous Prime Minister, Sir Francis Billy
Hilly. There is contact with Bougainville three times a day. I'm
talking to Joseph Kabui, vice-president of the interim Government.
Garrett:Hullo, this is Kirsten Garrett from ABC radio,
Background Briefing in Australia. I'm in Honiara. Can you tell me
what the mood is in Bougainville since the two Papua New Guinea
soldiers were killed a few days ago.
Kabui:(Not understandable - crackly two way)
Garrett:He says the Bougainville Interim Government will never
give up. To Paul Keating he has a message that Australia is in a
proxy war in Bougainville, a war that will not be won. Australia
should stop providing arms and military aid and training to PNG.
The Bougainvilleans would have won a long time ago, he says, if
was not for aid from Australia.
Garrett:Martin Miriori is in charge here and lives with his wife
and children. He's on a United Nations passport and his position
in Honiara is sensitive.
Miriori:For that reason we have always tried to play a low key
on the BRA side.
Garrett:Nevertheless Julius Chan could not be happy with you
being here. Has the PNG Government tried to get rid of you.
Miriori:They have tried to in the last two, three years,
continuously asked the Solomon Islands Government even to the
extent of signing an extradition treaty to get me out from here
and also on a number of occasions there have been hit squads being
sent up here to try and get at me. In fact I can cite one incident
where an army officer crossed the border with an m16. He was
caught and thrown into prison and his assignment was to get at me.
Garrett:So a PNG army officer came across the border into the
Solomons and his assignment was to kill you.
Miriori:Yes. That is correct. But anyway that mission failed.
That man ended up serving nine months down at the prison.
Garrett:Your office here is quite well set up and you obviously
have all sorts of contact with people all over the world. Where
does the money come from to keep you here?
Miriori:I am a very, very strong Christian and Bougainvilleans
are by nature very strong Christians. If we stand for justice, if
we stand to protect the rights of the people, the good Lord
provides that, it naturally just comes to us. I think that is how
I can answer that question.
Garrett:Martin Miriori at the command of Solomon Mamaloni is no
longer allowed to be broadcast on Solomon Islands radio, though
Mamaloni has said he won't send refugees back across the border
until there are no more hostilities. Mamaloni has also said that
the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation isn't allowed to
broadcast anything about logging in the Russell Islands. News of
the murder of Martin Apa, for instance, was not in the Solomons
press till five weeks after it happened. Journalists have been
sacked for not taking a correct line on logging stories.
Mamaloni's dictatorial and idiosyncratic ways have been a problem
for the Australian Government for years. Last September, Gordon
Bilney gave a speech in Melbourne warning that Australia may be
about to take a tougher stand.
Bilney:Thank you very much indeed, distinguished guests, ladies
and gentlemen.
Garrett:Gordon Bilney said that many things have improved but ..
Bilney:There has been progress made but there is a lot further
to go and it's a sad fact that in some countries of our region
greedy, destructive resource harvesting still goes on, often by
unscrupulous foreign firms which do not have a commitment to the
welfare of the people of the region, in the forestry sector in
particular.
Garrett:A bit rich it has been said given that Australia is not
unblemished in its business activities in Melanesia.
Bilney:But it follows from this that our aid support will
increasingly be directed to those countries where Government
policies reflect a serious and a responsible approach to economic
development and resource management and nobody should be surprised
if in future Australia is less and less willing to assist those
countries in the region which are laying waste their economies and
squandering their own resources.
Garrett:Some of the loggers talk through the Solomon Islands
Forest Industries Association, though the majority of companies
aren't members. Their spokesman is an Australian, Eric Kes. He
came to the hotel in Honiara with Ronny Teo, of Earth Movers group
of companies, one of the big loggers in the Solomons. But Kes did
the talking and on the record through him the loggers are
conciliatory.
Kes:The industry is aware of the criticism which is levelled at
the forest industry and the Solomon Islands. However, the industry
is of the view that it is here to do a job within given parameters
and there can be no question that this industry as is very often
portrayed highly destructive and the Solomon Islands Forest
Industries Association which does not comprise all the companies,
only the major companies, has stated time and again that it
supports the concept of sustainability and the industry wants to
be involved in the determination of sustainable logging.
Garrett:A figure that is used in most reports that I've seen
related to this is that sustainable logging in the Solomons is
probably around 300 - 320,000 cubic metres per year and the reason
that there is such a lot of anxiety and concern about it all is
that estimates are that the moment its up to 800,000 a year.
Kes:Yes, the figure of 325,000 at this point in time is rejected
by the industry. It may be anything between 300 and 500,000 cubic
metres per annum. However, the exact figure has not yet been
determined and negotiated. The level of 800,000 cubic metres is
exaggerated. Last year's exports was 623,000 cubic metres and this
year is expected to be of similar magnitude.
Garrett:That's still twice the sustainable amount and it's
estimated that there is about a 25 percent under reporting of the
number of logs actually going onto the ships anyway and as well of
course they're under priced and under taxed.
Kes:We are fully aware of the fact that in the past there might
have been instances where things could have done better but this
Association is of the opinion that it does not help to dwell on
the past but look positively into the future and this Association
is initiating a number of initiatives in order to be pro actively
involved in the development of a sustainable forest industry. Just
to keep on accusing this industry doesn't get us anywhere. But we
reject sinister and cynical accusations, very often unfounded, and
as such that is all I can say.
Garrett:The Industry Association says that it agrees with
Mamaloni that the AusAid figures are no good and says that no
inventory has been done to use as a benchmark. But it has. It cost
Australia $4.5 million and it was finished in 1994. But Solomon
Mamaloni shelved it.
Garrett:Meanwhile, far out in the Coral Sea the logging boats
come and go and the bulldozers roar. The night lights keep the
logging going 24 hours a day. We go to Loura, one of the Russell
Islands and home of the group that has been most active in trying
the stop the Maving Brothers logging on Pavuvu Island. Bartholomew
Apa is their chief.
Bartholomew Apa:People plenty no like logging.
Garrett:Why not?
Bartholomew Apa:(not understandable)
Garrett:Are you saying that it is really part of your land?
Bartholomew Apa:Yes (rest not understandable)
Garrett:Bartholomew Apa, the chief on Loura. His son, Martin
Apa, also talked to Background Briefing that day, as you will
hear. But Martin Apa was murdered some weeks later, his neck
broken and pierced by a sharp object, and his body was found in
the sea, near the harbour at Yandina. So far no one has been
charged with his death, but the circumstances point to it being a
way of intimidating the community. Earlier in the year Martin
Apa was one of a group that had gone over to Pavuvu one night and
burnt three bulldozers on the logging site. As he talked, six
weeks or so before his death, you'll hear his pet baby parrot
curious about the microphone.
Martin Apa:We tried to put a stand on it. We cannot do it
because the Government at the same time bring military force in
there. We went there several times. Every time they see me there
they wanted to push me out from that place but I told them, how
come you want to push me out from this place while this land is
mine. That is what I always tell them.
Garrett:When you say they chased you out, who is they?
Martin Apa:(not understandable) police in the field force.
Garrett:So they were sent out by the Government to protect the
company.
Martin Apa:Protect the company. We feel we are not the ones
that the Government (not understandable) the Russells but he only
saves the company, the Malaysian company, the foreign company. He
doesn't want to listen to us. We did it because the Government
provoked us, saying that the Russell Islanders were not doing
anything to that company. They have no guts to do it. That is why
we did it.
Garrett:To show that you did have the guts.
Martin Apa:To show that we did have the guts, that's right.
Garrett:Was there, did they come and get you, what happened
afterwards? We heard about it Australia but we did not hear what
happened to you the people who did it.
Martin Apa:Police came and took some of them. So when they
didn't want to tell them the police have to slap them, some of
them, put them in the cell for a couple of hours and they
threatened them to punch them until they can say something but
most of the other boys didn't want to say anything because we told
them we will talk in court.
Garrett:Martin Apa didn't get to court. He was murdered last
October and police are still investigating.
ENDS
### RELAYED TEXT ENDS HERE ###
This is a PHOTOCOPY for personal informational purposes--please
seek reprint permission directly from the source listed. You are
encouraged to utilize this information for personal campaign use;
including writing letters, organizing campaigns and forwarding.
All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces; though
ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with
the reader. Check out our Forest Archives at URL=
http://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu/research/pngfores/
Networked by:
Ecological Enterprises || Phone/Fax-> (608) 233-2194
Email-> grbarry@students.wisc.edu