Bougainville
Bougainville study draws fire
NationaL Planning and Monitoring Minister Charles Abel, who led a government delegation to Bougainville last week to visit and open several projects on the island, could not resist the change to see the Panguna mine pit with his family, who accompanied him on the tour. The mine is the subject of the controversial report. The pit is in the background of this ROMULUS MASIU picture.
By DAVID LORNIE
THE recent report on Bougainville by advocacy group Jubilee Australia continues to draw fire.
The report “Voices of Bougainville” has been widely criticised for being anything but “the voice of Bougainville”.
Jubilee’s report concludes, through a landowner survey, that in the Panguna area there is overwhelming opposition to the resumption of mining and universal dissatisfaction with the consultation process in regards to the potential re-opening of the mine.
Autonomous Bougainville Government President John Momis was the first to publicly attack the publication, which he said is flawed. He sent a strongly worded letter to Jubilee asking them to withdraw the study.
Jubilee’s report claims to represent the voice of landowners from the wider Panguna mine area. It asked the views of 65 people and a further focus group of 17.
Panguna landowner groups were outraged, calling the report “divisive”. They say they were not consulted, that Jubilee was wrong and “should be ashamed of itself”. They have demanded an apology.
Prominent Bougainvillean Simon Pentanu – a former Chief Ombudsman and Parliament Clerk – in a scathing missive, has called the report “dubious and “bullshit”.
Of Jubilee he says: “They believe that a brief visit by anti-mining Bougainville researchers to Panguna, armed with questions to which they already ‘know’ the answers, provides better credentials than they had as remote-controlled observers of Bougainville from afar.”
“After ticking off their questionnaires, the organisation can make a jubilant exit, highly satisfied that their ‘research’ confirms what they always believed.
“With a prejudice and orientation against anything and everybody engaged in, or supportive of, what they see as the sordid business of mining, organisations like this will always be predisposed to searching and commenting to satisfy and confirm their very own views, which they can then confidently sell to Canberra.”
“Here is a real risk that foreign elements that have no responsibility or obligations on Bougainville and that are not accountable to anyone can derail fifteen years of peace process and reconciliation achieved without meddling from uninvited offbeat academics, latter day NGOs, busybodies and socialites that have nothing better to do in their own countries.
“If they have nothing to contribute to their own governments and people, it is hard to accept the claim that their reconnaissance on Bougainville will enhance our future.”
In an academic paper entitled “The dangers of development NGOs sacrificing accuracy for advocacy”’ Joanne Wallis of the school of international political and strategic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra says “despite the fact that research for the report only involved interviews with 65 Bougainvilleans and one focus group of 17 individuals residing near the mine site – a fraction of Bougainville’s 300,000 people – their responses are presented as broadly representative.
“Unusually, the specific interview questions are not provided, so there is no way to verify whether they were leading or whether the potential bias of the researchers was influential.
“Tellingly, all nine landowner associations from around the mine site have demanded an apology from Jubilee Australia for what they characterise as the unrepresentative and divisive nature of the report.
“The report highlights the dangers of development NGOs sacrificing accuracy for advocacy. It appears that Jubilee Australia has uncritically accepted that the anti-mining voices of a small number of interview respondents represent those of all Bougainvilleans, perhaps because its mandate is premised on the assumption that mining activities will have an adverse impact.
“Consequently, the report has given impetus to claims by a minority of Bougainvilleans (and their international supporters) that the mine should not reopen.
“In the process Jubilee Australia has overlooked that many of these opponents are pursuing their own (sometimes ambivalent) agendas and that the report may potentially fuel tensions in the sensitive period leading up to the referendum.”
Dr Kristian Laslett, a prominent international academic and advocate for human rights, was part of the research team that oversaw the study.
He stands by the report’s findings. He told this newspaper that “it was not actually a survey. Rather, it was an exploratory case study that was designed to collect qualitative data on legacy issues from the mining and conflict period, looking in particular at how they impact on burning questions facing the mine affected communities today.
“Therefore, it was about better understanding the interweave between past and present in a very specific population.”
He says the report is actually “helpful” to Bougainville’s ongoing peace process.
“It is a deeply personal study,” he argues.
“Participants talked of a history of marginalisation, and brutalisation, whose effects linger in powerful ways.
“Also, participants spoke courageously of their anxieties and hopes for the future. Providing one recognises the limits of the method and sample, rich personal narratives can provide incredibly important insights that civil society, and policy makers can draw on.”
In response to the criticisms that the survey is wildly unrepresentative, Dr Laslett says, “the report is never held out to be representative of a broader population. It represents the perceptions and experiences of 82 people.
“These 82 people came from eight villages in the mine affected area, which included a fairly even mix of men and women.
“Indeed, in the report’s conclusion it explicitly warns against making broad generalisations based off the data.”
Dr Laslett added that he is a supporter of the Bougainville Government.
“I support the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the mandate given to it by Bougainville’s Constitution,” he told this newspaper.
“It has achieved remarkable things in its short history.
“I should say my research has focused primarily on the conduct of Rio Tinto and the Australian government during the conflict period. And my central critiques are of these organisations, not the ABG.”
Dr Laslett aired concerns that he is seen by many as “an anti-mining activist”.
He defends his academic qualifications by saying that “people who use this label have clearly never read my published research.
“It specifically states that mining, as the physical act of extracting minerals from the earth, is not intrinsically bad or good. Humans have been doing it for thousands of year.
“What determines its beneficial or negative impacts are social dynamics, such as distributions of power, the economic arrangements, the types of legal regimes, the particular organisational actors, the biocultural characteristics of host communities, the ecological framework, international relations, etc.”
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