Regional coordination the way forward for development

With four-days of reviewing technical and scientific programmes during the CRGA (Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations) meeting recently ending in Noumea, a recurring theme during discussions was sustainable development.

Amongst the delegates at the high-level conference being held at the headquarters of the Secretariat of the South Pacific Community (SPC) is His Excellency Mr Peter Eafare, the Papua New Guinea High Commissioner to Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Nauru, who firmly believes that the way forward for Pacific Island Countries and Territories is through an integrated, regional approach to development.

Peter Eafare

 Mr Eafare cited as an example of effective sub-regional cooperation the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) concerning cooperation in the management of fisheries of common interest, signed in 1982 by Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Palau and the Republic of Marshall Islands.

“As early as 2004, I advocated that a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done on the merits and demerits of a region- wide implementation process for sustainable development,” Mr Eafare said.

“In this way, we can clarify which agencies have the mandate to carry out programmes throughout the region, without stepping on each others’ toes. To a large extent, the implementation of programmes lies with the governments within the region, to ensure that at the national level, regional development plans impact our national development plans.

“Foreign Affairs departments need to coordinate with National Planning departments, because at the end of the day, many of these regional initiatives are related to the Paris Declaration of 2005 on Aid Effectiveness, and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

“We need to factor these into our own medium-term development strategies, as we now have in place in Papua New Guinea’s Strategic Plan, to 2050. The global and the regional must filter down to the national level for effective implementation.” 

The eight MDGs, adopted by the 193 UN member countries, and at least 23 non-governmental organisations, include the eradication of poverty and the development of a global partnership for development.

While Mr Eafare wholeheartedly supports these goals, he does suggest that attaining them by 2015 may be unrealistic for developing Pacific island Countries and Territories, and “would like our development partners to appreciate that levels of development differ from country to country.” 

“SPC provides a catalyst, especially in the area of coastal fishing and conservation, and through the work of the SOPAC Division in seabed minerals and bathymetric surveys (or maps of the seabed), water and sanitation, and disaster risk reduction, for example.”

Mr Eafare sees the conference as a the opportunity for SPC, governments and development partners to ensure that all are “on track and aware of their mutual responsibilities, as well as the basis for further discussions, and a better understanding of and sensitivity to the national requirements of Pacific Island Countries and Territories in the pursuit of regional development goals".

Papua New Guinea and petroleum– an indelible experience

Story and picture by SECRETARIAT of the Pacific Community Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC)

 Having spent much of his working life in Papua New Guinea, petroleum geologist Michael McWalter has seen the development of the petroleum industry within PNG, and has come to call that country his home.

“I haven’t lived in England for oodles of time, so yes, PNG is very much home,” said McWalter, advisor to the PNG Department of Petroleum and Energy while attending the annual directors’ meeting of the Circum-Pacific Council, held this year in conjunction with the mid-October SPC/SOPAC Division’s STAR meeting in Nadi.

Mike McWalter at the recent STAR meeting  in Nadi, Fiji

The STAR (Science, Technology and Resources Network) meeting is an integral part of SOPAC’s first meeting as a division since becoming a part of the Secretariat of the South Pacific Community (SPC) in January this year.

The Circum-Pacific Council for Energy and Mineral Resources is a cooperative organisation that seeks to improve the exchange of scientific information about the geology and natural resources of the Pacific Basin and surrounding land regions.

McWalter joined the PNG Geological Survey Petroleum Resources Assessment Group in 1987, just as PNG had “…our first real oil discovery at the Iagifu 2-X well, which subsequently became part of the Kutubu field. This was real black oil, and I was there at the actual well testing. It was an absolutely enthralling time".

The discovery was made about 500km northwest of Port Moresby in the remote Southern Highlands province by New Guinea Gulf Oil, (later acquired by Chevron Corporation, when that company acquired Gulf Oil’s assets worldwide.)

“The New Guinea Gulf Oil geologists were good explorers,” said McWalter. “When they found the real black stuff, they realised they had found something quite valuable: they had shown that PNG really had geological structures that could contain commercial quantities of oil.

“These were extraordinary days, because after this discovery, every oil company in the world was piling into Papua New Guinea. They were very exciting times, with a lot of licensing work, the delineation of the oil discovery, and the evaluation and approval of the first oil development proposals.”

By 1990, he had been promoted to chief petroleum geologist, with a role that was very much involved in technical and operational review, the technical aspects of licensing, and the negotiation of agreements.

Shortly after, the Department of Minerals and Energy became the Department of Mining and Petroleum with two large divisions: one covering mining and one petroleum activities.

“These were both really much like departments, and I was responsible for the geological work, technical policy and handling all legal and other affairs of the PNG Government in the re-organised petroleum division, which had its own legal, economic, licensing and landowner coordination capacities.”

McWalter became the first director of the new Division, in which there was a great emphasis on localisation.

‘We sought to progressively re-organise the division and take on plenty of young PNG graduates. Then, we had a series of World Bank-funded technical assistance programmes through which we deployed experts in all manner of disciplines to train the staff. Over the period from the mid-90’s through to about 2007 much learning was done, and eventually some 33 people had gone through Masters’ programmes, and a high level of competence was developed within the division.”

McWalter left his position as director in 1997, and moved into the first of the advisory roles he has continued to play for the department.

“I stood down from being director because of the emphasis on localisation, which I have always thoroughly supported,” said McWalter. “After all, that is the whole point – to develop the local skills.”

In 2007, the division made another transition and became the Department of Petroleum and Energy.

Prior to working for the PNG Government, McWalter had completed, as he puts it …“seven years apprenticeship in the industry at the coal face …working as a Wellsite petroleum geologist for an American company, called the Baker Corporation.

“It was a tough apprenticeship, all over South East Asia and the Pacific, but I had exciting adventures throughout the region servicing the exploration wells of the company’s many clients.” Those adventures that took McWalter to the Philippines, China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and also back to PNG.

To join Baker, McWalter left behind in England the beginnings of a promising career as a science teacher, having topped his class in the postgraduate course in Education in physics at the Corpus Christ College, Cambridge, where he had previously completed his undergraduate studies.

This is the home of the Cavendish laboratory, renown for the number of its researchers who have won the Nobel Prize (29, up to 2006) and “…we literally did have Nobel prizewinners stepping into our teaching laboratory and expressing their wonderment with the way physics was being taught nowadays and how we applied technology to that teaching".

McWalter’s decision to pursue a teaching career was influenced by the many teachers in his family.  But perhaps more importantly, after graduating from Cambridge, he spent two years in PNG with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), teaching at Fatima Catholic Mission, just outside Mt Hagen in the Western Highlands province.

As well as teaching at the mission High School, McWalter, “did everything one can, as one did in those days of VSO-ing.  I ran the school canteen and mess for the 400 students, was in charge of a fleet of lawnmowers caring for the school grounds, trucked into Mt Hagen once a month to buy messing supplies for the school, and I still found time to teach half-a-day a week in the mission vocational school to the carpenters and trainees.”

He said that his later connection with PNG through the Baker Company that led to his staying in the country was not planned, as he just as easily could have been sent to work in another area of the world.

“But yes, the PNG experience can be a bit indelible, once it is stamped in your heart and your passport; it is hard to shake it off.”
For further information please contact newsroom@sopac.org

Indonesian repression in Papua slated in new Pacific media freedom report

Suppression of freedom of expression ... Indonesian military preparing to storm the Third Papuan People's Congress at Jayapura. Journalists were among the hundreds who fled to safety when the troops opened fire. Photo: West Papua Media

20 October, 2011

By ALEX PERROTTET and DAVID ROBIE, Pacific Journalism Review

ASSAULT ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Four killings at a Freeport copper mine strike last week, protests by journalists after one was beaten up and yesterday's opening fire by Indonesian forces at the Third Papuan People's Congress have put the spotlight on media freedom and freedom of expression in West Papua. A new report being published today by the Pacific Journalism Review  examines media freedom across the South Pacific and it is grim reading.
West Papua news updates on Pacific Scoop

ANALYSIS: The state of Pacific media freedom is fragile in the wake of serious setbacks, notably in Fiji, with sustained pressure from a military backed regime, and in Vanuatu where blatant intimidation has continued with near impunity.

Apart from Fiji, which has a systemic and targeted regime of censorship, most other countries are attempting to free themselves from stifling restrictions on the press. But the Indonesian-ruled Melanesian territory of West Papua has emerged this year as the Pacific’s worst place for media freedom violations.

Amid a backdrop of renewed unrest and mass rallies demanding “Papua merdeka”, or freedom for West Papua, with two bloody ambushes in Abepura on the outskirts of the capital Jayapura in early August, security guards firing on strikers at the giant Freeport McMoRan copper mine last week and the brutal crackdown against the Third Papuan People's Congress this week,, repression has also hit the news media and journalists.

In the past year, there have been two killings of journalists, five abductions (including attempted), 18 assaults (including repeated cases against some journalists), censorship by both the civil and military authorities and two police arrests (but no charges).

Besides criminal libel, Papuan journalists are forced to contend with the crime of makar (subversion) as applied to the media.

“Also,” according West Papua Media editor Nick Chesterfield, “regular labelling of the Papuan press as being pro-separatist is another significant threat against journalists seen to be giving too much coverage to self-determination sentiment”.

Indonesia became rulers of the previous Dutch colony of West Papua, which shares a frontier with Papua New Guinea, through a flawed and manipulated referendum in 1969—the so-called “Act of Free Choice”.

Sluggish FOI reforms
Coupled with governments that are sluggish to introduce freedom of information legislation and ensure the region-wide constitutional rights to free speech are protected, there are few Pacific media councils and advocacy bodies with limited resources to effectively lobby their governments.

Those that do, run the risk of inviting backlashes by government figures who have a poor appreciation of the role of independent media in national development.  For smaller countries, media is still largely under the thumb of governments and mainly an instrument for uncritically disseminating official information.

Since the military coup in December 2006, Fiji has faced arguably its worst sustained pressure on the media since the original two Rabuka coups in 1987. The Bainimarama regime in June 2010 promulgated a Media Industry Development Decree.

The new law enforced draconian curbs on journalists and restrictive controls on foreign ownership of the press.

This consolidated systematic state censorship of news organisations that had been imposed in April 2009. The Public Emergency Regulations have been rolled over on a monthly basis ever since. Promised relaxation of state censorship after the imposition of the decree never eventuated.

A controversial issue about the decree was a limit imposed on foreign ownership of not more than 10 percent, a clause vindictively aimed at the country’s oldest and most influential newspaper, The Fiji Times (founded in 1869) because of its unrelenting opposition to the regime.

This newspaper company was then a subsidiary of News Ltd, the Australian branch of Rupert Murdoch’s US-based News Corporation.

Motibhai buy out
News Ltd sold the newspaper to Fiji’s trading company, the Motibhai Group, and managing director Mahendra "Mac" Motibhai Patel, a director on the Times for more than four decades, took control.

Patel said: “Fiji without the Fiji Times is unthinkable”. He hired an Australian former publisher, Dallas Swinstead, to lead the newspaper in a more “accommodating” direction to safeguard the survival of the business.

Ironically, Patel himself was imprisoned for a year after being found guilty of corruption in April 2011 in his role as chairman of Fiji Post—nothing to do with the newspaper. But the impartiality of the judiciary since the 2006 coup has been under question.

“During its history,” said a longstanding former editor, Vijendra Kumar, “The Fiji Times has changed hands at least five times and has been none the worse for it. Each new owner infused it with new fresh ideas and better resources to ensure its continued growth and expansion”.

Fiji journalists themselves are divided about the impact of the regime. Some have taken the view that faced with the reality of working under a military regime, they would strive towards rebuilding the independence and integrity of Fiji’s news media with the promised return to democracy in 2014.

According to Fiji Broadcasting Corporation news director Stanley Simpson, who resigned this month: “In the main, journalists today are not as confident (or as aggressive, as some would describe it) as their counterparts were prior to 2006, and in the 1980s and 1990s.

“I am not saying that current journalists lack courage—in fact it is a courageous thing to be a journalist at this time.

'Checking ourselves'
“However, given the PER [Public Emergency Regulations], we are constantly checking ourselves and asking ourselves if the stories we write will breach the PER and what the consequences may be.”

While the region’s media freedom status may appear relatively benign compared to other countries, such as in the South-east Asian democracies of Indonesia and the Philippines, which enjoy a nominally free press but pose serious dangers to journalists, there remain significant media freedom issues in most Pacific Island countries.

Cultural issues involve the reconciliation of the ideals and values of a burgeoning media with the entrenched practices of compliance with traditional tribal or communal authority and for the most part, small communities with many conflicts of interest.

Other issues include problems of educating populations about dealing with the media, and a lack of access to media experienced by many communities.

An ongoing feud exists between the Suva-based Pacific Islands News Association and its breakaway former members and detractors who would like the body that runs the regional Pacnews agency to pull out of Fiji rather than risk being compromised by its proximity and collaboration with the military regime that is so blatantly restricting freedom of the press.

In its defence, PINA argues it can only convince the regime to respect freedom of the press by working with it as it prepares to draft the country’s new constitution in the lead up to elections.

Clashes over media issues are not new, although they came to a head in Vanuatu last November when crusading Vanuatu Daily Post publisher Marc Neil-Jones was strongly opposed by the Media Association Blong Vanuatu (MAV) when he applied for a radio licence.

Intense media climate
Vanuatu provides an example of an intense media climate without any official censorship such as in Fiji.

Neil-Jones’s case in March this year when he was assaulted by a group of men at the behest of a government minister was another event in a saga of violent reactions to his publication’s reports.

A minor fine for his political attacker prompted further dismay from international media freedom and human rights advocacy groups.

In East Timor, the vibrant local media scene continued to grow this year with the launch of the island nation’s fourth daily newspaper, The Independente. But a controversial new documentary, Breaking the News, highlights the dangers for Timorese journalists.

Other countries and territories of the Pacific with burgeoning media outlets experience development issues that restrict their ability to bring news to both their citizens and diaspora who live abroad. The Territorial Assembly of French Polynesia decided this year to drop the popular online news agency Tahitipresse and to scale back the national broadcaster Tahiti Nui TV as part of a raft of public spending cuts brought on by pressure from France.

Alex Perrottet is an Australian journalist and contributing editor of the Pacific Media Centre’s Pacific Media Watch project. Dr David Robie is director of the centre at New Zealand’s AUT University and has lived and worked as a journalist in the Pacific for many years. They compiled the Pacific media freedom report being published in Pacific Journalism Review today.

Other contributors to the 39-page media freedom report include:
Nick Chesterfield (West Papua Media)
Bob Howarth (East Timor and Papua New Guinea)
Giff Johnson (Micronesia)
Nic Maclellan (French Pacific)
Full text of the Pacific media freedom report
NZ media 'blindfolded' over West Papua crisis, say critics

Professor David Robie
Director

Pacific Media Centre
Creative Industries Research Institute

School of Communication Studies
AUT University
Te Wananga Aronui o Tamaki Makau Rau
Private Bag 92006
Auckland 1142
Aotearoa/New Zealand
Tel: (64 9) 921 9999 extn 7834
Fax: (64 9) 921 9987www.pmc.aut.ac.nz

Editor, Pacific.Scoopwww.pacific.scoop.co.nz

Editor, Pacific Journalism Reviewwww.pjreview.info

Twitter http://twitter.com/pacmedcentre

Iceland firm keen to tap Karkar volcano

A GEOTHERMAL investor from Iceland has shown interest in developing a 100 megawatt geothermal power plant on Karkar Island, Madang, The National reports.
Reykjavik Geothermal (RG) representatives visited the island last week and concluded that it had a good thermal resource.
They plan to return in January to present a report of their findings to the provincial government.
The presentation will also include information on the project proposal as well as seek the support of the Madang provincial government to approve a framework with the developer on an engagement strategy.
RG said it intended to work closely with the local level government on the project.
With the ongoing electricity outages being experienced in the province, RG hoped that the Karkar caldera, which according to studies undertaken by RG, could be a sustainable power source for the province.
It said in a statement that “Karkar had a good thermal resource”.
Geothermal power is both reliable base load powers, non polluting, renewable and cost competitive compared with other power sources.
RG said that its vision was to work with local partners to harness this resource, develop utility-scale geothermal power plants, and provide an inexpensive, clean and indigenous energy source for the benefit of local economies, while providing attractive returns for investors.
“RG is committed to passing geothermal expertise on to local entities, a transition that would include training and education of local experts and cooperation with regional institutions and local contractors and consultants.”

Relative wants body set up to promote air safety

THE husband of one of the Airlines PNG crash victims wants a body formed to support the relatives of the 28 people who died, The National reports.
Reginald Renagi was in Madang last weekend to gauge support on establishing an air crash victims support group.
Renagi says after visiting the crash site, he realised that the impact of the crash was something that relatives would have to come to grips with.
He believed that the support group should be able to address that problem.
“The main reason, apart from coming here to console my son, is to make sure that a vocal group with the right political backing can ensure that standard aviation procedures in regards to safety in the aviation industry are followed stringently,” he said.
“The current compensation package offered by Air Niugini for K30,000 and Airlines PNG of a lesser amount, is laughable.
“We are talking about the permanent loss and psychological scarring which will live with us forever,” he said.
Renagi said the issue of compensating the 28 families should start from K1 million.
He said the group should garner support and push for a private members Bill to make air travel safe in PNG.
He thanked Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and his government for making available K500,000 for the repatriation of the grieving families.
He also thanked Divine Word University president  and chairman of Modilon General Hospital Fr Jan Czuba for providing counselling and other support during the mourning period for the families.
“I can see that the Madang provincial government has been so quiet about even sending a condolence message for the affected students, or providing any financial support since it happened in their province.
“Most of the families have travelled to Madang at their own expense and do not even know where to go.
“The Madang provincial government does not even have a task force in place nor does Airlines PNG have any emergency toll free numbers where relatives of the victims can turn to for guidance,” he said.

O’Neill happy with team’s first 100 days

THE government has established stability in the political, social and economic sectors during its first 100 days in office, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said yesterday, The National reports.
He admitted to teething problems where many ministers were new to the “protocols of decision making” and said he could have done without the riots at Popondetta, Kainantu and Lae but said the achievements far outweighed the challenges.
Reflecting on his first 100 days in office, which falls today, O’Neill said it had not been smooth-sailing though, adding that the Supreme Court reference had brought uncertainty and paralysed government.
However, he was confident the court decision on Dec 9 would be “in the best interest of the country and not individual leaders”.
Appearing relaxed yesterday in a candid interview with The National at Morauta Haus, the prime minister said he harboured no regrets about what happened in parliament on Aug 2.
O’Neill said government had become complacent and was governing for a few, and had to be removed.
He admitted he was part of a small group that plotted and eventually got rid of the government “when the government lost its way”.
O’Neill said the policies he had outlined since his government took office would remain his priorities.
They included free education, fighting corruption, addressing law and order, and rebuilding infrastructure.
He said the government was on its way to implementing these priorities.
In his first 100 days, he said his government had parked K300 million in the 2011 supplementary budget in a trust account to kick-start the free education policy next January; set up a task force that had arrested nine people while investigating corruption in government; successfully passed the first reading in parliament to enact a law for 22 reserved seats for women; directed the Works Department to come up with the best model to redevelop the Highlands Highway (and other highways); and got Canberra to agree to deploy Australian police personnel in PNG in a revamped enhanced cooperation programme.
“Time is not on our side. We have less than 10 months till the next general election.
“So, these are realistic goals and policies we have set out to achieve which we believe will impact positively on the lives of the majority of our people,” O’Neill said.
He said the next 100 days would be as challenging but his government was determined to ensure proper foundations were laid for improvement to service delivery, rebuilding of infrastructure and sound education and health services for all.

Girl takes own life over affair with in-law

By GABRIEL FITO

A FEMALE teenager, who was caught having sex with her elder sister’s husband at the weekend in Angoram, East Sepik, has committed suicide to avoid shame and embarrassment, The National reports.
Provincial police commander Vincent Pokas said the young girl lived with her sister and husband and their children at the Gavien Rubber Scheme, at Angoram.
Police alleged that the girl and her brother in-law had a relationship without the knowledge of his wife until last weekend when she caught them “red-handed”.
Police said the girl, who regretted betraying her sister, killed herself later.
The incident was reported to police who are investigating.
Meanwhile, an expatriate has lost K8,000, a passport and other valuables after his bag was snatched at the Kapmandu service station, on Cathedral Road in Wewak, while he was refuelling his vehicle on Monday afternoon.
Pokas said four of the six suspects had been apprehended by police and were in custody while two others were still on the run.
He said the mother of the chief suspect had been apprehended by police for being in possession of K3,500, a staple gun, ammunition and for receiving stolen property.
Her husband was charged with receiving stolen property after a search found K360 in his possession.
Pokas said he would return the passport to the expatriate while his men worked towards recovering the rest of the money and bring all responsible to justice.