Bulldozers demolished resident's home in Port Moresby's Paga Hill community before they could remove personal items. Source: The Australian A CHAMPION of indigenous communities in Australia has been accused of human rights abuses in Papua New Guinea after settlers' homes were bulldozed to make way for a multi-million-dollar hotel and marina development.
Gummi Fridriksson, who is based in Cairns in northern Queensland, is secretary of the PNG-registered Paga Hill Development Company, which was handed a lucrative commercial lease over a 14ha piece of land at Paga Hill overlooking the harbour in central Port Moresby.
A report to be published today by the British-based International State Crime Initiative - a human rights research centre affiliated with King's College London and the universities of Hull and Ulster - has documented the forced eviction of Paga Hill settlers to make way for the development. The report claims children are sleeping underneath tarpaulins and studying by candlelight as a result of the demolition, and hundreds of families are obtaining water from a single tap.
Mr Fridriksson insists the development, which is planned to include a marina, a five-star hotel and residential and commercial apartments, will significantly boost Port Moresby's economy and provide thousands of jobs for locals.
"This development will really change the face of the city and transform it," he told The Australian.
"We want to create an estate which is a focal point for tourists and people who live there."
Mr Fridriksson has been chief executive of Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute, which champions reform in indigenous economic and social policy, since early last year. There is no suggestion of any involvement by Mr Pearson in the Paga Hill dispute.
Paga Hill is home to about 3000 settlers, some of whose families have lived at Paga Hill with the blessing of traditional owners since the 1960s. It also contains the homes of former PNG public servants, a police legacy building and historically important military artefacts, including Australian gun placements, bunkers and tunnels.
Mr Fridriksson's company was granted a 99-year commercial lease over the Paga Hill site three years ago after a tortuous history, which included accusations of lands department corruption that delayed the project and resulted in a slew of potential investors fleeing the project.
Mr Fridriksson insists his company followed due process at all times and has provided The Australian with a detailed history of its dealings with PNG authorities, which he says proves the company was the victim of official ineptitude.
The company has been dogged by a 2006 public accounts committee report, which described the granting of the lease as dubious and illegal. The company was described as a "foreign speculator" run by "profiteers" who "had no capacity to develop the land at all".
Mr Fridriksson and his business associates strongly rejected the claims and sought legal advice, which they presented to the PAC two years later. The company was given a letter from the then PAC chairman, indicating all matters were "in order" and advising it to go ahead with its development plans. "We have a valid lease and it can't be taken off us because we have acquired it through proper process," Mr Fridriksson said.
In May, PHDC attempted a forced eviction of settlers. The company says it has made every effort to rehouse them and obtained an eviction notice from the PNG District Court following the drawing up of consent orders with the settlers' representatives.
"I don't think anybody wanted to see it done but if that is what it took to get access to the land then that is what we have to do," Mr Fridriksson said. "There are just squatters and settlers and criminals hanging out there. They are illegal dwellings on somebody else's land.
"Sure there are a handful of people here who have been here from the 1960s, but there would not be more than three houses there that qualify as a house. It is just rocks on top of corrugated iron held down by nails. It's like Rio de Janeiro or Manila."
Mr Fridriksson, who is married to a PNG national and has lived in Cairns for several years, has worked at the Cape York Institute, which receives millions in public funding each year, for the past five years. He was promoted to chief executive last year. He has continued in his role as PHDC secretary with the blessing of Mr Pearson.
PHDC was granted a 99-year lease in 2000, with a revised lease issued in 2009. The land was previously a national park. It was exempted from tender when it was converted to a commercial lease, with the PHDC plan declared a project of national significance. One of the politicians who argued for the declaration was former deputy prime minister Michael Nali, who later bought shares in PHDC.
The eviction notice was issued by the District Court in February, and in May the settlers sought an urgent hearing at the National Court. As they waited for a hearing, on the morning of May 12 about 100 police arrived with a demolition team. About 20 houses were demolished before an interim stop order was issued by the National Court.
One of the settlers whose house was demolished, Joe Moses, now sleeps with his children, aged 14 and 12, in a leaking tent. "The police came and threatened my children with guns and chased them out of the house," he said. "It was so frightening. They used the machine to crush our house down to the ground and then they bulldozed it. There was no chance of me saving anything in the house."
The PHDC had bought land about 10 km from Paga Hill and was offering settlers between 2000 and 10,000 kina ($949-$4748), depending on the quality of their old dwelling, to build a new house. The company insists it consulted widely with settlers and obtained the consent of elders and recognised community representatives to obtain the eviction order.
"We knocked on every single door in the settlement," Mr Fridriksson said. "We have spent $2 million on just the settlement issue and we get nothing but criticism for it."
The people who had taken up the company's offer were satisfied with their new homes. "They are happy as hippos," he said.
But Carol Kidu, one of PNG's most respected politicians before her retirement this year, described the company's actions as disgraceful. "People in this country do have some basic human rights, one would hope, and what was happening to them was unacceptable," she said.
Dame Kidu was manhandled by police on May 12 when she attempted to protest against the demolition. Police later fired bullets into a crowd of civilians.
The Paga Hill development is currently at a standstill as the settlers' attempts to resist the eviction order go back to court. The trustees of PNG's National Museum, which also has an interest in the site because of its historical relics, is also attempting to block the development. The Australian
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