Introduction
On 9 October 2012, the International State
Crime Initiative (ISCI) released a report, The Demolition of Paga Hill, documenting a forced eviction that
took place in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, on 12 May this year. Dozens
of homes in the area of Paga Hill were demolished by the Royal Papua New Guinea
Constabulary. Those residents who resisted or photographed the forced eviction,
were attacked with sticks, iron
rods and machetes. At
one stage police even fired live rounds at bystanders.
The demolition was conducted in order to make
way for a luxury estate being spearheaded by the Paga Hill
Development Company (PHDC) – a company largely run from Australia. PHDC’s
Chairman and Secretary is Gudmundur Fridriksson, an executive who heads the
North Queensland, Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership.[1]
Since the publication of our report,
Gudmundur Fridriksson, along with PHDC Director, George Hallit,[2]
have made a number of serious allegations on Radio Australia, SBS World News, The Australian and the Post-Courier. These allegations were
also reproduced in a recent PHDC press-release. In the interests of clarifying the
public record, ISCI has compiled the following response paper.
1. The
International State Crime Initiative is an “Activist Organisation”.
In a press release dated 9/10/2012, PHDC (2012) characterised
the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) as “an ill-informed
and clearly biased
activist organisation”.
We are, in fact, a research centre, jointly administered by King’s College
London, the University of Ulster, the University of Hull and Harvard
University. Our research is internationally recognised and published in the
top, peer-reviewed journals. ISCI has received grants from some of the most
prestigious UK funding bodies, including the British Academy and the Economic
and Social Research Council.
All our publications are the product of
rigorous, triangulated fieldwork. The
Demolition of Paga Hill is a testament to the high standards we uphold.
2. The
report is slanderous and makes personal attacks on PHDC Chairman/Secretary Mr Fridriksson.
In a written statement reproduced on SBS World News (24/10/12), PHDC allege that ISCI’s report
makes “an unfounded and legally slanderous personal attack on Mr
Fridriksson".
Our report does not personally attack Mr
Fridriksson. It cites a series of official reports and media investigations
which censure companies run by Mr Fridriksson including CCS Anvil, PHDC, and
Destination PNG. The cited official reports have been compiled by reputable
authorities, such as, PNG's Auditor General's Office and its Public Accounts
Committee. We also drew upon certain media investigations, including exposés composed
by seasoned, award-winning pacific reporters such as Sean Dorney and
Mary-Louise O’Callaghan.
[1] It was announced in The Australian on 16 October 2012, that
Mr Fridriksson is now on “extended leave without pay” (Robinson 2012c). The
Cape York Institute note Mr Fridriksson’s leave preceded The Demolition of Paga Hill’s publication.
[2] Hallit is also a PHDC
shareholder.
3. The official
reports cited by ISCI have been overturned
In The
Demolition of Paga Hill, a consultancy firm, CCS Anvil, is closely
scrutinised. Run by Mr Fridriksson and Mr Hallit, CCS Anvil has project managed
the development at Paga Hill. In addition to this, CCS Anvil also worked for a
number of government agencies.
This work has been subjected to censure in
two Auditor General’s Office reports and three Public Accounts Committee
reports. Some of the accusations levelled at CCS Anvil are extremely serious.
For example, both the Auditor
General’s Office (2005) and the Public Accounts Committee(2006a) claim that as an agent for PNG’s Public
Curator’s Office, CCS Anvil personally pocketed money from deceased estates
(K1,966,677 – approx $A983,338), which it was meant to deposit in Estate Trust
Accounts. They also claim CCS Anvil’s PNG principal was certifying government
payments to his own firm, for as much as $500,000 kina (approx $A250,000).
Mr Hallit rejects these allegations. He informed
The Australian: “All were referred to
the Auditor-General's Office, and...CCS Anvil was vindicated” (Robinson 2012b:
3). When The Australian contacted the
Auditor General’s Office to confirm Hallit’s claim, they confirmed “what we
reported [in the 2005 report] stands” (Robinson 2012b: 3).
The Demolition
of Paga Hill also cites a 2006 Public Accounts
Committee (2006b) report
that scrutinises PHDC’s lease over Paga Hill. The committee allege the lease was acquired through “corrupt dealings” by a “private,
foreign speculator with no ability to even pay the Land Rental, much less build
anything on the site” (Public Accounts Committee 2006b: 60 & 70).
PHDC (2012) has claimed these findings,
compiled under the Chairmanship of John Hickey, were overturned in a July 2008
letter written by a subsequent Public Accounts Committee Chairman, Timothy
Bonga. Bonga was elected to parliament in 2007, following his dismissal from
public office in 1996 for 14 counts of misconduct (Ketan 2007).[1]
According to our sources the 2006 Public
Accounts Committee findings stand, nevertheless, we do acknowledge the
existence of a letter written by Timothy Bonga. Written in reply to
correspondence from PHDC, the July 2008 letter claims that all documents
relating to PHDC’s state lease are in order.
However, when checking on behalf of her constituents in 2012, the
then Leader of the Opposition, Dame Carol Kidu, was informed by the Committee
Secretariat that, a) the Public Accounts Committee never met to endorse the
Chairman's unilateral decision to overturn the findings of a Parliamentary
endorsed report; and b) the Chairman was actually advised not to
write the letter by a legal adviser to the Public Accounts Committee. Why
Timothy Bonga would elect to send a letter, against legal advice, overturning carefully
researched findings endorsed by parliament, is unknown. However, the letter has
no legal standing. Accordingly, the 2006 findings and recommendations stand.
[1] In 2008 Bonga was implicated in a bribing
scandal – evidently “$32 million was to have been deployed to secure a
switch in PNG's diplomatic loyalty from China to Taiwan” (Callick 2008; see also Post
Courier 16/5/2008). Bonga adamantly denies any wrongdoing. More recently, The National newspaper’s Business Editor, Malum Nalu, alleges he
was seriously assaulted by Timothy Bonga in 2007, over a series of unfavourable
newspaper articles (Nalu 2011).
4. The
2006 Public Accounts Committee report was based on “9 pages of irrelevant
documentation”.
PHDC (2012) claim that the Public Accounts
Committee (2006b) findings, referred to above, “was based on just 9 pages of irrelevant
documentation”. They point to paragraph 33.8 of the report, as evidence.
This paragraph
says nothing of the sort. First of all, paragraph 33.8 only relates to one
specific issue being examined by the Public Accounts Committee (there were many
others) – the conversion of the Urban Development Lease over Paga Hill to a 99
year Business Lease. And even in this respect, the Committee never states that it only relied on “9 pages of irrelevant
documentation”, as PHDC claim. In fact, what they say is: “The Secretary for
Lands produced only nine pages of material – much of which was irrelevant”
(Public Accounts Committee 2006b: 60).
This is a clear
criticism of the Lands Secretary. The Committee do not acknowledge they simply relied on these nine pages
of documentation when analyzing the conversion process, much less does the
Committee confess they relied on “9 pages of irrelevant documentation” to
produce 18 pages of findings on the state leases over Paga Hill.
However, perhaps
of more relevance to this case are the comments made by the Committee in those
paragraphs that directly follow 33.8:
In light of the evident illegality which attended the
grant of this Lease, the Committee
concludes that the Department of Lands and Physical Planning deliberately refused to comply with legitimate
directives and a Summons from this
Committee [i.e. to produce documents] to protect either or both the recipients
of the Lease Grant [PHDC] and/or Departmental Officers involved in the grant
process…The Committee concludes that Mr. Kimas [Lands Secretary] would rather
be prosecuted for failure to produce
documents, than reveal that the documents either never existed or be prosecuted
as a result of their contents becoming known. (Ibid)
Nevertheless,
PHDC (2012) continue to claim: “Despite the report admitting that the
investigation was based on just 9 pages of irrelevant documentation, the PAC
saw fit to make slanderous and defamatory accusations of illegal acquisition of
title, all protected under Parliamentary Privilege”. At best, PHDC’s statement
is a profoundly misconstrued reading of what the Public Accounts Committee
actually state, in plain language, in paragraph 33.8.
5. PHDC
has purchased land at Six-Mile for the settlers.
Hallit argued on Radio Australia’s
Pacific Beat program
(10/10/12) that PHDC has purchased alternative land for Paga Hill residents at
Six-Mile, the site of a large decommissioned dump and a 17,000 person
settlement.[1] “We have
actually bought a piece of land at Six Mile, NCDC has agreed to turn it into
freehold title”, Hallit claimed.
Unfortunately, this is not quite how it works in PNG.
The land in Six-Mile is, by PHDC’s own admission, customarily owned. To be
converted into freehold title, demanding
[1] This population
estimate is based off a 1999 survey, it would be higher in 2012 (Wai and Maia
2012: 256).
procedures set out in the 1963 Land (Tenure Conversion) Act must be observed. Even once converted to
freehold, “the land may be
transferred or leased for a longer period than 25 years only with the consent
of the Land Board” (s.26).
So for fundamental legal reasons, the
National Capital District Commission cannot simply sign over customary land to
PHDC, as Hallit suggests.
Moreover, the close proximity of the Six-Mile
plot to the disused dump raises serious health and safety issues. According to a report commissioned by the
Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, the Six-Mile dump contains
“domestic, commercial, institutional and industrial wastes” (Merz 2004: 4). It adds, while there was an Environment
Code of Practice regulating the dump, it was never adhered too. Consequently, a
thorough healthy and safety audit of the site needs to be commissioned before
it can be declared fit for habitation.
6. The Paga
community want to move.
Hallit claimed on Pacific Beat (10/10/12) the residents
were in fact looking forward to the “forced relocation”.
He argued, “we’ve worked with them, they’ve been in
agreement, and they looked forward to the move and even on the day of the
eviction, which was essentially a forced relocation, they knew full well it was
coming”.
In the images leaked to ISCI from a government source – the
community look anything but happy or prepared. In fact when police opened fire,
residents were terrified. Hallit remembers things differently,
“on the day of the eviction, we were working with them, we had big bags they
were putting in all their possessions from their houses and it was only until
they had actually left their houses, and we would assist them to be moving,
that we would use the excavators to basically knock over their house as the
final act, such that they wouldn’t be returning” (Pacific Beat, 10/10/12).
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Image
1: Distressed residents look on as their homes are demolished
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Image
2: Police officers fire live ammunition at an unarmed crowd, while a colleague
attacks an elderly resident. Image courtesy of Media Stockade.
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Image
3: Leader of the Opposition, Dame Carol Kidu, is frogmarched from Paga Hill
while officers aim their rifles at bystanders. Image courtesy of Media Stockade.
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Image 4: A bulldozer demolishes homes at Paga Hill. Image courtesy of Media Stockade.
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Image 5: Many Paga Hill residents lost both their home and
furnishings in the demolition. Photo courtesy of Jeffry
Feeger.
7. This was not a “forced eviction” it was a
“forced relocation”
On
Pacific Beat, PHDC Director George Hallit, contradicted his claim that the
community wanted to move, by arguing that the 12 May exercise was not a “forced
eviction” but a “forced relocation”. However, this phrase misses the point –
people’s homes at Paga Hill were not relocated, they were demolished, along
with their furnishings and possessions. For some, this was a lifetime’s
investment, gone.
That
said, in our report, it was assumed responsibility for the destruction of
property at Paga Hill lay with the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary.
However, it now appears this finding may be incorrect. Hallit claimed on
Pacific Beat (10/10/12) that the developer, in fact, supplied the excavator
used to flatten homes: “At the end of the day there are only a few suppliers of excavators as
you can imagine in Port Moresby ... we just went to the first, we’ve paid for
their use”.
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Image 6: An excavator hired by PHDC for the
May 12 demolition manned by an armed police officer
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If the line between public and private
administration of this demolition was not already blurry, it became more so as
Hallit appeared to suggest PHDC directed the police operation.
“The [Paga Hill] settlers had actually
challenged the consent order in the district court and failed [on May 11]. So we waited for that. Now they sought a
stay order in the national court on that [next] day and they succeeded. And
when the eviction was in process, when they arrived with that, we stopped” (Pacific Beat, 10/10/12).
8. The women at Paga Hill live in fear of sexual
assault and dysentery:
According to PHDC Director, George Hallit,
residents are anxious to leave Paga Hill, “this [Paga Hill] is not a happy
environment” (Pacific Beat, 10/10/12). He continued, “its well documented from
independent parties that the current residents on the settlement are in fear of
dysentery and sexual assault on a regular basis” (ibid).
The only evidence PHDC has publicly cited in
this respect is a blog
entry written by a US photographer. And even then, the Paga women interviewed
note their community “is safe”, it is outsiders they fear.
When a
volunteer teacher at Paga Hill was asked about safety, she argued women would
be far more vulnerable to attack at Six-Mile. Her interview can be viewed here.
9. The people at Paga Hill are “criminals” and “illegal
squatters”.
PHDC Chairman/Secretary, Gudmundur
Fridriksson, informed The Australian
(9/10/2012), “there are just squatters and
settlers and criminals hanging out there [at Paga Hill]” (see Robinson 2012a:
1). This, of course, is a common stereotype used to demonise informal
settlements in PNG. However, as Michael
Goddard
has persuasively argued, it is a stereotype fundamentally lacking in empirical
evidence.
Indeed, in a study conducted
by resident anthropologist, Joe Moses, with assistance from UPNG academic Dicks
Rae Thomas, it was found that the community at Paga Hill was made up
predominantly of skilled and semi-skilled workers who are gainfully employed in
the formal (54%) and informal sector (45%). Moreover, their residency at Paga
Hill is by no means new. Indeed, the original Kikori settlers arrived in the
early 1960s, with permission from the hill’s traditional
owners, who deny having alienated their land to the state. Such is the
complexity of urban land relations in PNG.
It is also important to
remember that there are National Housing Corporation properties on top of Paga
Hill, which are home to around 400 people. These subsidised homes are rented by
hard-working civil servants, who now face the threat of homelessness.
10. The
people at Paga Hill live in “squalid conditions”
It has been argued by PHDC (2012) that the
people of Paga Hill live in “squalid conditions”. The company’s Chairman/Secretary
also implies that residents occupy shanties: “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" (quoted in Robinson 2012a).
Paga Hill does not
correspond to the developer’s caricature. During ISCI’s research on the forced
eviction, we were supplied with photographs of Paga Hill taken by neighbour Sam
Moko, in July 2010.
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Image 7: A resident’s washing dries in the
sea breeze, July 2010.
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Image 8: One resident described Paga Hill as a
classic seaside village
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These homes which punctuate
Paga’s shoreline are a colourful example of the type of serious investment many
local residents have plumbed into their living space. And much of their
opposition to the development has been grounded in the derisory compensation
offered for a lifetime’s work.
11. The Paga Hill Estate
will feature a 5-star hotel run by the prestigious Hilton chain
Since the demolition, PHDC has informed the media that the
development will feature a 5-star hotel run by the prestigious Hilton chain (Post Courier,
14/5/2012). PNG’s Ministry
of Tourism, Arts and Culture applauded this announcement: “Upon
completion, it will be the flagship site of Port Moresby whereby every tourist
will visit and enjoy. Their plan also includes the development of a five-star
hotel at the top of Paga Hill managed by an international renowned brand hotel”
(Post Courier,
25/5/2012).
ISCI contacted Hilton Worldwide, on 13/7/2012 their Australasia
Regional Communications Manager replied: “After looking into the matter I can
confirm that Hilton Worldwide does not have an agreement to operate a Hilton
Hotel & Resort with the developer of Paga Hill Estate. We have asked the
developer to remove any references to Hilton Hotels & Resorts in their
marketing material”. As of 29/10/2012 references to Hilton Hotels remain in
PHDC’s online marketing materials.
References
Auditor
General’s Office (2005), Special
Investigation into the Office of the Public Curator, Waigani: Author.
Callick,
R. (2008), ‘Somare Allies Admit to Taiwan Funding Scam’, The Australian, 10 May, p.14
Merz,
S. K. (2004), Solid Waste Characterisation:
Papua New Guinea, Apia: Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment
Programme. Available online: http://www.sprep.org/publications/solid-waste-characterisation-papua-new-guinea
Paga
Hill Development Company (2012), ‘Rebuttal of Defamatory Allegations’, Press
Release, 9 October. Available online: http://www.pagahill.com/#!contact./vstc3=press-releases.
[accessed 29 October 2012].
Public
Accounts Committee (2006a), Public
Accounts Committee Report to Parliament on the Inquiry into the Office of the
Public Curator, Waigani: National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.
Public
Accounts Committee (2006b), Public
Accounts Committee Report to Parliament on the Inquiry into the Department of
Lands and Physical Planning, Waigani: National Parliament of Papua New
Guinea.
Robinson, N. (2012a), 'Champion of Aborigines Gummi Fridriksson
"evicts" PNG's poor', The
Australian, 9 October, p.1
Robinson, N. (2012b), 'Paga link to "profits from PNG
deceased"', The Australian, 10
October, p.3.
Robinson, N. (2012c), 'Paga Hill: Property developer Gummi Fridriksson
on leave to concentrate on business interests in PNG', The Australian, 16 October, p.5
Wai,
I. and Maia, P. (2010), ‘Building Community and Peace in Saraga Settlement,
Port Moresby’, in V Luker and S Dinnen (eds.), Civic Insecurity: Law, Order and HIV in Papua New Guinea, Canberra:
ANU E-Press. Available online: http://epress.anu.edu.au/apps/bookworm/view/Civic+Insecurity%3A+Law%2C+Order+and+HIV+in+Papua+New+Guinea/5631/upfront.xhtml
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