Ok Tedi: PNG and BHP run scared

By Frank Enright

The Papua New Guinea government will attempt to legislate retrospectively to protect itself and the Australian mining company BHP from a $4 million environmental lawsuit being brought by villagers over the Ok Tedi gold and copper mine in the country's highlands.

The claim by 6000 people of the Western Province was lodged in the Victorian Supreme Court on May 5. Prime Minister Paias Wingti said the proposed legislation would raise doubts whether a foreign court could consider the case.

Later Wingti, while in Australia for a business conference, backed away from this position, saying he did not want to deliberately fend off the court case. “Instead, I am making the government's position clear on how it will deal with compensation claims on major resource projects in the future, and how we can best help the resource owners, the state and our investors”, he said on May 19.

BHP executives have opted to try to tackle the claim in PNG's Supreme Court -- far from the heavy media coverage in Australia, and where they believe they have a stronger chance of winning their case.

Rex Dagi, the landowner who presented the class action in Melbourne, where BHP is headquartered, has condemned this possibility. “If BHP has nothing to be ashamed of, and if it is as confident of being vindicated as it has been telling the people of PNG, why not have it in Melbourne where the whole world will be watching?”

Dagi, a landowner and business person from the Miripiki clan on the Ok Tedi River, said villagers living around the mine were deeply angry at the pollution. Feelings are running high, he said, and he was worried about the outcome of the case.

“It might happen like Bougainville”, warns Dagi. “I'm the only key person who's been stopping these people taking direct action until we have tried legal proceedings.”

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