This is a weekly update about events in Porgera. Before we get started a few caveats: I’m not in Porgera and I’m only relying on my own knowledge of the valley and open sources. I am not a lawyer. I do my best to keep the dates straight but they may get a day off due to my being in a different time zone than Porgera. With that out of the way, let’s talk about what has happened since around roughly the 22nd of September:
Porgera itself appears to be relatively quiet. On the 27th the group Porgera SOE Operations 2024 was added to Facebook and really looks like it was actually set up by the SOE staff. The group is public and anyone with a Facebook account can view it, so I will describe its content fully and quote from it.
Around this same time, there was apparently an official launch ceremony held in Porgera to inaugurate the SOE. It was featured in articles by Simiky Yandapake, Phoebe Gwangilo and Miriam Zarriga. The articles cover Ipatas’s speech, who said the SOE would last two months. “We must make use of the… limited time and assisted them [SOE staff[ wherever we can in terms of investigation, prosecution and imprisonment because these are the same people who are continuously disturbing the peace in the valley and they need to be put behind bars”. Joseph Tondop also announced an emergency number (7492 1661) which people can call if there is trouble. The number was repeatedly shared around on Facebook.
It is very hard for me to understand, but apparently there are issues around Yonge, in Laiagam, where Sakar is based. Miriam Zarriga reports on “five held hostage in Lagaip” after they attempted to go through the area in an ambulance (rumors have it that police, ambulance, and other vehicles can be convinced to take people out of the valley, and this is how some people with money attempt to leave). There have been Facebook posts which seem to suggest Porgerans might be targeted if they try to leave the valley (in retaliation for the SOE being brought in the kick non-Porgerans out). Other posts which suggest Porgerans can travel freely, but warring Engan clans will not be allowed to pass. I am too far away to really understand what is going on.
On the 27th the Post published a long and detailed story by Simiky Yandapake entitled “First step taken to restore peace in Porgera” that detailed Tondop (the Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police) to visit “the parties involved in the brutal tribal clash” which are now listed as “Pianda, Sakar, and Aiyala”. Jospeh Minape (described as the Porgera Lw and Order Coordinator) was there as well. In this article and several posts on Facebook, Tondop and others express themselves very professionally and irenically. In contrast, I feel the coverage in the Post and the National has focused on, shall we say, the punitive power of the police. The article describes three institutions at work in Porgera: the Law and Order Coordinator, Operation Mekim Save (OMS) and the SOE staff.
Posts from around the 27th made on the SOE Facebook group describes discussions at Mungalep (Piande), Suyan (Aiyala), and then Laiagam. On the 28th SOE staff and Law and Justice Coordinator Nelson Lea were at Yonge meeting with “The Sakar Clan leader Cr Morbe” and other leaders who “expressed their willingness to collaborate with Cr Towa of Piande”.
In other news:
On the 24th, the Post printed an op-ed entitled “Benefit sharing the real issue in Porgera“. The piece argues “resource developers and the state must come up with a strategy that enables everyone in the district to gain one way or another from resource development” instead of “only the impacted community benefit [sic] and not everyone”. In this way, benefit sharing would be about “providing a sustainable livelihood for everyone in the wider project area”. The piece was widely shared on Facebook — or at least the sectors of it that I was on.
Over at Business Advantage PNG, Nadav Shlezinger interviewed Barrick CEO Mark Bristow (this is the CEO of the transnational corporation, not just of Barrick Niugini Limited). Bristow’s vision of the Porgera Mine envisages production 500,000 ounces of gold a year “if we can get all this [the mine’s operations] ]sorted out efficiently”. In terms of law and order issues, Bristow said Porgera “has 51 51 per cent Papua New Guinean ownership – government, landowners and Kumul – and they need to fulfill their side of the bargain. That is their responsibility… Security must be the top priority. Porgera is a fragmented community prone to tribal fights and disputes. Law and order and illegal mining are a constant challenge. Right now, there’s no magistrate, there’s no community policing infrastructure.” He emphasized that contracts with local people would not be given to people who “leave the valley… and don’t actually put anything back into the community” because some of “the value of the orebody… should go to building economic capacity for when the mine is already there”.
Alex Golub 