Home > APSC 1998

Activist slams 'recolonisation' of Pacific

Green Left Weekly - April 29, 1998

Norm Dixon – Powes Parkop is general secretary of Melanesian Solidarity (Melsol), an organisation that unites environmental, land rights, student and urban poor community activists throughout Papua New Guinea. Melsol played a leading role in protests against the 1994 World Bank-imposed "land reform" and was central in organising the mass demonstrations in Port Moresby that defeated the Chan government's plan last year to deploy apartheid-linked mercenaries on Bougainville. Parkop is also a leading human rights lawyer. He participated in the Asia Pacific Solidarity Conference in Sydney on April 10-13.

The United Nations, Parkop told the conference, is considering closing down the UN Decolonisation Committee in the year 2000. "The argument goes that colonialism is no longer an issue in the world, but here in the Pacific we still suffer from colonialism."

Colonialism takes three forms in the Pacific today, Parkop explained: "old European colonial rule" continues in countries such as Tahiti (French Polynesia) and Kanaky (New Caledonia); "south-south colonialism" by Indonesia in East Timor and West Papua; and the "recolonisation" of the region by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and transnational companies.

The people of the Pacific continue to challenge all forms of colonialism and need support and solidarity for their struggles.

The people of Tahiti and Kanaky are resisting French colonialism, and "Just as much European colonialism was rejected in Asia and Africa, south-south colonialism will not be accepted by the people of the Pacific". The people of East Timor and West Papua are challenging dictator Suharto's rule and resisting the integration of their countries into Indonesia, Parkop pointed out.

Melsol takes a strong stand in support of the West Papuan people's right to self-determination. Despite the struggle rarely being mentioned in the establishment press, Parkop reported, the West Papuan struggle continues.

"We have over 50,000 refugees from West Papua in PNG. The OPM [Free Papua Movement] is still fighting in the jungle; people are still demonstrating in Freeport and Jayapura. We have to build international solidarity with them."

The most serious threat to the region, Parkop warned, is "recolonisation through globalisation".

"In PNG, we have been subjected to this recolonisation by the World Bank and IMF - backed by the Australian government - even though their recipes for addressing PNG's economic problems are not working. In 1991, structural adjustment was imposed on PNG. That did not solve PNG's problems but just got us deeper in debt and further under the control of World Bank-IMF and the global powers."

The same colonisation is taking place in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, Parkop added.

Parkop reminded those in the region struggling for self-determination that simply "becoming a post-colonial state does not mean that colonialism is over. Although PNG is formally independent, we still don't have control of our destiny. That is the source of the crisis in Bougainville.

"Our people, most of whom are self-sufficient and live in a pre-capitalist economy, are now forced to integrate into a global economy in which they cannot survive. In our traditional system and culture, we communally own land, and the clans collectively decide what the destiny of our community should be. Now, because of globalisation, only a few people make those decisions.

"Big mining companies are coming in and taking peoples' land from them, converting it into big money-making ventures - not for the PNG people but to satisfy the greed of a few.

"In Bougainville, the people fought back. Melsol has been active in supporting the Bougainville people because we see their struggle is not isolated from that of the rest of the PNG people. The issues are the same: alienation, deprivation of land rights, destruction of the environment."

Parkop noted that land in PNG "is the basis of our existence" and the people are fighting to defend it.

In 1994, the PNG government put forward a land registration scheme - backed by the World Bank-IMF and the Australian government - that would have undermined PNG's traditional system of land ownership. This system - indigenous communities control more than 90% of the land, and it cannot be bought or sold - is seen by the World Bank/IMF and western governments as a restriction on the activities of big business.

Under the plan, all customary land was to be registered in the name of its "owners" and clear boundaries demarcated.

The government argued that community land could then be used as collateral for loans, allowing companies and business people to negotiate development of the land. In effect, the plan would have transformed communal land into a privately owned commodity.

Melsol helped to lead a massive campaign against this bogus "reform", Parkop explained. Demonstrations of up to 10,000 people took place in provincial capitals. Four thousand people, led by striking university students, marched on parliament house in Port Moresby. University students, led by Melsol, played a central role in the campaign.

The campaign forced the government to "defer" the land registration scheme. "We were able to reduce the conditions the World Bank imposed on the PNG government from about 37 to about 15."

While that victory was a setback for the World Bank-IMF, Parkop pointed out, the struggle is not over.

"We are still in debt - 26% of the annual budget is spent on debt repayment. The World Bank continues to insist on austerity and government spending cuts. The World Bank will come back again and demand changes to land ownership. The World Bank is running the show. But our people are fighting back."

Parkop stressed the need for the Asia Pacific solidarity movement to help the region's progressive movements to formulate alternative development paths to reliance on the international financial institutions. They must also champion the vision of a genuinely democratic and egalitarian society that draws on the strengths of traditional collectivism.

The people of PNG are increasingly calling on Melsol to challenge the established political parties and provide an alternative, Parkop explained. Melsol has recently been debating whether it should launch a political party.

Such a party cannot be merely an electoral party, he stressed. PNG people have little respect for existing electoral parties and politicians, and would reject Melsol if it followed that path.

Melsol's fingers were burned last year when several of its leading members were elected to parliament and promptly helped put elements of the disgraced Chan government back into power.

Parkop said that the Melsol leadership immediately repudiated the actions of those members and called for the government to be dissolved. Melsol still has a dialogue with these members but does not expect much from them, he added.

Parkop told Green Left Weekly that the sort of party needed was one that mobilised the people to fight for their rights and not simply to enter parliament. It was mass mobilisations, led by Melsol, that defeated the land registration plan and the Sandline mercenaries.