Police action in response to indigenous protests is increasingly under scrutiny in South Africa. Credit: Thapelo Lekgowa/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Apr 30 2014 (IPS)

The global spectre of state violence against political dissent, with paramilitary law enforcement units advancing against citizens they are employed to protect in cities such as Cairo, Bangkok and Kiev is daily news. But in some developing countries, the police are being used to put down indigenous opposition to the alliance of state and corporate power over resource extraction.

Indigenous peoples around the world confront dispossession for the extractive industry. When formal avenues to resolve grievances with authorities fail, activism is often met with disproportionate force, unlawful detention and the criminalisation of protest leaders. And perpetrators of state violence invariably enjoy impunity.Protest is frequently the last resort of those with the least socio-political influence.

Mandeep Tiwana of the CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation based in Johannesburg, tells IPS that the ultimate casualty is peoples’ faith in representative government.

“Failure by the state to hold security forces and other powerful state and non-state entities to account for infringement of democratic freedoms and the right to express legitimate dissent undermines democracy severely,” he says.

The police shooting of 34 striking miners at the Britain-headquartered Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana in South Africa in 2012 is seen by many as a watershed moment in contemporary state and corporate brutality.

The same year government forces in Panama deployed rubber bullets and tear gas against Ngabe-Bugle people demonstrating against copper mining on their land, resulting in three deaths.

The police confronted communities rallying in May 2012 against environmental damage and lack of benefits from the Tintaya copper mine in Espinar Province, Peru, owned by Swiss company Xstrata, with two fatalities. Workers Day on May 1 is a reminder of the oppression indigenous people and workers still face around the world.

In the Pacific region, mineral and gas extraction dominated by multinationals has long been protected by mobile police squads. Such action has come often in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where 28 percent of people live below the poverty line.

In recent years, police have been responsible for violent community evictions near the Porgera gold mine in Enga Province, majority owned by Canadian company Barrick Gold, and the fatal killing of a worker who expressed opposition to the PNG LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) project in the highlands.

Protest is frequently the last resort of those with the least socio-political influence.

South Africa, says David van Wyk of the Bench Marks Foundation, “has seen increasing strikes and service delivery protests, many in mine impacted communities.” When authorities fail to address grievances, the issues are left to the police, “which has led to increased police brutality,” he tells IPS.

State violence reflects the critical role of natural resources in national, geopolitical and military power. Many nations including PNG, Guatemala and Nigeria claim state right to subsoil minerals, which can undermine customary land and indigenous peoples’ rights.

But in suppressing local opposition, developing nations also act in the neo-liberal interests of multinationals and foreign stakeholders. At Marikana, state violence in the name of security allowed Lonmin to remain removed from direct responsibility for human rights abuses.

In Nigeria 50 years of oil exploitation in the Niger Delta by companies, including Shell and Chevron Texaco, in alliance with the state has enriched foreign and local elites. Government oil revenues are in excess of 350 billion dollars – while 69 percent of the local Ogoni and Ijaw people live in poverty.

Massive resource rents to the Nigerian state have ensured resourcing of the Joint Military Task Force committed to guarding oil installations and quashing communities angered at marginalisation.

In PNG, mobile police squads have received funding for decades from the Australian government, which has stakes in extractive projects such as the Exxon Mobil joint venture, PNG LNG.

Dr Kristian Lasslett of the International State Crime Initiative, based at King’s College London, says unified local opposition poses a threat to the state-corporate alliance in PNG.

“It would dry up the opportunity structure exploited by a swathe of foreign investors who ignore national laws and local custom, and come as a shock to national businessmen who have proven effective in illegal land grabs and corrupt resource transactions.”

Barrick Gold and Esso Highlands have agreements to provide support to police units in the form of vehicles, accommodation, food and fuel. Clauses indicating that support is conditional on state agencies complying with international standards of conduct are rarely enforced.

Companies “adopt a ‘hear no evil and see no evil’ policy when it comes to state violence,” says Lasslett.

The post-9/11 era has also seen increased use of anti-terrorism measures to deal with grievances. The Guatemalan government used the threat of terrorism to declare a ‘state of siege’ in May last year following demonstrations against the Escobal silver mine in the nation’s southeast. This paved the way for suspending civil liberties and introducing martial law.

Justice for the marginalised is a massive challenge in an era of rising illegitimate power, as described in this year’s State of Power report from the Transnational Institute (TNI). It claims that pervasive corporate influence over governments is a factor in the demise of accountability to the governed, even in democratic nations.

“Corporations, through trade and investment agreements, lobbying and corporate capture of political institutions have also weaved a web of impunity that protects their profits and accountability for human rights and environmental abuses,” TNI researcher Lyda Fernanda tells IPS.

Many states, where oppression occurs, fail to observe international codes of police conduct or their duty to protect citizens’ human rights. Tiwana says international law needs to be supported by national legislation, aided by autonomous human rights and police accountability commissions.

“The law favours those with large reserves of money and those who have the capacity and connections to buttress their claims with forms of evidence that courts accept,” says Lasslett. “This is not to say communities can’t win in the courts, but it is not a terrain on which they hold the advantage.”

He believes that when impunity is supported by corruption and inadequate police complaints procedures, powerful social movements may be the most effective way to defend rights.

“The greatest weapon they [indigenous peoples] have is their own history, culture and customary bonds.”

For many Pacific Islanders, customary land is the source of life, identity and social security. However, most island states are developing countries, and governments claim land reform is needed to improve infrastructure and economic development. Registration of customary land, the predominant tenure system, with more options for leasing to the state and developers is being promoted as the way forward.

“Customary ownership is often considered a barrier to land development,” Inoke Ratukalou, director of the Land Resources Division at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) in Suva, Fiji, told IPS. “Uncertainties about ownership and difficulties reaching consensual agreement can discourage investment and the development of land-based resources.”“Land in most Pacific countries is for public access for survival and not fenced off by the legal system.”

Customary tenure applies to 80-90 percent of land in Pacific Island states. Unwritten customary law determines land and inheritance rights for members of clans or extended families. Traditional tenure plays a vital role in Southwest Pacific nations where the formal sector provides as little as 15 percent of employment, and most people are reliant on subsistence and smallholder agriculture for livelihoods and income.

Joel Simo of the Melanesian Indigenous Land Defence Alliance (MILDA) in Vanuatu claims that customary tenure is a “system of sharing” that “caters for everyone’s needs.”

“In many instances development can take place on customary land without any land registration,” he said. “Land in most Pacific countries is for public access for survival and not fenced off by the legal system.”

However, in the 21st century land is subject to increasing global economic pressures, islanders’ greater dependence on the cash economy, rapid population growth and urbanisation. Poor state infrastructure, such as road networks, is also hindering growth of local livelihoods and access to education and health services. Only five to 30 percent of roads in Tonga, Vanuatu, the Federated States of Micronesia, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Solomon Islands are sealed.

According to the SPC, the challenge is for countries to improve links between land governance and tenure with formal protection of customary land ownership through recording or registration and facilitation of dealings in customary land. Those occupying unregistered land, for example, are often unable to secure financing to establish enterprises.

Land registration exists in Fiji and Palau, but very little land is recorded in PNG, the Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands.

Recent state land management schemes, such as the “Lease-Lease Back” in PNG, whereby customary owners lease their land to the state for a title which can be used for leasing to a third party, and Special Agriculture and Business Leases (SABLs), have failed rural communities.

Maria Linibi, president of the PNG Women in Agriculture Development Foundation, agrees that better land administration is required, but rejects easier options for foreign investors or the state to acquire customary land.

Factors in landowner distrust of state land reform include state corruption and failure of large export oriented projects to raise human development or living standards for the majority of Pacific Islanders.

“People can register their land and still remain poor,” Simo said.

MILDA’s commitment to protect Melanesian values, which promote long-term sustainable land use, includes opposition to customary land registration or leasing, perceived as serving the interests of foreign and local elite.

“The prevalence of fraud and corruption within the land administration system [of PNG] means that titles can be easily issued, tampered with or destroyed,” Aidwatch reported in 2010.

Last year the California-based Oakland Institute revealed the escalation of land grabs in PNG over the past decade, amounting to 5.5 million hectares, or 12 percent of the country, due to fraudulent manipulation of SABLs. Rather than generating agricultural development projects of benefit to rural communities, SABLs have been exploited by international logging companies, aided by corrupt state officials, resulting in rising deforestation, and many customary owners losing control of their traditional lands.

Official catch-phrases of “freeing up land for development” have masked “daylight robbery, the betrayal of people’s constitutional protections and the loss of heritage and land for millions of Papua New Guineans,” says the institute’s report, “On Our Land”.

Aidwatch adds that formal land titles are “a recipe for failure” in nations where local landowners are not empowered with education and legal knowledge. Thus, in PNG, where rural illiteracy is as high as 85 percent, “top-down” land leasing programmes have the potential to exacerbate inequality.

Last year the Vanuatu government introduced new laws that place decision-making powers over land leasing in the hands of an independently chaired Land Management and Planning Committee and customary authorities, removing approval discretion from the state lands minister. The strategy is aimed at reducing corruption and making land tenure serve indigenous people and the domestic agriculture-based economy.

Evidence suggests that, in PNG, smallholder fresh food producers can earn more substantial incomes than people in formal employment. A 2008 study of women roadside sellers in Madang province concluded that 50 percent earned more than three times the minimum wage.

“Customary land ownership to our livelihoods, income and food security is very important because without it we would not survive,” Linibi declared.

But although land registration is not a barrier to increased local economic activity, many Pacific Island states are grappling with identifying effective land dispute resolution mechanisms. Reconciling tenure security under informal customary law and modern judicial legal systems presents ongoing challenges. Proliferating disputes between customary groups, and with external parties, over rightful land ownership, development benefits and environmental damage remain a factor in continued rural impoverishment.

There is also an urgent need for better urban planning in rapidly growing cities in the region. Informal settlements are home to 35 percent of residents in Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, and 45 percent of dwellers in Suva, Fiji. As settlements expand, as they do in Port Moresby, PNG, at 7.8 percent per year, encroaching on surrounding customary land, council authorities will need formal agreements to progress public services, such as roads, water and sanitation.

A young boy helps unfurl the West Papuan nationalist flag, known as the Morning Star. Credit: Francesco Vincenzi/IPS.

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Dec 29 2013 (IPS)

The indigenous struggle for liberation in West Papua on the western half of the island of New Guinea in the south-west Pacific, with the loss of thousands of lives, is far from ending. But, despite political uncertainties, a united coalition of pro-independence leaders has reignited hope of freedom by galvanising the support of a Pacific Islands inter-governmental organisation.

Indigenous Melanesian resistance to Indonesian governance of West Papua dates back to a United Nations supervised Act of Free Choice on independence in 1969 that was criticised as fraudulent after less than one percent of the population was selected to vote. That resulted in a vote for Indonesian integration.

In April this year the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL), representing 29 pro-independence organisations, applied for membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The inter-governmental group comprises the Melanesian states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of New Caledonia with headquarters in Port Vila, Vanuatu.“So far Jakarta has not provided any invitation letter for the team to visit the respective territories.”

“Support within the Melanesian region is vital to building a strong foundation for gaining international support and recognition,” Dr John Ondawame, WPNCL’s Vice-Chairman in Vanuatu told IPS. “The struggle of the people of West Papua is no longer an internal Indonesian issue.”

The West Papuan coalition was, for the first time, invited as official guest to the Melanesian leaders’ summit held in Noumea, New Caledonia, in June. Indonesia, which has MSG observer status, was also present.

During an address to the summit, Ondawame called on the Melanesian group to support the re-inscription of West Papua onto the United Nations decolonisation list and send a fact-finding mission to the Indonesian provinces to investigate human rights abuses.

The meeting ended with Melanesian leaders endorsing the “inalienable rights of the people of West Papua towards self-determination” and efforts to raise concerns about atrocities with the Indonesian government.

It was announced that a foreign ministers’ visit to the Indonesian provinces would take place within six months ahead of a decision on West Papua’s membership of the MSG. But, although Indonesia invited Melanesian leaders to Jakarta to be briefed about developments in West Papua, an MSG-led visit to the disputed territories has not taken place.

An MSG Secretariat spokesperson in Vanuatu advised IPS that “dates for the mission to Indonesia are still being discussed,” and members are keen for it to occur in early 2014.

Ondawame added that “so far Jakarta has not provided any invitation letter for the team to visit the respective territories.”

Indonesia has long claimed that West Papua is an internal matter, but the suffering of its indigenous population is stirring growing solidarity amongst Melanesians in the Pacific Islands.

In 2001, the Indonesian government responded to grievances by granting special autonomy to the provinces of Papua and West Papua, and increasing funding to the region, which amounted to more than 190 million dollars last year. It recently appointed a government unit to address infrastructure, public service and social issues.

However, West Papuans still suffer severe socio-economic hardship and have few freedoms. Twenty-seven percent of people in Papua and 31 percent in West Papua live in poverty, compared to 13 percent in East Java and 3.7 percent in Jakarta.

The Indonesian military controls civilian life and is regularly accused of killings, brutality, corruption and involvement in drug smuggling and illegal logging activities. Last year Amnesty International reported that 90 political activists were imprisoned for peaceful political activities and “security forces faced persistent allegations of human rights violations, including torture.”

“West Papua’s struggle for independence is not just West Papua’s struggle, but Melanesia’s struggle, and the people of Melanesia must take ownership,” said Fred Mambrasar of the civil society group, Melanesian United Front in Papua New Guinea.

Up to 500,000 West Papuan lives were lost in the past 50 years due to Indonesian military and government policies in the territory, according to a University of Sydney report.

During the past six months public demonstrations in support of West Papua have increased across the region. A concerned group of indigenous people from Australia and West Papua sailed to West Papua in September in a Freedom Flotilla that was a symbolic voyage to the shores of the Indonesian province to highlight issues of freedom and justice.

In Papua New Guinea, the Melanesian United Front launched a campaign and petition to boost public pressure, and urban demonstrations were supported by Port Moresby’s Governor, Powes Parkop. A letter of international solidarity signed by 98 international and Pacific non-governmental organisations was sent to the MSG in October.

Politically West Papuans see hope in the MSG’s promotion of decolonisation elsewhere in the region, such as in East Timor, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, and the resolute support of Vanuatu’s leadership in recent years.

In September, Moana Carcasses, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister, called on the United Nations General Assembly to “rectify some historical errors” and appoint a special representative to investigate human rights abuses and political issues in the beleaguered territory.

But the Melanesian United Front’s Patrick Kaiku is concerned that “observer states, such as Indonesia, which wield significant diplomatic resources and experience, will dictate the terms of West Papuan membership in the MSG if they are allowed to exert their influence.”

“The independence of the MSG must be maintained,” he asserted.

Papua New Guinea, an influential Melanesian state with observer status at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), has substantial trade ties with Indonesia, and also security concerns about its shared land border. In June its leaders accepted an invitation to business talks in Jakarta instead of attending the MSG Leaders summit. Solomon Islands leaders were briefed separately by the Indonesian government on developments in West Papua during a bilateral visit in August.

However, Ondawame is confident his coalition has “won the diplomatic battle in the region” and that an unstoppable political momentum has begun. He remains adamant that the MSG holds the key to progressing political dialogue and addressing a human rights crisis that many believe has been met with silence from the international community for too long.