During our October 26-28 reporting trip to this South Pacific nation of 5 million people, the workers, students, and others we met talked about that experience, and indicated that opposition to attempts to implement such "reforms," aimed at benefiting the interests of foreign capital, remains widespread.

World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials are pressuring the government in Port Moresby to sell off state-owned enterprises in exchange for loans to bolster the government budget. This effort is backed by the government in Australia, the former colonial ruler of Papua New Guinea, which continues to dominate the country.

Representing the interests of the major imperialist powers, the IMF and the World Bank, whose office for East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the South Pacific is based in Sydney, are pressing for the establishment of a register of communally owned "custom" land--a first step toward opening up clan lands to capitalist exploitation. Almost all land in Papua New Guinea is held by clans in traditional common ownership. Eighty per cent of the country’s people live in the countryside as subsistence farmers, making the land question one of the most explosive issues in the country.

One example of resistance we heard about involved landholders in the Southern Highlands, who shut down the oil pipeline that runs through their territory to demand promised compensation payments. Earlier this year the Porgera gold mine in the Southern Highlands was closed down for a period after power lines were sabotaged.

Student-initiated protests over the last several years in opposition to imperialist demands have drawn support across the country, including from the small labor movement.

These actions have concretely posed questions of national sovereignty and development. Capitalist investment in Papua New Guinea is geared to stripping the natural resources of the country, particularly gold, copper, lumber, oil and gas. Wealth produced by coffee and coconut small holders is gouged by largely foreign trading companies.

The protests in June of last year, directed at the government of former prime minister Mekere Morauta, marked a high point of the resistance to these plans.

"The whole country was supporting the students," said John Mahuk, a dockworker and president of the Maritime Industrial Workers Union. "People from the shanty towns and elsewhere brought food and water to the protest camp" during the week-long action.

"It was a totally peaceful protest until ignited by the cops," he said (see below for link to ‘Leader of dockworkers union tells of wage fight, support to student actions.)  
 
Land proposal, sell-off of state property
In an open letter published at the time, the protesters called on the government to "suspend the entire privatization scheme, scrap the customary land registration scheme, [and] completely sever ties with the World Bank and IMF." If Morauta was unable to carry out these demands, they said, he should "resign or face more serious protest."

A particular target of popular anger was the Australian High Commission. Papua New Guinea was an Australian colony until independence in 1975, and Australian companies continue to play a leading role in the country’s economy, especially its lucrative mining industry. For its part, the Australian government, as the former administering power, continues to intervene in the country’s politics, dispensing pressure and paternalistic advice. This is backed up by Canberra’s substantial military forces used to intervene from Afghanistan and Iraq, to Bougainville, the Solomon Islands, and East Timor, as well as by Australia’s economic predominance in the region.

Faced with these growing protests and unsure of the reliability of the army’s rank and file soldiers, and even the Port Moresby cops, the Morauta government flew in riot police from other parts of the country.

"For the first time, police came onto the campus," said Julienne Kaman, a lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby. "They were riot police from Mount Hagen [in Papua New Guinea’s highlands] in camouflage, shooting with high-powered rifles.

"Two students and two outsiders were shot," said Kaman. "They just went out [of the campus dormitory area where they had fled] with their hands up and got shot."  
 
Mass protest
After the deaths students "went in all directions to gather support," Kaman said. As word of the killings spread, people marched towards the campus from different parts of town, including the squatter settlements, defying police efforts to block them. She described it as a "spontaneous people’s movement." Another participant estimated the mobilization to be 10,000-strong.

In response, "Australian intelligence went to work," Kaman said. "Men who openly identified themselves as employees of ASIO [the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] questioned staff" living in a housing development next to the campus, she said, asking questions about the torching of several cars in the aftermath of the police shootings.

Another activist told of reports that the Australian military is funding, arming and training a rapid deployment force of Papua New Guinea’s special police. He also said that the Australian military is guarding a new gas pipeline under construction from Papua New Guinea to Australia.

Morauta "was a total puppet of the IMF, World Bank and Australia," Kaman said, adding that this was the main reason his government was defeated in elections held this year.

In August a new government headed by Michael Somare, who had served as the country’s first prime minister after independence, came to office after striking a more nationalist stance in the campaign. The new government has suspended the unpopular privatization program.

Reflecting the deepening political and social crisis unfolding here, some 30 people were killed during the election period.

A number of students who were identified with the popular mobilizations stood as independents in the election, we were told. Their campaigns were the most open attempt since the police shootings to resume public political activity around the issues. For the first time a Labor Party with links to the country’s trade unions also stood candidates.  
 
Australian pressure for ‘reforms’
Today, as tens of millions of dollars in loans from imperialist banks come due for repayment, Australia’s rulers continue to take the lead in pressuring the Somare government to carry out "reforms" aimed at protecting the interests of foreign capital.

Canberra provides A$350 million in annual grants to the Papua New Guinea government tied to specific infrastructure or state projects. This is dubbed "boomerang aid" by students in Papua New Guinea because it is spent primarily to benefit Australian big business (A$1=U.S. 56 cents).

Canberra also contributed A$153 million to a A$500 million loan negotiated through the World Bank two years ago. The Somare government, facing a sharp financial crisis, is asking that repayments on this loan be deferred. Papua New Guinea’s debt to the imperialist powers has grown to some US$2.5 billion, more than 70 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. More than a quarter of the government’s annual budget goes to loan repayments.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard has declared that there will increasingly be a "linking between aid and good governance. You can’t maintain or attract investment if you don’t have proper structures of law and order and good governance."

At annual ministerial talks between the Australian and Papua New Guinean governments held in Port Moresby November 15, Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer stated that increased aid would depend on carrying out "reforms," which for the Australian rulers include cutting government spending, beefing up the police, and opening up the country more to foreign capitalist investment.

But this imperialist-dictated course is by no means assured as the new government faces continued popular pressures and resistance. As Mahuk said, it was "the students and labour movement that helped expose the failures of the previous government, contributing to its downfall."

Bob Aiken is a member of the Australasian Meat Employees Union. Ron Poulsen is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.
 
 
Related articles:
Leader of dockworkers union tells of wage fight, support to student actions  
 
 
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