“Your assumptions, and an apparent bias, were reflected in your choice of research partners with well-known records of vehement anti-BCL views. The PNG researchers chosen to do the interviews are also people well-known in Bougainville as holding similar views.
“My Government is on the ground in Bougainville. Elected members and government officers have for many years constantly consulted landowner communities from the former Panguna leases, with the organisations established since 2010 to represent those communities, with leaders of the various Me’ekamui organisations in the area, with Councils of Elders and Village Assemblies in the area. While there is undoubtedly a range of views on the future of mining at Panguna, the only way of getting 63 interviewees opposed to mining
The President of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) today released a statement about the refusal of Australian NGO, Jubilee, to respond to three letters he has sent them since October raising questions about a Jubilee report on Panguna landowner views on mining. He said their refusal to answer his questions demonstrated ‘shameful ignorance and arrogance on the part of Jubilee.
In a series of letters to the Jubilee in October, November and December 2014, President Momis questioned research methodology used, false claims made on the basis of interviews with a tiny selected group of opponents of mining, many serious factual errors in the report, and the track record of opposition to BCL and Rio Tinto on the part of Jubilee Australia’s research partners, Kristian Lasslett and the Bismarck Ramu Group.
In a letter to the Jubilee Board released with today’s statement, the President said:
“You proudly proclaim to be a scientific research organisation. But your research on Bougainville has been unethical and deeply flawed.
He went on to say that the Jubilee Report “was clearly based on false assumptions, and those same assumptions have been evident in claims made both at many points in your report, and in statements by your CEO, that there is near unanimous opposition to mining in the landowner communities in the former leases associated with the Panguna mine.
“Your assumptions, and an apparent bias, were reflected in your choice of research partners with well-known records of vehement anti-BCL views. The PNG researchers chosen to do the interviews are also people well-known in Bougainville as holding similar views.
“My Government is on the ground in Bougainville. Elected members and government officers have for many years constantly consulted landowner communities from the former Panguna leases, with the organisations established since 2010 to represent those communities, with leaders of the various Me’ekamui organisations in the area, with Councils of Elders and Village Assemblies in the area. While there is undoubtedly a range of views on the future of mining at Panguna, the only way of getting 63 interviewees opposed to mining would be to carefully select them. If your report stated clearly that that was what you had done, there would be little complaint. But the report does not do that. It dissembles.
“Moreover, you compound your error by numerous absolutely false statements about the views expressed in the interviews being representative of all in the area.
“In short, there is no doubt at all that those doing the interviews in Bougainville on which the report claims to be based carefully chose a small group of opponents to the resumption of mining.
“The report was written by a person from one of your partner organisations with a clear record of a particularly unbalanced view on BCL.
“Your assumptions and bias were further demonstrated by your deliberate refusal not only to consult the ABG, but also to give it any opportunity to comment on a draft of the report before rushing to publish.
“You have also refused to respond to my questions about the ethical standards of the research, and your adherence to PNG law in the conduct of the report.
“By your refusal to answer the issues and questions raised in my three letters (above), you simply raise more doubts about your standards, your accountability and your bona fides.
“In all the circumstances, your behaviour is shameful, and your claims to be a scientific research organisation seem little more than a joke.
“I continue to request a response to the specific issues raised in those three letters.”
“Jubilee Australia claims to be a body undertaking ‘scientific research’. Any scientific research body must adhere to strict ethical standards when planning, carrying out, and reporting on its research.
“Jubilee and its partners were researching sensitive issues in Bougainville’s complex post-conflict situation. The research, and Jubilee’s report, involve serious risks, not just for those being interviewed, but for the wider Bougainville community. By taking sides on complex, divisive issues, Jubilee has added to sources of division and conflict
President Momis raising new issues about Jubilee : Pictured above with PNG PM Peter O’Neil on a visit to Panguna earlier this year
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MOMIS QUERIES JUBILEE AUSTRALIA’S RESEARCH ETHICS
The President of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) has raised new questions about research about Bougainville undertaken by Australian NGO, Jubilee Australia. Jubilee’s report was released in Australia in September.
On the basis of interviews with just 65 people selected because they opposed resuming mining at Panguna, Jubilee claimed that the Panguna mine affected communities as a whole were also opposed to mining. But as President Momis has pointed out, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 people in those communities, a majority supporting resumption of mining.
BOUGAINVILLE MINING LEGISLATION AND REGULATIONS DEVELOPMENT
In a series of three letters to Jubilee in September, October and November, President Momis has criticised the report. He questioned research methodology used, false claims made on the basis of interviews with a tiny selected group of opponents of mining, many serious factual errors in the report, and the track record of opposition to BCL and Rio Tinto on the part of Jubilee Australia’s research partners, Kristian Lasslett and the Bismarck Ramu Group.
The President was especially critical of Jubilee’s failure to at any time communicate with the ABG or Panguna landowner associations about the research – failing even to seek ABG views on a draft of the report before it was published. He agreed with an Australian academic who criticised Jubilee as involved in advocacy, not research.
Today President Momis raised new issues about Jubilee and its research. He said:
“Jubilee Australia claims to be a body undertaking ‘scientific research’. Any scientific research body must adhere to strict ethical standards when planning, carrying out, and reporting on its research.
“Jubilee and its partners were researching sensitive issues in Bougainville’s complex post-conflict situation. The research, and Jubilee’s report, involve serious risks, not just for those being interviewed, but for the wider Bougainville community. By taking sides on complex, divisive issues, Jubilee has added to sources of division and conflict.
It has undermined the carefully considered efforts of the democratically established ABG to build consensus amongst divided Bougainvilleans on the difficult issues involved in choices on mining.
“If Jubilee had been adhering to proper ethical research standards, they would not have intervened in this complex situation, and taken sides. They would not have rejected having any form of communication with the ABG and landowner associations.
“Jubilee Australia’s website claims that their research program is overseen by a Research Centre Advisory Committee comprising ‘leading Australian academics’, which they say strengthens Jubilee’s ‘capacity for rigorous, academic based research’. Such a Committee should surely play the most important role of setting and overseeing Jubilee’s research ethics.
“But it now emerges that a member of that six member Advisory Committee who had extensive knowledge of PNG was never informed by Jubilee about the research. This fact may help explain Jubilee’s use of badly flawed research methodology. It raises serious questions about how Jubilee ensures that its research adheres to the highest standards of research ethics expected of a ‘scientific research’ body.
“I have today written to Jubilee’s Board, asking when they will respond to the issues raised in my two most recent letters to them about their report (dated 26 October and 2 November). But in addition I have raised serious questions about how Jubilee ensures that proper standards of research ethics are met, so that its otherwise well-intentioned work does not descend into advocacy of particular unsubstantiated viewpoints.
“I have further asked how Jubilee can be held accountable in terms of their ethical standards. Jubilee is an Australian NGO working on international development issues. Most such NGOs are members of the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), which administers a complaints process that can handle queries about NGO research ethics.
“But from the list of members appearing on the ACFID website, it appears that Jubilee is not a member of ACFID. If so, the ABG cannot seek to hold Jubilee accountable through ACFID. I am questioning Jubilee’s board as to whether it is open to being held accountable by independent bodies.
“I have further asked Jubilee to advise whether any non-citizens who have been in PNG at any time to undertake this research have held the research visas required under PNG law.
President Momis concluded:
“The ABG welcomes thorough research, and well-informed criticism. But it expects outside research bodies, in particular, to observe the highest standards and principles. In this case, there are grave doubts about many aspects of what Jubilee has done.
“Further, Jubilee has shown little willingness to be in communication with the democratic government of Bougainville. Their one communication with us in the more than two years they have been doing their Bougainville ‘research’ was a letter in late October stating that my criticisms of their report were ‘without basis’. I now call on Jubilee’s Board to engage with the ABG in relation to the serious questions that we are asking, both in today’s letter, and my letters of October and November.”
AUSTRALIAN NGO Jubilee Australia published a report in September on views held by villagers near the mine on the re-opening of the Panguna mine in Bougainville.
Jubilee, which claims to be a “scientific research body”, prepared the report jointly with two highly partisan organisations, the International State Crime Initiative and the Bismarck Ramu Group.
Kristian Lasslett, an Ulster-based Australian academic who is a constant purveyor of attacks on the Bougainville leadership, generally with little or no evidence, was heavily involved in the preparation and writing of the report.
In response to criticism of the report in the social media, Lasslett has defended himself and Jubilee notably in posts on the PNG Mine Watch blog (run by the Bismarck Ramu Group) and on Facebook’s Bougainville Forum.
Australians, Vicki Johns and Dantares Midway Jones (aka Andrew Jones) and Australian-based Bougainvillean, Clive Porabou, have all joined Lasslett in defending the report on the Bougainville Forum.
Jubilee and these others domiciled abroad will have us believe that they know more about Bougainville than anyone living on Bougainville and that they are privy to the personal views of the majority of Bougainvilleans today, including mine site landowners.
The spread of these dubious “research findings” in Australia can be likened to a new malady that is about to hit Canberra, the cure for which only the bearers of the ill tidings possess and can administer.
Jubilee is at the forefront and is in this for exposure and publicity, not for the benefit of Bougainville.
Every time these desktop researchers return to their own countries after a very brief foray into their own mystical Bougainville, they carry a hastily packaged fantasy that reveals the ‘undeniable truth’ about what the majority of Bougainvilleans think about Panguna.
Jubilee is in Australia. They believe that a brief visit by anti-mining Bougainville researchers to Panguna, armed with questions to which they already ‘know’ the answers, provides better credentials than they had as remote-controlled observers of Bougainville from afar.
After ticking off their questionnaires, the organisation can make a jubilant exit, highly satisfied that their “research” confirms what they always believed.
With a prejudice and orientation against anything and everybody engaged in, or supportive of, what they see as the sordid business of mining, organisations like this will always be predisposed to searching and commenting to satisfy and confirm their very own views, which they can then confidently sell to Canberra.
Kristian Lasslett works and schemes from Ulster in Northern Ireland (UK). On matters concerning Bougainville he is the self-made expert – chopping, pasting and moulding Bougainville like plasticine to be forced into his desired shape and form.
Like the operatives at Jubilee, he drives a metal car, flies in metal planes and eats, I assume, mainly with metal cutlery. He and the Jubilee operatives do not suffer from metal fatigue, despite their disdain for industries that extract useful minerals.
Kristian will swear by his comments and views, defend them and feed them to anyone who likes to lap up tales of deceit and conspiracy against Bougainville by mining giants and governments.
At best he is a socialist, born to save the world’s downtrodden. At worst he is a Trotskyite, peddling and romanticising his thoughts around Melanesia.
He is a smooth operator, armed with mind-boggling academic qualifications, but why should PNG and Bougainville take notice of him?
He does not add value to our attempts to resolve our issues on Bougainville island, or in PNG for that matter. His activities simply feed his own ambitions.
He tells us that he knows Bougainville from the 1960s, though his appearance indicates he was barely an adolescent at the time of the Bougainville crisis.
He arrived after the crisis, well after the peace process took hold, only to collect the crumbs when the smorgasbord was over. This is obvious in his comments about wanting to return to Bougainville’s past. Bougainvilleans be warned: this fellow cannot be trusted.
There’s little I can say about Vikki John. I believe she’s relatively harmless because I understand she rarely expresses her own views, assuming she has some. Apparently, her function is to cut, paste and disseminate any anti-mining material she comes across, in order to alert poor, ignorant Bougainvilleans to the dangers of doing further business with notoriously nasty mining companies.
I don’t know who DAntares Midway Jones (aka Andrew Jones) is, but I gather he has been searching for his ancestry/roots, as his interchanging name suggests.
He has suddenly splashed himself onto the Bougainville scene with grandiose ideas for the salvation of the island and its population. He believes he has a profound proposal to rid Bougainville of its muddled past.
He proposes a Peoples Tribunal with draft terms of reference comprising Bougainvilleans who will preside as judge, jury, prosecutor and terminator. He even has a Tribunal Facebook page.
He claims he has aboriginal ancestry. He dons a Fidel Castro type cap, is clad in khaki clothes with an Australian Aboriginal flag badge sewn on the breast and he sports a Fidel Castro beard. He is calm, cool and does not flinch at his critics.
I don’t know where he popped up from. He says he made a single visit to Bougainville, a lone trip that has convinced him that he knows Bougainville well enough to insert a Tribunal there to disable the culprits responsible for the island’s demise.
He has some strange ideas about what might be best for Bougainville. He impresses me as someone who has probably been wandering around admiring rock drawings in arid caves and sacred aboriginal sites and suddenly thinks he is sufficiently indigenous to transplant himself into another traditional society like Bougainville.
Clive Porabou is the next best thing to cheese, biscuits and shiraz. Just as these tasty and intoxicating items make party conversation flow freely, Clive’s presence and discussion with the likes of the people I have mentioned above make their adrenalin flow from both excitement and anger.
Clive lives abroad and, for those who have no personal experience on Bougainville, he is the Bougainville expatriate expert who satisfies the appetite of a certain mould of Australian academic, environmentalist, social psycho and welfare benefactor.
Always with an acoustic guitar in hand, he longs for the day when Bougainville might be governed by Me’ekamui, financed by Noah Musingku’s new Bougainville currency.
Hearing from Clive is enough to convince most non-Bougainvilleans that they have a duty to rescue Bougainville from bondage, and the government outfit to accomplish this is the version of Me’ekamui that Clive peddles abroad.
In truth, the Me’ekamui in central Bougainville have been consulting and beginning to work and cooperate with the Autonomous Bougainville Gobvernment (ABG), which was always bound to happen.
I can’t be too critical of Clive, because in his heart of hearts he will always remain a true Bougainvillean, but suspicious of his expat friends. It suits him fine if they are gullible enough to believe him, because as long as this unfortunate business lasts, he can continue to enjoy peace and a relatively convivial lifestyle offshore.
Take heart, the reason why most Bougainvilleans won’t whinge about, or flinch at, research that is carried out overnight from abroad is because it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.
If you were to enter the same Bougainville communities in the same locations and conduct your own research to extract a ‘yes to mining’ response, you would get it. It really depends on how the comments and questions are framed. The Jubilee research is simply a means to an end.
Jubilee, Kristian, Andrew Jones and all of these parties will always support such research and support each other. They are birds of a feather, flocking, scheming and screeching together. As some Bougainvilleans have commented in the Bougainville Facebook forum, this is all “bullshit”.
The ABG must make the Australian government aware that Jubilee is going to the Australian Parliament entirely of its own accord, without the knowledge, authority or respect of the ABG and most Bougainvilleans.
If we are not careful and if the ABG turns a blind eye, the confusion, disunity and anger these people can generate could pit Bougainvillean against Bougainvillean, community against community, clans and families against each other, and even the people against their leaders and government.
These are people coming into a society they really don’t know much about or understand. They are attempting to ride roughshod over the programs and projects the ABG and landowners have been involved in towards resolving every issue in Panguna.
There has been steady progress towards addressing many outstanding Panguna grievances that affect everyone, not just the sampling of villages Jubilee has selectively interviewed.
There are senior ministers in the Abbott government, like foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop, who always have an ear and heart for Bougainville. There is no reason why the president and senior bureaucrats who have the carriage of different aspects and areas of discussion over Panguna, e.g. Steve Burain, Raymond Masono and advisers like Dr Naihuwo Ahai, cannot approach Canberra and confront the Jubilee research.
This is how absurd it is: Jubilee operatives come to Bougainville, do their fact finding visit up the road, fold up all the work and turn up in Canberra unbeknownst to ABG and most of Bougainville.
They do not even have the courtesy to call on the authorities on Bougainville to explain or share what they have done. If this is not conspiracy against ABG, for reasons only known to themselves, then I don’t know what it is.
There is a real risk that foreign elements that have no responsibility or obligations on Bougainville and that are not accountable to anyone can derail fifteen years of peace process and reconciliation achieved without meddling from uninvited offbeat academics, latter day NGOs, busybodies and socialites that have nothing better to do in their own countries.
If they have nothing to contribute to their own governments and people, it is hard to accept the claim that their reconnaissance on Bougainville will enhance our future.
Jubilee Australia Report ‘Irresponsible’: Bougainville President
The President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville (ABG), the Honourable Chief John Momis, has attacked a recent Jubilee Australia report on Bougainville’s Panguna mine, describing it as misleading and irresponsible.
The mine, operated by Bougainville Copper Ltd (53 per cent owned by Rio Tino) at Panguna, in Bougainville, from 1972 to 1989, when it was closed by violent conflict. It has not reopened since.
The Report has been released by Jubilee ( www.jubileeaustralia.org/page/resources) and was launched at public functions in Sydney and in Parliament House in Canberra by Christine Milne, Leader of the Greens.
The President said: ‘The Report is factually inaccurate, biased, methodologically unsound, and dishonest in claiming that interviews with 65 individuals selected by its authors from the 10,000 or so people in the affected areas allows it to represent the voices of them and the 300,000 people of Bougainville.’
The Jubilee Report claims that the voices of mine-affected communities ‘have been distant from recent public discussion’ about the possible reopening of the Panguna, closed since 1989 as a result of the Bougainville conflict. The Report is critical of ABG consultation with landowners which Jubilee suggests have largely excluded communities around the mine.
‘Far from being excluded, affected landowners have been at the centre of all discussions regarding Panguna since they commenced in 2009’, said President Momis.
‘There may indeed be individuals who have not been able to, or have chosen not to, participate in consultations. In part this reflects the ABG’s extremely limited resources, and the real barriers of geography and politics that we face, including an armed dissident road block which has restricted access to the Panguna area for 17 years.
‘But the ABG and representative landowner associations have gone to great lengths to overcome these barriers, undertaking numerous consultations at village and regional levels and with all major Bougainvillean stakeholders.
‘The overwhelming response is support for reopening the mine, but only if it can be done in a way that avoids the extremely negative effects of earlier mining and ensures that Bougainvilleans receive a fair share of mining’s benefits’, said President Momis.
‘But’, he said, ‘all the 65 individuals selected by Jubilee for interview are reported to be against reopening the mine. Such an outcome does not seem credible unless the researchers interviewed only people that they knew opposed mining.’
Jubilee statements to the press go further, claiming ‘near unanimity among the Pangunans that they do not want mining’. President Momis said: ‘This being an area where mining caused great harm, there are individuals and some communities who oppose mining. But nothing in Jubilee’s Report substantiates this gross overgeneralization and misrepresentation’.
President Momis refuted Jubilee’s allegations that the ABG has ‘initiated a campaign to reopen the Panguna mine’. He said: ‘If the strict conditions sought by the landowners and the ABG cannot be satisfied, the ABG will not allow the mine to be reopened’.
The President has today written to the Board of Jubilee Australia saying: ‘The Jubilee Report is deeply flawed. Jubilee Australia’s Board bears responsibility for allowing such a misleading and irresponsible document to be released, and for limiting and redressing the damage it can cause.’
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