Villagers stage sit-in protest over road
Copyright 2000, Post-Courier (PNG)
December 28, 2000
MORE than 100 landowners, mostly women and children from Samberigi in the Southern Highlands, staged a peaceful sit-in protest at the Gobe airstrip yesterday. It stopped operations at the airstrip for the whole morning.
The airstrip services the Gobe petroleum project but officials from Chevron said yesterday that operations in the field were not affected by the sit-in protest.
The demonstrators gave the Government 72 hours to respond to their petition.
The airstrip was reopened after Petroleum and Energy Secretary Joseph Gabut, who was visiting the Kutubu oil project, was flown to Gobe to receive the landowners’ petition.
The Government is expected to respond to the petition tomorrow.
According to an external affairs official from Chevron, the landowners, numbering a little more than 100, had walked for about three days from their village to the Gobe project site to stage the protest.
The landowners were angry about the Government’s failure to honor its commitment in a memorandum of understanding signed with the landowners in 1995, for a road to be constructed linking Gobe with the remote Samberigi.
A caller identifying himself as Wekei Nae and claiming to be the landowners’ spokesman in Port Moresby told the Post-Courier that there were four main issues which the landowners were frustrated with.
He said these were the Government’s failure to construct the road, the delay in reviewing the agreements signed with the Government and the continuing legal challenges to determine the actual landowners in the Gobe area.
The Gobe project was initially delayed when the landowners refused to allow the signing, demanding the Government make a commitment to build the road.
The then Petroleum and Energy Minister Masket Iangalio, with support from then Prime Minister Bill Skate, flew to the project site and assured the landowners that the Government would construct the road.
The Post-Courier understands that protesters yesterday carried placards with signs saying “No road, no oil”.
This was the same slogan used about three years ago when they first demanded the Government’s commitment.
The Chevron official said yesterday the Petroleum and Energy Secretary, who was visiting the Kutubu oilfield, was yesterday flown down to Gobe yesterday to receive the petition from the landowners.
The developers have constructed about 10 kilometres of the road under the tax credit scheme while the State is yet to fulfill its commitment to complete the last 10 kilometres.