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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Solomon Islands--Forest Crisis Documented by Australian Radio

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

January 27, 1996

OVERVIEW & SOURCE

Following is an unofficial transcription of a Australian

Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio program concerning the

resource plunder occurring in the South Pacific in general, and

the Solomon Islands in particular. Forestry issues have been

having a much higher profile in the region, with the Australian

Government recently cutting off forest aid to the Solomon Islands

on the basis of harvest rates twice the sustainable level, on a

very small resource base.

The following item was transcribed by an Australian journalist

from the ABC radio program, and I am sending it on exactly as

received. It is a SENSATIONAL article, and one you should take

the time to read. For additional information on local and

international efforts to conserve the Papua New Guinea and Solomon

Island rainforests check out the following URL's with your World

Wide Web browser:

Gaia Forest Archives:

http://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu/research/pngfores/

Solomon Islands Directory (over 30 articles):

gopher://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu:70/11/research/wforests/sislands

Papua New Guinea Rainforest Campaign (over 500 articles):

gopher://gaia1.ies.wisc.edu:70/11/research/pngfores

Pressure must continue to stop the devastating logging occurring

in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea; largely, but not

exclusively, by Malaysian and other Asian timber companies.

Intensive industrial forestry operations like have been practiced

in Asia are also moving into Africa and Central and South America.

Clearing of rainforests, or any forests, wantonly and totally

destructively is wrong.

As our, and others, campaign efforts continue to gain momentum,

each of us must think what we can do to bear witness to what is

happening to forests worldwide. There must be a way to bring

about righteous management of these ancient and priceless

rainforests, while helping local inhabitants actualize and

maximize their own human development potential. Building a just

economic and political order will be a prerequisite for

sustainability of the planet's remaining ecosystem engines. The

forests of the South Pacific are one such center of biotic

activity. They must not be allowed to disappear as so much of the

world's ecological brilliance has, unheralded and unknown, as the

Northern countries pillaged the planet.

g.b.

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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

Unofficial Transcript

Background Briefing

Radio National

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Sunday, January 14, 1996

Words: 6,500

(The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has not released a

transcript of this program for legal reasons. It was recorded and

transcribed by a Canberra-based journalist.)

Announcer: Just after Christmas the Australian Government took

the rare step of withdrawing part of our multi-million dollar aid

package to the Solomon Islands. The move follows widespread

allegations of corruption and mismanagement, particularly in the

area of forestry, levelled against the Solomons Government.

Welcome to Background Briefing Summer Season. I'm Helen Thomas.

Now, the funding that has been withdrawn is a $2.2 million

allocation to the Solomons Timber Control Unit, and the Aussie aid

switch off comes at a particularly turbulent time for our northern

neighbour, a political struggle that has involved media

repression, industrial tension and perhaps even murder.

Kirsten Garrett was in the Solomons last September.

Garrett: The canoe bounces across choppy water between islands.

It's astonishingly beautiful. The Solomons are a scattering of a

thousand postcard islands, set in a turquoise coral sea, white

beaches, gentle lagoons, rustling coconut palms. We're going to

see Stanley Sade, headmaster of the Fly Harbour school. He's

trying to get certain information out but Solomon Islands radio

has been told by the Prime Minister, Solomon Mamaloni, not to

broadcast what he has to say.

Sade: Myself have sent them the message in a press release but

it was not released in the radio, over the radio broadcast in the

Solomons. So I just have the chance of meeting Kirsten that I have

sent this message to her. Then I report to her and she was happily

try to take this to the Australian Broadcasting service.

Garrett: Okay, I will take it back and we'll put some of it

anyway to air on Background Briefing in Australia. Is that what

you would like?

Sade: Yes. I really like that one to be broadcast over the

radio so that people can hear what's all about. I thank you very

much.

Garrett: The press release reads in part, 'The Lavukal people of

chiefs never held any meeting to consider customary land logging

proposals. We want to make it clear that we have had enough of our

land, resources and other blessings from our Almighty, which have

been deprived from us and our children and their children and

exploited by unscrupulous traders and settlers. Our cries were not

listened to by politicians. They only serve foreign loggers, their

brothers, for the love of money and forget the future

generations.'

Garrett: Dominating these islands of paradise are the big boats

that sail out of here, each loaded with thousands of logs of

irreplaceable rain forest timber and the capital, Honiara, which

has only one rutted main road but so many cars there is a

permanent traffic jam, is practically fermenting with intrigue,

bitterness and corruption. Joses Tuhanuku, a cabinet minister in

the last Government, is now in opposition.

Tuhanuku: The people in the logging industry, as far as I am

concerned, they are a bunch of crooks. There is no other way to

describe them. People who are smart in business, they make money

because they are smart, that's their chief character. But we are

dealing with people who are actually crooks.

Garrett: Joses Tuhanuku is not the only one who talks like this.

Justice Tos Barnett said it in 1988 in a forward to his 27 volume

report on logging in Papua New Guinea. He wrote of loggers roaming

the countryside with a self assurance of robber barons, bribing

politicians and fooling the land holders. Even Australia's

Minister for Pacific Affairs, Gordon Bilney, talked about it in

Melbourne.

Bilney: All that said, we are increasingly concerned by the

problem of public maladministration, including corruption, in some

pacific island countries. Corruption is a cancer that robs a

country of its resources. It destroys the trust between

governments and people and it gravely threatens the long term

economic and social integrity of the countries which harbour

that corruption. People look to governments to act in the interest

of all citizens, not just a privileged and powerful minority and

history, I believe will judge particularly harshly those

individuals in Government who abuse positions of trust to line

their own pockets at the expense of their fellow citizens.

Garrett: Australia's fear is not only humanitarian. There's also

the issue that if these small pacific countries use up all their

resources the corruption and breakdown of society will get worse.

Already money laundering and drug trafficking is a big problem

throughout the Pacific. Eventually if populations continue to grow

and societies break down completely it's been suggested that

Australia may have to take people in as refugees. Joses Tuhanuku

was the first ever to go public about attempted corruption when he

was a minister in the Sir Francis Billy Hilly Government. He was

offered $US3000 by Tony Yeong, an employee of the Berjaya Group,

one of Malaysia's biggest business empires. He refused.

Tuhanuku: In the logging industry bribing people is part of the

industry. They have been bribing ministers of the Government. They

bribe landowners. They bribe certain chiefs. They bribe our

provincial ministers and so on. So bribery is actually part of the

logging industry and the reason is that most of these Malaysian

logging companies that operate there, probably that is how they do

business. In fact the person who tried to offer me some money, he

said that their company, it is a practice in the south pacific,

that they usually give some small present to government people who

assist them or facilitate what they are doing in the various

countries. So, actually it is a practice that is not restricted to

Solomon Islands. But I would say that in the logging industry

bribery and all other corrupt practices is part of the whole

thing.

Garrett: So they must have been very shocked when you refused?

Tuhanuku: Yes, this person was really surprised. He could not

understand why I could not accept it because probably in Solomon

Islands it may have been the first time because he was someone who

was already dealing with a lot of politicians at a national level

and a provincial level. But I could tell that he was expecting me

to receive what he termed as a gift.

Garrett: Tony Yeong admitted handing over the money. He denied it

was a bribe but resigned from Berjaya and left the Solomons. But

things didn't end there. During the next few months the Solomons

were in a state of turmoil. Sir Francis Billy Hilly, Prime

Minister over an uncomfortable coalition Government, had come in

with a swag of new ideas. The country was dragging the third world

chain. Malaria is rampant, only one in five people can read and

write, health services are poor. And on top of it all an expensive

Westminster system of Government inherited from the British.

Above all, the loggers had moved in with a vengeance after

Malaysia decided to put the breaks on logging in Sabah and

Sarawak. Billy Hilly and his Government started to clamp down on

it all. They wanted higher duty on timber, they wanted to stop

whole logs being exported and for timber to be processed inside

the Solomons, making control easier. And Australia was willing to

help with expertise and aid money. But the Solomons Government

under intense pressure began to crack. Eventually enough members

crossed the floor to bring the Billy Hilly Government down and

Tuhanuku says he knows why.

Tuhanuku: Now one thing that I know is that a lot of the members

of Cabinet and backbenchers who left the NCP Government and who

are now ministers in the present Government, they were lured

actively by logging companies. There is a company here run by

someone who used to be a Malaysian and who now claims to be a

Solomon Islands citizen and he is the person who coordinated all

that. This person by the name of Robert Goh, he is the person who

actually facilitating all the payments to be given to ministers

to leave NCP Government and to join the present Government. And I

believe that Robert Goh organised or coordinated all the money

that was given to mps, whether ministers or backbenchers of NCP,

to cross the floor, to join the opposition in order to have the

numbers and topple the Government.

Garrett: Now you are able to talk quite frankly about the level

of kickbacks and loopholes and bribes and sort of general

skulduggery going on. To an outsider it is surprising that given

that it is such common knowledge that nothing happens.

Tuhanuku: There is the general feeling of anger but people do just

do not know what to do.

Garrett: There is also an element of fear. The Solomon Islanders

don't have a culture of violence but tensions are running high as

the villagers show their resentment of timber companies being

given huge and cheap licences to clear fell indiscriminately. Many

people have bodyguards and there are an increasing number of

demonstrations and activism against loggers. There's talk of a

general strike. Some politicians have been brought before the

courts for bribery and corruption but the charges often go

nowhere. This month seven cabinet ministers are up on charges but

no one expects anything much to happen. Joses Tuhanuku when he was

in Government two years ago suspended one Malaysian company,

Sylvania, from logging near Marovo Lagoon. The reasons were

illegal and highly damaging practices. At the South Pacific Forum

in 1994 the Keating Government backed Tuhanuku with a debt for

nature swap. Australia would pay a $2 million debt if logging was

stopped around the lagoon, said to be one of the most beautiful

places in the world. A world heritage listing would be pursued. At

the same time Keating threw down a gauntlet with a stack of

Australian financed forestry research. He said that the Korean,

Indonesian and Malaysian loggers were guilty of environmental

piracy in the Solomons. Dr Mahathir, Malaysia's Prime Minister,

came back immediately, saying that this is an example of how a

jealous Keating believes that the South Pacific belongs to

Australia. Remember, this was all in mid-1994. From Solomon

Mamaloni, then in opposition, the pro-logging press releases shot

out daily. 'I call upon my friend Keating to put up or shut up and

stop interfering with the domestic affairs of Solomon Islands. He

should look after the wellbeing of aborigines in Australia before

making comments about the Government and people of Solomon

Islands. I do hope that the Australians employed at the ministry

of natural resources are not responsible for supplying statistical

information which is unofficial and fabricated.' Another sally

from the Mamaloni camp was that if Australia is so worried about

the environment why don't destructive Australian companies pull

out of Papua New Guinea. Meanwhile, Mamaloni made his move to rest

power from Billy Hilly even warning that Australia was about to

invade and had a ship and a Hercules plane and the military on

standby. It was all over by October. The suspension on Sylvania

was lifted and with Mamaloni back in power logging at Marovo

started up again. The Keating deal is off. Here is the Solomons

Foreign Affairs Minister, Danny Phillips.

Phillips: We see Australian assistance to Pacific Island Countries

as very, very important. But I think it is also where AusAid,

which areas monies are targeted toward is very, very important.

There is some sort of discord in what the country wants and what

Australia wants.

Garrett: It is probably no secret that Australia is looking at

logging policies in the Solomons and that one of the things that

both Paul Keating and the minister Gordon Bilney have talked about

is what they see as unsustainable logging in the Solomons. They

want that reined in, I guess.

Phillips: Australian AusAid money has been used for research work,

getting status down and trying to show us that these are the areas

that you need to work on. What people don't seem to understand is

that our revenue at the moment from the logging industry itself is

between 70 to 80 percent. That is producing $80 million a year.

Aid money, as we all know, is not in cash. They are in materials,

they in form of people,and I think to do a policy abruptly may

cost more damage to a small country like Solomon Islands than

good. If we suddenly stop logging now we have to forfeit $70 to

$80 million.

Garrett: People will say, won't they, that if those statistics

being collected are right that the logging will stop very suddenly

anyway in five or seven or 10 years because there will be no more

trees at the current rate of logging.

Phillips: That is true. We also believe, you know, the statistics

are saying something which is quite true.

Garrett: So even the Foreign Affairs Minister admits that they're

trapped and Danny Phillips also says that the figures put together

by the Australian aid and research are accurate. But his Prime

Minister says that they are not accurate and he hasn't hidden his

blustering irritation at these pesky Australian reports. He is

likely to be pleased that the Timber Control Unit will close down,

though it will mean 16 less jobs for local people. After all in

the past Mamaloni has savagely attacked the Timber Control Unit:

'The so called talented Australian consultants are engaging in a

disastrous campaign which obviously is calculated to discredit our

commercial partners who have invested substantial capital in the

forestry sector. These Australian consultants are found to be

engaged in openly injecting racial prejudice into Solomon Islands

society. We have been subjected to a campaign of blatant lies and

distortions of unthinkable proportions.'

Garrett: Mixed in with all this is the issue of racism, raised,

as your heard, in that press release, that it is a racist fear of

Asian economic power that drives Australia to take this highly

moralistic stand. Paul Chatterton.

Chatterton: I don't it is a racist thing at all. A small group

of particularly Malaysian businessmen, but they're not just

Malaysian, they're Chinese, they're Taiwanese, businessmen who run

logging operations across Melanesia who are ripping off landowners

and ripping off the country that they are working in. There is a

fairly common pattern that I see of exaggerated promises made to

landowners, small bribes to communities and then the bulldozers

roll in and they see nothing for the logs that are taken out.

Garrett: So your point is that there is nothing particularly

racist about it, it is just a fact that they happen to be

Malaysian. They could just as easily be German or Danish or South

American.

Chatterton: Well, that's right. We're working closely with

Malaysians and Taiwanese and Hongkong based people to try and

change it as well. There are a lot of people in those countries

who are very upset about how their countrymen are operating in

Melanesia. So, it is not a racist thing. It is a particular group

of businessmen who are using very corrupt practices.

Garrett: It is a problem though, isn't it, in these magazines

that I've shown you and the cartoons I've got here that the logger

is depicted as a fat, greedy, ugly Asian eating trees and

depriving the local people of their resources.

Chatterton: That is unfortunate. I think it tars all Asians,

all Malaysians, with the same brush which is a bit sad. And I

know, I've sat in on meetings where NGOs, community groups, have

been discussing the use of these sort of images and there is an

internal debate within Melanesia about whether they should use

these. On one side people say it is racist, on the other side

people say, well it is. This is the easiest image we can get

across to communities of this particular type of business person.

it is a difficult one.

Garrett: AusAid did subcontract some work some years ago where

these cartoons were used but they have withdrawn them now.

Chatterton: Yes. I think we certainly shouldn't buy into any

racist images. It does no one any good.

Garrett: The thing is it's quite important because it can be very

easily used as a distraction from the main issue which is that the

logging is happening and that is having a cataclysmic effect on

island countries throughout Melanesia.

Chatterton: That is exactly right. The situation is going crazy

across Melanesia. I have spent two weeks in the Sepik in PNG

watching a Hongkong based company bribe communities and get them

to sign the back page of a contract that they saw none of the

other pages of.

Garrett: What about the charge that Australia is being

hypocritical because we too have large companies operating in

these countries, copper being the obvious one.

Chatterton: That is right. Our record in the mining sector is

pretty atrocious. You just have to look at Bougainville, at Ok

Tedi, at Porgera which Mount Isa Mines has input into, Lihir is

about to open up which will have disastrous effects. We are

calling it Ok Tedi by the sea. It will pump an enormous amount of

tailings into the Pacific Ocean. Australia has got a dreadful

record. All that says is that we've all got to clean our act up.

Garrett: That's Paul Chatterton who heads the World Wide Fund for

Nature projects in Melanesia. There are diplomatic trip wires for

the Australian Government across the region. The largest logging

network in the Solomons is dominated by the Fuzhou clan of ethnic

Chinese. This is one of the biggest and most successful networks

in business right across Asia. In the Solomons it is some

businessmen from this very powerful group that are being accused

and Joses Tuhanuku is scathing about some of these people.

Tuhanuku: Let's take some the people we are talking about.

Actually they are not Malays in terms of being a race. They are of

Chinese origin who moved to Malaysia so many generations back and

some of them are living in Australia, probably they have already

taken out Australian citizenship, or they are there on permanent

residency and my impression is that these people, some of them

even come to Solomon Islands and decide they want to be Solomon

Islands citizens. My impression of these people is that they have

no loyalty to any of these countries. They are there to serve one

person and that is themselves. So these people here, they are

people without conscience ...

Garrett: That's a pretty big thing to say.

Tuhanuku: They are there to make big money, however they make that

money does not matter.

Garrett: Do you feel free to say that, to make that kind of

accusation in the Solomons?

Tuhanuku: Well, the thing is that my reading of the people that I

have been dealing with is that, you know, they are the sort of

people who will do anything to make money. And that is why I say

that there is no boundary to the method they are quite willing to

employ. And I don't think they will say, this is not straight,

this is not correct. If you are willing to bribe a minister to

change the Government, if you are willing to bribe the minister to

give you a licence, why would you think it is not correct to

employ other methods but conceded by people normally as a crooked

way of doing things or dishonest. I mean if you think that those

things are all right you can do anything.

Garrett: Pulling out of Honiara Harbour is exciting. The ferry is

full of cargo and people returning to their villages with food and

clothes, mats, cooking things, petrol and video players. We're

heading for the Russell Islands. At Yandina we change to a canoe

with an outboard motor. And further out in the islands we go past

the Pavuvu logging site. So we have pulled over close to where the

logging camp is and it is hard to tell how many logs, a couple of

hundred, no there are some more over there, maybe a couple of

thousand logs, but it's very difficult from this distance to see

how big they are or get any feeling at all for what kind of trees

they are but just piles and piles of logs, some huts with

corrugated iron roofs. Everything looks quite from here. There is

just sort of a big open space down by the sea. The logging goes on

inland and we can't see it from here but they tell me that that's

where they would be now. We won't go too close because there are

field police in there and Malaysian company people and they don't

like you to get too close. They probably wouldn't like it if they

knew an outsider was on the boat. They try to keep everybody away.

And then to see Nelson Ratu, former Premier of the Central

Province, who lost his position because he insisted on a detailed,

black and white logging agreement.

Ratu: My provincial executive looked through the proposal, the

proposal for logging on Pavuvu and my executive have decided

against it because of the impact logging issues or logging

problems bring about. So we decided not to allow or issue any

licence to the Maving Brothers to log on Pavuvu. This does not

mean that we totally do not want any development to happen within

central province but I think the important part is that we should

see that there is a proper agreement is reached in black and

white, signed by the Provincial Government, so whatever problem

may arise later on we can easily fix it up. In the end I did not

issue a provincial business licence to Maving Brothers. Finally

they find a way to get rid of me.

Garrett: Nelson Ratu was surprised that people who'd been against

logging quite suddenly were for it.

Ratu: This is where one area I believe that they must have

been influenced by certain leaders of the Government so that

finally turned around and went against me. I do not totally put

out the question of influencing by money.

Garrett: So logging went ahead on Pavuvu and now the top soil

washes into the streams and the sea. Families on nearby islands

are still trying to stop the logging. There have been raids to

burn bulldozers and Jocinta Lovasa went over with some New

Zealanders from Greenpeace to get evidence, among other things

like they are logging to close to the river banks, they

found that up to 80 percent of the trees logged were too small.

Lovasa: We went on Sunday early in the morning about five. We

went across, then they went up to the bridge. They photographed

that bridge and then look around and photograph all those trees

that they cut and the way the bulldozers have pulled the logs

across the river bed. Then they came back. Then we went to the

camp. They counted two heaps of logs, one was 106 and out of 106

only 23 were over size. The rest were all under size. The larger

heap was 216 and out of that 216, 83 were over size. The rest were

under size. There are a lot of logs but 80 percent or 90 percent

were under size.

Garrett: Back in Honiara things are tense. The Governor of the

Central Bank, Rick Hou, is being investigated for mismanagement

because he has refused to lend the Government any more money.

Taxes are going up again, the roads are bad, the cost of living

has doubled, and gossip and stories of cosy deals and rake offs

and who suddenly seems to have an inordinate amount of money is

common. Even the churches have begun to talk politics for the

first time. This is Archbishop Adrian Smith.

Smith: People are beginning to want to, as it were,

departmentalise us. They want to see the church as something that

happens on Sunday, but I think that the churches feel that they

must touch every part of life and the prophetic role of the

churches demands that we speak if we think that the people are

being cheated or denied their rights.

Garrett: One of the issues with forestry is not only the trees

will be gone and therefore a source of income but the breakdown of

village life and of family life. Is that what you are alluding to?

Smith: Yes because the selling of resources is creating a whole

new social problem. Before the people who were chiefs in the

society, they were more or less custodians on behalf of the

people. And now the term landowner is being used and that term is

being used in the sense of exclusive. So a few are getting the

benefits while the large number of the population are just being

left out.

Garrett: And unions are getting edgy. The Solomon Islands are 80

percent unionised. An irritant for years has been the Asian

workers brought in to do work that the Solomon Islanders could do.

Tony Kangaei.

Kangaei: When we check up some of the payrolls in the logging

industries we find out what they have been claiming is not

correct. The legal minimum wage here in the Solomons is 74 cents

per hour and some of the Asians who come in here and work as chain

saw operators, dump truck drivers are paid $10 per hour. It's not

cheap.

Garrett: Is there bitterness on the ground over this issue of

importing of Asian labour?

Kangaei: Of course. There is high opposition to having Asians in

the camps because they know nothing about Solomon Island culture

and customs of the place that they usually cause troubles within

the camps and a few Asians have been stabbed, have been harmed by

nationals because of that.

Garrett: Now at the same time the economy of Solomon Islands is

in crisis really. The Central Bank, it's at loggerheads with the

Mamaloni Government, there's a new tax - two cents in every dollar

of all transactions which is effecting ordinary people very much.

Kangaei: Those Bills are immoral bills. We have never seen such

bills come into place in history. We are calling on the Government

to throw those bills out. If they continue on to impose those

bills there will be industrial unrest in the country.

Garrett: And the unkindest cut of all. The Governor of the

Central Bank has cut off the money.

Hou: What the Board of the Central Bank has done is basically

stopped further advances and credit to the Government. Lending

from the Central Bank to the Government is governed under our law

and this law requires us to lend to the Government to a certain

limit only. We have reached that limit and that's what the Board

has decided. We are not here to break laws, we are here to operate

legally and do things within our means but ensuring that we don't

break any laws. If you ask me why people still saying there

may be an answer, well I don't see a lot of answers except to cut

down expenditure.

Garrett: Solomon Mamaloni has come up with one answer which is to

change the laws so that the Central Bank can lend more money. In

other words he will legislate to raise the ceiling. That's his

answer.

Hou: That is a very quick answer and a very short term one and I

think anyone should know that what is being proposed here is just

for the Central Bank to open its doors to more lending and as such

what will be happening is us printing more money. Everyone knows

that when we start printing money where the value of this money is

going to be. It is going to be more and more worthless.

Garrett: Your own personal situation is a little bit uncertain

because Solomon Mamaloni has made it quite clear that he would

like to get you out of the way. He sees you as an obstacle at the

moment.

Hou: I don't know how seriously he is, I mean everybody has heard

him say he is going to establish a tribunal to investigate the way

I have been conducting affairs in the bank. I am looking forward

to answering what ever questions the tribunal would ask me.

Garrett: In the midst of all this in the hills above Honiara is

the office of the BRA, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. It's

unofficial but it's tolerated. There are about 2,000 Bougainville

refugees in the Solomons. The BRA Embassy is in a big house next

to the one owned by the previous Prime Minister, Sir Francis Billy

Hilly. There is contact with Bougainville three times a day. I'm

talking to Joseph Kabui, vice-president of the interim Government.

Garrett: Hullo, this is Kirsten Garrett from ABC radio,

Background Briefing in Australia. I'm in Honiara. Can you tell me

what the mood is in Bougainville since the two Papua New Guinea

soldiers were killed a few days ago.

Kabui: (Not understandable - crackly two way)

Garrett: He says the Bougainville Interim Government will never

give up. To Paul Keating he has a message that Australia is in a

proxy war in Bougainville, a war that will not be won. Australia

should stop providing arms and military aid and training to PNG.

The Bougainvilleans would have won a long time ago, he says, if

was not for aid from Australia.

Garrett: Martin Miriori is in charge here and lives with his wife

and children. He's on a United Nations passport and his position

in Honiara is sensitive.

Miriori: For that reason we have always tried to play a low key

on the BRA side.

Garrett: Nevertheless Julius Chan could not be happy with you

being here. Has the PNG Government tried to get rid of you.

Miriori: They have tried to in the last two, three years,

continuously asked the Solomon Islands Government even to the

extent of signing an extradition treaty to get me out from here

and also on a number of occasions there have been hit squads being

sent up here to try and get at me. In fact I can cite one incident

where an army officer crossed the border with an m16. He was

caught and thrown into prison and his assignment was to get at me.

Garrett: So a PNG army officer came across the border into the

Solomons and his assignment was to kill you.

Miriori: Yes. That is correct. But anyway that mission failed.

That man ended up serving nine months down at the prison.

Garrett: Your office here is quite well set up and you obviously

have all sorts of contact with people all over the world. Where

does the money come from to keep you here?

Miriori: I am a very, very strong Christian and Bougainvilleans

are by nature very strong Christians. If we stand for justice, if

we stand to protect the rights of the people, the good Lord

provides that, it naturally just comes to us. I think that is how

I can answer that question.

Garrett: Martin Miriori at the command of Solomon Mamaloni is no

longer allowed to be broadcast on Solomon Islands radio, though

Mamaloni has said he won't send refugees back across the border

until there are no more hostilities. Mamaloni has also said that

the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation isn't allowed to

broadcast anything about logging in the Russell Islands. News of

the murder of Martin Apa, for instance, was not in the Solomons

press till five weeks after it happened. Journalists have been

sacked for not taking a correct line on logging stories.

Mamaloni's dictatorial and idiosyncratic ways have been a problem

for the Australian Government for years. Last September, Gordon

Bilney gave a speech in Melbourne warning that Australia may be

about to take a tougher stand.

Bilney: Thank you very much indeed, distinguished guests, ladies

and gentlemen.

Garrett: Gordon Bilney said that many things have improved but ..

Bilney: There has been progress made but there is a lot further

to go and it's a sad fact that in some countries of our region

greedy, destructive resource harvesting still goes on, often by

unscrupulous foreign firms which do not have a commitment to the

welfare of the people of the region, in the forestry sector in

particular.

Garrett: A bit rich it has been said given that Australia is not

unblemished in its business activities in Melanesia.

Bilney: But it follows from this that our aid support will

increasingly be directed to those countries where Government

policies reflect a serious and a responsible approach to economic

development and resource management and nobody should be surprised

if in future Australia is less and less willing to assist those

countries in the region which are laying waste their economies and

squandering their own resources.

Garrett: Some of the loggers talk through the Solomon Islands

Forest Industries Association, though the majority of companies

aren't members. Their spokesman is an Australian, Eric Kes. He

came to the hotel in Honiara with Ronny Teo, of Earth Movers group

of companies, one of the big loggers in the Solomons. But Kes did

the talking and on the record through him the loggers are

conciliatory.

Kes: The industry is aware of the criticism which is levelled at

the forest industry and the Solomon Islands. However, the industry

is of the view that it is here to do a job within given parameters

and there can be no question that this industry as is very often

portrayed highly destructive and the Solomon Islands Forest

Industries Association which does not comprise all the companies,

only the major companies, has stated time and again that it

supports the concept of sustainability and the industry wants to

be involved in the determination of sustainable logging.

Garrett: A figure that is used in most reports that I've seen

related to this is that sustainable logging in the Solomons is

probably around 300 - 320,000 cubic metres per year and the reason

that there is such a lot of anxiety and concern about it all is

that estimates are that the moment its up to 800,000 a year.

Kes: Yes, the figure of 325,000 at this point in time is rejected

by the industry. It may be anything between 300 and 500,000 cubic

metres per annum. However, the exact figure has not yet been

determined and negotiated. The level of 800,000 cubic metres is

exaggerated. Last year's exports was 623,000 cubic metres and this

year is expected to be of similar magnitude.

Garrett: That's still twice the sustainable amount and it's

estimated that there is about a 25 percent under reporting of the

number of logs actually going onto the ships anyway and as well of

course they're under priced and under taxed.

Kes: We are fully aware of the fact that in the past there might

have been instances where things could have done better but this

Association is of the opinion that it does not help to dwell on

the past but look positively into the future and this Association

is initiating a number of initiatives in order to be pro actively

involved in the development of a sustainable forest industry. Just

to keep on accusing this industry doesn't get us anywhere. But we

reject sinister and cynical accusations, very often unfounded, and

as such that is all I can say.

Garrett: The Industry Association says that it agrees with

Mamaloni that the AusAid figures are no good and says that no

inventory has been done to use as a benchmark. But it has. It cost

Australia $4.5 million and it was finished in 1994. But Solomon

Mamaloni shelved it.

Garrett: Meanwhile, far out in the Coral Sea the logging boats

come and go and the bulldozers roar. The night lights keep the

logging going 24 hours a day. We go to Loura, one of the Russell

Islands and home of the group that has been most active in trying

the stop the Maving Brothers logging on Pavuvu Island. Bartholomew

Apa is their chief.

Bartholomew Apa: People plenty no like logging.

Garrett: Why not?

Bartholomew Apa: (not understandable)

Garrett: Are you saying that it is really part of your land?

Bartholomew Apa: Yes (rest not understandable)

Garrett: Bartholomew Apa, the chief on Loura. His son, Martin

Apa, also talked to Background Briefing that day, as you will

hear. But Martin Apa was murdered some weeks later, his neck

broken and pierced by a sharp object, and his body was found in

the sea, near the harbour at Yandina. So far no one has been

charged with his death, but the circumstances point to it being a

way of intimidating the community. Earlier in the year Martin

Apa was one of a group that had gone over to Pavuvu one night and

burnt three bulldozers on the logging site. As he talked, six

weeks or so before his death, you'll hear his pet baby parrot

curious about the microphone.

Martin Apa: We tried to put a stand on it. We cannot do it

because the Government at the same time bring military force in

there. We went there several times. Every time they see me there

they wanted to push me out from that place but I told them, how

come you want to push me out from this place while this land is

mine. That is what I always tell them.

Garrett: When you say they chased you out, who is they?

Martin Apa: (not understandable) police in the field force.

Garrett: So they were sent out by the Government to protect the

company.

Martin Apa: Protect the company. We feel we are not the ones

that the Government (not understandable) the Russells but he only

saves the company, the Malaysian company, the foreign company. He

doesn't want to listen to us. We did it because the Government

provoked us, saying that the Russell Islanders were not doing

anything to that company. They have no guts to do it. That is why

we did it.

Garrett: To show that you did have the guts.

Martin Apa: To show that we did have the guts, that's right.

Garrett: Was there, did they come and get you, what happened

afterwards? We heard about it Australia but we did not hear what

happened to you the people who did it.

Martin Apa: Police came and took some of them. So when they

didn't want to tell them the police have to slap them, some of

them, put them in the cell for a couple of hours and they

threatened them to punch them until they can say something but

most of the other boys didn't want to say anything because we told

them we will talk in court.

Garrett: Martin Apa didn't get to court. He was murdered last

October and police are still investigating.

ENDS

### RELAYED TEXT ENDS HERE ###

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