Claiming Ownership of the Ok Tedi Mine, PNG By

«If you don’t believe our story, at least give us half of the money»: Claiming Ownership of the Ok Tedi Mine, PNG by Tony CROOK* ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories Depuis le début de 1984, des gens de la région de of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubilan mine- Ningerum font état de mauvaises récoltes, d’eau ayant site at Ok Tedi have been reported by people in the un goûtdésagréable et d’histoires de liens ancestraux Ningerum area since early 1984. In September 2000, a avec le site minier du mont Fubilan à Ok Tedi. En new generation presented a petition on behalf of the septembre 2000, une nouvelle génération présenta une West Ningerum Pressure Association. The document pétition de la part de la West Ningerum Pressure Asso- had very carefully screened out any traces of customary ciation. Le document avait soigneusement éradiqué explanation, and presented the case as if a manifest of toute trace d’explication coutumière et présenta le cas poor crops, unfruitful trees, poor water, sparse river life, comme si les mauvaises récoltes, les arbres qui don- dried out foliage, and rocks now slippery with moss were naient peu de fruits, la mauvaise eau, le peu de vie the measurable effects of the mine wastes believed to be fluviale, le feuillage desséché et les rochers couverts entering their river systems from underground. It also maintenant d’une mousse glissante, étaient les effets left out any trace of a tunnel used by spirits and the mesurables des déchets miniers que l’on soupçonnait people who would trade with them and by which fecund d’entrer dans leur système fluvial par des voies souter- water or blessings would flow into the landscape, and left raines. Il omettait également toute trace d’un tunnel out any trace of the second phase of claiming ownership utilisé par les esprits et les gens qui commerçaient avec over the entire mine deposit. This paper analyses these eux et par lequel de l’eau fertile ou des bénédictions events in terms of regional concerns with revelation and s’écoulaient dans le paysage et toute trace de la concealment ¢ as if a claim must necessarily comprise deuxième phase de revendication foncière sur la totalité both as halves to an equation ¢ and looks at how these du dépôt de la mine. Cet article analyse ces événements concerns are presented in ownership negotiations which en terme des préoccupations régionales, de révélation et depend on eliciting sympathy and recognition of a claim, de dissimulation ¢ comme si une revendication devait rather than putting demands into words. comprendre les deux moitiésd’une équation ¢ et étudie comment ces préoccupations sont présentées dans les K: West Ningerum, Ok Tedi mine, Papua négociations foncières, susceptibles d’éveiller la compas- New-Guinea, property, negotiation. sion et la reconnaissance d’une revendication, plutôt que d’être l’expression des demandes. M- : West Ningerum, mine Ok Tedi, Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée, propriété,négociation. * University of St Andrews, [email protected] Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 125, année 2007-2 222 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES Revealing the problem 1988). The response to these tragic events brou- ght to the fore and demonstrated the skill with The Ok Tedi copper mine, situated in Papua which people across the North Fly region of New Guinea’s Star Mountains close to the inter- Western Province were able to perceive, elicit and national border with Indonesia, is well known disguise a division of interests between disputing for the chronic environmental impacts due to parties, and also the considerable force lent to mine waste and tailings disposal into the Ok Tedi relations by making one aspect of them absent. river (e.g. World Bank report, 2000), for the legal Indeed, as I have argued elsewhere (Crook, case pursued by the floodplain Yonggom people 2007), this aesthetic of presenting only «half» through the Australian courts (Kirsch 2006) and and in turn anticipating that there always for the debate it has stimulated over the position remains a hidden «half» ¢ such that the effect of of academic knowledge in what has been termed what is made «clear» is locally understood to be the «resource wars» (see Ballard and Banks, provided by what remains «hidden» ¢ provides 2003 for a summary). The court case was a defi- one part of the answer to why anthropology has ning moment for the operation and relations in long taken Min knowledge-practices to be quin- the area ¢ leading to the majority shareholder tessentially about «secrecy» (e.g. Barth, 1975, Broken Hill Propriety () signalling in 1999 its 1987). But rather than the familiar notion of a intention to exit the project, to the World Bank separate domain of knowledge providing social investigation and a government-led consultation solidarity to a separate domain of people (e.g. with mine-affected communities in 2000. Ulti- Herdt, 2003) my argument is that Min mately, in 2002, reached a settlement to knowledge relies for its effects on this form of transfer its 52 % equity in the project in exchange division whereby what is made «clear» depends for indemnity against liability for long-term on what is «hidden» (to provide a «base» for environmental damages, and the Ok Tedi 9th action), and whereby what is treated as «clear» Supplemental Agreement or Mine Continuation depends on what is treated as «hidden» (in that Agreement was negotiated with downstream moment, for that purpose). In other words, what affected communities. But even in late 2000, the has otherwise been taken as secret and non- impact of the Yonggom case on the project was secret components, is better analysed through such that when I arrived in Tabubil, one Ok Tedi Min idioms and as being relatively constituted Mining Limited () Environment Officer and context specific. told me that «everything has changed: there are This article develops and extends these argu- no more stories to tell about Ok Tedi». ments through a study of the West Ningerum My own engagement with the social impacts Pressure Associations petition (, 2000) for of the mine had begun in the mid-1990s during compensation for damages extending along the an ethnographic study of knowledge-practices, full course of two rivers which, although even- taro horticulture and male cult «secrecy» in the tually discharging into the Ok Tedi river (south Angkaiyakmin village of Bolivip, located some of Ningerum station, north of the Yonggom three days walk east of Tabubil mining township floodplain), have their headwaters in a geogra- (Crook, 1999), and when in the aftermath of two phically separate watershed south of the Mt. plane crashes became involved in the res- Fubilan mine site. The Petition resembles a cue operations only to see the mine operations scientific report, and is a remarkable document temporarily closed (Crook, 2000). Then, as in for many reasons ¢ amongst them are the forms what would become known as the Yonggom-led of evidence offered, the absences of any refe- «downstream compensation debate» (Banks and rence to a cosmological connection between Mt. Ballard, 1997), the awkward relations between Fubilan and the fertility of Ningerum lands, nor the PNG State as shareholder and regula- (as one of the authors was quick to point out) tor, and the corporation as de facto regio- any mention of the Petition’s primary ambition: nal government were deliberately aggravated by to ultimately claim ownership of the Ok Tedi local pressure groups attempting to make expli- mine site. Indeed, this absence was held to lend cit and pin down these shifting responsibilities. force to this initial compensation claim. The At the time, considerable effort went into mas- Petition was presented to and the PNG king local internal differentiation, and into pre- government and, as we will see, had been expli- cisely differentiating which particular facet of citly written with these actors in mind. My focus the government and company they wished to is on the actors who authored the text, activate and make responsible. their narratives about the design, content and In drawing forth one basis for action, then, year-long drafting process, on what they had to others had to be temporarily eclipsed (Strathern, say about their intentions and ambitions for CLAIMING OWNERSHIP OF THE OK TEDI MINE, PNG 223 presenting their case in this particular textual rain» (3.2.2), and «over-bank flooding» (6.0), form, and on their two-fold strategy that saw they hoped, by speaking the language of natural them eclipsing the full extent of the damages, science, that their complaints would be readily any reference to their own customary understan- understood. The «Petition on the demand of dings of the effects, and temporarily eclipsing a compensation claims» sets out its concerns in the planned follow-up move to sue for the ownership following terms: of the Ok Tedi mine itself. Alongside these «The Oktarim, Birim is one of the river systems that absences, I have elsewhere analysed an analo- has its source within Mount Fubilan in the Star gous tactic (Crook, 2004): one leader Mountain Ranges where giant Ok Tedi Copper Mine explained how he assumed it was enough to is operated.» silently present a troubled figure displaying his The Petition argues that: plight and rely on the authorities to recognize «The river system has never been authorized by the this, and to feel sorrow and think how they might State of Papua New Guinea and the business operator satisfy the people he represented. Of course, this () with due considerations and discussions with the can also look like no claims are being made, local river communities. Agreements of any sort were rather than a claim on the other party’s never considered and made by concerned parties to distinctly-human capacity to think and to feel cater for any pollution compensation claims that may sorrow.

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