Antony Loewenstein

My following investigation appears in Crikey today:

The rusted air vent is deafening and a whoosh echoes around the pit. Copper-polluted water sits in a pool nearby and trees are starting to take over the graded hillside. Rocky, uneven ground is where locals pan for gold, hoping to find a few grams to make some money for families living in nearby villages. Seven kilometres wide at its broadest point, the Rio Tinto-controlled Bougainville copper mine in Papua New Guinea hasn’t been in operation for nearly 25 years, yet still dominates the local landscape.

Dozens of massive trucks lie inoperable. Oil drips from their engines and runs downstream. A loud, machine-like sound is heard in the pit. The vent is sucking air directly into a pipe that takes water outside the mine itself. It is this device that allows the mine not to fill up completely with water when it rains constantly during the rainy season. It has been making this booming sound 24 hours a day for the past two decades.

The island’s brutal war from 1989 to 1997 caused the death of many thousands, maimed countless others and involved Australia arming, training and funding Port Moresby to oppose the rebellion. Former PNG leader Michael Somare accuses Rio Tinto of violently suppressing rebels opposed to the mine during the “crisis”.

Bougainvilleans may have won the war but the peace has left years of inertia, and a province desperately in need of rehabilitation.

The town closest to Panguna mine, Awara, feels stuck in time, old buildings are devoured by lush jungle, Shell and Mobil service stations decay on the side of the road. The locals are used to the poor infrastructure and housing and there are few active services for the dwindling population.

“The mine was never really closed,” says Josephine, manager of the Arawa Women’s Training Centre. “Workers and the company just fled.”

Rio Tinto refuses to properly clean up its mess. Kilometres of tailings — waste dumped by mine operators — have caused a once clear river and land to be turned into desert.

“I remember when this used to be all green back in the 1960s,” says Willy, in faded polo shirt, grey shorts and bare feet, a former leader in the Bougainville Revolutionary Army who accompanies me to the area. “We used to tell the mine owners for years that they were polluting everything but they ignored us. We had no choice but to fight for our rights over the land.”

The local community is divided over whether to try and reopen the mine as a healthy source of income before a planned independence referendum in the next years or develop adventure tourism and sustainable farming.

The owner of the mine, Bougainville Copper Limited, has a website that claims its future is bright. Peter Taylor, chairman and managing director of Bougainville Copper, told Radio Australia in 2011 that he was ready to reopen the mine but he made no comment about cleaning up the ecological disaster his company created last time. He blamed some “small but strong [local] pockets of opposition” to his firm’s re-entry.

The only person I meet who adamantly opposes any kind of mining is the man who protects a checkpoint that every Westerner has to pass to enter the mining area. I visit “Commander Alex” the day before my visit to explain the purpose of my trip and obtain permission. A $100 fee is paid, and an invoice issued, to prove I am there for the right reasons. He says he will stay at the checkpoint until compensation is fully paid to all those deserve it. He lives at the checkpoint 24 hours a day.

Willy’s fears reflect many people’s that I hear. He worries about further ecological catastrophe if Panguna re-establishes itself but is torn between dual desires; supporting a young population who are currently experiencing a baby boom while also providing adequate compensation for the former fighters and families who suffered during the “crisis” (the only word I hear used to describe the bloodshed).

Nobody has faith in politicians in either Bougainville or Port Moresby and Willy knows Canberra talks about avoiding “failed states” on its doorstep. For this reason, he worries Australia will not support independence for the province. But perhaps China will, he suggests, and exert influence as they are currently doing in East Timor, Mongolia and beyond.

A man in his early 60s who lives in a decaying weatherboard house on the outskirts of Awara, Willy told me he hasn’t seen his young grandchildren for five years because they live in an inaccessible area near town and he can’t afford to hire a truck to get there.

Individuals in Bougainville acknowledge the economic weakness of their position if they want independence. They need investment, trust and foreign capital. One of the former leaders of the Bougainville revolution, Samuel Kauona, is upbeat, however.

He tells me about his vision for the island, namely independence and sustainable mining. He talks about the 500-year history of foreign powers, including Australia, not allowing Bougainville to exercise autonomy. For him, keeping the massive mineral wealth in local hands is essential: “This is why we fought the war.”

Samuel is shortly to present to the Bougainville Autonomous Government the first mining exploration since the end of the “crisis”, a desire to examine land that he believes contains gold and silver (conservative estimates I hear claim that billions of dollars worth of gold, copper and silver remain undiscovered in the province). Only then will overseas companies be allowed to assist locals in exploiting the resources but Bougainville landowners will be the primary driver of the projects.

He explains how his insurgency beat the PNG army, its patron, the Australian government and Rio Tinto in the “crisis”. His men knew the terrain and opponents were no match for their guerilla tactics. Kauona says that the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan faced the same adversary but arrogantly believed they could win with counter-insurgency tactics.

Perhaps Samuel’s most provocative suggestion is to cut Australia’s aid budget to PNG (Canberra currently gives close to $500 million annually). “I would stop all the aid tomorrow,” he says. “It’s not making people self-sufficient.” He has little time for the influx of old men in parliament in Moresby and Bougainville. “We need young people to lead [a not too subtle dig at Michael Somare, a man for whom I find no support on the island].”

Samuel would not be pleased with a view I heard in Port Moresby from some local NGO employees who say they hope and pray Australia reclaims control over PNG and teaches them to properly manage the nation. I respond by saying I can’t think of any other example globally where the formerly colonised request the coloniser to control them again. “Things are desperate here,” one responds tartly.

These sentiments are not universal. Bougainville hotel manager Josephine, a strong figure in her ’50s with fuzzy black and blonde hair and blue-and-red dress, explains that her vision is for Western tourists to come and hike around Bougainville and a robust agricultural sector flourishing in the fertile ground. The record of Panguna mine is so bad, she says, that it is almost unimaginable for it to return.

*Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist currently writing a book about vulture capitalism

After America’s first national BDS conference, the Jewish Forward newspaper explains the “threat” from the Zionist community’s perspective; who can seriously deny equal rights for everybody inside Israel and Palestine (oh, apart from liberal Zionists who cling to the two state solution delusion and rejectionists and the Zionist lobby who just love occupying Palestinians)?:

The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — long painted as a fringe group by the Israel advocacy community — is seeking to wrap itself in the mantle of the mainstream American left. At the movement’s first-ever national conference, presenters and attendees compared BDS to the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott, the Cesar Chavez grape boycott and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, from which it draws inspiration.

They also worried about how to brand themselves in easily accessible sound bites.

“Palestine has to become part of the American vocabulary in the way Americans learn about and digest information, like in the kinds of magazines you read in the laundromat,” said Sarah Schulman, a professor of English at the City University of New York who spoke at the conference, held at the University of Pennsylvania the first weekend in February. “We have to brand BDS as something alive, progressive, increasingly available, with a human face, something Americans can relate to.”

But Penn’s Israel advocacy community greeted all this with a cold shoulder. Rather than protest the event, Rabbi Mike Uram, director of Penn Hillel, urged the group’s pro-Israel member organizations to steer clear of the program, lest they legitimize the BDS movement by drawing attention to it.

“On Penn’s campus, people don’t know what BDS is,” Uram said. “To engage in a conversation is to raise them to a level that they are not at.”

“Spending our time and resources and efforts standing outside, protesting the event, says that this is mainstream political discourse,” added Noah Feit, a sophomore who is president of Penn Friends of Israel. “We decided not to stage a protest, because we prefer not to legitimize radical political discourse. We think there are better and more effective forums to express our opinions.”

This contrast — a nascent pro-Palestinian movement craving legitimacy, with the Jewish establishment ignoring it — was a surprising outcome of what some had expected to be a volatile few days on an Ivy League campus with a large percentage of Jewish students and graduates. Area Jewish leaders had signed on to advertisements decrying the conference; some criticized the university for even allowing it to occur.

…

At the conference, which was organized by the 15-member Penn BDS group, there was talk of positioning the initiative as a democracy movement. A student activist media handbook circulating at the conference admonished BDS proponents to “infuse our language with values like freedom, equal rights, democracy, etc. This allows you to speak to Americans in terms they understand. Most can’t define Zionism, but freedom and equality are easy terms for most people to conceptualize. Emphasizing shared values also allows you to connect with Americans on both an emotional and intellectual level.”

That message was echoed by Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian rights activist and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website. “We are fighting for rights people have fought for all over the world,” Abunimah said in his well-attended keynote speech. “We have to link this struggle to so many other struggles in this country and around the world.”

This story in the Wall Street Journal is typical of reporting on PNG. “Development” is framed as the saviour of this nation, despite the fact that decades of resource exploitation has left the vast bulk of citizens poor.

I’m currently in the country researching a book on disaster capitalism, filming a documentary and a host of other thangs, so such articles merely bring fatigue. Note the complete lack of local voices. In fact, having travelling around here for 3 weeks, a key component of how Western multinationals view the place is that land-owners are routinely shunned or bought off:

Royal Dutch Shell is getting serious in its pursuit of a piece of Papua New Guinea’s oil and gas wealth.

Around six months after signing a strategic alliance with Papua New Guinea’s state oil company, the Anglo-Dutch oil major is setting up a representative office in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

Shell’s strategic alliance with Petromin, signed Aug. 18, includes a joint study of major basins in Papua New Guinea with the potential to contain big oil and gas deposits. The study is due to be completed this year, and could be a springboard for Petromin and Shell to participate in projects together.

“The opening of the office affirms Shell’s interest to invest in Papua New Guinea and offers opportunities for us to work more closely with our partner, Petromin,” Ton Ten Have, Shell’s Vice President Commercial Asia, said in a prepared statement.

According to a BP study, Papua New Guinea had 15.6 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves of natural gas at the end of 2010. That figure likely underestimates the true resource as Papua New Guinea has been lightly explored up to now.

“We welcome the increased presence of Shell and believe it will further facilitate our close cooperation for future opportunities in Papua New Guinea,” said Joshua Kalinoe, Petromin’s managing director. “Together with Petromin, Shell will help Papua New Guinea realise the full potential of its energy resources.”

Shell’s move comes as several companies look to bring in partners on projects in Papua New Guinea.

InterOil said Sept. 30 it had mandated Macquarie Capital, Morgan Stanley and UBS to find a strategic partner for its proposed multibillion dollar Gulf LNG project. Citing a person familiar with the situation, Deal Journal Australia reported Feb. 7 that Korea Gas is in talks to form a consortium with Mitsui and Japan Petroleum Exploration to join InterOil’s project.

Separately, Canada’s Talisman Energy last year appointed Sydney-based advisory RFC Corporate Finance to find an investor for four licenses in the forelands of western Papua New Guinea, which contain a mix of gas discoveries and exploration targets.

ASX-listed Oil Search also opened a data room on its offshore gas fields in the Gulf of Papua in the final quarter of 2011, and has already held preliminary talks with international companies with LNG expertise.

Amira Hass in Haaretz explains:

News came this week of three individual battles against Israel’s discriminatory regime that have scored gains. Bedouin from the Jahalin tribe will not be expelled to a community next to the Abu Dis dump, and their school will not be demolished. A tender for a luxury development in Lifta, a Palestinian village on the western outskirts of Jerusalem, destroyed in 1948, was withdrawn by court order. And Munther Fahmi, the Jerusalem-born owner of the bookstore in East Jerusalem’s American Colony Hotel, will be allowed to remain in the city of his birth. Millions of hours of work and immeasurable amounts of endurance on the part of Palestinians has paid off.

Perhaps it was the Jahalin ecological school made of used tires, in the Khan al-Ahmar community, that pierced the thick Israeli hide and drew enough international attention to make the Israeli destruction authorities think twice. For the refugees of Lifta (who now live in Jerusalem ), it was presumably their uncommon access to their ruined homes that prompted them to appeal against the damage to their heritage and its beauty. Their appeal, filed jointly with Israeli activists and organizations, led to the exposure of problems with the development tender. And the signatures of authors Amos Oz and David Grossman, as well as those of other public figures, surely sent the Interior Ministry the message that it would be misguided to deport Fahmi from his birthplace.

How tempting it is to think that these three examples contain some magic formula that could be copied to ensure the success of thousands of other battles.

But they don’t. The awareness that these are exceptions to the rule tempers the already low-key celebrations. It is not yet clear whether all the Jahalin living in tent compounds on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem will be saved from a forced move to near the dump, a plan cooked up over the past year. But the occupation authorities remain determined to commit more violations of international law and to concentrate this protected population in a single, permanent location. The affected community will be allowed to review and comment at the end of the planning process but will not be consulted during it.

Despite protests, including from Europe, the enormous expanse of Area C of the West Bank, which is under Israeli control, continues to be an Israeli laboratory for implementing sophisticated methods for the hidden deportation of Palestinians.

…

Rabbis for Human Rights? This organization is not involved only in the battles of Lifta and the Jahalin. It takes part in dozens of other campaigns, most of them Sisyphean, to rescue people from the evil jaws of the regime of Jewish privilege. They are, unintentionally, bold and painful attempts to save “Jewish” from being a synonym in Israel for racist, lordly, hard-hearted, hypocritical, shortsighted.

A worrying development in Australia (courtesy of the Greens):

Minister Joe Ludwig, representing the Attorney General in the Senate, confirmed in Question Time today that the Australia Federal Police monitors coal seam gas protesters and that the government outsources some intelligence gathering to private consultants.

“Farmers in Queensland trying to protect their land from coal seam gas mining, and parents concerned about their children’s health, will be understandably outraged that they may be under surveillance by the Australian Federal Police,” Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said.

“What an extraordinary use of taxpayers’ money to spy on legitimate protesters in order to protect the commercial interests of polluting companies.

“State Premiers need to indicate whether their police agencies are working hand in glove with the AFP and energy companies to maximise penalties for protesters and increase surveillance on citizens trying to defend their properties against coal seam gas developers.

“Is it true that energy companies and the police are working together to maximise charges for protesters? Are Anna Bligh, Barry O’Farrell, Ted Bailleu and Martin Ferguson working together to maximise surveillance?

“Minister Ludwig confirmed today, in response to my question, that some surveillance of protesters is being outsourced to a private agency – the National Open Source Intelligence Centre.

“I encourage people, as Minister Ludwig did, to put in FOI requests to the AFP and state agencies for any surveillance files being kept on them.”

Via The New Age newspaper:

The South African government might consider supporting sanctions against Israel as it explores a variety of peaceful methods to step up support for the Palestinians’ fight for freedom and independence.

“We want to step up our support of the Palestinians and are investigating a number of peaceful ways to upgrade this support. We have no problem with supporting the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign aganist Israel,” Minister of Arts and Culture Paul Mashatile told The New Age.

Mashatile was addressing a press conference in Pretoria yesterday at the Department of Arts and Culture, during the signing of a cultural agreement between South Africa and Palestine.

During the signing Palestnian Arts and Culture Minister Siham Barghouti and Palestinian Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture Musa Abu Ghreibeh, exchanged gifts with their South African counterparts, Minister Mashatile and deputy minister Joe Pehle. 

Later on in the year the Palestinians will host South Africa’s Arts and Culture Week, where South African artists and cultural entrepreneurs will present cultural exhibitions from their country.

Mashatile’s statement presents a considerable upping of the ante in South Africa’s long-standing support for the Palestinians and the cementing of a relationship that goes back decades, to when the ANC was struggling against the former apartheid government.

“Your Excellency, we count the people of Palestine among those patriots who stood by us in our struggle for national liberation,” Mashatile told the Palestinian delegation as he recalled former President Nelson Mandela’s 1997 speech to honor the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

“Having achieved our freedom we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face. Yet we would be less human if we do so,” said Mandela in 1997.

BDS supporters argue that Israel’s continued illegal occupation of the Palestinians territories and expropriation of Palestinians land, water and other resources can only be stopped when sanctions against Israel begin to bite economically

“We are grateful for South Africa’s support for our efforts to become members of the international community and look towards you for guidance in our continued struggle,” said Barghouti.

The two delegations agreed that future cooperation would include language development, heritage preservation, literature exchanges and exhibitions.

Just a short note to say that postings will remain very light until the 3rd week of February. I’m currently travelling overseas researching a forthcoming book (out 2013) on disaster capitalism. Let’s just say I’m learning much about mining, human rights, local communities being shafted and Western multinationals colluding to stir the pot. Welcome to the 21st century.

Thanks to the many readers who have emailed and asked if I was still alive due to website silence.

Rest assured, I’m very much alive and kicking (even if barely surviving on slower than dial-up internet).

Akiva Eldar in Haaretz:

Although Middle Eastern affairs are at the bottom rung of priorities for Australian politicians and there is nothing for Jewish lobbyists to do, Israel figures centrally in Jewish life. You won’t find an Australian Jew who has not visited Israel at least once, and many families have branches in Israel. In the neighborhood pharmacy, there is a Jewish National Fund blue box for donations to redeem the soil of Israel.

Here, Israel is still considered a tiny country surrounded by enemies. The use of the term “occupied territories” is considered “delegitimization” of Israel.

And then, six months ago, in the midst of the ugly campaign by the Im Tirtzu right-wing group against the New Israel Fund, following the Goldstone Report, a new branch of the New Israel Fund was established in Australia. Eight hundred Jewish lovers of Israel have already become members of the group, and have welcomed its chairwoman, Prof. Naomi Chazan, the same person whose picture Im Tirtzu put up in the streets in Israel showing a horn coming out of her head.

“I frequently find myself skipping reports in the newspaper about ‘price tag’ [attacks against Arabs and Israelis opposed to the settlements] or segregation of women, the list is getting longer and longer,” a young Jewish woman told me. “The work of the New Israel Fund is the only way left for people like me to support our dear brothers and sisters in Israel.”

This, if you will, is the contribution of the criminals of the hilltops, of Zeev Elkin and Ofir Akunis, to the New Israel Fund. Israel 2012 is forcing more and more Jews overseas to choose between loyalty to the Jewish state and loyalty to their humanistic and universal values.

A Jewish minority in enlightened countries cannot identify with a country that passes racist laws, persecutes human rights groups and besmirches the press. Some lovers of Israel have found a way to preserve their connection to the country by supporting groups that defend Israeli democracy.

Most of them, especially the younger generation, prefer to cut their ties. They are ashamed of us.

If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman and their ilk remain in power for a few more years, Israel will remain with only a handful of spineless lobbyists who make their living lobbying, along with power-drunk American Jewish billionaires who are ready to fight for Joseph’s Tomb to the last drop of our sons’ and grandsons’ blood.

This morning I was interviewed on Radio Adelaide about the limits (if any) of free speech in Australia:

It’s festival season, the Fringe, Adelaide Festival, WOMAD – and we’re all picking out which events we’ll go to – but what about the neo-Nazi aligned Hammered festival?

It’s to be held in Queensland– unsurprisingly it will be heavy metal music.

The festival is organised by the Southern Cross Hammerskins and ‘white resistance’ group, Blood and Honour Australia, which states it’s mission is to “secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

The event be on April 21 – suspiciously close to Hitler’s birthday.

There have been calls to have it banned but the Labor government has refused to, saying it can’t stop ‘morons’ gathering but it will step in if anyone in attendance incites violence or commits racial vilification.

Tim Brunero spoke to Antony Loewenstein, a blogger, activist, author whose works include My Israel Question and online media contributor for New Matilda and Crikey about the controversy surrounding the event.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

This is the way they express themselves in private conversations and this is what they think. Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman calls Haaretz “Der Sturmer,” the notorious Nazi propaganda tabloid; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers Haaretz one of Israel’s two greatest enemies, along with The New York Times. Even the denial issued by Netanyahu’s bureau over the remarks by Jerusalem Post editor, Steve Linde, was weak and foggy: “Iran is the greatest enemy,” with nary a word about Haaretz.

That is to be expected: the attack on Israeli democracy will not pass over Haaretz. Netanyahu and Neeman are expressing their worldview. They want Israel without the High Court of Justice, without nonprofit associations, without Haaretz. There is no point in explaining to them and their ilk the task of the press, particularly when the other protective mechanisms of democracy are being increasingly undermined. They will not understand.

A person who excoriates one of the world’s most widely-admired newspapers, The New York Times, attests more to his own character than to that of the object of his assault. But we shall say this to both of these individuals: Your Israel, the one you are shaping now, owes a great debt to Haaretz. No other media outlet gives Israel a better name than the one you attack. No other whisper coming out of Israel engenders so much respect for Israel because Haaretz is one of its newspapers.

Sometimes, it is even misleading. Quite a few people throughout the world mistakenly think Haaretz is Israel. No, Haaretz is not Israel, unfortunately, but it is a different voice – the minority voice, which must be heard. It proved every day, both locally and to the world, that Israel is not only Avigdor Lieberman.