Australia and PNG relations bind despite some problems<\/p>\n
Papua New Guinea's relationship with its former colonizer
\nAustralia suffers a 20-year itch. Kunda Dixit of Inter Press
\nService reports.<\/p>\n
PORT MORESBY: The ties between Australia and its former
\ncolony, Papua New Guinea, sometimes resemble the relationship
\nbetween a mother kangaroo and her joey.<\/p>\n
At other times, the love-hate relationship between the two
\nPacific neighbors is more like a stormy marriage as verbal
\nbrickbats fly across the Torres Strait in both directions.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 15, it will be 20 years since PNG got its
\nindependence from Australia, but the country's ailing economy
\nremains in the shadow of its big neighbor to the south.<\/p>\n
Most of PNG's trade is with Australia. And Canberra is by far
\nPNG's largest donor, giving the country US$200 million a year --
\nwith no strings attached -- as direct monthly contributions to
\nthe budget.<\/p>\n
But these donations are being phased out. By the year 2000,
\nPNG will only get program assistance for specific projects. Says
\na recent Ausaid report: \"The new partnership ... with Australia
\nwill assist PNG to achieve its goal of self-reliant nationhood.\"<\/p>\n
People here value this help, but also resent the over-
\ndependence on a former colonial power. The lingering dominance of
\nAustralian companies here, and the patronizing negativity with
\nwhich Papua New Guinea is portrayed in the Australian media is
\nproof to many Papuans that their country is in a sense still a
\ncolony.<\/p>\n
When Port Moresby got independence in 1975, Australia and
\nPapua New Guinea vowed to remain \"friends forever\". These days,
\nhowever, television commentator John Eggins asks: \"On the 20th
\nanniversary of our independence, is it still friends forever, or
\nfriends falling out?\"<\/p>\n
Australian diplomats here, ensconced in one of their
\nsprawling, barbed-wire ringed residential complexes, will use
\nsurprisingly undiplomatic language to tell you the country is
\nself-destructing, how the superb infrastructure, the efficient
\nbureaucracy and the crime-free country they left 20 years ago has
\ngone to pot.<\/p>\n
Indeed, the economic statistics are alarming. Papua New Guinea
\nis the size of France, but has only four million people. It has
\nthe world's largest copper mine, is brimming with gold deposits,
\nhas huge reservoirs of oil and gas and vast virgin jungles. Yet
\nthe country is nearly bankrupt.<\/p>\n
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are
\ndangling a luscious US$215 million rescue package, but say they
\nwill not give it unless Port Moresby heeds advice to cut
\nspending, liberalize investment policies for the private sector
\nand stop destructive rainforest logging.<\/p>\n
The PNG currency has dropped in value by up to 35 percent in
\nthe past year, and inflation is said to be twice the official
\nfigure of 6.5 percent.<\/p>\n
Desperate, PNG Premier Julius Chan in April requested an
\nadvance of US$100 million on Australian aid. Canberra gave some
\nsmall change. This brought a sharp rebuke from the PNG High
\nCommissioner in Canberra, who accused Australia of abandoning its
\nfriend during an hour of need.<\/p>\n
Chan, who is half Chinese, then began cultivating Taiwanese
\nbusiness connections much to Beijing's consternation. But Port
\nMoresby's `look north' policy has also irked the Australians who
\nresent how Malaysian, Indonesian and South Korean businesses
\nmoving into what used to be Australian turf -- even though
\nCanberra itself is trying to similarly woo East Asian business.<\/p>\n
Malaysian firms now control three-forth of Papua New Guinea's
\nlog exports and have interests in mining, fisheries and media.<\/p>\n
Another sore point in Australia-PNG relations has been the
\nongoing civil war in Bougainville. The root of that conflict was
\nthe dispute between the Australian operators of the Panguna
\ncopper mine there and islanders over compensation claims for land
\nand environmental damage.<\/p>\n
Canberra has been trying to restart peace talks and was
\ninvolved in training a South Pacific peacekeeping force in
\nBougainville. But Australian media coverage of the PNG blockade
\nof Bougainville in 1989-90 and the suffering that caused raised
\nhackles here.<\/p>\n
Last year, 6,000 PNG villagers living downstream from the Ok
\nTedi gold mine filed a $2.8 billion damage suit against
\nAustralian mining giant BHP for killing the river with ore
\nresidue and destroying their livelihood.<\/p>\n
Things have not always been so bad for Papua New Guinea. In
\n1993, fired by large new investments in mining, the country
\nregistered a scorching 14.4 percent growth -- the highest in the
\nworld for that year. By 1994, the growth rate had plummeted to
\none percent.<\/p>\n
PNG officials still seem to be hoping that they do not have to
\ngive in to the IMF-World Bank conditions for the rescue package
\nand that other eager Asian donors will bail them out.<\/p>\n
A slew of new mining and petroleum ventures that will soon
\ncome on line, they hope, will bring in a flood of revenue. The
\nAustralian-financed Lihir gold mine is one, and the country hopes
\nto be one of the major suppliers of oil and natural gas from the
\nKutubu and southeast Gobe fields to Asian markets.<\/p>\n
The new cash, PNG planners hope, will help them replenish hard
\ncurrency reserves that have fallen to an all-time low of US$55
\nmillion, bring more balance to the budget and shore up the kina.<\/p>\n
Diplomats here say this may be hoping for too much. Notes one:
\n\"Unless you can address the structural problems of over-spending,
\ncorruption, capital flight ... You are not going to solve
\nanything.\"<\/p>\n
For the time being, Papua New Guinea is compensating for the
\nscaling down of Australian budgetary support with a growing
\nreliance on Asian investments. And that may finally cut the
\numbilical cord with its colonizer.<\/p>\n
-IPS<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/australia-and-png-relations-bind-despite-some-problems-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }