Transcript
ANDREW KOSTOPOLOUS: of course not. Any thing that any lawyer puts before a court or an arbitration must be supported by evidence, including statements, experts' reports, and also other documents, including accounts from the people from Porgera.
DON WISEMAN: One of the concerns that's been raised by Barrick is that the justice Foundation of Porgera is not representative of the landowners.
AK: Well that is incorrect. I have met all the chiefs or the landowner agents. We have had them verified, we have had them sign off and these are the people that are landowners. We have 18 out of the 24 and they represent their particular area in the Special Mining Lease that has been granted to Barrick. And they have been told that on a number of occasions, both Barrick and the government instrumentalities that is dealing with the mining lease and it's fallen on deaf ears.
DW: Why are they not though working through the Porgera Landowners Association, which has a formal arrangement?
AK: Well the Porgera Landowners Association has had a troubled past. In fact it hasn't had a meeting for about ten years and it is subject to other legal proceedings that I can't discuss because it's before the courts, of course. But the landowners and their agent have been approved by the people of Porgera who are part of the Special Mining Lease.
DW: The Justice Foundation says they are taking this move because of social and environmental caused by the mine but the mining company is saying there is a lot of money they have paid out, many millions of kina, that have been paid out as per arrangements when they signed their contract and they seem unmoved by this criticism.
AK: Well let me put it this way. And I think this is the best way to look at it. I will just give you a reflection if I may. Currently - I read the statement from Barrick and that statement is regrettably a public relations vehicle for Barrick Gold and Zijin (Chinese company that is the other major miner in the Porgera Joint Venture) and it is used in a way to weaponise the battleground between the Special Mining Lease landowners and their owwn goal. And one think that if they were so polarised that negotiating in good faith and looking at this as a means to find an appropriate, conciliatory course, would be the way to deal with it. Regrettably and despite many years of complaints by the landowners and the Special Mining lease landowners, and the agents of the landowners, Barrick has got deaf ears and the state is willfully blind.
DW: Is this a device to ensure or try to ensure that Barrick doesn't get a renewal of its lease.
AK: No it's not. It's a genuine claim that has taken years to prepare, to have experts go down into the valleys and the rivers, which, on any view of it if I could put it this way, once you travel by helicopter and look at the land just outside the Special Mining Lease and there is greenery and clear rivers and then you fly into this - all I can describe it as, is an apocalyptic position on the earth of PNG where you have got this enormous mine spewing out thousands of litres per day of this copper coloured reddish fluid that is full of contaminants like poisons and toxins and mercury and arsenic. Just unacceptable. If this had been New Zealand or Australia they would be closed down.
