Ok Tedi: K12 billion lawsuit
Published by MAC on 2007-01-19
Ok Tedi: K12 billion lawsuit
by The National (Papua New Guinea)
19th January 2007
AUSTRALIA's mining giant BHP Billiton and [former] operators of the Ok Tedi mine have been sued for civil damages that exceed US$4 billion (K12 billion) by 13,000 people living in the remote Ningerum village in the Western province.
Leading international lawyer Carmillus Narakobi told The National yesterday that he lodged the lawsuit on behalf of the villagers in the National Court in Waigani last month.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for destruction of the villagers' traditional habitat along 38km of the Ok Tedi River.
"The Ningerum people have suffered from the tonnes and tonnes of arsenic, copper, zinc and other heavy metals dumped into this once pristine habitat, where they had lived since time immemorial," Mr Narokobi said.
He said according to the world's best expert report it would take 300 years to clean up the toxic dump.
"There's nowhere in the world where you'll find mine waste dumped in the river system except in PNG and the West Papua province of Indonesia," Mr Narakobi said.
He said he was representing six Ningerum clans who were not signatory to the Community Mine Continuation Agreement signed between landowners and Ok Tedi Mine last year.
"They offered to pay K50 per family a month for damages which is total exploitation and the Government of PNG sanctions this kind of programmes," Mr Narakobi said.
"It was time the people of this country reversed this system of foreign companies giving them lip service and stand up against them, he said.
Ok Tedi Mine is a major producer of copper concentrate for world smelting markets. Its operations began in 1984 and in January 2002, BHP Billiton Ltd subsidiary BHP (PNG) Ltd divested its 52% shareholding in OTML by transfer of its shares to PNG Sustainable Programme Ltd.
Ok Tedi is the single largest business contributor to the economy of both the Western province and PNG.
In 2004, OTML's export sales were K2.1 billion which represented 25.7% of PNG's export earnings.
The PNG Government owns 30% of Ok Tedi.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for BHP told The National that almost all landowners of OTML have signed the Community Mine Continuation Agreement accepting compensation.
A similar case was filed by the Yonggom people of Fly River in 1994 in Melbourne, where BHP is incorporated, which resulted in compensation offered to the 30,000 villagers.