Book Review
What Is Threatening Development and Unity?
Land issues identified the biggest hurdle
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In Papua New Guinea, land disputes continue to take lives whether it is through open tribal clashes or through secret ritual murders.
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A high school girl in Morobe province last month cried as she told the local Post-Courier newspaper of how her people were attacked by a mob of rampaging landowners who repeatedly raped her aunt in her presence. The reason for the attack was that they were living on land that did not belong to them.
Last year, three people died at the University of Papua New Guinea following protest marches against the Morauta government. One of the issues that sparked the students’ unrest was the government’s plan to register and harness customary land for development.
Last year, Divine Word University (DWU) in Madang, Papua New Guinea held a week-long land symposium inviting academics, land experts, government officers and landowners to discuss the issue of land. The symposium was titled “Culture versus Progress.” It was an attempt to highlight how culture can hinder progress in Papua New Guinea largely because of land issues. A number of interesting papers were delivered at the symposium, which have now been edited and published by DWU Press at Divine Word University. The book has been renamed “Culture and Progress”, largely because many presenters at the symposium insisted that culture need not hinder progress in Papua New Guinea.
Narokobi, who contributed to the book, officially launched it last month at Divine Word University. A lawyer by profession and an advocate of the ‘Melanesian way’, Narokobi lost the Wewak Open seat he held for many years in this year’s election.
He said land issues posed a tremendous challenge to Papua New Guinea and neighbouring Pacific islands today.
He admitted that early governments had neglected to sufficiently fund institutions set up to solve conflicts over land and this had allowed the situation to deteriorate to what is being experienced today.
“Today land is becoming a critical issue. There will be no development unless we address land issues.
“We have to start thinking about whether to accept traditional stories about land ownership or create new ones.”
He said when the old generation die real stories of land boundaries die as well. However, people who have money and guns influence new land boundaries.
He said the idea of permanent ownership was wrong.
“We should begin to forget permanent ownership.”
He said this might mean that we would have to rewrite history or rewrite traditional stories.
Another prominent Papua New Guinean from Bougainville, Mel Togolo also contributed to the symposium. He said land reforms should be introduced based on customary land tenure system, which should mean giving proper titles to what landowners already own.
He said these titles were really representational symbols facilitating customary owners to generate wealth.
“It means creating an administrative and legal process that recognises custom and translates assets into liquid capital to generate wealth.”
In a paper titled “My Land My Place: The Times They are Changing”, Togolo was critical that customary land tenure system remains a critical constraint to development.
“Land is locked away from modern commercial uses as perceived insecurity of land tenure has prevented many investments from taking place,” he said.
He said huge changes are taking place in Papua New Guinea and the world, and such pressures lead us to question the restrictions of custom.
However, anthropologist Dr Michael Rynkiewich said Papua New Guinea landowners are not the problem in stopping development in the country.
Rynkiewich, who was a researcher with the Melanesian Institute in Goroka last year, said contrary to what we often read in the newspapers or see on television, the practice of blaming landowners is simplistic and diverts attention away from the real problems.
He said part of the problem is that developers do not want to deal with the complexity of the systems.
“Developers prefer a quick fix to the work it takes to create and sustain a good relationship with landowners. In fact, historically, developers have not wanted a relationship with the landowners; they have only wanted the land.”
Rynkiewich said it is not true that traditional systems are incompatible with development. “Some nationals argue that they are compatible if we just work at it,” he said.
“The problem seems to be the assumption that development means becoming like the west, or at least what people imagine the west to be like. Perhaps Papua New Guinea is chasing a mirage.”
He explained that the western system of land ownership and development was much more complex and cumbersome than the Melanesian system.
“There is no such thing as individual ownership of all the rights to land in the west.”
Therefore, he said, the calls to replace the customary system are misplaced.
“The issue is security of tenure for development, not ownership.”
He said Papua New Guineans have been quite right to be suspicious of such calls. Historically, colonisers have used land registration as a means of individualising land ownership and then wresting the land away from the owner.
He said even if Papua New Guinea finds a way to write customary tenure into law, the result would be disastrous.
He gave an example of his research in the Marshall Islands on Arno Atoll where the codification of matrilineal laws of land tenure and succession to chieftainship had eliminated the flexibility that was in the system.
“People are agents of their own destiny. There are always alternative narratives and alternative customs that can be followed to reach a desired end.
“But if a custom is codified, there is no alternative but to accept the wrong man as chief or the accumulation of too much land in one person’s hands. It would be wise neither to replace the Melanesian systems of land tenure, nor codify them into law,” Rynkiewich said.
Authors who contributed included the late linguist Dr Otto Nekitel and many university academics, government officials as well as landowners.
