THE National Government must take full responsibility for the closure of the Kainantu gold mine as reported by the media.
The Kafe clan of Kainantu has been waging various legal battles since 1991 for recognition as the rightful owners of the Bilimoia gold prospect and surrounding land areas where the Kainantu mine is located.
The clan now has a matter before the Land Title Commission (LTC).
In December 2002, the Kafe Landowners Association (KLA) obtained a court injunction restraining the State and the developer – Highlands Pacific Ltd (HPL) – from any action that would allow for mining to proceed at the Kainantu mine.
We did this mainly to prevent the State and HPL from signing a memorandum of agreement with various groups claiming ownership.
The National Government then agreed to resolve the matter through the LTC which the association accepted.
Consequently, the injunction was set aside in March 2003.
The State, HPL, the Eastern Highlands provincial administration, the 10 clans of Bilimoia and the Kafe clan were parties to this agreement.
The onus then was for the Government to quickly facilitate the LTC process in order to identify who the real landowners were, insofar as the land on which the Kainantu mine sits is concerned.
It took nearly two years for the Government to get the LTC process going.
The KLA believed then as it does now that that by submitting the matter to the LTC, the Government was nullifying any recognition previously given to any particular land group or groups with landownership claim over the area.
Hence, the Government should not have proceeded with any negotiations or signed any memorandum of agreement with any landowner group.
The KLA holds that until the LTC makes its decision, no landowner clans or groups around the Kainantu gold mining area can be considered as bona fide landowner clan or group.
Sadly, in its greed to cash in on high gold prices the Government allowed HPL to proceed with the early development of the Kainantu gold mine by rushing through with the conclusion and signing of the memorandum of agreement with people not yet identified as genuine principal and/or associated landowners by the LTC process.
How the National Government goes about extricating itself out of this situation will be a subject of interest to KLA as it has its own unresolved issues with the State and its agents, depending on the outcome of LTC determinations.
I can only urge that the aggrieved people of Bilimoia not to take out their frustrations on the new owners, Barrick (PNG) Ltd.
They should really be taking it out on the National Government for misleading them into signing the memorandum of agreement before the LTC had the opportunity to undertake its legal assignment.
For the part of aggrieved landowners, they should really question themselves as to how they allowed their own so-called leaders to lead them astray at the time of those crucial negotiations.
Instead of being responsible and properly representing the interest of everyone concerned, they seemed to have been blinded by what the mine promised and plunged headlong into the signing of the memorandum of agreement without properly assessing the implications.
KLA is of the view that the mine should remain closed until the LTC determines the true ownership, and we understand it is likely to hand down its decision soon.

Michael Aike
Chairman
Kafe Landowners Association