This is all too familiar. Aboriginal people’s ousted from their traditional living spaces, destroying culture, sacred spaces, dividing families… just too familiar.
We in the world must recognise, these evils are happening thousands of miles away, but what happens to the least of us, happens to all of us. We all pay the price.
“Indigenous Landowners have been stripped of their Constitutionally-protected land rights by the government of Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Without any warning or consultation, on 27 May 2010, the government of PNG introduced emergency legislation that dissolves the Constitutional rights of all landowners in PNG, including the right of Indigenous People to own land, challenge resource projects in court and receive any form compensation for environmental damage.
‘The legislation was passed by Parliament without anybody being allowed to see the Bill before it was presented’, comments ACT NOW!, an independent organization based in PNG. ‘Nobody was allowed to read or comment on the text. There was no scrutiny by a Select Committee and not even a Parliamentary debate.’
The driving force behind the legislation and its secrecy–like pretty much every draconian measure ever introduced into law–is ‘National Interest.'”
(Via Papua New Guinea: Indigenous People stripped of land rights : Intercontinental Cry.)
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