«If you don’t believe our story, at least give us half of the money»: Claiming Ownership of the Ok Tedi Mine, PNG

Reports of poor crops, bad tasting water and stories of an ancestral connection with the Mt. Fubilan minesite at Ok Tedi have been reported by people in the Ningerum area since early 1984. In September 2000, a new generation presented a petition on behalf of the West Ningerum Pressure Association. The document had very carefully screened out any traces of customary explanation, and presented the case as if a manifest of poor crops, unfruitful trees, poor water, sparse river life, dried out foliage, and rocks now slippery with moss were the measurable effects of the mine wastes believed to be entering their river systems from underground. It also left out any trace of a tunnel used by spirits and the people who would trade with them and by which fecund water or blessings would flow into the landscape, and left out any trace of the second phase of claiming ownership over the entire mine deposit. This paper analyses these events in terms of regional concerns with revelation and concealment – as if a claim must necessarily comprise both as halves to an equation – and looks at how these concerns are presented in ownership negotiations which depend on eliciting sympathy and recognition of a claim, rather than putting demands into words.