BOUGAINVILLE COPPER Fresh call for new accord

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33455, 9 February 1974, Page 18

BOUGAINVILLE COPPER Fresh call for new accord

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) PORT MORESBY, February 7. Pressure on the Papua New Guinea Government for an immediate renegotiation of the Bougainville Copper Agreement has been increased.

The latest demands came from Mr Moi Avei, president of the Pangu Party, of which the Chief Minister (Mr Michael Somare) is a member. It is the senior partner in the ruling coalition. “The party insists that to simply settle for more revenue from Bougainville copper would be inadequate and irresponsible, because it would fail to correct the exploitative relationship existing at the moment,” Mr Avei declared. His statement supported earlier action by two senior Government members — the Minister of Justice (Mr John Kaputin) and a Bougainvillean priest, the Rev. John Momis. The latter had said that the Government should step down from power if it was unable to take control of the country’s mineral wealth. Mr Avei said: “The people of Papua New Guinea, through their national Government, should have the controlling interest in Bougainville copper, not foreigners. The whole issue of foreign investment must be seen in the right perspective, in that it must fit the social framework. “It is time for the white economists to understand this.” Declaring that Papua New Guineans did not want foreigners to “jam bread and butter down their throats,” Mr Avei said that his countrymen could not gain self-

J respect and dignity by being subservient to “a foreign economic Power.” “It is the task of the national Government to safeguard the interests and solidarity of the country’s citizens by both legislative means and dedicated leadership,” he added. The demands for renegotiation of the Bougainville Copper Agreement follow the disclosure that the company concerned, an offshoot of the British Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation, earned slsBm profit in 1973.

Dismal forecast People may be forced to ride bicycles made of wood and cement because of a world shortage of conventional raw materials, a British scientist has forecast. Professor William Alexander, chairman of the department of metallurgy at Birmingham University, told a press conference after a two-day meeting of the N.A.T.O. Science Committee: “If I came back in the year 2500,1 would not Ibe surprised to see people i riding on cement-and-wood I bicycles.”—Brussels, February 7.