Gold & treachery: Andi Flower & the Mt Kare affair
22 February 2008
“The mob was yelling and screaming behind us, carrying bush knives and spears. It wasn’t a good time to stop, so we kept driving, keeping a couple of hundred metres ahead of them. Then the chopper squeezed between the trees and landed on the road. I scrambled aboard. It had been a close call, and my non-smoking resolution fell by the wayside yet again.”
ANDI FLOWER arrived in Papua New Guinea from New Zealand in 1965 and found he had little time for the expatriate community.
He had a flair for trading and developed a special affinity with the Huli people of the Southern Highlands.
Then CRA found gold at nearby Mount Kare.
By mid-1988 thousands of people were taking gold worth tens of millions of dollars from Mount Kare’s cold, black, glutinous mud. Conditions were truly appalling: no medics, no law enforcement and no government presence.
The Huli people asked Andi to help them negotiate equity in the CRA mine.
In the end they won 49% of the project but had to compete with unscrupulous opportunists that prime minister Rabbie Namaliu later branded as "spivs, crooks and carpetbaggers".
Between 1990 and 1993 Andi was subject to personal attacks, public humiliation, death threats and serial legal actions alleging impropriety, dishonesty and fraud.
He saw dirty tricks, duplicity, greed and corruption on a scale he had never imagined.
‘Mt Kare Gold Rush’ by Dave Henton is Andi’s inside story of the Mount Kare saga.
It exposes the consequences of applying Western remedies to Melanesian problems, the destructive activities of outsiders and the greed, graft and corruption these engender.
__________
2023 footnote - I've tried to track down 'Mt Kare Gold Rush'. There seem to be some copies lurking in the second hand book market, but they're hard to find - KJ
‘Mt Kare Gold Rush: Papua New Guinea 1988-1994’, by Dave Henton and Andi Flower, paperback, 352 pages
‘How PNG gold lost its lustre’ by Greg Roberts, The Australian, 16 February 2008
Keith, this story almost needs a repost.
One man, Andi Flower (now deceased), endeavoured to get this project off the ground giving the landowners 49% equity in a joint venture. Yes 49% back in 1988-89.
Currently, Porgera is still closed after three years banging to and fro about the same, but only after the three-year care and maintenance costs have been recovered.
So Porgera has lost three years if settled this year - another three years of lost revenue to repay Barrick's care and maintenance.
Barrick can't lose. It's farcical. And it all goes back to what one man tried his best to achieve, what could have been the benchmark for all projects.
Food for thought. Peace.
Posted by: Kevin O'Regan | 23 February 2023 at 11:59 AM