31 August 2020
26 August 2020
This space is reserved for all those old Bougainville photos and stories that Des Hudson will send in one of these days when he is not playing golf or drinking COKE or looking for lost contact lenses under the bed:
... well, he did make a start but there should be more to come:
P.S. A South American scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain and sexual activity read their websites with their hand on the mouse.
DON'T BOTHER TAKING IT OFF NOW; IT'S TOO LATE!!!
17 August 2020
Goroka Show 1972
Finally, here's documentary evidence that a certain Bougainville expat visited the Goroka Show in 1972. Immediately following his visit, stricter dress codes were introduced - see below:
Thanks, mate, for spoiling it for the rest of us! :-)
14 August 2020
A sting in the tale
With his rumpled tropical suit and wide-eyed look of perpetual concern, Hugh Laurie's Mr Pip – the only white man on the island – could be a character out of a Conrad novel. But it's 1991 and he has been caught in the midst of a civil war in Bougainville, where he's trying to lighten the spirits of the village children with readings from Dickens' Great Expectations.
This unlikely but beguiling idea was dreamed up by New Zealand novelist Lloyd Jones after he covered the conflict between Papua New Guinea and Bougainville over the closure of Rio Tinto's copper mine in the 1990s. And it gave him a prize-winning novel, which has done more to expose the sufferings that the war inflicted on Bougainville's people than all the reporting done at the time.
You can now read it online at archive.org. Simply JOIN UP (it's free!), then LOG IN and BORROW the book.
But, as they say in the commercial, there's more: you can watch the movie online on YouTube.
Or click here
The Coastwatchers
For all of you who are in self-isolation and have turned into little 'hikikomori' (look it up!), here's a book about the islands' coast watchers, another form of self-isolation but with more blood-sucking leeches.
I bought my copy many, many years ago, but you can now read it online at archive.org.
To "borrow" the book, simply JOIN UP (it's free!), then LOG IN and BORROW the book.
Broken Glass on Bougainville
In the 1970s, Helen leaves the big city to go to the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea where her partner has found work at a recently established copper mine. As the newcomers and the islanders learn to live side by side, each day brings new experiences. When the mine becomes the cause of unrest, the fragile close-knit community begins to break down. Its unique way of life on the magical island may be lost forever.
For more, click here.
13 August 2020
The people who built the mine ...
Simply JOIN UP (it's free!), then LOG IN and BORROW
... and Ok Tedi and thousands of other projects all over the world.
The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. “Dad” Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. They would go on to “build the world,” from the construction of airports in Hong Kong and Doha, to pipelines and tunnels in Alaska and Europe, to mining and energy operations around the globe. In their century-long quest, five generations of Bechtel men have harnessed and distributed much of the planet’s natural resources, including solar geothermal power. Bechtel is now one of the largest privately held corporations in the world.
The Bechtel Group has eclipsed its few rivals, with developments in emerging and third world nations that include secret military installations and defense projects; underground bunkers in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan; oil pipelines and entire cities in the Middle East; palaces for Arab rulers, such as the Saudi Royal Family; and chemical plants for Arab dictators.
Like all stories of empire building, the rise of Bechtel—one of the first mega companies to emerge in the American West—presents a complex and riveting narrative. Veiled in obsessive secrecy, Bechtel has had closer ties to the US government than any other private corporation in modern memory.
And here's another one:
Investigative journalist Denton offers an ambitious "empire biography" of the Bechtel family and the secretive, privately held construction company-turned-diversified international conglomerate that has been "inextricably enmeshed" in U.S. foreign policy for seven decades. In this incredible-seeming but deeply researched book, the author traces the phenomenal rise of the California-based corporation that became famous for building the Hoover Dam and went on to handle billion-dollar projects from the Channel Tunnel to the Big Dig ....
Filled with stories of cronyism and influence peddling, Denton's riveting and revealing book will undoubtedly displease the so-called "boys from Bechtel." Check it out here.
P.S. Both books are currently available on ebay here and here. Also available are various Bechtel caps which really pisses me off since I was one of Bechtel's senior auditors on the Bougainville Copper Project and worked for ten hours a day six days a week for more than two years and never got more than a silly hardhat (which I had to return at the end of my employment!)
Promotional film produced by Bougainville Copper and Bechtel WKE
This is a 1960s era, colour movie about the Bougainville Copper Project in Papua, New Guinea. Opened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the mine at Panguna was officially opened in 1972 and was majority-owned by Rio Tinto. The mine was vitally important to the economy of Papua New Guinea. The PNG national government received a 20% share of profit from the mine, of which the Bougainvilleans received 5% - 1.25% share of the total profit.
The movie opens on a beach with palm trees. A family carries large, tropical leaves up a hill. A volcano smokes. Heavy machinery mines the mountainside 1:30. A truck drives through a large quarry 1:50. Ore is dumped into the primary crusher 2:10. The Bougainville Copper Project. Rocks are crushed and sorted 2:51. The ore processing consists of four stages as the rocks are crushed into less than half inch units 3:40. The pulp is sent to the flotation station 4:15. The copper slurry is then pumped to the seacoast 4:38. Vacuum filters remove the water from the copper slurry in the containers and dried for shipping 5:03. A 16th century map 5:41. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville was a French admiral and explorer. He took part in the Seven Years' War in North America and the American Revolutionary War against Britain. Bougainville later gained fame for his expeditions, including circumnavigation of the globe in a scientific expedition in 1763 and the first recorded settlement on the island of Bougainville. Fruit trees and fauna 6:24. Clouds in the mountains 6:45. Missionaries hold mass 7:17. Men crush rocks in the river looking for minerals 8:05. In-depth copper exploration started in 1964 8:15. Man in the laboratory testing the soil for copper content 8:54. Computers anticipate marketing and management challenges for the exploration 12:05. Excavating begins in the Crown Prince Range 9:21. Explosives are set under rocks 9:45. The mine at Panguna was opened in 1972 and was majority-owned by Rio Tinto, an Anglo-Australian multinational and the world's second largest metals and mining corporations 10:00. Melbourne Australia 10:06. Bougainville Copper Limited 10:15. Men discuss the new project in Papua New Guinea 10:35. A man uses a 3-D map to plan the excavation 11:04. Heavy fuel storage tanks 11:30. Computers tabulate the needs for materials and labor 11:52. View of Melbourne, Australia 12:09. Power station generators are built as lead line items in other countries 12:50. Production of plant items begin in are shipped to New Guinea. The natives of Papua New Guinea are to be trained to work in the copper mines 14:03. The access road to the mine is cut 14:22. Construction required filling the swamp 14:40. Jungle vines are cut back 15:10. Land clearing begins 15:40. Traditional earth-moving methods are employed 16:00. Concrete is poured for foundations 16:15. Heavy rains flood the site 16:40. 6 inches of rain per hour. Port installations continue at the bay 17:25. The power station requires extensive earthwork 17:42. The power plant will supply the towns of Arawa and Panguna with electricity as well as to the mining facility 18:05. 3,000 inhabitants of Panguna will work at the mine 18:40. The cities are built 19:15. New services are provided with trained personnel 19:33. A professor trains the people of Papua New Guinea to work in the mine 20:00. Different equipment is displayed in demonstrated 20:30. Large dumb truck rolls through the mine 20:55. Karoona “Maket” 21:14. New methods of commerce are employed 21:30. A Shell gas station 21:35. A ship in the bay 22:07. The Duke of Edinburgh visits in 1971 22:25. Prince Philip tours the mine 22:53. 90,000 tons of ore will be processed each day 23:15. A large dump truck is lowered from a ship for work at the mine 23:40. Equipment from Japan arrives for storage at the mine 24:00. Rock crushers weighing 24 tons 24:20. The men break for lunch in the tropical forest 24:45. Construction continues at a rapid pace 25:27. Control room and men monitor the equipment 26:35. A map overlays the scene at the mine 27:04. Bougainville. Local workers work the mine and ships in the bay in the new economy 27:44.
And here are some rare shots of Panguna, Loloho and Arawa:
10 August 2020
Bougainville radio helps former Bougainvillean expat to survive hurricane on U.S. East Coast
I thought this heading would get your attention!
Des Hudson, formerly of Camp 6 where he acquired the above radio back in the 1970s, emailed me from Fairfield - no, not in Sydney but Connecticut in the USA:
"Just got our power back after a three-day blackout courtesy of a hurricane that battered the East Coast and had our internet, cable-TV and landline phone down. Was able to pull out my shortwave radio (a legacy of life on Bougainville which I used to listen to Radio Australia and Aussie rules football) and listen to the latest blackout news. Listening to the radio was a good reflection of the idealistic life we enjoyed in Loloho and Panguna without the company of females and the absence of cable TV."
Seems radiophile Des prefers radios to females! To each their own.
P.S. Always ready to spoil a good story, Roy Goldsworthy emailed from Penang: "Interesting - surprising that it still works! But was it that model? From what I can see, that particular model was only introduced in the 1980s - see attached photo."
So I confronted Des Hudson with the facts and received this reply: "My demented memory has confused my Bougainville years in the 70s with my Saudi years in the 80s. I definitely had a shortwave radio on Bougainville which must be collecting dust somewhere. The Sony version must have been my link to the world while in Saudi Arabia. I enclose a March 1974 photo of that elusive shortwave radio from the 70s inside my donga in Camp One." It must've been all that 'Saudi champagne' that turned your memory into mush, Des.
A very "Freudian" photo, Des. Besides verifying the existence of that elusive shortwave radio, it indicates that yours was the only donga in all the camps without PLAYBOY-centerfold pictures plastered all over the walls, plus a mirror on the wall (presumably none on the ceiling!)
Does the absence of PLAYBOY pin-ups suggest a lack of interest in women while the presence of a mirror on the wall makes you a self-absorbed narcissist? James A. Michener's Bildungsroman "The Fires of Spring" on the bedside table goes some way towards restoring your tarnished image but you still have a lot of explaining to do. 😜
Of course, as a James Michener aficionado I could've told him that Tales of the South Pacific, Rascals in Paradise, and Return to Paradise would've been far more appropriate books to read on tropical Bougainville Island.
P.P.S. I've just checked ebay: the old SONY ICF-7600D still sells for up to $500 - see here and here and here. Des, instead of a thousand shares in Western Minerals N.L., you should've bought a thousand SONY ICF-7600D!
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