Costly sow division at APEC summit in Papua New Guinea

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) – After three decades of promoting free trade as a panacea for poverty, the group of APEC countries, including the United States and China, is holding its sumptuous annual meeting in the country that has the least means.

Barely penetrated by roads and marked by violence, Papua New Guinea hopes that the parade of world leaders will lift the mountainous Pacific nation of hundreds of tribal groups out of the dark and attract investment.

But this spending has been criticized when the government experienced a budget crisis, basic medicines are scarce and polio, eliminated from almost every country, has returned. In 2015, the International Monetary Fund estimated that upgrading the capital for the event and the organization of a year of related meetings could cost a billion dollars.

Australia, the largest donor of foreign aid to Papua New Guinea and former colonial occupier, as well as China and other countries have absorbed some of the costs, but criticism has already been widely heard.

The government has imported 40 Maserati luxury cars in an effort to bring together prominent personalities among congress venues in the secure bubble of APEC meetings. Officials said the government would sell them to recover the costs, creating even more disbelief and suspicion of corruption.

At the same time, the Chinese government's money has helped build what has been dubbed a boulevard in the capital, Port Moresby, a city described by the World Bank as one of the most violent in the world because of the high rate of unemployment and shameless criminal gangs called "raskols".

The construction of an emblematic building "APEC Haus" for the top leaders was funded by the oil and gas company Oil Search, which operates all the oilfields of Papua New Guinea, in exchange for credits of 39%. ;tax. This avoided an immediate cost to the government but would erode its revenues in the future.

"I think the money should have been used to repair our backyard instead of decorating the front porch.We have health, education and infrastructure issues that need to be solved," said activist and writer Martyn Namorong.

"Many teachers have not been paid and hospitals are short of medicine," he said. "Ordinary Papua New Guinea is living a great misery while the elite is celebrating with the world as there was no tomorrow."

What the talkfest of a week is going to produce, apart from its iconic photo of world leaders in local themed shirts, is not clear. In the impenetrable language of APEC, the theme of the meeting is "Exploring Opportunities for Inclusion, Embracing the Digital Future".

Allan Bollard, executive director of the APEC secretariat, said the meeting was complicated by tensions between China and the United States over trade and by the general reaction against globalization – ideology dominated by the West over the last four decades, which advocated the liberalization of trade and movements of people. is inevitably good for everyone.

"This year we had more bilateral trade frictions, especially between the US and China, and this makes the situation even more complex around the table as APEC is only where everyone is in agreement, "said Bollard.

Port Moresby, a city where foreigners and the local elite live in barricaded houses behind high walls and barbed wire, will welcome more than 12,000 visitors to meetings that will end on Sunday.

Due to a shortage of hotels, many will stay aboard three cruise ships moored in Port Moresby and will be transported in hundreds of vehicles imported for the event. The city will be swarming with police and military personnel, some from Australia and New Zealand, who supply aviation planes, naval patrol boats, special forces and other personnel.

According to the Australian media, Canberra would spend more than $ 100 million on security and other forms of support for APEC. The Australian prime minister's office refused to publish a figure, calling the assistance "an extension of long-term cooperation".

"Security will be so tight," said Jonathan Pryke, an expert in Papua New Guinea at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank. "This will be the safest time to be in Port Moresby."

Even then, US Vice President Mike Pence and his entourage will arrive in the country every day from northern Queensland, Australia.

Outside the modernized capital, 2018 has been a year of resumption of tribal and political violence.

Earlier this month, riots invaded the coastal town of Alotau more than 300 km from Port Moresby, after police going to APEC killed a woman and her child in a road accident, said the Catholic bishop of the city, Rolando Santos. Fighting broke out when police reinforcements arrived from the capital, he said. According to Pryke, the growth of the Chinese diaspora has also fueled economic tensions that led to protests and riots.

"There is not much money for education and health," said Santos, a Filipino who has been living in Papua New Guinea for 17 years. "Many have been affected because of APEC."

The country's Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the severe shortage of basic services, while the government devoted resources to preparing the capital for world leaders.

"We share the concern of many in the face of the enormous amount of our limited resources that are dedicated to this event that seems designed to entertain and impress the rich and the powerful," said its chairman, Rochus Tatamai.

Papua New Guinea, he said, "is suffering and dying to make APEC a success".