State Crime Series. London: Pluto Press, 2014. x, 246 pp. US$40.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-7453-3504-9.
Few events have rocked the Southwest Pacific like the brutal civil war on Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea (PNG). When the Panguna copper mine opened in central Bougainville in 1972, existing processes of social change were soon amplified by the social impacts of the mine. This gave rise to a local resistance movement that eventually forced the closure of the mine in 1989. Combined with a heavy state response these events sparked a conflict that lasted for nearly ten years and claimed up to 20,000 lives from a population of approximately 180,000.
Given the volumes of literature on the origins and aftermath of the conflict, the successes of the peace process, and the lessons for the mining industry, I was admittedly sceptical whether Kristian Lasslett could offer any fresh perspectives in his new book State Crime on the Margins of Empire. But as I made my way through the dense thicket of highly original material these misgivings were soon allayed.
State Crime on the Margins of Empire marks the beginning of a new series in state crimes studies launched by the International State Crime Initiative. Lasslett is a scholar in the burgeoning branch of state crime studies that is concerned with the interaction and collusion between states and corporations. Lasslett sheds new light on the forms of collaboration between the developer, Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), and the PNG and Australian governments, and how these actors contributed to the escalation and perpetuation of the crisis. The bulk of his work charts in exceptional detail the series of events leading up to the closure of the mine and the start of the conflict. His insights stem from access to the case file compiled for the class action against Rio Tinto as the parent company of BCL—a case which has since failed on jurisdictional grounds. These primary sources, which include BCL memos, meeting minutes, and correspondence between BCL and the PNG government, and various affidavits, enabled Lasslett to pursue more penetrating and specific lines of enquiry. It was a happy coincidence that he undertook his research at a time when many ex-BCL executives and government officials involved in the crisis were less encumbered by socio-legal constraints and more prepared to provide Lasslett with candid perspectives.
State Crime on the Margins of Empire is not an anthropological study, but it sits comfortably with the growing list of ethnographies on specific mine sites in PNG. As several of these recent studies show, getting a handle on the complexity of these social environments requires recognition of the multitude of individual actors with their multiple interests who come to stand for various collective actors like “the state,” “the landowners,” or “the company.” Lasslett is generally more concerned with exposing the crimes of the powerful, but the inclusion of frank comments from his interlocutors and his use of primary evidence helps to put a face on these actors and reveal the pivotal roles played by certain individuals, the effects of different managerial temperaments, and the organizational dynamics which contributed to the outcome of events.
Lasslett makes a convincing argument for the careful application of Marxist concepts to illuminate important political and economic processes that in turn deepen our understanding of state and corporate crimes. Rejecting the common empiricist tendencies that supposedly prevail in state crime studies, Lasslett deploys a dialectical framework to bridge the divide between appearance and reality and orient the consciousness towards those capitalist forces that shape history. This also provides the basis to chart new agendas for future state crime studies. However, I am less convinced by his proposition that only Marx can provide the theoretical tools to understand what is going on here, and there are moments when Lasslett reads less like a classical Marxist and more like a structural determinist. Lasslett is highly critical of existing narratives and orthodoxies on the origins of the conflict and the role of powerful actors. Lasslett takes no prisoners, and in his final afterword he is especially scathing of some analysis offered by Anthony Regan, the preeminent scholar of Bougainville and legal advisor to the Bougainville government, and others who present themselves as the bipartisan voice on the conflict.
This book assumes a lot of pre-existing knowledge on the peculiarities of PNG politics and resource development and the accompanying scholarly debates. There is a case to be made for a more popular version of this book for non-specialists, and this has been achieved in part through the development of an online repository of the primary documents referenced in this work. Despite unveiling the shroud of secrecy around BCL’s involvement in the crisis—from petitioning the government to directly intervene, to the provision of material assistance for armed forces stationed in Bougainville—Lasslett laments a distinct lack of media interest in these materials.
At the time of writing this review, Rio Tinto announced that it would relinquish its majority shareholding in BCL, signalling their intention to step away from the troubled project for good. Predictably this has sparked local and international outrage over the apparent impunity of Rio Tinto and intensified debates over the future role of resource development in Bougainville. Perhaps this latest twist might provide the impetus for more journalists to review the materials Lasslett has made available. But not all Bougainvilleans appreciate Lasslett’s forensic investigation into BCL’s complicity in the civil war and his dogged efforts to bring Rio Tinto to justice. As Bougainville edges towards a referendum on independence, some Bougainvillean leaders clearly envision a role for BCL in this new future. In the end these differences reinforce the complexity of the relational space between different players, and there is no reason to assume that this cast of actors, with their diverse range of interests, should perform according to predetermined scripts.
Not least of all, this book is a fascinating case study of engaged social research and could be read in conjunction with Stuart Kirsch’s Mining Capitalism: The Relationship Between Corporations and their Critics (University of California Press, 2014) which documents the legal proceedings launched by landowners against BHP as the operator of the Ok Tedi mine located on the opposite side of PNG. Both authors are uncompromising activist-critics and their works raise important ethical and methodological questions on the positionality of social researchers critiquing the global mining industry. Lasslett may feel dismayed by the apparent political divisions between some Bougainvillean leaders that impede efforts to hold state and corporate actors to account. But similar to Kirsch, Lasslett’s broader project has helped to spark the conscience of allies in civil society and government and may well contribute towards the eventual delivery of remedies for those who have suffered.
Nicholas A. Bainton
The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia
pp. 426-428