The tiny Banaban community from Rabi Island in the Buca Bay area of Vanua Levu claimed damages of more than $21 million from an international mining organisation.
The claim, probably the largest brought in a civil court action from the South Pacific region at the time, was part of a law suit to be heard in the High Court in London in 1972.
The suit is one of the latest developments in a long-standing dispute between the Banabans, the British Government and the British Phosphate Commissioners.
The dispute was about the mining of phosphate from the Banabans’ former home, Ocean Island, a desolate speck east of Nauru.
The Banabans were deported from Ocean Island when it was occupied by the Japanese during WWII and moved to Rabi in 1945. The article on the claim was published in this newspaper on Friday, May 26, 1972.
A writ issued from the London High Court against the British Phosphate Commissioners seek the enforcing of a 1913 agreement for worked-out areas of Ocean Island to be replanted with coconut palms and other food trees. Failing this, the writ seeks more than $21,300,000 in damages.
The figure was based on a calculation of the cost of replanting the acreage mined by the commissioners and private companies which preceded them. The commissioners consist of representatives of the governments of Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
The remainder of the Banabans’ claims relates to their demands for a larger share of phosphate royalties. Most of the phosphate revenue went to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, which included Ocean Island. The Banabans’ claim was to ask the court to decide on how much royalty money should have been paid to the Banabans and for that amount to be awarded to them instead.
One part relates to a specific sum of $156,128 paid into the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony (GEIC) reserve fund. Bertnam Jones, secretary of the Rabi Island Council of Leaders, which administers the Banabans’ Buca Bay home, commented in a statement about the royalties by Reuben Uatioa, leader of Government Business in the GEIC.
Mr Uatioa claimed the Banabans’ case was unjustified. Mr Jones said in Suva that Mr Uatioa’s statement that the GEIC Government had the right to extract whatever revenue it wanted from the Ocean Island phosphates seemed rather biased. “There was strong legal opinion that the GEIC had been extracting revenue to which it had no right,” said Mr Jones.
“Whatever verdict was reached in the High Court, the Banabans would be content to let world opinion judge the moral aspects of the situation.”
Commenting on another statement by Mr Uatioa, Mr Jones said whether or not the Banabans were Gilbertese hardly seemed relevant to the royalty issue.
“Racial origin is not part of the Banabans’ legal case,” he said.
About 2000 Banabans lived at Rabi at the time and 20 to 30 of them worked at Ocean Island for the phosphate commissioners. One of them was an official representative on the island of the Rabi Council of Leaders.
