Dear Editor,

While the above issue is now making news in the media there at home, to some of us it is not news at all. It was a common knowledge around the 1990s and if I quite remembered rightly, one of our politicians at that time mentioned something about landowners allowing their land for prospecting and mining before Australia takes over.

Now that Australia is there in the name of RAMSI, it would be news when the mining will begin and how much consultation would be done with the landowners and how much of the output would directly benefit the landowners. True, considering the depths of where the minerals are located it would almost be nonsensical to even place a claim of ownership over them. But the bottom line is who would benefit the most after all the drilling and mining and the environmental degradation after all that activities.

I remember at one stage there were complaints from the bushes of Malaita as to what was RAMSI doing right there in the interior of the Island. I remembered well how East Timor lost millions of dollars in crude oil as a result of Australia being involved in cooling down the turmoil before East Timor's independence.

I am not in any way against Australia but history seems to be repeating itself and all I am asking is that Mr. Honourable Huniehu to be wise and tread carefully in handling that great resources. Great wars were fought as a result of uneven distribution of resources as a result of one dominating the other in terms of contract agreement and other related issues.

The question I may now ask...is that the very reason Malaita Maasina Forum is considering and had requested independence for Malaita?

I might as well shut up and see how things develop.

Over to you all.

Thank you.