Category Australian Government

Jun 15 2023

Bougainville News : Today we celebrate 18th AROB Day Anniversary June 15 2005 to 2023

Where were you at the beginning of this era on this Day 15 June 2005.
I was at Hahela YC sports oval. This was the outdoors venue where the inauguration of the first ABG took place.
It is where the President of ABG (Joseph C Kabui) took his oaths as the first President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville within PNG.
It is also where the first 40 members of the First Bougainville House of Representatives took their oaths of Office as Members.
The swearing-in was administered by and before His Honour the Deputy Chief Justice, late Sir Mari Kapi.
This Day was graced by a full crowd of women, men, including schoolchildren that filled the whole oval. A colorful loop of young students holding a large Bougainville flag end to bed took up a large space of the oval.
At the head of the ceremonial pavilion were VIPs that included head of UNOMB, heads of missions in PNG, a Fijian Government contingent led by their Foreign Minister at the time, and heads and representatives of churches, chiefs, elders, traditional spiritual leaders and women leaders.
The significance of this occasion was a “rebirth”of Bougainville after a devastating conflict in which many lives were lost on all sides of the conflict but mostly upwards of fifteen thousand lives of Bougainvilleans.
The thoughts and significance that today marked the end of what seemed a debilitating war and the beginning today that would usher in peace in the land was not lost to many Bougainvilleans at home and abroad.
The principal guest who made the keynote response to the inaugural Address by President Kabui was the Rt Hon Prime Minister of PNG, Sir Michael Somare.
At the end of the ceremony the Prime Minister, the President, all MHRs, VIPs and the Clerk of the House were ‘ushered’ into vehicles on a short drive to the Parliament, Bougainville’s first House of Representatives.
The first business of the House was the appointment of Speaker of the House. Hon Nick Peniai was duly elected and took his oath as the first Speaker of the House.
Two main Addresses followed, the first in the Bougainville House of Representatives by the Rt Hon Sir Michael Somare and by Hon Joseph C Kabui.
On this day was born the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, the ABG and Bougainville’s Parliament, the House of Representatives.
So today isn’t just another day. It is the eighteenth anniversary of AROB eighteen years on. Hon Ishmael Toroama MHR is the fifth President of ABG and head of the Executive. The Fourth Bougainville House of Representatives is celebrating its fourth anniversary with four successful, successive peaceful elections since 2005 with its fifth Speaker as head of the Legislature on this eighteenth anniversary.
Thanking all Bougainvilleans across the length and breath of the main Islands and out on the Atolls.
Thank you PNG National Government for honouring the BPA in delivering Autonomy and maintaining a continuing interest in the development and aspirations of Bougainville.
A long and winding, challenging and interesting, road is ahead and beyond. It isn’t awaiting us. We have to make the right efforts guided by faith, honesty, trust and forebearance, led by leaders that must not only be beyond reproach but seen to be so in a world that is still violent, full of greed and aggrandizement.
Happy AROB Day Anniversary ☮️
May 6 2023

Bougainville News : Download /Read : Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation a new book by Gordon Peake

In 2016, Gordon Peake answers a job advertisement for a role with the government of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, a collection of islands on the eastern fringe of Papua New Guinea looking to strike out as a country of its own.

In his day job he sees at first hand the challenges of trying to stand up new government systems.

Away from the office he travels with former rebels, follows an anthropologist’s ghost and visits landmarks from the region’s conflict. In 2019, he witnesses joy and euphoria as the people of Bougainville vote in a referendum on their future.

Out of these encounters emerges an unforgettable portrait of this potential nation-in-waiting.

Blending narrative history, travelogue and personal reminiscences, Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is an engaging memoir as well as an insightful meditation on the realities of nation-making and international development.

Download the book here

Bougainville book

Publisher ANU

https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/pacific/unsung-land-aspiring-nation

‘Heartfelt and honest. This book is an insightful read and a valuable addition to scholarship on Bougainville’s journey to peace.’
— Joseph Nobetau, former Chief Secretary to the Autonomous Bougainville Government

‘An excellent piece of engaged travel writing. With first-hand observation and curiosity, Gordon has produced a deeply informed, compelling and evocative account of war, survival and nation-building in what may become the world’s newest country.’
— Tom Bamforth, author of The Rising Tide: Among the Islands and Atolls of the Pacific Ocean

Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is also available as an audiobook.

Sep 16 2022

Bougainville Independence News : On PNG Independence Day we ask the question , when will Bougainville gets its independence ?

 

The Autonomous Bougainville Government continues to make headway under its Independence Mission Strategy to practicalise the people’s 97.7 percent vote for Independence.

The Bougainville Independence Mission which was launched by President Hon. Ishmael Toroama in April 2021, marked the beginning of the implementation of a trident strategy to prepare Bougainville for independence.

Under this Trident Strategy, the first prong covered independence-ready preparations within Bougainville by Bougainvilleans, the second prong covered independence-ready preparations within Papua New Guinea and the third prong launched today, will focus on independence-ready preparations with the international community.

The International Prong was launched under the theme “Promoting Bougainville’s Global Trade & Investment”, and aims to establish support for Bougainville’s independence through enhanced trade and investment relations.

Speaking at the launch, ABG Vice President and Minister for Commerce, Trade and Economic Development Hon. Patrick Nisira explained that under the Bougainville Peace Agreement, it outlines ABG’s opportunities to bring forth this change in the global scene in concurrence with the national government’s foreign affairs department.

“There are provisions in the Bougainville Peace Agreement that provide for ABG to have observer status on various trade and investment platforms at the international frontier. These avenues must now be utilized to expose and integrate Autonomous Bougainville Government and its potential into the international prong,” he said.

“As we reach out to the international frontier our focus must be on growing the Bougainville economy and attaining fiscal self-reliance through international trade and sound investment and support for Bougainville as it integrates into the global community and building foreign relationships.”

Under the International Prong, a number of key tasks will be implemented to support its implementation. These include:

1.      Set-up of a Bougainville Desk under the National Department of Foreign Affairs

2.      Set-up of a Bougainville Desk at the National Trade Office

3.      Collaboration with the PNG Overseas Missions

4.      A Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate Trade and Economic Integration

5.      Requesting for observer status on various forums like the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Melanesian Spearhead Group, EU Economic Partnership Agreement with PNG and APEC plus others.

Minister Nisira reiterated that Bougainvilleans must understand that Bougainville is part of a bigger global village and cannot exist on its own, however the Government through the international prong, will work towards building mutual relationships and trust through government-to-government relationships that will enhance trade and investment for Bougainville as an emerging island state in the Pacific.

Minister Nisira also appealed strongly to the people of Bougainville as the resource owners to work closely with the government.

“I appeal to the people of Bougainville especially the resource owners to work closely with my Ministry, Department and the Toroama-Nisira government to prepare ourselves to release the resources for development to have maximum benefits and equitable distribution of wealth with the investors, the state and the resource owners,” he said.

“Let me also inform Bougainvilleans that as we embark on the international prong through trade and investment, we must be responsible citizens. We must fix our law-and-order issues to provide a conducive environment for investment and trade to flourish,” Nisira added.

[ Back to News ]

Aug 29 2022

Bougainville Environmental News Alert: Download: Early environmental report on Rio Tinto’s former Panguna mine highlights clear risks for communities

 

 

A new independent report reviewing satellite images and other historical data on Rio Tinto’s former Panguna mine has warned of serious risks to local communities posed by unstable mine infrastructure and flooding caused by the build-up of mine waste in the rivers.

The report, produced by global environmental firm Tetra Tech Coffey, is a preparatory desktop study on the mine, which will inform an environmental and human rights impact assessment of the mine due to commence later this year.

The report found that a levee at the junction of the Jaba and Kawerong rivers, constructed at the time of the mine’s operation, “is almost certain to collapse at some stage in the future” and that “structures and people that live on the floodplain downstream of the Jaba River would be directly impacted by flooding or landslide effect”. The report noted that “it is not yet possible to predict when the levee at the junction of the Kawerong and Jaba rivers may fail or how severe its failure may be due to limitations of current information.”

The report also warned that “the bed of the Jaba River has raised over time due to flooding and build-up of previously deposited tailings, such as at the lower Jaba River near Bato Bridge”. This “caused the Jaba River to change course in 2017 and start to flow into the Konaviru wetland and lower Kuneka Creek, changing their flooding patterns and depositing tailings into them.” The report noted that “this change of flow into Konaviru wetland is likely to remain and become the focus of further tailings deposition in the future”, posing future flooding risks for people living in the area. However, “it is not yet possible to predict when this will happen and whether the change will be permanent”.

Due to the urgent nature of these two risks, a rapid risk assessment by Tetra Tech Coffey, including on-ground inspection to verify the report’s findings, is due to commence in the coming weeks. The process has been escalated outside of the formal impact assessment and is being led by the Autonomous Bougainville Government, with the support of Rio Tinto and the Human Rights Law Centre.

The other issues identified in the report, including risks posed by old mine infrastructure and pollution of local rivers and water sources, will be examined by the formal impact assessment, starting later in the year.

Last year, Rio Tinto committed to fund the impact assessment following a human rights complaint brought by 156 local community members, represented by the Human Rights Law Centre. Rio Tinto has not yet committed to funding solutions to any mine-related risks or impacts identified through the impact assessment.

The Tetra Tech Coffey report was released by the Panguna Mine Legacy Oversight Committee  – a multi-stakeholder Committee comprising community members, landowners, government representatives, and representatives from the Human Rights Law Centre, Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper Limited.

Traditional landowner and lead complainant in the human rights complaint, Theonila Roka Matbob, who is also the member of parliament for the area where the mine is located said:

“We welcome Rio Tinto’s commitment to investigating these problems and to supporting the Bougainville Government to escalate the serious levee risk and lower Kuneka Creek flooding risk for urgent investigation.

“This early report shows the world just some of what we live with every day. Every day we worry about levees collapsing on us, about rivers full of mine waste flooding our land and villages and about whether the water we drink and wash with is making us sick.

“We appreciate Rio’s message at the launch of the Secretariat’s office that it is committed to the Impact Assessment process. It is critical that Rio Tinto also commits to supporting the implementation of solutions to the huge problems we face.”

Keren Adams, Acting Co-CEO at the Human Rights Law Centre, said:

“This report reinforces the devastating environmental legacy of the Panguna mine and the dangerous, volatile situation that this has left local communities living in. When we visited these communities, we saw first-hand the devastating effects of mine-waste mud flows on communities’ water sources & fishing areas. We spoke to people who live downstream of the collapsing levees and fear their houses could be swept away.

“Over the coming weeks, we will be working with communities, the ABG, Rio Tinto and the Tetra Tech Coffey team to ensure that the acute levee and flooding risks are urgently assessed. We hope this will help give communities a better understanding of the risks they are living with and to identify options for addressing these serious risks to peoples’ lives and livelihoods.”

Background:

In September 2020, 156 residents from villages downstream of the Panguna mine, represented by the Human Rights Law Centre, filed a complaint against Rio Tinto with the Australian National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The complaint was about the environmental impacts of the mine and the effects these have on the lives of people living near and downstream of the mine from things like pollution of rivers, lack of access to clean water, flooding and land destruction, collapsing levees, food shortages, disease and illness.

In 2021, Rio Tinto publicly committed to fund an independent environmental and human rights impact assessment of the mine. The company has not yet committed to fund the clean-up and remediation of affected areas and communities.

A tender process is currently underway to select an independent company of environmental, social and human rights experts to carry out Phase 1 of the Impact Assessment, which is expected to start by the end of the year and run for around 18 months.

Following the impact assessment, further discussions will be held between the company, community representatives and other stakeholders regarding the assessment’s recommendations and next steps.

The Tetra Tech report is available here.

For further background on the impacts of the mine, see the Human Rights Law Centre’s After the Mine report.

 

Jun 2 2022

Bougainville Resources News : Jubilee publishes a report : Scramble for resources : The international race for Bougainville”s resources

” Scramble for Resources shines much-needed light on the practices of the new waves of mining and exploration companies in Bougainville. Given the sheer number of Australian companies involved in this stampede for Bougainville’s resources, and the consequences for people living on the island, its findings should cause Australians to sit up and take notice. ” 

– The Hon Kevin Rudd, 26th Prime Minister of Australia

Jubilee published a report revealing how the Autonomous Region of Bougainville has become the target of a scramble for resources.

 Bougainville, which is transitioning towards independence from Papua New Guinea, has attracted mining and minerals exploration companies from around the world, drawn by its valuable copper and gold reserves. Most of these companies are based in or have links to Australia. 

Download / Read the report here  Bougainville mineral wealth

Bougainville is home to the Panguna mine – once one of the largest operating copper and gold mines in the world. During its operation from 1972-1989, the mine operator, then a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, dumped one billion tonnes of mining waste into Bougainville’s rivers with devastating environmental consequences. The mine sparked a brutal ten-year conflict on the island, the effects of which are seen to this day.

Over a two-year investigation, we tracked the companies vying for the right to mine on the island, ranging from one-person outfits to global operations backed by major investors. Some are hoping to reopen the defunct Panguna mine. 

We found that at least two of the companies seeking mining rights at Panguna have been making payments to landowner groups who are likely to be involved in decisions about whether to reopen the mine. Another company made payments to the local police.

Our report also looks at two leaked corporate presentations prepared for the Bougainvillean Government that advised it to put valuable mining rights in the hands of offshore companies set up in a secrecy jurisdiction.

READ THE REPORT NOW

Our report raises questions about corporate accountability, transparency and who is responsible for safeguarding human rights and the environment when multinational companies are operating overseas.

Further, it highlights the importance of corporate political engagement being transparent, responsible and in the public interest. When Australian companies operate overseas, they should be answerable for the human and environmental impacts of their operations.

Based on the findings of the report, we recommend that Australia put in place a mandatory human rights due diligence mechanism and a corporate beneficial ownership register to hold companies to account for the impact of their operations on communities overseas.

READ THE REPORT NOW

Whether or not to reopen Bougainville to large-scale mining is a decision for the people of Bougainville and their government. It is important that anyone seeking to mine there has the free, prior and informed consent of all landowners, and that mining ventures deliver genuine benefits to local communities and avoid repeating the environmental devastation of the past. 

In solidarity, 

Jubilee team

Jul 21 2021

Bougainville News Alert : Rio Tinto agrees to independent human rights assessment of Bougainville mine

“ The mining agreement, negotiated by Rio Tinto with the Australian government in the 1960s, did not include significant environmental regulations or liability for mine site rehabilitation.” 

By Stefan Armbruster SBS TV See Original

Multinational mining giant Rio Tinto has agreed to fund an independent assessment of the human rights and environmental impacts of its former Panguna copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea’s autonomous region of Bougainville.

Rio Tinto abandoned the mine in 1989 during a brutal civil conflict on Bougainville and now no longer holds a stake after controversially divesting its shareholding to the PNG and Bougainville governments in 2016, rejecting corporate responsibility for environmental damage.

The mining agreement, negotiated by Rio Tinto with the Australian government in the 1960s, when PNG was a colony, did not include significant environmental regulations or liability for mine site rehabilitation.

An estimated billion tonnes of mine tailings pollution has now spread downstream from Panguna, spreading across the Jaba-Kawerong river delta stretching 40 kilometres to the coast.

“This is an important day for communities on Bougainville,” said traditional landowner and MP Theonila Roka Matbob, representing the communities involved in the complaint.

“Our people have been living with the disastrous impacts of Panguna for many years and the situation is getting worse. The mine continues to poison our rivers.”

“These problems need to be urgently investigated so solutions can be developed and clean-up can begin. Today’s announcement gives us hope for a new chapter for our people.”

Last November, a complaint by 156 landowners against Rio Tinto was accepted by the Australian government for mediation under its obligations as a member of the OECD club of wealthy nations.

Their environmental and human rights claim states: “The mine pollution continues to infringe nearly all the economic, social and cultural rights of these indigenous communities, including their rights to food, water, health, housing and an adequate standard of living”.

“This is an important first step towards engaging with those impacted by the legacy of the Panguna mine,” Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm said in a statement.

“Operations at Panguna ceased in 1989 and we’ve not had access to the mine since that time. Stakeholders have raised concerns about impacts to water, land and health and this process will provide all parties with a clearer understanding of these important matters so that together we can consider the right way forward.”

“We take this seriously and are committed to identifying and assessing any involvement we may have had in adverse impacts in line with our external human rights and environmental commitments and internal policies and standards.”

The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) has confirmed it supports the process.

Rio Tinto has not yet committed to funding clean-up and remediation of the mine.

Decade-long crisis

The Panguna mine was one of the world’s largest copper and gold mines, generating an estimated US$2 billion in revenue for Rio Tinto during the 1970s and 1980s.

Disputes over jobs for landowners, environmental pollution and distribution of profits sparked a decade-long ‘Bougainville Crisis’ civil war in 1989 that claimed the lives of nearly 15,000 people.

Landowners also want Rio Tinto to fund long-term rehabilitation efforts.

“This assessment is a critical first step towards addressing that legacy,” said Keren Adams, a legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre.

“However, we stress that it is only the first step. The assessment will need to be followed up by swift action to address these problems so that communities can live in safety.”

“Communities urgently need access to clean water for drinking and bathing. They need solutions to stop the vast mounds of tailings waste eroding into the rivers and flooding their villages, farms and fishing areas. This is what remediation means in real terms for the people living with these impacts.”

Estimates of the cost for full mine site and downstream tailings rehabilitation is in the billions of dollars.

“It’s destroyed the sago palms and other trees … and destruction continues. You can see where the fertile land is covered over,” said downstream landowner and claimant George Posiona.

“It’s taking up a large area and we believe in a few years time we will not be able to plant food. It continues to flow down and destroy this land.”

The Department of Treasury’s OECD National Contact Point (AusNCP) is responsible for mediating the dispute, issue findings, and recommending action to address any breaches.

The announcement comes as Rio Tinto continues to face a federal parliamentary inquiry into the destruction of the sacred Aboriginal Juukan Gorge cave site in Western Australia which contained evidence of 46,000 years of human use.

Bougainville overwhelmingly voted for independence from Papua New Guinea in 2019 and hopes to gain nationhood by 2027.

Debate continues over whether to reopen the mine to underpin the economic security of Bougainville.

 

Nov 29 2020

Bougainville News Feature : If we have all learnt anything from Panguna, it is this. We have not learnt enough.

 ” PANGUNA and its landowners have had a mixture of these feelings and positions during the time of mining but have not felt much this way since the mine was forcibly shut down at the end of 1989. That is 31 years ago now.

The ordinary folk up there that still wake up to an altered landscape with their women – mothers of the land – are still asking what they did to deserve this as they eke out their livelihood from their usable plots of land which are mostly on hillsides.” 

Contributed by Simon Pentanu

Their biggest local hero Francis Ona came to prominence when he took a stand against his own extended family members and BCL for what he saw as an unfair and unjust payment and distribution of royalty, lease, inconvenience payments and other payments.

Ona was incensed by what he thought and saw as the vanguard of RMTL Executives supported by BCL against a mounting dissatisfaction of younger landowners who felt their grievances and interests for the share of the pie was not being given due consideration.

Their growing frustration culminated in an attempt to out-vote and replace the elderly and duly elected PLOA whose numbers comprised the majority in the RMTL Executive. Rather defiantly, if not boisterously, an AGM was convoked by Francis with this specific aim in mind.

Let us say the rest is history now, a short and sad history that BCL and the rest of Bougainville became embroiled in without any indication or warning that armed conflict, menace and mass exodus was going to follow. It is a history that is intertwined with irreverent behaviour, blood letting and a descent into the abyss that we must never follow or repeat.

The fall out from the voluntary pull out and disbursement of shares in BCL by Rio has developed into arguments and differences between some of the same people that Francis took a singular hard line stance against. If time heals, up in Panguna the healing has been slow though not exactly without some positive progress.

The reverberations have been still audible and the fractures have been still visible. In the mean time everyone else is still trying to figure out what Panguna means now after Rio has pulled the plug and cartwheeled out of Bougainville.

Well not quite! Rio was left in both an unenviable and untenable position that left it little choice but to make the commercial decision it made. The pros and cons, the timing and implications of Rio’s decision will long be argued, possibly in the Court rooms as well. What is most certain is Rio will never find any favour in Bougainville by landowners. Not in any obvious way anyway.

In the beginning everyone rushed into Panguna like honey bees taking to a new beehive. To the mining investor at the time it was seen as a cash cow ideally located in the largely virgin Crown Prince Range. The forest was dense green, the creeks and flowing rivers and estuaries pristine and bird life and marsupials adorning their habitat in plentiful numbers.

For everyone, including the often bewildered, sometimes excited and expectant landowners this was probably the best opportunity to catapult Bougainville from the backwaters to unimaginable affluence. No one foresaw or imagined the stuff of effluence that everyone from miner to landowner, hardliner to politician and the environmentalist would be mired in.

When the decision was made to mine, its timing and the set and scene was ideal. To the colonial administering authority Panguna provided the perfect investment to finance the Territory of Papua and New Guinea which was already showing signs that its political independence was emerging as an issue for open and frank discussion with Canberra. To Australian PM then, John Gorton, and his Ministers at the time Charles Barnes, Andrew Peacock and those in Konedobu like David Hay, APJ Newman, Tom Ellis and others Panguna looked a very promising prospect if Independence was going to be forced and fostered on PNG sooner than later.

As the turnstiles sometimes turn in history, it turned out it was Gough Whitlam and his Labour Government that gave the inevitable nod to Independence.

The dye was cast both for Panguna to go ahead as a real mining proposition and for the inevitable political process and transition to Independence for Papua and New Guinea as a single entity and as one country.

I’m not sure whether Panguna today is lying flat on its face or lying down on its belly. I don’t think it is either. After the landscape has been defaced and the booty and loot is gone there isn’t much of the old Panguna face that is left to be recognizable any more. And it has no belly to speak of or talk about after it has been gutted out.

But for the insatiable world hungry for minerals there is not any aota of doubt that Panguna and and its surroundings and vicinity still hold billions worth of copper, gold and silver below people’s customary land.

So what else is left of Panguna? Among the LOs they are pitted at different ends of the same table but they are seeking the same outcomes in different ways with different foreign interests.

The remnants of the old and new LOs may not be obviously visible but some of the same players that bore much of the brunt of Francis Ona’s spite and antagonism still differ in their demands and approach, even the modus operandi on how the last of the spoils from the damages might be shared or divided and how the mine might be regurgitated into the future.

What is more and more stark is, in the landowning family and extended family the differences and cracks in their arguments and claims about who has more rights to entice investors or negotiate with ABG or deal with anybody for that matter has never been more uncertain and never more confusing.

The alliances and dalliances landowners have formed with foreign interests has also added to the differences and arguments, and even doubts, as to who has more rights and claims to SML and other leases up there.

In this regard the Bougainville mining law has been tested more or less whether it adequately covers the interest of the landowners as espoused or intended in the preamble and opening provisions of the Bougainville constitution.

IF we have all learnt anything from Panguna, it is this. We have not learnt enough.

 

 

Oct 18 2020

Bougainville News : ‘Deal with the disaster’: The girl from #Bougainville who grew up to take on a mining giant RTZ

“Panguna mine is often cast as the economic key to Bougainville’s potential independence, but young MP Theonila Matbob says her people, and their land, must come first ” 

by Leanne Jorari and Ben Doherty writing in the Guardian

For all of Theonila Roka Matbob’s three decades, the scar on her land that was once the world’s largest copper mine has cast a pall.

The Panguna mine in Bougainville, eastern Papua New Guinea, has not yielded a single ounce in her lifetime – forced shut the year before Matbob was born – but she grew up in the shadow of the violent civil war it provoked.

When she was just three years old, her father, John Roka, was murdered by the secessionist soldiers who had forced the mine to close. Spending years in a “care centre” run by the PNG defence force, she remembers a childhood dominated by an all-pervasive fear, where the sound of gunshots regularly rang out across the valley, where neighbours disappeared from their homes, their bodies later found slaughtered.

There is peace now, but memories remain, and “we live with the impacts of Panguna every day,” Matbob says.

“Our rivers are poisoned with copper, our homes get filled with dust from the tailings mounds, our kids get sick from the pollution.

“Every time it rains more waste washes into the rivers, causing flooding for villages further downstream. Some communities now have to spend two hours a day walking just to get clean drinking water because their nearby creeks are clogged up with mine waste.”

Panguna is quiet these days. The mining trucks lie rusting in Bougainville’s clammy heat; the massive pit carved into the middle of a mountain is inhabited by a handful alluvial miners, digging with hand tools for what gold remains; and the Kawerong-Jaba river delta downstream is flooded with bright blue toxic waters which poison the land and the people who live there.

And Matbob, the little girl who grew up in the shadow of the mine’s violence, is now a parliamentarian, determined to seek redress for her people.

Newly elected to the Bougainville parliament for the electorate of Ioro, which encompasses Panguna, Matbob has led a formal complaint filed with the Australian government against Rio Tinto for environmental and human rights violations caused by the mine.

The complaint, supported by more than 150 members of her electorate and by the Human Rights Law Centre, alleges that the massive volume of waste pollution left behind by the mine is putting communities’ lives and livelihoods at risk, poisoning their water, damaging their health, flooding their lands and sacred sites, and leaving them “in a deteriorating, increasingly dangerous situation”.

A toxic legacy

Panguna was an immensely profitable mine. Over 17 years it made more than $US2bn for the mine’s former owner and operator Rio Tinto, who pulled 550,000 tonnes of copper concentrate and 450,000 ounces of gold from the mine in its last year alone.

At one point, Panguna accounted for 45% of all of PNG’s exports, and 12% of its GDP.

But for those whose land it was, Panguna brought but a sliver of the wealth and development that was promised – less than 1% of profits – leaving behind a legacy only of division, violence, and environmental degradation.

In 1989, amid rising fury at the environmental damage and the inequitable division of the mine’s profits, customary landowners forced the mine closed, blowing up Panguna’s power lines and sabotaging operations.

The PNG government sent in troops against its own citizens to restart the foreign-owned mine – at the behest of Rio, it says – sparking a civil war that would rage for a decade. Along with a protracted military blockade, it led to the deaths of as many as 20,000 people.

Rio Tinto cut and run, and has never returned to the island, claiming it is unsafe, despite pleas from landowners to repair the vast and ongoing environmental damage.

“These are not problems we can fix with our bare hands,” Matbob says. “We urgently need Rio Tinto to do what’s right and deal with the disaster they have left behind.”

‘We expect a fair share’

A product of Bougainville’s matrilineal society, which bestows women with custodianship of land and community authority, Matbob speaks quietly but forcefully.

A teacher by profession, and mother of two, she studied at universities in Madang and Goroka before working as a social worker and running for parliament. She beat a field of 15 candidates, including several former revolutionary soldiers, and even her own brother.

But the parliament to which Matbob has been elected has another primary and overwhelming concern, though one intimately related: negotiating independence from Papua New Guinea.

Last year, the province voted 98% in favour of seceding from Port Moresby, and the new president, former Bougainville Revolutionary Army commander Ishmael Toroama, has promised to deliver liberation.

Despite resistance from PNG’s government to losing its resource-rich eastern province, there is genuine expectation amongst Bougainvilleans that their decision to secede will be honoured.

Upe men line up to vote in the 2019 independence referendum in Teau, Bougainville. Photograph: Jeremy Miller/AP

But the argument allied to political independence in Bougainville is that it can only be achieved alongside economic autonomy.

To that end, the argument runs, re-opening Panguna is the surest, perhaps the only, way a small province of just 300,000 people can survive as an independent nation. On Bougainville, the issue of independence has become inextricably linked to that of resources, for which Panguna has become a grim synecdoche.

“Large-scale mining provides a route to fiscal self-reliance, but this strategy has risks,” a report by Dr Satish Chand for the National Research Institute of PNG found, arguing of Panguna, “the viability of this project, the… profitability of the mine, and the revenues generated for… government are all speculative”.

Deeply embedded in Bougainville’s political psyche is a belief in the transformative power of political and economic independence – most likely achieved through mining – to bring prosperity, development and stability after decades of turmoil and privation.

But those expectations may prove difficult to marry with reality: an independent Bougainville would likely face a revenue shortfall of tens of millions of dollars a year.

“The Autonomous Bougainville Government had, by 2016, reached just 6% of the distance to fiscal self-reliance,” Chand found.

Unquestionably there is money to be made on Bougainville: the potential profits to be pulled from Panguna alone have been valued at close to $60bn. But profits for whom?

New president Toroama, once a leader of the militancy that forced the mine to close, says any decision on its future lies with local landowners.

“Panguna mine will be a key target but we will not put all our eggs in one basket,” Toroama told Bougainville’s parliament last month in his maiden speech.

“We welcome foreign investment, because without outside funding and technologies, we may not be able to exploit our natural resources. But we expect a fair share of return and participation.”

As their elected representative, Matbob is more definitive. Her people must come first.

“Though there is a future for Panguna,” she tells the Guardian from her electorate, “… it will have to be shelved until the needs of my people are well addressed.”

Crowded with outsiders

Bougainville’s acute political uncertainty – poised, potentially, on the threshold of nationhood, with all of its attendant vulnerabilities – has brought ferocious renewed attention on Panguna.

An alphabet soup of foreign mining companies – at least four registered in Perth alone – have sought to carve up the province for future exploitation.

The jostling for position and favour with both the Bougainville and PNG governments has been sharp-elbowed, with accusatory press statements and missives to the stock exchange, even spilling into Australian courts.

Companies have variously accused others of corruption and bribing government officials, of being responsible for environmental vandalism or complicit in military atrocities.

And a Chinese delegation reported to have travelled to the province in 2018 was rumoured to have pledged $1bn to fund its transition to independence, accompanied by offers to invest in mining, tourism, and agriculture.

An allied, independent, and resource-rich Bougainville – in the middle of Melanesia and so soon after neighbouring Solomon Islands flipped to recognise Beijing over Taipei – would be of significant strategic value to China.

Even Rio, after years of claiming it could never return to Panguna, has recently indicated it is not entirely out of the picture, saying it was “ready to enter into discussions with communities”.

“We are aware of the deteriorating mining infrastructure at the site and surrounding areas, and acknowledge that there are environmental and human rights considerations.”

For a small island, Bougainville is, suddenly, very crowded.

Matbob understands the enthusiasm of outsiders to return to Bougainville. But for too long, she says, her people’s priorities were subsumed to those of foreign interests, and to profit.

“The Bougainville revolution… was founded on the protection of people, land, environment and culture,” she tells the Guardian.

“Though there is a future for Panguna… there are a lot of legacy issues attached to it. As the new member representing the Ioro people, I say it will have to be shelved until the needs of my people are well addressed.”

Jul 16 2020

Bougainville History of Independence : Buckingham Palace letters: Queen’s secretary compared Bougainville’s bid for independence to Scotland

” The Australian governor general John Kerr warned the Queen that a plan for Bougainville independence was not lawful, was opposed by Australia and Rio Tinto copper interests, and would increase regional instability and force Australia to hand more financial support to Papua New Guinea. ”

Originally published in the Guardian

Picture above  : Almost 100% of Bougainville voters backed independence in last year’s referendum but palace letters show Australia’s governor general John Kerr told the Queen that such a move ‘cannot be done legally

The so-called palace letters, a trove of previously secret royal correspondence, shows the Queen’s private secretary Martin Charteris responded by comparing Bougainville to Scotland and its hopes that oil reserves could fund independence.

The documents released by Australia’s national archives shed new light on the royal attitude to the secessionist movement in Bougainville.

Momentum for Bougainville to secede from Papua New Guinea grew as PNG itself declared independence from Australia in 1975, while retaining the Queen as its monarch.

The region is home to the vast Panguna mine, then the world’s biggest open-cut copper mine, owned by Bougainville Copper Limited, which then had Conzinc Rio Tinto as major shareholder.

Tensions over the mine would spark a bloody civil war that killed an estimated 20,000 people between 1988 and 1997.

On 19 August 1975, Kerr briefed Charteris on his “thinking” on the growing secessionist movement in Bougainville and a plan to secede unilaterally from PNG in September, the same month PNG secured its independence from Australia.

“This cannot be done legally,” Kerr wrote.

He said Rio Tinto was in favour of a “united Papua New Guinea”, though he said that may change if it deemed its long-term interests lay elsewhere.

Australia also had good reasons for opposing the secession, he said.

“There are good reasons from Australia’s point of view why a united Papua New Guinea would be desirable though achievement of this is probably not essential to Australia’s national interest,” he wrote.

“If Bougainville successfully secedes, Papua New Guinea would be weaker economically, and hence likely to be more pressing, so far as Australia is concerned, for economic support.”

“Bougainville secession would also increase the possibility of instability in Papua New Guinea in other areas.”

Kerr also lamented Australian aid cuts to PNG at the same time, saying they were “most unfortunate … on the very eve of independence”.

The Queen read Kerr’s advice, the letters show.

In replying to Kerr on 28 August 1975, Charteris compared Bougainville to Scotland and the way oil resources drove hope for Scottish independence.

He said the possibility of trouble was “disturbing” and that “we must hope that matters can at least be satisfactorily contained”.

“I suppose copper stands to the Provisional Provincial Government of Bougainville as does oil to the Scottish Nationalist Party,” he said.

“It gives them at least the belief that they could stand on their own two feet and the wish to do so, so that they can keep the wealth of their territory to themselves.”

Charteris made it plain that Kerr’s advice on Bougainville had reached the Queen.

“The Queen has of course seen your letter and has read it with much interest,” he wrote.

The 1975 momentum for secession was dealt with by granting the region more autonomy.

The decade-long civil war led to further autonomy for the region, and last year it voted overwhelmingly to become independent from PNG in a non-binding referendum.

 

Jan 9 2020

Bougainville News 2020 : The Bougainville referendum and the fate of Melanesia: Which Way, Big Man?

“This land must become holy again, Me’ekamui. We prayed to God and he gave us strength. This directed us to engage in clean battle. We were fighting for our rights, to get rid of all these bad companies and their effects. All BRA and all Bougainvilleans practiced this holiness… Our spirits had to be holy, so God would get rid of Satan [the mining companies} …And God helped us…”

Francis Ona, BRA Member

Interviewed by Anna-Karina Hermken, Author of “Marian Movements and Secessionist      Warfare in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea” (November 22nd, 2005).

By: Yamin Kogoya from West Papua living in Australia

A staggering 98% of Bougainvilleans voted for independence from Papua New Guinea in the recent referendum held between 23rd of November to 7th of December.

Despite the overwhelming desire for autonomy, Bougainvilleans require political support and good faith from the PNG national government in Port Moresby before a new sovereign state can be established.

Recognizing these challenges, the Catholic Bishop Conference (CBC) of PNG and Solomon Islands General Secretary, Fr. Giorgio Licini, asked the PNG government to “listen carefully to the cries of the Bougainville people for independence.”

Former Bougainville Interim Government Leader, Martin Miriori, warned that the reluctance of the PNG national government to acknowledge the wishes of the Bougainvillean people for independence is dangerous. [2]

Bougainvilleans are still traumatized from the civil war that erupted in the late 1980’s, which resulted in the closure of the giant, Australian-owned Panguna mine. The mining investors are untouched by the generational pain that mining and civil war have caused in Bougainville.

Panguna copper mine, now closed, serves not only as a stark reminder of war, but the breakdown of social structure, cultural values, and the destruction of Bougainville’s ecosystem.

The giant void in the middle of the island, left behind by the Panguna copper mine, represents the tragic loss of 20,000 innocent lives – Bougainvillean mothers, fathers and children killed during the civil unrest. The scars of war and the immense loss of life will forever be carved into the hearts of families, clans and tribes. [3]

Tragically, crises such as those in Bougainville are typically reported on as “primitive tribes fighting”. The conflicts in Melanesian mining villages are far more complex: these are wars against industrial machines that uproot cultures and tear apart ecosystems; fighting for the survival of languages, values and land as the threat of extinction rears its head.

The Fight for Cultural Survival

Bougainville is one of the many Indigenous communities around the world fighting to protect and preserve their ancestral knowledge, language and culture. The enemy of the people are the industrial nations with the support of local governments who don’t understand the complex networks of indigenous social structures, value systems and their deep connection to their ancestral land.

Bougainvilleans have long been the target of violence – they have endured decades of exploitation and abuse from Germany and Britain in their colonization pursuits. In an attempt to control protesting against the mine operations, the PNG government used foreign-supplied mercenaries to massacre thousands of Bougainvilleans, with the support of the Australian government.

It is a matter of urgency for Bougainville and other Melanesian communities to ensure thousands of years of cultural knowledge is preserved for future generations.

The Impact of Mining and Politics in Bougainville

The civil war may be long buried by the media, but political leaders in Port Moresby, Canberra, Beijing and Washington are keeping a keen eye on Bougainville as they plan their next moves. Their claims of developing the Pacific Islands are a mere smokescreen for their true ambitions of a regional and global hegemony, as they strategies how to carve up the Pacific region pie.

We cannot forget that the leaders of the Bougainvillean Revolutionary Army (BRA) believed that they were waging a war against what they believed to be between purity and corruption.

Francis Ona, leader of BRA, told his followers that in order to purify Bougainville they must be the first ones to be purified. This meant eliminating “alien viruses” that come from the arrival of foreign nations such as France, Germany, Britain and Australia, as well as the mining companies and the PNG government. [4]

Damien Dameng – prominent leader of the Meekamui movement in the 1950’s, from the Iran-Pangka Valley in Panguna District – recognized the impact of these “alien invasions” and contamination of life on the islands. His movement believed that colonial administration, mining and churches were thieves full of trickeries, and that Bougainville must be restored. [5]

Critics will claim that the war was about demands for the mining royalties, but it was in fact predominately about eliminating deadly poisons that resulted from mining on the islands.

John Momis, a prominent Bougainvillean statesman, referred to the Panguna mine as a “cancer cell” in his letter to the company’s managing director. [6]

Bougainvilleans want to defend the earth while mining companies like Panguna mine are indifferent to the suffering of people and destruction their land, all in the name of progress and development. Those with their hands in the Panguna mine pocket are eagerly awaiting the future of mining on the Pacific Islands.

PNG government’s attempt at national unity involved inviting mercenaries to kill the Bougainville people. National unity for who? The myth of national unity serves only the interests of elites in Port Moresby parliament house and Canberra – those who could not care less about the Melanesian communities whose lives, language, cultures and land have been under severe attack by the project of modernity.

The slaughtering of Papuans every day by Indonesians on the other side of this imaginary colonial border (PNG and West Papua) is being undertaken in the name of “national unity and integrity.” There is no unity or integrity in killing your fellow beings.

Melanesia at stands at a crossroads, Which Way?

As co-founding father of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and Vanuatu’s first Prime Minister, Fr. Walter Lini once said, “Vanuatu will not be fully free until all Melanesians are free.”[7]

Just because PNG and Fiji have their own parliament house, currency and armed law enforcement does not mean that they are more free or safer than those Papuans who are murdered every day in the hands of Indonesian control of West Papua. We are all facing the same existential threats under the current global world order.

The regional body such as the MSG and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) could be very powerful institutions that allow the leaders of the Pacific nations to unite and say NO to cheque book diplomacy coming from large foreign powers. The greed of the elite is causing great pain in the Pacific Islands in the name of development and those local elites (masters of modernity) whose day to day preoccupation is perhaps about what’s tonight dinner menu at a Chinese restaurant tonight.

Solutions to ensure as to whether Melanesia will survive or not require a collective effort. The MSG founding fathers such as PNG former prime minister Paias Wingti, Solomon Islands former prime minister Ezekiel Alebua, and Vanuatu’s first prime minister Walter Lini had visions backed by strong political desire to strive for the entire decolonization and freedom of the Melanesian people and territories under the colonial rule in the South Pacific. Are the current Melanesian leaders still holding onto this important vision?

The Pacific Region is fast becoming important for competing superpowers for geopolitical and economic strategy. Invisible capitalists, whose whole philosophy is based on Scottish Capitalist Adam Smith’s book “The Wealth of Nations”, are cashing their cheques amidst the slaughter of innocent Melanesian, Polynesian, Micronesian, Indigenous Australian and other ancient people across the world.  This is a war between industrial civilization versus the natural world.

The Road to Freedom for Bougainville

A collective solution cannot emerge from divided and fragmented nations wrapped in conflict. The PNG government must decide if it will continue to stand with the global capitalists or with the Bougainvilleans, West Papuans and many other resilient, grassroot communities across Oceania that say NO to colonialism, nuclear testing, climate change, corruptions that lead to mismanagement, and the gambling of their resources, history and future.

It is time for the leaders of the independent nations across Melanesia to look at their decisions, and ask whether they have been manipulated into giving up their equal share of the pie; fooled  into believing that they are free and equal, when in fact, they are merely begging at the table for scraps.

Bougainville is a 21st century tragedy with the potential to be extinguished under the Western capitalist system or live as a spiritual-based, nature centric civilization. It seems that any significant decision about the fate of a single nation is no longer sustainable in the long run.

If humans are to survive as a species, we cannot continue our destructive, terror-reigning path. Ecosystems are being depleted, cultures annihilated, and the money is going into the greedy hands of international pirates and global capitalists.

The root of the problem is our worldview: this civilization is based on individual, materialistic desires and selfish actions. Our fragmented worldview has created a separation theology and our separated theology has divided our sociology. This worldview has destroyed millions of lives on this planet.

Such major change will require a fundamental shift in our consciousness to realize that the value and integrity of life in the indigenous cultures of Bougainville or Palestine is just as important as those in London or Beijing.

PNG playwright and poet, Nora Vagi Brash, in her five plays,  “Which Way, Big man?”, reflect  dramatic changes taking place in PNG and difficult decisions  that Papuans must make about their history, lives and future as they struggle to juggle between the two worlds – the world of their ancestors colonised and the new modern world of coloniser. [8]

It is time to listen to the words of many great people who want to see these island nations thrive under autonomy and renewed freedom.

“Will we see ourselves in the long shadows of the dwindling light and the advanced darkness of the evening dusk, or will we see ourselves in the long and radiant rays of the rising sun? We can choose, if we will” The Melanesian Way (Bernard Narakobi). [9]

“It is time to purify and heal Bougainville” – Francis Ora

“It is time to not let the bird of paradise die in vain” – Airlie Ingram, Sorong Samarai. [10]

To me, the term Melanesia invokes the idea of an alien tree within Oceania that has not yet produced its own fruit. Visitors to the tree have attempted to graft buds from other plants in order to stimulate production, but with little success. Nevertheless, the tree is large and full of potential, and outside visitors are intrigued by its uniqueness. Even if the tree is not producing fruit on its own, visitors still want a souvenir of its exotic potential. They’ve taken the bark, the leaves and the branches, until the tree no longer resembles its former greatness. It is becoming a generic, wilted plant in a thriving forest.

The Bougainville and Melanesian are at a crossroads now, Prime Minister James Marape and your government in Moresby… Which Way, Big Man?

[i]   Hermkens, A.-K. (2015). Marian Movements and Secessionist Warfare in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 18(4), pp.35–54.

[2]  RNZ News (2019). PNG govt urged not to derail Bougainville referendum mandate. [online] RNZ. Available at: https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/405899/png-govt-urged-not-to-derail-bougainville-referendum-mandate [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[3] PMC Editor (2016). Bougainville faces mental health issues legacy from the civil war | Asia Pacific Report. [online] Asiapacificreport.nz. Available at: https://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/03/06/bougainville-faces-mental-health-issues-legacy-from-the-civil-war/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[4] Mcdonald, J. (2019). Australia, China, and Bougainville’s Choices. [online] Thediplomat.com. Available at: https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/australia-china-and-bougainvilles-choices/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[5] ROKA, L.F. (2014). The legacy of Damien Dameng, the father of Meekamui. [online] Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE. Available at: https://www.pngattitude.com/2014/03/the-legacy-of-damien-dameng-the-father-of-meekamui.html [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[6] King, T. (2013). Bougainville President Fails Victims of Brutal Resource Conflict. [online] Culturalsurvival.org. Available at: https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/bougainville-president-fails-victims-brutal-resource- conflict [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[7]  United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP). (2018). ULMWP Statement on the Republic of Vanuatu’s Independence Day – United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP). [online] Available at: https://www.ulmwp.org/ulmwp-statement-on-the-republic-of-vanuatus-independence-day-july-30th-2018.

[8] That’s So Jacob (2014). Flip The Script: Nora Vagi Brash, Which Way Big Man? [online] That’s So Jacob. Available at: https://thatssojacob.wordpress.com/2014/03/14/flip-the-script-nora-vagi-brash-which-way-big- man/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020].

[9] http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/resources/1983-Bernard-Narokobi-Melanesian-Way.pdf

[10] Pacific Media Watch (2019). The genocide next door – West Papuan band spreading message of freedom | Asia Pacific Report. [online] Asiapacificreport.nz. Available at: https://asiapacificreport.nz/2019/11/08/the-genocide-next-door-papuan-band-spreading-message-of-freedom/ [Accessed 7 Jan. 2020]