Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Tue, 13 Oct 1992 14:38:26 +1000
From:         lulu@COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU
Subject:      PNG/BOUG: CONFERENCE REPORT(long)1/2

BOUGAINVILLE - TOWARDS A RESOLUTION

[Evelyn Hogan, Times of Papua New Guinea, 8 October 1992]

The sping mid-semester break brings hundreds of academics to conferences in
Canberra - all in earnest analysis. But the 'Bougainville - Towards
Resolution' conference on September 29 was more than an academic debate. It
was a ritual of reconciliation for Bougainvilleans already involved in a
practical p[rocess of resolution.
  This was the the third Bougainville conference organised by the
Department of Political and Social Change of ANU's Research School of
Pacific Studies. In past years there was analysis of the background to the
crisis; thie historical legacy of German, British and Australian
colonialism and border making; the effects of the Bougainville Copper mine;
the old and new Panguna Landowners Association.
   UPNG's Professor of Political Studies Yau Saffu started the conference
with an academic analysis of events. Then Joseph Egilio, member of
parliamend for Central Bougainville, read a statement of government policy
by Minister of State on Matters Relating to Bougainville, Michael Ogio.
   Those on both sides of the conflict presented their views. Moses Havini
and Mike Foster representing the secessionists for the Interim Government,
and Mr Agilio, Nick Peniai and Leo Hannett representing the views for those
now wishing to remain within the Papua New Guinea state. Ruth
Saovana-Spriggs spoke of the role of the chiefs and gave an insight into
how the conflict affects women and children.
   Macquarie University expert in conflict resolution, Dr Greg Tillett,
summed up the conference and, while not offering a solution, suggested
several possible courses of action.
   At last year's conference we met Mr Ogio, so we had already seen how
this crisis has produced outstanding leaders.
   With a prime ministerial statement on Bougainville expected within a few
days, the minister's paper gave a foretaste of government policy. Mr Ogio
argues that the Bougainville crisis started as a landowner grievance and
was mishandled from the beginning. The call for independence was subsidiary
to this, he said.
   The objectives of the Wingti government would be to restore law and
order, legal authority and rehabilitate the young people first. They would
accelerate the restoration of goods and services, restor the interim
authorities and the funcitoning of the churches, NGOs and youth
organisations. They would create incentives to resurrect commercial life
and infrastructure. When this was st in place, they would begin
negotiations for a lasting political solution.
   The greatest stir from the audience came in response to the PNG
government request to Solomon Islands to remove the Bougainville
Revolutionary Army office in Honiara. Was this office, which is concerned
with humanitarian efforts to deliver medicines and other essentials through
the blockade, Mike Foster asked, a negative thing? It is through Martin
Miriori in Honiara that negotiations have taken place, he said.
   A Solomon Islander asked, would the PNG government demand that similar
offices within Australia be closed? He has annoyed at the suggestion that
if Solomon Islands does not control the BRA on its soil, Western Solomons
could break away to join Bougainville.
  At this conference I wondered at the lack of participation by
non-Bougainvillean Papua New Guineans. Foreign Minister John Kaputin, who
had been Chairman of the Special Committee on the crisis in the North
Solomons province and therefore very understanding of the complexities for
the situation had been invited but was unable to attend.
   Several PNG students and Canberra-based Papua New Guineans attended, but
no non-Bougainvilleans and few academics asked questions from the floor.
   It seemed that Papua New Guineans and Australian academics and
bureaucrats alike saw this as being an opportunity for those who had
suffered the greates division and loss to come to this safe environment of
Canberra to work towards resolution.
   One intense man, Jim Beatson, who called himself a freelance journalist,
made several addresses from the floor giving reasons for the impossibility
of resolution; the legacy of colonial boundaries; the potential for waging
long, drawn-out guerilla campaigns in the dense jungles. He challenged the
evidence of Nick Peniai (he had left Bougainville just four days earlier)
with his own accounts witnessed more than one year ago.
   But Beatson's negativity was as out of place and untimely as the
proposed blockade-breaking adventure of the MV Flinders. Mr Eigilio said
there was a lot beig done towards negotiation and restoration that was not
being reported. There have been moves by leaders within Bougainville to
sort out their own problems so they could talk to the PNG government, he
said, "All the time we have been looking to the outside for a solution when
the answer was always with us".
   Mr Eigilio had previously been with the secessionists but found the BRA
uncooperative with the interim government. He said he withdrew and
concetrated on working with the Wakunai council of chiefs. He complained
that the Kietas denied the Wakunai people the right to export cocoa through
their port. So he went to Buka and asked for ships to be brought to Numa
Numa. A ship was sent three days later.

*******************************************
Lulu Turner
Dept of Political & Social Change
Research School of Pacific Studies
Australian National University
GPO Box 4, Canberra  ACT 2601
AUSTRALIA

tel: (06) 249 0173
fax: (06) 257 1893
e-mail (Internet): lulu@coombs.anu.edu.au
*******************************************
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