Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 04:46:51 PDT
From:         "Indonesia Publications/Task Force" <apakabar@IGC.APC.ORG>
Subject:      PNG: Bougainville Scene
X-To:         seasia-l@msu.edu

/* Written  7:12 pm  Jul 21, 1992 by peg:greenleft in cdp:greenleft.news */
/* ---------- "Green Left issue 63, July 22" ---------- */
Inside Bougainville

By Steve Painter

The two-year blockade by the government of Papua New Guinea has
strengthened support for independence on Bougainville, says
Rosemarie Gillespie, an Australian lawyer just returned from a
visit to the island. Bougainvilleans are coping well by returning
to their traditional lifestyles, adds Gillespie, who spent
several weeks in areas controlled by the Bougainville Interim
Government.

All imported goods, particularly batteries and fuel, are in very
short supply, replenished only by small boats running the
blockade from the nearby Solomon Islands. Gillespie herself was
in a boat that was fired on from the air while running the
blockade, she told Green Left Weekly. Trade and social
intercourse are traditional between the Solomons and
Bougainville, as the breakaway island is geographically and
culturally part of the Solomons group. It was separated from the
rest of the group in an 1885 colonial deal between Britain and
Germany.

While people with illnesses or injuries are suffering because of
the shortage of medicines caused by the blockade, the general
level of health appears to have risen because of the enforced
return to traditional foods in place of canned and preserved junk
food, says Gillespie. Root vegetables and beans are plentiful,
though supplies of fish can be interrupted by Australian-supplied
PNG patrol boats and aircraft harassing and sometimes killing
people fishing in their traditional waters. The blockade has led
to an increase of deaths in childbirth and from tropical
diseases.

Morale in the rebel areas is good, and the discipline of the
Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) fighters has increased
steadily in the last two years. ``We are all BRA now'', is a
common saying, as traditional and religious leaders, and people
from all social backgrounds, fall in with the independence
movement. Gillespie reports that the rebel areas are safe, and
women walk freely at night around communities darkened by a lack
of electricity and even kerosene for lanterns.

PNG troops control, at most, 20% of the population in several
small areas, including the island of Buka to the north of
Bougainville. But even in these areas most Bougainvilleans
support independence - including most of those who might doubt
the wisdom of BRA and Interim Government tactics, says Gillespie.

The PNG troops implicitly recognise this by herding much of the
population into concentration camps and burning their original
villages, along the lines of the United States strategic hamlet
strategy during the Vietnam War. The camps are euphemistically
titled ``care centres''.

People from these centres, including four traditional chiefs from
Buka, have been taken out and murdered in retaliation for
operations by the BRA. There have also been reports of beatings,
torture and sexual harassment. Some inmates, including women with
young children, have been forced to stand for hours in the sun,
or in torrential rain, also in apparent reprisal for BRA
activities. Resident in the camps also complain that they are
poorly fed. The women are allowed to visit their gardens for only
a few hours, two or three days a week, and are prevented from
planting new crops.

The PNG forces are acting increasingly as an army of occupation,
abandoning any pretence that they have been invited in. They
occupied Buin in mid-June despite a local chiefs' resolution the
previous month declaring support for independence and opposition
to PNG troops coming into the area. Poorly armed BRA forces have
so far turned back about five attempts to land PNG forces in the
independence stronghold of central Bougainville, where there can
be no pretence that they have been invited.

The BRA fighters are holding out, even though the mostly
Australian-supplied PNG forces are much better armed. Many of the
BRA weapons are scavenged from arms dumps and wreckage left in
the area from World War II. The PNG forces have not abandoned
plans to occupy the central area, and there are rumours that
special forces may be trained at an army base in Queensland for
this purpose.

Rosemarie Gillespie says many Bougainvilleans are particularly
angry over the use of four Australian-supplied Iroquois
helicopters as gunships. One of these aircraft is apparently no
longer usable, but there have been numerous reports of the others
firing on islanders despite the fact that the craft were supplied
on the condition that they be used only for transportation.

Statutory declarations collected by Gillespie include several
accounts of islanders being dropped to their death from these
helicopters. The Iroquois are piloted by Australians apparently
employed by a private company in a transparent ploy to circumvent
Australian laws forbidding involvement in mercenary activities.

Meanwhile, the most effective aspect of the PNG blockade appears
to be its information blackout. Most media reports are based on
``information'' issued by the PNG government in Port Moresby.
Amnesty International representatives have been denied access to
the island, and there are no international journalists present.
Journalists must get government permission to go to PNG-
controlled areas, or risk their lives as Rosemarie Gillespie did
by running the blockade to the BRA areas.

Gillespie says the PNG government would not be able to keep up
its war against Bougainville without the roughly $50 million
military aid it receives from Australia. Even without the cost of
the war, the PNG government is in deep financial trouble, and its
health and education systems are crumbling.

The Australian government gives every sign of knowing exactly
what is happening on Bougainville, with foreign minister Gareth
Evans continually dodging important questions, including claims
of human rights violations and use of the helicopters for
military purposes. Significantly, Evans has not denied any of
these claims, instead trying to discredit them as biased and
unreliable.

It seems the Australian government is hoping for a quick PNG
military victory - an approach which is showing no sign of
success and is guaranteed to lead to a great deal more hardship
and bloodshed for the peoples of both Bougainville and PNG.
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