The Papua New Guinean government has been given more than fifteen years to convince Bougainvilleans not to break away. To this date, its efforts have been dismal. The move towards independence with the referendum vote soon to be taken has reached the point of no return. Bougainville will be independent whatever it takes.
Writes Chris Baria
The first time I heard the word ‘referendum’ was back in 1968 through my maternal uncle who was spending his holidays with us. I was eight years old at the time.
Uncle James Rutana was the one after my mother in a family of six; they were close. My father was also fond of his well-educated brother-in-law with whom he liked discussing issues of the day.
It was one of those nights, by the light of kerosene lamp, that my uncle explained to us what a referendum was. And he knew what he was talking about.
I later learnt that my uncle had been a member of a group of Bougainvillean tertiary students from Port Moresby (and maybe other centres as well) who had formed themselves into a quasi-political movement called Mungkas Association.
On September 8, 1968, soon after CRA* announced that there was an estimated 900 million tons of low grade copper at Panguna, two out of the three members of the Papua New Guinea House of Assembly and 22 students met in Port Moresby to discuss a referendum to choose whether Bougainville should remain part of Papua New Guinea, secede or become part of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate (now the Solomon Islands – an independent nation-state).
To effect their goal, and on a purely volunteer basis, the students used their Christmas break to raise awareness on the referendum vote that had been discussed in Port Moresby.
As they started to move around the communities in Kieta District, a pro-Australian ex-serviceman [named] who had served with the Coastwatcher Paul Mason during World War II heard about what the students were doing. He was one of a small group who had been advised by Australian missionaries and government officers that Bougainville ought not to break away from Papua New Guinea.
The Australian reported the students to the Australian government – a government that was pro a political status quo where Bougainville was politically governed by Port Moresby. As a result, all activities in preparation for possible independence were stifled by the Papua New Guinea government.
That was how the first attempt at staging a referendum ended – the battle was lost, but the war wasn’t over (both metaphorically and actually).
Of squandered opportunities…
The failure of this referendum spawned a couple more unilateral declarations of independence. One on September 1, 1975 just two weeks before Papua New Guinea’s independence on September 16, 1975, and again during the Bougainville conflict on May 17, 1990.
At the start of the conflict in 1990, I, and many others, believed that had the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) gotten their act together they may have effectively taken independence for Bougainville then. The Papua New Guinea government had withdrawn from the island totally, leaving an opportunity for the BRA to step into the breach.
By then, the Papua New Guinean cause had lost the sympathy of the Bougainville population when the security forces started to take out their frustrations on the civilians when they failed to apprehend the BRA ‘rebels’. From this, the independence movement, triggered by the war over the mine at Panguna and prosecuted by the BRA, gained wide support throughout Bougainville: from north to south and east to west.
However, eventually, this support was sorely tested when, finding there was no enemy to fight some of the BRA started to mistreat their own people, settling old scores using the power they had acquired through the barrel of the gun.
As the young, post-crisis writer Leonard Fong Roka wrote in 2014:
The problem with these political manoeuvres was that the politicians had no power over the reckless BRA men who, over time, had carved their own mini-spheres of influence as they pursued a lawless grab for the spoils of war gains and the opportunity to remedy past grievances.
Independence, at that time was a rare opportunity that we were unable to harness. But this was a war that was not fought by an institutionalized army with a proper chain of command. This was far more anarchical with all the attendant risks that flow from an armed force with a lack of hierarchical authority: The power of the gun was available to be abused and it was.
Had independence happened then, by now, we would have built up an indigenous-based system of government and organised an economy based on a wide range of resources and innovations.
In reality, we had our first taste of effective independence (if not actual) when the PNG government imposed an economic blockade on the island during the war. With supples blocked, people became innovative; they reinvented hydro power: they used coconut oil as substitute for diesel fuel: villagers traded with each other in whatever way they could either using cash or bartering items and goods.
As the war deepened and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) came back to Bougainville to fight and regardless of the rogue antics of some of the BRA, media personnel and some government officials in Bougainville stated that all of the people with whom they had spoken wanted secession and independence. There was no question of the unity and total support for the call to independence, they said
And it seems that the word on the street (and elsewhere) is that things have not changed for this upcoming independence vote.
Speaking on ABC Radio Australia recently, Vanuatu-based Australian photojournalist, Ben Bohane, who was awarded the Bougainville Mission, Pacific Journalism Grant, said that all Bougainvilleans with whom he had spoken told him that they would vote for independence in the forthcoming referendum.
I believe that the only thing that can stymie the Bougainvillean march to independence is lack of registered voters due to their names not being on the electoral roll and/or a poor turnout of voters.
However, I am heartened by reports of how the level of voter enrolment is proceeding throughout the region and also in the rest of PNG, Solomon Islands and Australia.
In retrospect
Looking back at those times when a referendum was illegal; students worked without funds to raise awareness and educate their mostly illiterate people on the finer points of a referendum.
They walked on foot over the mountains and valleys and along the beaches to bring to their people the message of a referendum and the hope of independence – a hope that has remained with us to this day.
If, before we became disoriented and disunited due to abuse of power by some of our fighting men, we were able to stand together against what we perceived as a common enemy, then what better reason is there for us to huddle together once more than the hope of independence: a hope past generations have instilled in us and a reality that this generation has the power to effect – in their honour.
A significant ‘yes’ vote for independence is going to be very hard for Papua New Guinea government to ignore.
* Cozinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd. was renamed CRA in 1980 before becoming Rio Tinto Group)\
