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 t's
a true-life modern-day David-and-Goliath story with the victor still
undetermined. Struggling against international mining interests
and the governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia, the people
of the South Pacific island of Bougainville are the underdogs in
a decades-long struggle for self-determination.
Bougainville
has been poisoned and plundered. Its people endured a military blockade
which prevented food, medical supplies, fuel, and arms from reaching
the island, and which killed 10 percent of the island's population.
Most of the casualties claimed by that blockade were not armed combatants,
but women and children. The world never saw pictures of the starving
children of Bougainville because the blockade blocked out journalists,
as well.
The American
and European Left complain endlessly about the Iraq embargo which,
unlike the Bougainville blockade, allows the delivery of medicine
and food. The Iraq embargo is premised on protecting the safety
of the whole world, by reducing Saddam Hussein's capacity for construction
of weapons of mass destruction. In contrast, the Bougainville blockade
served mainly the interests of an oppressive clique. Yet while Kofi
Annan bemoans the Iraq embargo, the U.N. was complicit in the Bougainville
blockade.
We started
investigating Bougainville last spring, when we learned that the
Bougainville
Revolutionary Army (BRA) had established production of a copy
of the M-16 automatic rifle during its 10-year war of independence.
That development was revealed to us by an anonymous source present
at the United Nations Asia Pacific Regional Disarmament Conference,
held in the Spring of 2001.
The conference
was tightly controlled, and neither press nor observers were present.
During off-the-cuff remarks delivered at the end of the session's
15-minute "discussion time," conference participants were
informed that BRA insurgents had been fabricating their own guns.
Completely cut off from imports by the lack of funds and by the
blockade, the BRA used materiel and equipment salvaged from mining
operations, and materials left on the island after World War II
(including thousands of tons of ammunition, and machine-gun parts
salvaged from wrecks). Initially, the Bougainville Revolutionary
Army (many of whom were skilled tradesmen) manufactured
crude single-shot firearms, but they soon learned to build more
sophisticated guns.
Any mention of Bougainville was conspicuously absent from the U.N.'s
Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons
in All its Aspects, held just a few months later. This was the
conference where the U.N. renewed its call for increased control
over civilian firearm possession and gun manufacturers. The stated
intent of the conference was to prevent possession of firearms without
government approval, with the pretext of attaining greater political
stability throughout the world.
As the "leader"
of the world's governments (most of which are dictatorships), the
U.N. spearheads civilian disarmament, filching bits and pieces of
sovereignty from its member nations in the process. Widespread knowledge
of the Bougainville "problem", and what happened there,
would only serve to undermine the U.N.'s attempted power grab by
underscoring the folly of a policy touted as capable of restricting
firearms to agents of government.
Tucked away
in the South Pacific, Bougainville is an island near Papua New Guinea
(PNG), with a population of approximately 200,000. Named for French
sailor Captain
Louis de Bougainville who, in 1768, established trade with the
islanders, it is the largest island in the Solomon chain. For years,
Bougainville was controlled by various colonial powers. During World
War II, it saw extremely fierce combat, the last Japanese stronghold
in the Solomons.
After the War,
Bougainville was placed under Australian control as a United Nations
Trust territory. Against the wishes of its people, Bougainville
found itself ruled by Papua New Guinea when PNG gained independence
from Australia in 1975, despite the fact that the Bougainvilleans
are more closely related to the
Solomon Islanders culturally, ethnically, and geographically;
PNG lies more than 900 kilometers away. In defiance, Bougainville
declared itself the independent Republic of the North Solomons 15
days before PNG gained independence.
In 1960, copper
was discovered on Bougainville, and in 1963, the company that eventually
evolved into what today is known as Rio
Tinto (a leading international mining conglomerate, based in
London and Australia) commenced operations.
Their land
is of utmost importance to the people of Bougainville. Inheritance
is maintained through the matrilineal
clan system, passing from mother, who is both titleholder and
custodian of the tribal land, to eldest daughter.
When, in January
1965, it became apparent that a large open-pit copper mine was to
be established, local villagers protested. A hearing was held in
the Warden's Court in the town of Kieta, and the court awarded a
mining license to Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (a subsidiary of
the mining company now called Rio Tinto). Under the court's interpretation
of Australian law, what is "on top of the land" was the
villagers', but what was underneath — the copper deposits —
belonged to the government, and not to the titleholders of the land.
That ruling
ran contrary to traditional Bougainvillean ownership. It was also
contrary to traditional Anglo-American common law, by which subsurface
and mineral rights belong to the owner of the surface land. To the
villagers, it was incomprehensible how, after countless generations,
the land was no longer theirs.
When the bulldozers
came, Bougainvillean
landowning women resisted, and lay down with their babies in
front of the machines. While Americans sympathized with the brave,
unarmed Chinese student who stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen
Square, there were no journalists to document similarly brave acts
in Bougainville.
Construction
of the mine proceeded, accompanied by chemical defoliation of an
entire mountainside of pristine rain forest (i.e. the "top
of the land" which belonged to the villagers), and huge amounts
of toxic mine waste were dumped onto the land and into major rivers.
According to
a lawsuit filed in November 2000 in the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California, by 1988,
the mine…dug
a crater six kilometers long, four kilometers wide and a half
a kilometer deep…[It] produced over one billion tons of waste…vast
tracts…are still barren and devoid of vegetation many years
after closure of the mine…Thirty kilometers of the river
valley system was converted into moonscape…What the people
of Bougainville see is one of the worst human-made environmental
catastrophes of modern times.
But the mine
turned out to be an enormous source of income for PNG. Rio Tinto
gave the PNG government 19 percent of the mine's profits, which
at the time, amounted to one-third of the government's income —
ample incentive for PNG to overlook environmental damage.
In response,
Francis Ona, the son of a dispossessed village chief, formed the
Panguna Landowners Association (soon to be known as the Bougainville
Revolutionary Army). Ona and his followers shut down the mine on
December 1, 1988, using explosives stolen from the mining company
to destroy a transmission tower that supplied power to the mine.
In April 1990,
the PNG government, with the assistance of the Australian government,
imposed a total
blockade of the island in an attempt to reopen the mine, and
to prevent Ona and the BRA from acquiring arms. However, it was
women and children who were most affected by the blockade: Pregnant
women died in childbirth, and young children died from easily preventable
diseases. According to the Red Cross, the blockade resulted in the
deaths of more than 2,000 children in just the first two years of
operation.
The blockade
of Bougainville — which supposedly ended during a 1994 ceasefire,
but which nevertheless continued informally until 1997 — was
directly responsible for the deaths of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000
people. PNG thus ranks among the more successful mass-murderers
of the 20th-century, having wiped out 10 percent of the Bougainville
population.
Instead of
forcing the populace into submission, the blockade had just the
opposite effect. In May 1990, Ona declared the independence of the
Republic
of Meekamui ("The Sacred Island").
Meanwhile,
control of Bougainville became even more important economically;
an aerial survey in the late 1980s had discovered rich
deposits of other minerals, including gold and even offshore
oil.
The U.N. was
apprised of events taking place in Bougainville at least as early
as 1991. That summer, a BRA delegation to the U.N. Committee hearing
in Geneva on the Rights of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples accused
the PNG government of numerous atrocities committed against the
islanders. Some of these — extrajudicial executions, "disappearances",
ill-treatment and arbitrary arrests and detentions, including of
women and children — were detailed
by Amnesty International.
In his address
to the parliament of Rwanda on May 7, 1998, Kofi Annan offered an
apology: "All of us who cared about Rwanda…fervently wish
that we could have prevented the genocide…in their greatest
hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda." There
was no apology forthcoming for Bougainville, however — just
silence, and the determination to disarm the surviving islanders.
To help neutralize
the BRA, Papua New Guinea created, funded, and armed the Bougainville
Resistance Force (BRF) ensuring its loyalty to the central government,
and placed a bounty on Ona's head.
However, the
BRA proved more than a match; they were not only expert guerrilla
fighters, but expert in psychological warfare. According to PNG
officer Yauka Aluambo Liria, who documented the early years of the
Bougainville campaign (Bougainville
Campaign Diary, 1993), it was not long into the fighting that
rumors began to spread among the PNG troops about the magical "puri
puri" powers possessed by the BRA members from the inner jungles,
which enabled them to change into dogs and scout PNG positions,
steal weapons, and even kidnap PNG soldiers.
In spite of
being isolated from the rest of the world, and lacking friends,
funds, and sophisticated armament factories, the BRA prevailed.
They outmaneuvered trained, well-armed soldiers wielding M79
grenade launchers and mortars, and who were backed up by Australian-supplied
Iroquois helicopters outfitted with automatic weapons.
Having failed
in the military arena, PNG switched tactics. On August 30, 2001,
an unrealistic Bougainville
Peace Agreement was signed by Bougainvilleans who had strong
political ties to PNG. Bougainvilleans loyal to revolutionary leader
Francis Ona did not sign. The agreement put a formal end to hostilities,
provided for the establishment of an autonomous Bougainville government,
and a referendum on full independence from PNG to be held within
10 to15 years.
But the most
important part of the Peace Agreement (at least to PNG, Australia,
and the U.N.) — and what independence is utterly contingent
upon — is the Rotakas
Record of May 3, 2001, an agreement which laid out a "phased
weapons disposal plan", and which, upon implementation, would
result in complete disarmament of the BRA. Some of its
details were reported by Papua New Guinea's Post-Courier:
The weapons
disposal plan includes…collecting all weapons from ex-combatants
and locking them in the containers with robust but simple padlocks.
The unit commanders will retain the keys and trunks but allow
UN officials to verify the exercise. During the second stage,
the weapons would be double-locked in larger containers with one
key held by the local commander and one by the UN…After the
PNG Security Forces withdraw from each command area the Company
Commanders shall deliver arms held by them to one central collection
point in each command area….The decision on how these weapons
should be finally dealt with will be made within one month of
the constitutional amendments coming into effect.
In short, this
means that BRA company commanders will soon no longer be in control
of their weapons. And the implied threat is that if their weapons
are not forthcoming, neither will be the independence referendum.
But what is
the purpose of disarming a people who are headed toward greater
autonomy and freedom? Upon independence, disarmament would be a
moot point because Bougainville would then be self-governed, and
the Bougainvilleans would be free to do whatever they liked, including
retaining their arms.
One of the
witnesses to the signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement was
New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff, whose country agreed to
provide 200 containers (basically, large trunks) for the storage
of weapons to be handed in by Bougainvillean ex-combatants.
As the first
batch of 15 gun lockers were flown in on November 20, 2001,
Goff declared: "The challenge now lies with the Bougainvilleans,
particularly ex-combatants, to show their commitment to the Weapons
Disposal Plan as expressed in the Bougainville Peace Agreement."
The real challenge,
however, will be to convince Bougainvilleans who used those arms
to halt the plunder of their land, to unilaterally disarm. Francis
Ona, whose independence movement still
controls up to 20% of Bougainville, refused to participate in
the peace process. The June 11, 1999, Sydney Morning Herald
quoted a defiant Ona as stating: "There are thousands of home-made
weapons hidden in the villages and they will never be handed back
until Bougainville becomes independent."
On January
24, 2002, the Boroko (PNG) Independent characterized the
weapons disposal plan as proceeding smoothly. In a story entitled
"Weapons Disposal Making Good Progress", the newspaper
reported that the plan's implementation was "gaining
momentum" as a whopping 105 guns had been surrendered and
locked in containers.
PNG's lukewarm
attitude about burying the hatchet is evident in its treatment of
the plaintiffs (Bougainville survivors, including Ona's father)
in the lawsuit
against Rio Tinto: PNG threatened them with retribution, including
hefty
fines and imprisonment of up to five years. While Rio Tinto
has belatedly offered the Bougainvillean villagers $12 million for
reparations, the California lawsuit asks for a great deal more.
That settlement would do more than just compensate victims; those
dollars would go a long way toward repairing the scar left in the
earth by the mining operations.
A year after
the lawsuit was filed, the Post-Courier reported
that PNG was attempting to block the suit by asking the U.S. government
to intervene against the villagers. In what has been described as
"an unprecedented move", the U.S. State Department notified
presiding Judge Margaret M. Morrow for the U.S. District Court for
the Central District of California that "The success of the
Bougainville peace process represents an important United States
foreign policy objective…[and that] continued adjudication
of the claims [of the plaintiffs]…would risk a potentially
serious adverse impact on the peace process…."
But dismissal
of that lawsuit would have a serious adverse impact on the restoration
of the land, itself. If ever there was a cause for the environmentalists
to rally 'round, it would be the plight of Bougainville.
The process
of independence moved another step forward on January 23, 2002,
when the PNG parliament unanimously voted in favor of constitutional
amendments relating to Bougainville. One of these amendments would
permit Bougainville to become autonomous under PNG, and the other
would permit Bougainville to hold its referendum for independence
in 10-15 years. Bougainville would be given control of its own foreign
affairs, banking system, aviation and shipping rights. Also, the
"legislation
allows Bougainville to have its own disciplined forces.…"
However, one
might ask, if Bougainville is to have its own "disciplined
forces," why should they have to reacquire weapons in March,
after the second reading in parliament turns the amendments into
law?
One might also
question the intensity of the request for, especially, high-power
weapons to be turned in; after all, those arms are not being used
to commit mayhem upon Bougainville civilians. Those were the weapons
that the rebels needed to change the balance of power when PNG used
helicopters to control the battlefield from above.
Finally, if
peace is the real objective, why not disarm all combatants? Why
not disarm, especially, the aggressors — the governments of
Papua New Guinea and Australia — instead of only disarming
the victims who fought back? Why insist on disarmament first, and
postpone a referendum on independence for 10 or more years, when
independence is the key to a lasting peace? Why should the people
of Bougainville believe that once they are disarmed and helpless,
the government of PNG will honor its promise ten or fifteen years
in the future?
The Americans
who fought their own war of independence never would have disarmed
themselves in exchange for a promised vote on independence a decade
or more later. Why should American foreign policy attempt to pressure
the people of Bougainville to follow such an obviously risky course?
Why should the State Department take the extraordinary step of attempting
to choke off the ability of victims of human-rights abuses to sue
in a federal court which has proper legal jurisdiction?
And when will
the people of Bougainville have their claims presented to the world
by those First Worlders who believe in the preservation of pristine
environments and the protection of traditional cultures?
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