Trouble in Bougainville

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 16

Trouble in Bougainville

WHEN Papua New Guinea became independent in 1975, one of its islands, Bougainville, separately declared its own independence. Bougainville was cuffed into line, but it has never lost its dream of statehood.

For the past six months a group of rebels has been making things difficult for the police on this normally torpid tropical island. At least 13 people have been killed. On May 4 the Papua New Guinea Government proposed a deal designed to spare the world yet another separatist movement. Bougainville is named after a French navigator who mapped many islands of the Pacific and gave his name to a vine with a

pretty purple flower. The island was loathed by the Americans who fought the Japanese there in some of the most desperate battles of the Second World War.

It also contains large chunks of copper and gold, and this is the reason Papua New Guinea is determined never to let it go. Copper mining is the country’s biggest industry and a large revenue earner.

The rebels are led by a former mining surveyor, Mr Francis Ona. He claims to represent villagers in Bougainville who say they have not been compensated enough for the damage done to their land by the huge open-cast copper mines. Last year they

asked for 10 billion kina (SNZ2O billion). No-one took this demand seriously until Mr Ona’s followers, using his expertise, began blowing up bits of mining property. For a time production was stopped, depriving the Government of royalties. They have the Pacific Islanders’ traditional reverence for the land. When the copper is exhausted, they say, will they be left with a ruined landscape and polluted rivers? That sounds remarkably like green politics, never mind bougainvillaea’s purple flowers. . Copyright — The Economist