It is well known that the people of Bougainville want independence. In the 2019 referendum, 98.3 percent of them voted for it.

And in 2025, Ishmael Toroama, a strong advocate of independence, was re-elected to the position of President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, further confirmation of the widespread support for independence among the people of Bougainville.

But what do the people of PNG think about Bougainville independence? Much less is known about this. As a start, we included a question about Bougainville independence in the 2025 annual survey of University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) students.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

When asking the question, we reminded the students we surveyed of the strong support in Bougainville for independence, and told them that, as mentioned above, “in a recent referendum, an overwhelming majority (98.31 percent) of voters in Bougainville chose to have full independence from PNG over greater autonomy.”

We then asked the students to consider this outcome when selecting from one of four options that we presented to them.

They could say that Bougainville should be granted full independence, that it should remain in PNG with greater autonomy, that they oppose any changes in Bougainville’s current status, or that they were unsure.

Only 27 percent of the 389 School of Business and Public Policy students who took the survey supported full independence. The majority, 59 percent said that Bougainville should remain part of PNG but with greater autonomy. Of the balance, 11 percent said they were unsure and 3 percent said that they supported no change in the current status.

Opposition to independence was widespread across all four regions of PNG, but was slightly stronger among students from the Momase and Highlands regions, and lower among students from the Islands and Southern regions.

However, these differences are not statistically significant. Even in the Islands region, which might be expected to be more sympathetic to Bougainville independence, a majority of students were in fact opposed.

The most supportive was the Southern region, but even there 51 percent of students were opposed to independence.

Female students were slightly more supportive of independence (25 percent male vs 30 percent female). Male students were more likely to support greater autonomy (62 percent vs 52 percent) and women were more likely to be unsure (15 percent vs 9 percent). Again these differences were not statistically significant.

In summary, this survey of some almost 400 UPNG students found widespread opposition to Bougainville independence. We want to stress that we are not endorsing these views, nor criticising them. We are just reporting them.

The opposition we find among students is probably reflective of views more generally in PNG, at least among the elite, and might help explain why PNG’s political leaders are dragging their feet on the issue if not “fundamentally opposed” to independence.

Few, such as the former prime minister Peter O’Neill, have come out openly to express their opposition to independence. But few, such as the late Morobe Premier Luther Wenge, have been openly supportive either.

There seems to be a general reluctance among PNG’s political leadership to respond to the 2019 referendum result, much to the frustration of Bougainville’s political leadership.

On the one hand, it seems that no-one wants a confrontation. On the other, PNG’s political leadership, like UPNG’s student body, doesn’t seem to find the 2019 referendum result a convincing reason to support the cause of Bougainville independence.

If our survey is anything to go by, the PNG elite is willing to compromise (to allow Bougainville greater autonomy) but not to support its break away from the nation.

If Bougainville wants independence, it will have to do more to win hearts and minds in the rest of PNG. Our survey shows that it is not enough to simply reiterate the overwhelming support that independence has within Bougainville.

The students were explicitly reminded of this and still only one-quarter supported independence. If Bougainville is to succeed in its independence aspirations, it will need to do more to convince PNG’s elite, or at least its future elite, why it should be allowed to break away.

Anna Kapil is a Lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea. She completed a Master of International and Development Economics at the Australian National University. Anna was a Greg Taylor Scholar at the Development Policy Centre.

Dr Stephen Howes is director of the Development Policy Centre and professor of economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.

For other findings from the 2025 survey, see this article series and the 2025 PNG Update presentation. The results of the first survey, conducted in 2024, are reported here. Statistical significance was judged using the Chi-square test. Republished from the DevPolicy blog under Creative Commons.

Bougainville’s re-elected President Ishmael Toroama has announced a caretaker government following a formal swearing-in ceremony on Monday in the capital Buka.

The former Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) commander won more than 90,000 votes in a landslide victory after the election on September 5-6.

The interim Bougainville Executive Council (BEC) will consist of the President, the Vice President Ezekiel Masatt and the Member of Parliament for Atolls Amanda Masono.

• READ MORE: ‘We want legitimate leaders’: Bougainvilleans head to the polls amid push for independence

In his address, Toroama said the occasion marked an important step in Bougainville’s democratic process, signifying a time of transition, continuity and renewed commitment, according to a statement on the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) Facebook page.

“During this caretaker period, our priority is to safeguard good governance and maintain the trust and confidence of our people,” Toroama said.

The interim BEC will oversee government operations until the full Cabinet of the Bougainville Executive Council is formed.

The president will choose four cabinet ministers, while the remaining 10 will be selected by regional committees.

Assigning portfolios
However, Toroama will assign portfolios to each of them.

This will take place after the swearing-in of the 5th Bougainville House of Representatives on Friday, October 10.

Toroama added that Bougainvilleans had expressed concern over the conduct of some losing candidates, saying their actions undermine Bougainville’s democratic values.

“It is disappointing that several have chosen to express their dissatisfaction in premature and disorderly ways. Such conduct mocks the democratic values enshrined in the Bougainville Constitution and insults the people of Bougainville, who have spoken with unity and purpose through the ballot box,” he said.

“The people have made their choice, they have elected leaders whom they trust to guide Bougainville through the next phase of our political journey, particularly toward our aspiration for independence.

“Leadership is not about personal ambition. It is about service, humility, and accountability to the people who have placed their faith in us.”

He also called on elected representatives to unite as Bougainville enters a new political chapter.

‘Set aside differences’
“Let us set aside personal differences and work together for the greater good of Bougainville. Our people deserve leadership that is mature, united, and focused on building a future that is peaceful, prosperous, and independent.

“The strength of our democracy lies not in how we win elections, but in how we respect their outcomes and continue to serve our people with humility and purpose,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Bougainville Electoral Commission (OBEC) returned the writs for 45 seats on Monday.

Electoral commissioner Desmond Tsianai handed them to the outgoing Speaker Simon Pentanu, marking the end of the electoral process.

The writs included the presidency, 38-single-member constituencies and six reserved regional seats for women and former combatants.

Tsianai said the democratic spirit of the people of Bougainville was a testament to their unity and resilience.

“To every voter who stood in line with patience, dignity, and determination, we say thank you. You have proven once again that the heart of Bougainville beats strong with a belief in peaceful democratic choice and representation,” said.

More women candidates
“We recorded a total of 408 candidates, including a growing and welcome number of women candidates. Some 21 women contested constituency seats, up from 14 in 2020.”

The presidential race featured seven candidates, reflecting a vibrant and competitive democratic environment, he said.

He said the final electoral role included 238,625 registered voters, the most inclusive and comprehensive roll in the history of the autonomous region.

Notably, he added, 14.3 percent of enrolled voters were aged 18 to 24, a significant increase from 8.9 percent in 2020.

“This shows that our youth are claiming their place in shaping Bougainville’s future. Our systems of verification, oversight, and accountability were tested and they held firm.”

Officials will now begin their post-election review, listening to lessons from this election, to improve the next.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Bougainvilleans went to the polls today, keen to elect a leader who will continue their fight for independence.

“There’s a mood of excitement among the people here,” said Electoral Commissioner Desmond Tsianai.

“It is important that this election is successful and credible, because we want legitimate leaders in the government, who will continue discussions with Papua New Guinea over independence,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville election reports

Tsianai said there were more than 239,000 registered voters in the autonomous PNG region and he expects a better turnout than the 67 percent during the 2020 election.

“We anticipate voter turnout will increase due to the importance of this election in the political aspirations of Bougainville.”

Tsianai said his office had been proactive, encouraging voters to enrol and reaching out through schools to first-time voters aged 18 and over.

He is adamant Bougainville could achieve a one-day poll, despite the election being rescheduled at the last minute.

Polling pushed back
Polling was scheduled to begin on Thursday but was pushed back a day to allow time to dispatch ballot papers.

In addition, he said, there were some quality control issues concerning serial numbers.

“These are an important safeguard against fraud. We, therefore, took measures to ensure that these issues were rectified, so that electoral integrity was assured.”

The final shipment of ballot papers, which was scheduled for delivery on August 23, finally arrived on September 2, he said.

This did not allow enough time for packing and distribution to enable polling to take place on Thursday.

“The printing of the ballot papers and the delay afterwards was out of our hands, however we’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure the integrity of the process.

The polling period for the elections was from September 2-8, and the office had discretion to select any date within that period based on election planning, he said.

“Rescheduling allowed sufficient time to resolve ballot delivery delays and to ensure that polling teams are ready to serve voters.”

Preventing risk
He said that the rescheduling was done in the interest of voters, candidates and stakeholders, to prevent any risk of disenfranchisement.

“We remain fully committed to delivering a credible election and will continue to provide regular updates to maintain transparency and confidence in the electoral process,” he said.

“We have taken the necessary steps and anticipated that some wards within constituencies have a larger voting population so extra teams had been allocated to those wards so polling can be conducted in a day.”

The dominant issue going into the election remained the quest for independence.

In 2020, there were strong expectations that the autonomous region would soon achieve that, given the result of an historic referendum.

A 97.7 percent majority voted for independence in a referendum which began in November 2019.

However, that has not happened yet, and Port Moresby has yet to concede much ground.

Toroama not pressured
Bougainville’s 544 polling stations will open from 8am to 4pm local time (9am-5pm NZT) in what is the first time the Autonomous Bougainville Government has planned a single day poll.

Some 404 candidates are contesting for 46 seats in the Bougainville Parliament, including a record 34 women.

Six men are challenging Ishmael Toroama for his job.

Toroama recently told RNZ Pacific that he was not feeling any pressure as he sought a second five-year term in office.

“I’m the kind of man that has process. They voted me for the last five years. And if the people wish to put me, the decision, the power to put people, it is democracy. They will vote for me.” he said.

Counting will take place on September 9-21, and writs will be returned to the Speaker of the House the following day.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The dominant issue going into the next election in Bougainville next week is not much different from the last election five years ago.

The autonomous Papua New Guinea region goes to the polls on September 4.

In 2020, there were strong expectations Bougainville would soon be independent, given the result of an overwhelming referendum for independence just months earlier.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville reports

That has not happened yet, and Port Moresby has yet to concede much ground.

Most recently, at Burnham in Christchurch in June, little progress was made, as Massey University academic Dr Anna Powles points out.

“Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape referred to Burnham as a spiritual home of the Bougainville peace process,” she said.

“And yet, on the other hand, you have the Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama saying very clearly that independence was non-negotiable, and setting out a number of terms, including the fact that Bougainville was to become independent by the 1st of September 2027.

“If Papua New Guinea did not ratify that, Bougainville would make a unilateral declaration of independence.”

Seven candidates standing
There are seven people standing for the presidency, including long-time MP in the PNG national Parliament, Joe Lera.

He said everyone wants independence, but he wants to see a more conciliatory tone from the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG).

“Now, what the current government is doing is they are going outside the [Bougainville] Peace Agreement, and they are trying to shortcut based on the [referendum] result. But the Peace Agreement does not say independence will be given to us based on the result,” Lera said.

“What it says is, after we know the result, the two governments must continue to dialogue, consult each other and find ways of how to improve the economy, the law and order issues, the development issues.

“When we fix those, the nation-building pillars, we can then apply for the ratification to take place.”

However, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama has no intention of deviating from the path he has been following.

“It gives us the opportunity whether the national government likes it or not,” he told RNZ Pacific this week.

“It is a national constitution guarantee of the framework of the Bougainville Peace Agreement, and that is how I’m saying to them, whether we come into consultation, we have different views.

“At least it is the constitutional guaranteed process set in by the National Constitution.”

Achieving sovereignty as soon as possible is the driving force for the man who has been leading Bougainville’s campaign, the Independence Implementation Minister Ezekiel Masatt.

He said the signing of the Melanesian Agreement at Burnham was pivotal.

“We must obtain political independence in order to have some sovereign powers, in order to make some strategic economic decisions,” he said.

“Now, given the Melanesian Agreement where Bougainville can achieve some sovereign powers I think that is a great start in the right direction.”

Masatt is standing in the Tonsu electorate in North Bougainville.

Former army officer Thomas Raivet is running for a second time. He is confident that he and his New Bougainville Party colleagues, Nick Peniai and Joe Lera, can be a formidable presence given the impact of preference votes.

“We believe that we can make a difference, because for the last five years, nothing has really happened here and and maybe five years ago, and maybe you go back 10 years, nothing has really happened for us,” Raivet said.

“I see this as an opportunity just to be part of the development of new Bougainville.”

Sam Kauona, who once led the Bougainville Revolutionary Army alongside Ishmael Toroama, is another presidential candidate.

He has run before but says this time he will win because of the Toroama governmment failure to bring independence.

“Because the government, for the last five years, did not achieve what Bougainvilleans, what we, wanted. They were concentrating on one option only. That’s why it wasted the last five years, and we did not achieve anything.”

The vote in Bougainville is being held over just one day for the first time, with results anticipated within a week.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The President of Bougainville, Ishmael Toroama, says he is not feeling the pressure as he seeks a second five-year term in office.

Bougainville goes to the polls next Thursday, September 4, with 404 candidates vying for 46 seats in the Parliament of the autonomous Papua New Guinea region.

Toroama is being challenged by six others — all men.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville election reports

He spoke with RNZ Pacific as he continues campaigning in Central Bougainville.

Don Wiseman: Last time you and I spoke before an election, you had just been ushering a rock band around Bougainville. It’s a very different situation for you this time round.

Ishmael Toroama: Yes, indeed, it’s a totally different situation. But you know, principle never changes. Principles of everything, in terms of whatever we do, remain the same. But it changes as environment changes.

DW: What are your key planks going into this election? What are the most important things that you’re telling people?

‘Political independence’
IT: It’s what my government has done in the last five years.

I am telling them, firstly, of the political independence. Political independence has been agreed by the national constitution of Papua New Guinea, amendment on part 14, which gives the people of Bougainville the right to vote for independence referendum.

As our leaders at that time, while they were negotiating with late Kabui [first Bougainville President Joseph Kabui], they told the Papua New Guinea government that if you cannot change your constitution, then we will no longer sign a peace agreement that creates that opportunity for Papua New Guinea and Bougainville.

So what I’m telling them is it has been guaranteed by the national constitution, which created the amendment of part 14, the Organic Law on Peace Building, Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution of the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

In all consultation, national constitution guarantees us to even the consultation, even through the definition of independence, which most Bougainvilleans have voted for, which has been defined by the national government, saying that it is a separate state apart from the state of Papua New Guinea.

And the United Nations must also verify that, and that is the definition which national government has given to the people of Bougainville before the actual voting happened. If you closely look at all consultation, the Bougainville Peace Agreement says after the referendum vote made by the people, the two governments will consult over the result.

What I’m telling my people is that as your fifth president in the fourth House of Representatives, we have made a consultation at Kokopo, Wabag, and in Moresby we signed the Era Kone Covenant. And latest is the Melanesian Relationship Agreement [signed at Burnham, New Zealand, in June this year].

Constitutional guarantee
Having said in order that constitutional guarantee as a guarantor guarantees the people’s right to vote for independence, that is what I’m telling them.

DW: Yes but you’re not carrying Port Moresby with you on this. Are you? You guys are not very much closer to resolution of this problem than you were five years ago.

IT: Well, that is in line with the consultation process. Whatever they say to me, I see that. It has been amended of the national constitution, then it gives us the opportunity whether the national government likes it or not.

It is a national constitution guarantee or the framework of the Bougainville Peace Agreement, and that is how I’m saying to them, whether we come into consultation, we have different views.

At least it is the constitutional guaranteed process censored by the National Constitution.

DW: There are people, including some running against you in this election, who are saying that your approach through these negotiations has been too strident, that you go into these meetings making bold statements beforehand and there’s no room to move, that you’re not giving room for negotiation.

Defining result
IT: If you look at all the consultation that we have consulted. You will look at the consultation which I am saying we are consulting over the result. The Bougainville Peace Agreement says that the consultation should be over the result.

And what is the result? It is the 97.7 percent and who has defined the 97.7 percent — it is the national government of Papua New Guinea.

I understand where they’re coming from, because if you want to retain a political power, you can make all sorts of arguments trying to say that President Toroama has not left room, [made] political spaces available.

But if you closely look at what the Bougainville Peace Agreement says, we are consulting over the result, whether these presidents or candidates are saying that I haven’t made a room.

You just look at every space that we have gone into. And a consultation, as per the Bougainville Peace Agreement, is over the result.

What is the result? It is the independence which people voted — 97.7 percent. We cannot deny the people’s power moving into the referendum saying that we want to govern ourselves. So yes, people’s power.

DW: Except you’re overlooking that that referendum is a non-binding referendum?

Where is it non-binding?
IT: Can you specifically say to me, can you give me a clause within the Bougainville Peace Agreement that it says it is a non-binding.

I’m asking you, you will not find any non-binding clause within the framework of the Peace Agreement. It has been cultivated in there by people that want to drive us away from the exact opposition of the people.

There is no clause within the political peace agreement that says non-binding. There is no clause.

DW: We’re here now, just a week out from the election. How will you go?

IT: I’m the kind of man that has process. They voted me for the last five years. And if the people wish to put me [back], the decision, the power to put people, it is democracy. They will vote for me.

If not, they can choose another president. I don’t get too much pressure, but because it has been described within the constitution of the autonomous government that a president can serve two terms, so that’s why I am running.

But I’m not in a pressure mood. I am all right.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Elizabeth Tako Palin is one of five women contesting the Bougainville North women’s reserved seat next month.

It was previously held by Amanda Masono, who has chosen to contest the open Atolls seat, which was once held by her father.

The autonomous Papua New Guinea region is holding a single-day poll on 4 September to elect a new 46-member House.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville election reports

A record 34 women are standing, including 14 in the three seats reserved for women.

Former teacher Palin ran in 2020 and has wide political experience at the local level.

She spoke with RNZ Pacific.

(This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)

Elizabeth Palin: I was a former chair lady in the local level government, community government, and I just resigned to contest the seat. I served in the community government and at the ward assembly system for 10 years. But prior to that I was a teacher by profession,

Don Wiseman: Being in the local level government. Is that a full time activity, is it for you?

EP: It is, yes.

DW: What does it involve?

EP: It involves chairing the local level government at the community base level, and also taking care of the five wards within the respective community government that I’m heading.

And, formally, in the first establishment of the first House of Assembly, I was the vice-chair lady. So as one of the ward members in the five wards under the urban council, urban community government. I contested the fourth House and I came second. I came back to be with the community, and then I worked with the people.

I went contested [a second election] and I became the ward member and also lobbied for the chair position, and I became the chairperson.

DW: So you want to be in the ABG [Autonomous Bougainville Government]. What is it you want to achieve there?

EP: Being in the local level government, I have experienced a lot where we do not see the link. We do not really see that link from the top level of leadership down to the local level. We do not really feel it in some sense.

Therefore, I decided that maybe I can be able to contest and get that leadership, and in experiencing my leadership at the ward level and community government level, I believe that I can be able to take that leadership and build that link from the top down to the ward assembly level, which includes the community government and vice versa, from the community government up to the top.

This is what I experienced, and that is the main reason why I am contesting the seat. Also, I believe in my leadership because I have been with the local level government, and I believe I can perform at a much higher level as well.

DW: Yes, well, you will have been campaigning now for weeks, because it’s such a long period of campaigning, isn’t it? How are people reacting to you?

EP: Oh, I have been receiving positive responses from the people, from the voters, in terms of the way I present my campaign strategy, my platform, especially.

I have so far received very positive response from the general public and the voters in the region, and from all the locations that I have conducted my campaign.

DW: Yes, I wouldn’t expect a politician to say anything else going into an election. Independence for Bougainville is, it would seem, very close. How important is it to you that it’s sorted sooner rather than later?

EP: Being a leader, a woman leader in having gone through my people’s experience in terms of fighting for their rights and for their independence, this coming independence, and what we we have been standing for as our political agenda is very, very crucial to me as with the general population of Bougainville.

I cannot say no to that. I do understand a lot of work to do in terms of getting us prepared, in terms of demonstrating the indications and so forth, that we are able to get independence and we are independently ready. But based on the fights of our forefathers and our people and having lost the 20,000 lives, I stand for that.

I believe that such a person like me, a woman with a strong voice at the political scene, in the political scene and level, I can be able to work as a team with the other leaders of Bougainville to get that independence.

But having said that, it does not really mean that that is it. We are ready. As leaders, on the ground and at the different levels of governance, we need to work, and we have this how many years that have been given within the time frame for us to work in order to show that we’re able to be an independent, sovereign state, and that is what I believe in.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

One of the first women to hold an open seat in Bougainville, Theonila Roka Matbob, is confident she can win again.

Bougainville goes to the polls in the first week of September, and Roka Matbob aims to hold on to her Ioro seat in central Bougainville, where she is up against nine men.

The MP, who is also the Minister of Community Government, recently led the campaign that convinced multinational Rio Tinto to clean up the mess caused by the Panguna Mine.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville election reports

RNZ Pacific asked her if she is enjoying running for a second election campaign.

THEONILA ROKA MATBOB: Very, very much, yes. I guess compared to 2020, it is because it was my first time. I had a lot of butterflies, I would say. But this time has been very different. So I am more relaxed, more focused, and also I am more aware of issues that I can actually concentrate on.

DON WISEMAN: And one of those issues you’ve been concentrating on is the aftermath of the Panguna Mine and the destruction and so on caused both environmentally and socially. And I guess that sort of work is going to continue for you?

TRM: Yes, so the work is continuing. I had three platforms when I was contesting in 2020: leadership, governance, institutional governance and the accountability on the issues, legacy issues of Panguna Mine. I thought that the third one was going to be very challenging, given that it involved international stakeholders.

But I would say that the one that I thought was going to be very challenging was actually the one that got a lot of traction, and it’s already in motion while I’m like back on the trail, defending my seat.

DW: In terms of the work that has been undertaken on an assessment of the environmental damage, the impact that the process had had, and the report that has come out, and the obligations that this now places on Rio Tinto?

TRM: The recommendations that were made by the report was on a lot of like imminent survey areas that is like on infrastructure that were built by the company back then in the operation days that is now tearing down.

And also a lot more than that, there was a call for more intrusive assessment to be done on health and bloodstreams as well for the people, but those other things and also now to into the remediation vehicle, what is it going to look like?

These are clear responsibilities that are at the overarching highest level of engagement through the what we call this process, the CP process. It has put the responsibility on Rio Tinto to now tell us, what does the remediation vehicle look like.

At the moment, Rio Tinto is looking into that to be able to engage expertise in communication with us, to see how the design for the remediation vehicle would look. It is from the report that the build-up is now coming up, and there is more tangible or visible presence on the ground as compared to the time we started.

DW: So that process in terms of the removal of the old buildings that’s actually got underway, has it?

TRM: That process is already underway, the demolition process is underway, and BCL [Bougainville Copper Limited] is the one that’s taking the lead. It has engaged our local expertise, who are actually working abroad, but they have hired them because under the process we have local content policy where we have to do shopping for experts from Bougainville, before we’ll look into experts from overseas.

Apart from that as well, one of the things that I have seen is there is an increased interest from both international and national and local partners as well in understanding the areas where the report, assessment report has pointed out.

There is quite a lot happening, as compared to the past years when, towards the end of our political phase in parliament, usually there is always silence and only campaigns go on. But for now, it has been different.

A lot of people are more engaged, even participating on the policy programmes and projects.

DW: Yes, your government wants to reopen the Panguna Mine and open it fairly soon. You must have misgivings about that?

TRM: I have been getting a lot of questions around that, and I have been telling them my personal stance has never changed.

But I can never come in between the government’s interest. What I have been doing recently as a way of responding and uniting people, both who are believers of reopening and those that do not believe in reopening, like myself.

We have created a platform by registering a business entity that can actually work in between people and the government, so that there is more or less a participatory approach.

The company that we have registered is the one that will be tasked to work more on the politics of economics around Panguna and all the other prospects that we have in other natural resources as well.

I would say that whichever way the government points us, I can now, with conviction, say that I am ready with my office and the workforce that I have right now, I can comfortably say that we can be able to accommodate for both opinions, pro and against.

DW: In your Ioro electorate seat it’s not the biggest lineup of candidates, but the thing about Bougainville politics is they can be fairly volatile. So how confident are you?

TRM: I am confident, despite the long line up that we have about nine people who are against me — nine men, interestingly, were against me. I would say that, given the grasp that I have and also building up from 2020, I can clearly say that I am very confident.

If I am not confident, then it will take the space of giving opportunity for other people and also on campaign strategies as well. I have learnt my way through in diversifying and understanding the different experiences that I have in the constituency as well.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A longtime Bougainville politician, Joe Lera, wants to see widespread changes in the way the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) is run.

The Papua New Guinea region, which is seeking independence from Port Moresby, is holding elections in the first week of September.

Seven candidates are running for president, including Lera.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

He held the regional seat in the PNG national Parliament for 10 years before resigning to contest the presidency in the 2020 election.

This time around, Lera is campaigning on what he sees as faults in the approach of the Ishmael Toroama administration and told RNZ Pacific he is offering a different tack.

JOE LERA: This time, people have seen that the current government is the most corrupt. They have addressed only one side of independence, which is the political side, the other two sides, They have not done it very well.

DON WISEMAN: What do we mean by that? We can’t bandy around words like corruption. What do you mean by corruption?

JL: What they have done is huge. They are putting public funds into personal members’ accounts, like the constituency grant – 360,000 kina a year.

DW: As someone who has operated in the national parliament, you know that that is done there as well. So it’s not corrupt necessarily, is it?

JL:Well, when they go into their personal account, they use it for their own family goods, and that development, it should be development funds. The people are not seeing the tangible outcomes in the number two side, which is the development side.

All the roads are bad. The hospitals are now running out of drugs. Doctors are checking the patients, sending them to pharmaceutical shops to buy the medicine, because the hospitals have run out.

DW: These are problems that are affecting the entire country, aren’t they, and there’s a shortage of money. So how would you solve it? What would you do differently?

JL: We will try to make big changes in addressing sustainable development, in agriculture, fishing, forestry, so we can create jobs for the small people.

Instead of talking about big, billion dollar mining projects, which will take a long time, we should start with what we already have, and develop and create opportunities for the people to be engaged in nation building through sustainable development first, then we progress into the higher billion dollar projects.

Now we are going talking about mining when the people don’t have opportunity and they are getting poorer and poorer. That’s one area, the other area, to create change we will try to fix the government structure, from ABG to community governments to village assemblies, down to the chiefs.

At the moment, the policies they have have fragmented the conduit of getting the services from the top government down to to the village people.

DW: In the past, you’ve spoken out against the push for independence, suggesting I think, that Bougainville is not ready yet, and it should take its time. Where do you stand at the moment on the independence question?

JL: The independence question? We are all for it. I’m not against it, but I’m against the process. How they are going about it. I think the answer has been already given in the Bougainville Peace Agreement, which is a joint creation between the PNG and ABG government, and the process is very clear.

Now, what the current government is doing is they are going outside of the Peace Agreement, and they are trying to shortcut based on the [referendum] result.

But the Peace Agreement doe not say independence will be given to us based on the result. What it says is, after we know the result, the two governments must continue to dialogue, consult each other and find ways of how to improve the economy, the law and order issues, the development issues.

When we fix those, the nation building pillars, we can then apply for the ratification to take place.

DW: So you’re talking about something that would be quite a way further down the line than what this current government is talking about?

JL: The issue is timing. They are putting deadlines themselves, and they are trying to push the PNG government to swallow it. The PNG government is a sovereign nation already.

We should respect and honestly, in a family room situation, negotiate, talk with them, as the Peace Agreement says, and reach understanding on the timing and other related issues, but not to even take a confrontational approach, which is what they are doing now, but take a family room approach, where we sit and negotiate in the spirit of the Peace Agreement.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. Don Wiseman is a senior journalist with RNZ Pacific. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

More than 400 candidates have put their hands up to contest the Bougainville general election in September, hoping to enter Parliament.

Incumbent President Ishmael Toroama is among the 404 people lining up to win a seat.

Bougainville is involved in the process of achieving independence from Papua New Guinea — an issue expected to dominate campaigning, which lasts until the beginning of September.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville reports

Voting is scheduled to start on September 2, finishing a week later, depending on the weather.

Seven candidates — all men — are contesting the Bougainville presidency. This number is down from when 25 people stood, including two women.

Toroama is seeking a second term and is being challenged by his former colleague in the leadership of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), Sam Kauona.

Kauona is one of several contesting a second time, along with Thomas Raivet and a former holder of the Bougainville Regional Seat in the PNG Parliament, Joe Lera.

There are 46 seats to be decided, including six new constituencies.

Two seats will have 21 candidates: the northern seat of Peit and the Ex-Combatants constituency.

Several other constituencies — Haku, Tsitalato, Taonita Tinputz, Taonita Teop, Rau, and Kokoda — also have high numbers of candidates.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Bougainville election process begins today with the issuance of the writs yesterday.

Nominations open Tuesday, July 8, and close on Thursday, July 10.

Voting is scheduled for one week starting on September 2, allowing seven weeks of campaigning.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville articles

Candidates will be vying for a total of 46 seats, with the autonomous Parliament agreeing earlier this year to add five additional seats.

The seats were created with the establishment of five new constituencies: two in South and Central, and one in North Bougainville.

“This is one of the most important democratic tasks of any nation — to conduct elections where the people exercise the ultimate power to re-elect or de-elect the representatives who have served them in the last House,” Bougainville Parliament Speaker Simon Pentanu said.

“The elections in Bougainville have always been fair, honest, transparent, and equitable. This is a history we should all be proud of and a record we must continue to uphold,” he said.

The region’s Electoral Commissioner Desmond Tsianai said the issuing of writs was a significant event in the electoral calendar.

“We have delivered credible elections in the past and I assure you all that we are prepared, and we will have this election delivered at international standards of free, fair and inclusive — and most importantly, according to the law.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The leaders of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea have signed a deal that may bring the autonomous region’s quest for independence closer.

Called “Melanesian Agreement”, the deal was developed earlier this month in 10 days of discussion at the New Zealand army base at Burnham, near Christchurch.

Both governments have agreed that the national Parliament in PNG has a key role in the decision over the push for independence.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

They recognise that the Bougainville desire for independence is legitimate, as expressed in a 2019 independence referendum result, and that this is a unique situation in PNG.

That is the agreement’s attempt to overcome pressure from other parts of PNG that are also talking about autonomy.

The parties say they are committed to maintaining a close, peaceful and enduring relationship between PNG and Bougainville.

Both sides said that to bring referendum results to the national Parliament both governments would develop a sessional order, which was a the temporary adjustment of Parliament’s rules.

Bipartisan Parliamentary Committee
They said that a Bipartisan Parliamentary Committee on Bougainville, which would provide information to MPs and the general public about the Bougainville conflict and resolution, is a vital body.

The parties said they would explore the joint creation of a Melanesian framework with agreed timelines, for a pathway forwards, that may form part of the Joint Consultations Report presented to the 11th National Parliament.

Once the Bipartisan Committee completes its work, the results of the referendum and the Joint Consultation Report would be taken to the Parliament.

The parties said they would accept the decision of the national Parliament, in the first instance, regarding the referendum results, and then commit to further consultations if needed, and this would be in an agreed timeline.

In the meantime, institutional strengthening and institutional building within Bougainville would continue.

To ensure progress is made and political commitment is sustained, the monitoring of this Melanesian Agreement could include an international component, a Parliamentary component, and the Bipartisan Parliamentary Committee, all with UN support.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Department of Justice and Legal Services in Bougainville is aiming to craft a government policy to deal with violence related to sorcery accusations.

The Post-Courier reports that a forum, which wrapped up on Wednesday, aimed to dissect the roots of sorcery/witchcraft beliefs and the severe violence stemming from accusations.

An initial forum was held in Arawa last month.

• READ MORE: Other PNG sorcery reports

Central Bougainville’s Director of Justice and Legal Services, Dennis Kuiai, said the forums’ ultimate goal is crafting a government policy.

Further consultations are planned for South Bougainville next week and a regional forum in Arawa later this year.

“This policy will be deliberated and developed into law to address sorcery and [sorcery accusation-related violence] in Bougainville,” he said.

“We aim to provide an effective legal mechanism.”

Targeted 3 key areas
He said the future law’s structure was to target three key areas: the violence linked to accusations, sorcery practices themselves, and addressing the phenomenon of “glass man”.

A glassman or glassmeri has the power to accuse women and men of witchcraft and sorcery.

Papua New Guinea outlawed the practice in 2022.

The forum culminated in the compilation and signing of a resolution on its closing day, witnessed by officials.

Sorcery has long been an issue in PNG.

Those accused of sorcery are frequently beaten, tortured, and murdered, and anyone who manage to survive the attacks are banished from their communities.

Saved mother rejected
In April, a mother-of-four was was reportedly rejected by her own family after she was saved by a social justice advocacy group.

In August last year, an advocate told people in Aotearoa – where she was raising awareness – that Papua New Guinea desperately needed stronger laws to protect innocents and deliver justice for victims of sorcery related violence.

In October 2023, Papua New Guinea MPs were told that gender-based and sorcery violence was widespread and much higher than reported.

In November 2020, two men in the Bana district were hacked to death by members of a rival clan, who claimed the men used sorcery against them.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Reports in Papua New Guinea say the governments of Bougainville and PNG have agreed to table the 2019 independence referendum results in Parliament.

While discussions are ongoing, some degree of consensus has been reached during the talks, being held at Burnham Military Camp, just outside of Christchurch in New Zealand’s South Island.

The talks are not open to the media.

• READ MORE:  Bougainville wants independence. China’s support for a controversial mine could pave the way
• Other Bougainville reports

A massive 97.7 percent of Bougainvillians voted for independence in 2019.

Former Bougainville president John Momis told delegates in Burnham to “take the bull by the horn” and confront the independence issue without further delay.

Both governments have agreed to present three highly pivotal documents to the PNG National Parliament.

The commitment was formally conveyed by PNG’s Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manaseh Makiba.

Only sovereignty acceptable
Meanwhile, the ABG President, Ishmael Toroama, said Bougainville would not accept a governance model that did not grant sovereignty.

This comes amid talk of other options, such as self-government in free association.

To achieve membership of the United Nations sovereignty is needed.

Writing in the Post-Courier, journalist Gorethy Kenneth said the Bougainville national leaders, for the “first time have come out in aligning with the Bougainville team in New Zealand”.

She reported that Police Minister and Bougainville regional MP Peter Tsiamalili Jr said he was in a peculiar position but he represented the 97.7 percent who voted for independence and he would go with the wishes of his people.

The ICT Minister, and South Bougainville MP Timothy Masiu also said his one vote in Parliament would be for independence as far as his people were concerned.

The PNG government has spoken previously of fears that independence for Bougainville would encourage other provinces to seek autonomy.

Provinces, such as New Ireland, have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with Port Moresby and desire to control more of their own affairs.

But the Bougainville Minister of Independence Implementation, Ezekiel Massat, said Bougainville’s status was constitutionally “ring-fenced” and could not set a precedent for other provinces.

He said “under the Bougainville Peace Agreement, independence is a compulsory option”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

America’s retreat from foreign aid is being felt deeply in Pacific media, where pivotal outlets are being shuttered and journalists work unpaid.

The result is fewer investigations into dubiously motivated politicians, glimpses into conflicts otherwise unseen and a less diverse media in a region which desperately needs it.

“It is a huge disappointment … a senseless waste,” Benar News’ Australian former head of Pacific news Stefan Armbruster said after seeing his outlet go under.

• READ MORE: Political pressure, bribes, self-censorship ‘greatest threats’ to Pacific media freedom
• NZ fares well in latest RSF press freedom index as authoritarian regimes stifle Asia-Pacific media
• Fiji coup culture and political meddling in media education given airing

Benar News, In-depth Solomons and Inside PNG are three digital outlets which enjoyed US support but have been hit by President Donald Trump’s about-face on aid.

Benar closed its doors in April after an executive order disestablishing Voice of America, which the United States created during World War II to combat Nazi propaganda.

An offshoot of Radio Free Asia (RFA) focused on Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Benar kept a close eye on abuses in West Papua, massacres and gender-based violence in Papua New Guinea and more.

The Pacific arm quickly became indispensable to many, with a team of reporters and freelancers working in 15 countries on a budget under A$A million.

Coverage of decolonisation
“Our coverage of decolonisation in the Pacific received huge interest, as did our coverage of the lack of women’s representation in parliaments, human rights, media freedom, deep sea mining and more,” Armbruster said.

In-depth Solomons, a Honiara-based digital outlet, is another facing an existential threat despite a proud record of investigative and award-winning reporting.

Last week, it was honoured with a peer-nominated award from the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan for a year-long probe into former prime minister Manasseh Sogavare’s property holdings.

“We’re just holding on,” editor and co-founder Ofani Eremae said.

A US-centred think tank continues to pay the wage of one journalist, while others have not drawn a salary since January.

“It has had an impact on our operations. We used to travel out to do stories across the provinces. That has not been done since early this year,” Eremae said.

A private donor came forward after learning of the cuts with a one-off grant that was used for rent to secure the office, he said.

USAID budget axed
Its funding shortfall — like Port Moresby-based outlet Inside PNG — is linked to USAID, the world’s biggest single funder of development assistance, until Trump axed its multi-billion dollar budget.

Much of USAID’s funding was spent on humanitarian causes — such as vaccines, clean water supplies and food security — but some was also earmarked for media in developing nations, with the aim of bolstering fragile democracies.

Inside PNG used its support to build an audience of tens of thousands with incisive reports on PNG politics: not just Port Moresby, but in the regions including independence-seeking province Bougainville that has a long history of conflict.

“The current lack of funding has unfortunately had a dual impact, affecting both our dedicated staff, whom we’re currently unable to pay, and our day-to-day operations,” Inside PNG managing director Kila Wani said.

“We’ve had to let off 80 percent of staff from payroll which is a big hit because we’re not a very big team.

“Logistically, it’s become challenging to carry out our work as we normally would.”

Other media entities in the region have suffered hits, but declined to share their stories.

Funding hits damaging
The funding hits are all the more damaging given the challenges faced by the Pacific, as outlined in the Pacific Islands Media Freedom Index and RSF World Press Freedom Index.

The latest PFF report listed a string of challenges, notably weak legal protections for free speech, political interference on editorial independence, and a lack of funding underpinning high-quality media, in the region.

The burning question for these outlets — and their audiences — is do other sources of funding exist to fill the gap?

Inside PNG is refocusing energy on attracting new donors, as is In-depth Solomons, which has also turned to crowdfunding.

The Australian and New Zealand governments have also provided targeted support for the media sector across the region, including ABC International Development (ABCID), which has enjoyed a budget increase from Anthony Albanese’s government.

Inside PNG and In-depth Solomons both receive training and content-focused grants from ABCID, which helps, but this does not fund the underpinning costs for a media business or keep on the lights.

Both Eremae, who edited two major newspapers before founding the investigative outlet, and Armbruster, a long-time SBS correspondent, expressed their dismay at the US pivot away from the Pacific.

‘Huge mistake’ by US
“It’s a huge mistake on the part of the US … the world’s leading democracy. The media is one of the pillars of democracy,” Eremae said.

“It is, I believe, in the interests of the US and other democratic countries to give funding to media in countries like the Solomon Islands where we cannot survive due to lack of advertising (budgets).

As a veteran of Pacific reporting, Armbruster said he had witnessed US disinterest in the region contribute to the wider geopolitical struggle for influence.

“The US government was trying to re-establish its presence after vacating the space decades ago. It had promised to re-engage, dedicating funding largely driven by its efforts to counter China, only to now betray those expectations,” he said.

“The US government has senselessly destroyed a highly valued news service in the Pacific. An own goal.”

Ben McKay is an AAP journalist. Republished from National Indigenous Times in Australia.

In recent weeks, Bougainville has taken the initiative, boldly stating that it expects to be independent by 1 September 2027.

It also expects the PNG Parliament to quickly ratify the 2019 referendum, in which an overwhelming majority of Bougainvilleans supported independence.

In a third move, it established a Constitution Commission and included it within the region’s autonomous Parliament.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville reports

To learn more, RNZ Pacific spoke with Australian National University academic Dr Thiago Oppermann, who has spent many years in both Bougainville and PNG.

Don Wiseman: We’ve had five-and-a-half years since the Bougainville referendum, but very suddenly in the last couple of months, it would seem that Bougainville is picking up pace and trying to really make some progress with this march towards independence, as they see it.

Are they overplaying their hand?

Dr Thiago Oppermann: I do not believe that they are overplaying their hand. I think that the impression that is apparent of a sudden flurry of activity, arises partly because for the first two years after the referendum, there was a very slow pace.

One of the shortcomings of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) was that it did not set out a very clear post-referendum path. That part of the process was not as well designed as the parts leading to the referendum, and that left a great deal of uncertainty as to how to structure negotiations, how things should be conducted, and quite substantial differences in the views of the Papua New Guinean government and the ABG (Autonomous Bougainville Government), as to how the referendum result would be processed further.

For instance, how it would it need to be tabled in Parliament, what kind of vote would be required for it, would a negotiation between the parties lead to an agreement that then is presented to the Parliament, and how would that negotiation work? All these areas, they were not prescriptive in the BPA.

That led to a period of a good two years in which there was very slow process and then attempts to get some some movement. I would say that in that period, the views of the Bougainvilleans and the Papua New Guineans became quite entrenched in quite different camps, and something I think would have to give eventually.

Why the Bougainvilleans have moved towards this point now, I think that it bears pointing out that there has been a long process that has been unfolding, for more than two years now, of beginning the organic process of developing a Bougainvillean constitutional process with this constitutional development committees across the island doing a lot of work, and that has now borne fruit, is how I would describe it.

It happens at a point where the process has been unblocked by the appointment of Sir Jerry Mataparae, which I think sets a new vigour into the process. It looks now like it’s heading towards some form of outcome. And that being the case, the Bougainvilleans have made their position quite clear.

DW: Well, Bougainville, in fact, is saying it will be independent by 1st September 2027. How likely do you think that is?

TO: I think there’s a question that comes before that. When Bougainville says that they will be independent by such a date, what we need to first consider is that the process of mediation is still unfolding.

I think that the first thing to consider is, what would that independence look like, and what scope is there within the mediation for finding some compromise that still suits Papua New Guinea. I think that there’s a much greater range of outcomes than people realise within this sort of umbrella of independence, the Bougainvilleans themselves, have moved to a position of understanding independence in much more nuanced terms than previously.

You might imagine that in the aftermath of this fairly brutal and bitter civil conflict, the idea of independence at that time was quite a radical cut towards “full bruk loose” as they say.

But the reality is that for many post colonial and new states since World War Two, there are many different kinds of independence and the degree to which there remains a kind of attachment with or relationship with the so called parent colonial country is variable, I should add.

I do not want to digress too much, but this concept of the parent colonial country is something that I heard quite a lot of when I was studying the referendum itself. Many people would say that the relationship that they had to Papua New Guinea was not one of enmity or of like running away, it was more a question of there being a parent and Bougainville having now grown up to the point where the child, Bougainville, is ready to go off and set up its own house.

Many people thought of it in those terms. Now I think that in concrete terms that can be articulated in many different ways when we think about international law and the status of different sovereign nations around the world.

DW: If we can just look at some of the possibilities in terms of the way in which this independence might be interpreted. My understanding is, for Bougainville it’s vital that they have a degree of sovereignty that will allow them to join organisations like the United Nations, but they’re not necessarily looking to be fully independent of PNG.

TO: Yes, I think that there would be like a process underway in Bougainville for understanding what that would look like.

There are certainly people who would have a view that is still more firmly towards full independence. And there will be others who understand some type of free association arrangements or something that still retains a closer relationship with Papua New Guinea.

I do not think many people have illusions that Bougainville could, for instance, suddenly break loose of the very deep economic connections it has with Papua New Guinea, not only those of government funding, but the commercial connections which are very, very deep. So suddenly making that disappear is not something people believe it’s possible.

But there are many other options that are on the table. I think what Bougainville is doing by having the announcement of the Independence Day is setting for Papua New Guinea saying, like, “here is the terms of the debate that we are prepared to consider”. But within that there is still a great deal of giving and taking.

DW: Now within the parliament in PNG, I think Bougainville has felt for some time that there hasn’t been a great deal of understanding of what Bougainville has been through, or what it is Bougainville is trying to achieve. There’s a very different lineup of MPs to what they were at the turn of the century when the Bougainville Peace Agreement was finalised. So what are they thinking, the MPs from other parts of the country? Are they going to be supportive, or are they just thinking about the impact on their own patch?

TO: I am not entirely sure what the MPs think, and they are a very diverse bunch of people. The sort of concern I think that many have, certainly more senior ones, is that they do not want to be the people in charge when this large chunk of the country secedes.

I think that is something that is important, and we do not want to be patronising the Papua New Guineans, who have a great deal of national pride, and it is not an event of celebration to see what is going on.

For many, it is quite a tragic chain of events. I am not entirely sure what the bulk of MPs believes about this. We have conducted some research, which is non randomised, but it is quite large scale, probing attitudes towards Bougainvillean independence in 2022, around the time of the election.

What we found, which is quite surprising, is that while, of course, Bougainville has the highest support for independence of any place in Papua New Guinea, there are substantial numbers of people outside Bougainville that are sympathetic to Bougainvillean independence or sympathetic towards implementing the referendum.

I think that would be the wording, I would choose, quite large numbers of people. So, as well as, many people who are very much undecided on the issues. From a Papua New Guinean perspective, the views are much more subtle than you might think are the case. By comparison, if you did a survey in Madrid of how many people support Catalan independence, you would not see figures similar to the ones that we find for Papua New Guinea.

DW: Bougainville is due to go to elections later this year. The ABG has stated that it wants this matter sorted, I think, at the time that the election writs are issued sometime in June. Will it be able to do this do you think?

TO: It’s always difficult to predict anything, especially the future. That goes double in Papua New Guinea and Bougainville. I think the reality is that the nature of negotiations here and in Bougainville, there’s a great deal of personal connections and toing and froing that will be taking place.

It is very hard to fit that onto a clear timeline. I would describe that as perhaps aspirational, but it would be, it would be good. Whether this is, you know, a question of electoral politics within Bougainville, I think there would be, like, a more or less unanimous view in Bougainville that this needs to move forward as soon as possible. But I don’t know that a timeline is realistic.

The concerns that I would have about this, Don, would be not just about sort of questions of capacity and what happens in the negotiations in Bougainville, but we also need to think about what is happening in Papua New Guinea, and this goes for the entire process.

But here, in this case, PNG has its hands full with many other issues as well. There is a set of like LLG [Local Level Government] elections about to happen, so there are a great deal of things for the government to attend to. I wonder how viable it is to come up with a solution in a short time, but they are certainly capable of surprising everybody.

DW: The Prime Minister, James Marape, has said on a number of occasions that Bougainville is not economically ready or it hasn’t got the security situation under control. And my understanding is that when this was raised at the last meeting, there was quite a lot of giggling going on, because people were comparing what’s happened in Bougainville with what’s happening around the rest of the country, including in Southern Highlands, the province of Mr Marape.

TO: I think you know for me when I think about this, because I have worked with Bougainvilleans for a long time, and have worked with Papua New Guineans for a long time as well. The sense that I have is really one of quite sadness and a great missed opportunity.

Because if we wind the clock back to 1975, Bougainville declared independence, trying to pre-empt [the establishment of] Papua New Guinea. And that set in train a set of events that drastically reformed the Papua New Guinean political Constitution. Many of the sort of characteristic institutions we see now in Papua New Guinea, such as provinces, came about partly because of that.

That crisis, that first independence crisis, the first secession crisis, was resolved through deep changes to Papua New Guinea and to Bougainville, in which the country was able to grow and move forward.

What we see now, though, is this sort of view that Bougainville problems must all be solved in Bougainville, but in fact, many of the problems that are said to be Bougainville problems are Papua New Guinea problems, and that would include issues such as the economic difficulties that Bougainville finds itself in.

I mean, there are many ironies with this kind of criticism that Bougainville is not economically viable. One of them being that when Papua New Guinea became independent, it was largely dependent on Bougainville at that time. So Bougainvilleans are aware of this, and don’t really welcome that kind of idea.

But I think that more deeply there were some really important lessons I believe that could have been learned from the peace process that might have been very useful in other areas of Papua New Guinea, and because Bougainville has been kind of seen as this place apart, virtually as a foreign nation, those lessons have not, unfortunately, filtered back to Papua New Guinea in a way that might have been very helpful for everybody.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Autonomous Bougainville Government President Ishmael Toroama has condemned the circulation of an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated video depicting a physical confrontation between him and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape.

The clip, first shared on Facebook last week, is generated from the above picture of Toroama and Marape taken at a news conference in September 2024, where the two leaders announced the appointment of former New Zealand Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae as the independent moderator for the Bougainville peace talks.

It shows Toroama punching Marape from a sitting position as both fall down. The post has amassed almost 190,000 views on Facebook and more than 360 comments.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

In a statement today, President Toroama said such content could have a negative impact on Bougainville’s efforts toward independence.

He said the “reckless misuse of artificial intelligence and social media platforms has the potential to damage the hard-earned trust and mutual respect” between the two nations.

“This video is not only false and malicious — it is dangerous,” the ABG leader said.

“It threatens to undermine the ongoing spirit of dialogue, peace, and cooperation that both our governments have worked tirelessly to build.”

Toroama calls for identifying of source
Toroama wants the National Information and Communications Technology Authority (NICTA) of PNG to find the source of the video.

He said that while freedom of expression was a democratic value, it was also a privilege that carried responsibilities.

He said freedom of expression should not be twisted through misinformation.

“These freedoms must be exercised with respect for the truth. Misusing AI tools to spread falsehoods not only discredits individuals but can destabilise entire communities.”

He has urged the content creators to reflect on the ethical implications of their digital actions.

Toroama also called on social media platforms and regulatory bodies to play a bigger role in stopping the spread of misleading AI-generated content.

“As we move further into the digital age, we must develop a collective moral compass to guide the use of powerful technologies like artificial intelligence,” he said.

“Truth must remain the foundation of all communication, both online and offline.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Pacific’s peak diplomatic bodies have signalled they are ready to engage with Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Government of Bougainville as mediation begins on the delayed ratification of its successful 2019 independence referendum.

PNG and Bougainville’s leaders met in the capital Port Moresby this week with a moderator to start negotiations on the implementation of the UN-supervised Bougainville Peace Agreement and referendum.

Ahead of the talks, ABG’s President Ishmael Toroama moved to sideline a key sticking point over PNG parliamentary ratification of the vote, with the announcement last week that Bougainville would unilaterally declare independence on September 1, 2027.

• READ MORE: PNG and Bougainville to hold more talks on independence issue
• Other Bougainville reports

The region’s two leading intergovernmental organisations — Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) — have traditionally deferred to member state PNG on discussion of Bougainville independence as an internal matter.

But as a declaration of nationhood becomes increasingly likely and near, there has been a subtle shift.

“It’s their [PNG’s] prerogative but if this matter were raised formally, even by Bougainville themselves, we can start discussion on that,” PIF Secretary-General Baron Waqa told a press briefing at its headquarters in Fiji on Monday.

“Whatever happens, I think the issue would have to be decided by our leaders later this year,” he said of the annual PIF meeting to be held in Solomon Islands in September.

Marked peace deal
The last time the Pacific’s leaders included discussion of Bougainville in their official communique was in 2004 to mark the disarmament of the island under the peace deal.

Waqa said Bougainville had made no formal approach to PIF — a grouping of 18 Pacific states and territories — but it was closely monitoring developments on what could eventually lead to the creation of a new member state.

In 2024, Toroama told BenarNews he would be seeking observer status at the subregional MSG — grouping PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS — as Bougainville’s first diplomatic foray.

No application has been made yet but MSG acting Director-General Ilan Kiloe told BenarNews they were also keeping a close watch.

“Our rules and regulations require that we engage through PNG and we will take our cue from them,” Kiloe said, adding while the MSG respects the sovereignty of its members, “if requested, we will provide assistance” to Bougainville.

“The purpose and reason the MSG was established initially was to advance the collective interests of the Melanesian countries, in particular, to assist those yet to attain independence,” he said. “And to provide support towards their aim of becoming independent countries.”

The 2001 peace agreement ended more than a decade of bloody conflict  known as the Bougainville crisis, that resulted in the deaths of up to 15,000 people, and laid out a roadmap for disarmament and the referendum in 2019.

‘We need support’
Under the agreement, PNG retains responsibility for foreign affairs but allows for the ABG to engage externally for trade and with “regional organisations.”

“We need countries to support us, we need to talk to those countries [ahead of independence],” Toroama told BenarNews last September.

The referendum on independence was supported by 97.7 percent of Bougainvillians and the outcome was due to be ratified by PNG’s Parliament in 2020, but was deferred because of the covid-19 pandemic.

Discussions by the two parties since on whether a simple or two-thirds majority vote by parliamentarians was required has further delayed the process.

Toroama stood firm on the issue of ratification on the first day of discussions moderated by New Zealand’s Sir Jerry Mataparae, saying his people voted for independence and the talks were to define the “new relationship” between two independent states.

Last week, the 15 members of the Bougainville Leaders Independence Consultation Forum issued a statement declaring PNG had no authority to veto the referendum result and recommended September 1, 2027 as the declaration date.

“As far as I am concerned, the process of negotiating independence was concluded with the referendum,” Toroama said.

Implementation moderation
“My understanding is that this moderation is about reaching agreement on implementing the referendum result of independence.”

He told Marape “to take ownership and endorse independence in this 11th Parliament.”

PNG’s prime minister responded by praising the 25 years of peace “without a single bullet fired” but warned Bougainville was not ready for independence.

“Economic independence must precede political independence,” Marape said. “The long-term sustainability of Bougainville must be factored into these discussions.”

“About 95 percent of Bougainville’s budget is currently reliant on external support, including funding from the PNG government and international donors.”

Proposals to reopen Rio Tinto’s former Panguna gold and copper mine in Bougainville, that sparked its civil conflict, is a regular feature of debate about its economic future.

Marape also suggested people may be secretly harbouring weapons in breach of the peace agreement and called on the UN to clarify the outcome of the disarmament process it supervised.

“Headlines have come out that guns remain in Bougainville. United Nations, how come guns remain in Bougainville?” Marape asked on Monday.

“You need to tell me. This is something you know. I thought all guns were removed from Bougainville.”

PNG relies on aid
By comparison, PNG has heavily relied on foreign financial assistance since independence, currently receiving at about US$320 million (1.3 billion kina) a year in budgetary support from Australia, and suffers regular tribal violence and massacres involving firearms including assault rifles.

Bougainville Vice-President Patrick Nisira rejected Marape’s concerns about weapons, the Post-Courier newspaper reported.

“The usage of those guns, there is no evidence of that and if you look at the data on Bougainville where [there are] incidents of guns, it is actually very low,” he said.

Further talks are planned and are due to produce a report for the national Parliament by mid-2025, ahead of elections in Bougainville and PNG’s 50th anniversary celebrations in September.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

The parties involved in talks aimed at resolving an impasse over Bougainville’s push for independence are planning to meet several more times before a deadline in June.

The leaders of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville have been meeting all week in Port Moresby, with former New Zealand Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae serving as moderator.

The question before them hinges on the conditions for tabling the results of the 2019 Bougainville referendum in the PNG Parliament, in which there was overwhelming support for independence.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainvlle independence reports

PNG wants an absolute majority of MPs to agree to the tabling, while Bougainville says it should be a simple majority.

Bougainville says changes to the PNG Constitution would come later, and that is when an absolute majority is appropriate.

Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama has suggested a solution could be reached outside of Parliament, but PNG Prime Minister James Marape has questioned the readiness of Bougainville to run itself, given there are still guns in the community and the local economy is miniscule.

Sources at the talks say that, with the parties having now stated their positions, several more meetings are planned where decisions will be reached on the way forward.

Burnham key to civil war end
One of those meetings is expected to take place at Burnham, New Zealand.

It was preliminary talks at Burnham in 1997 that led to the end of the bloody 10-year-long civil war in Bougainville.

Bougainville is holding elections in September, and the writs are being issued in June, hence the desire that the process to determine its political future is in place by then.

Last week, Bougainville leaders declared they wanted independence in place by 1 September 2027.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The former Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) commander who defied a government decision to send mercenaries to Bougainville during the civil war in the late 1990s has paid tribute to Sir Julius Chan, prime minister at the time.

Retired Major-General Jerry Singirok, who effectively ended the Bougainville War and caused Sir Julius to step aside as Prime Minister in 1997, expressed his condolences, saying he had the highest respect for Sir Julius — who died on Thursday aged 85 — for upholding the constitution when the people demanded it.

“Today, I mourn with his family, the people of New Ireland and the nation for his loss. We are for ever grateful for such a selfless servant as Sir Julius Chan,” he said.

• READ MORE: Sir Julius Chan, one of Papua New Guinea’s founding fathers, dies aged 85
• A Matter of Conscience: The Sandline affair
• Other Sir Julius Chan reports

As a captain, Jerry Singirok had served on the PNGDF’s first-ever overseas combat deployment in Vanuatu to quell an independence rebellion.

The decision to send PNGDF forces to Vanuatu was made when Sir Julius was prime minister in 1980.

Seventeen years later, again under Sir Julius’ leadership, the 38-year-old Singirok was elevated to be the PNGDF commander as the government struggled to put an end to the decade-long Bougainville War.

Sandline affair
In late 1996, the Sir Julius-led government signed a secret US$38 million deal with Sandline International, a UK-based mercenary company.

Under the arrangement, 44 British, South African and Australian mercenaries supported by the PNGDF, would be sent in to Bougainville to end the conflict.

Singirok disagreed with the decision, disarmed and arrested the mercenaries during the night of 16 March 1997, and with the backing of the army he called for Sir Julius to step aside as prime minster. Sir Julius’ defiance triggered violent protests.

“Yes, I disagreed with him and opposed the use of mercenaries on Bougainville and the nation mobilised and expelled Sandline mercenaries,” he said.

“But it did not once dampen my respect for him.”

Under immense public pressure, Sir Julius stepped aside.

Throughout the period of unrest, Singirok maintained that the military operation called “Opareisen Rausim Kwik” (Tok Pisin for “Get rid of them quickly”), was aimed at expelling mercenaries and was not a coup against the government.

His book about the so-called Sandline affair, A Matter of Conscience, was published in 2023.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

COMMENTARY: By Tess Newton Cain

Vanuatu’s devastating earthquake and dramatic political developments in Tonga and New Caledonia at the end of 2024 set the tone for the coming year in the Pacific.

The incoming Trump administration adds another level of uncertainty, ranging from the geostrategic competition with China and the region’s resulting militarisation through to the U.S. response to climate change.

And decolonisation for a number of territories in the Pacific will remain in focus as the region’s largest country celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence.

The deadly 7.3 earthquake that struck Port Vila on December 17 has left Vanuatu reeling. As the country moves from response to recovery, the full impacts of the damage will come to light.

The economic hit will be significant, with some businesses announcing that they will not open until well into the New Year or later.

Amid the physical carnage there’s Vanuatu’s political turmoil, with a snap general election triggered in November before the disaster struck to go ahead on January 16.

On Christmas Eve a new prime minister was elected in Tonga. ‘Aisake Valu Eke is a veteran politician, who has previously served as Minister of Finance. He succeeded Siaosi Sovaleni who resigned suddenly after a prolonged period of tension between his office and the Tongan royal family.

Eke takes the reins as Tonga heads towards national elections, due before the end of November. He will likely want to keep things stable and low key between now and then.

Fall of New Caledonia government
In Kanaky New Caledonia, the resignation of the Calédonie Ensemble party — also on Christmas Eve — led to the fall of the French territory’s government.

After last year’s violence and civil disorder – that crippled the economy but stopped a controversial electoral reform — the political turmoil jeopardises about US$77 million (75 million euro) of a US$237 million recovery funding package from France.

In addition, and given the fall of the Barnier government in Paris, attempts to reach a workable political settlement in New Caledonia are likely to be severely hampered, including any further movement to secure independence.

In France’s other Pacific territory, the government of French Polynesia is expected to step up its campaign for decolonisation from the European power.

Possibly the biggest party in the Pacific in 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia, accompanied hopefully by some reflection and action about the country’s future.

Eagerly awaited also will be the data from the country’s flawed census last year, due for release on the same day — September 16. But the celebrations will also serve as a reminder of unfinished self-determination business, with its Autonomous Region of Bougainville preparing for their independence declaration in the next two years.

The shadow of geopolitics looms large in the Pacific islands region. There is no reason to think that will change this year.

Trump administration unkowns
A significant unknown is how the incoming Trump administration will alter policy and funding settings, if at all. The current (re)engagement by the US in the region started with Trump during his first incumbency. His 2019 meeting with the then leaders of the compact states — Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands — at the White House was a pivotal moment.

Under Biden, billions of dollars have been committed to “securitise” the region in response to China. This year, we expect to see US marines start to transfer in numbers from Okinawa to Guam.

However, given Trump’s history and rhetoric when it comes to climate change, there is some concern about how reliable an ally the US will be when it comes to this vital security challenge for the region.

The last time Trump entered the White House, he withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement and he is widely expected to do the same again this time around.

In addition to polls in Tonga and Vanuatu, elections will be held in the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia and for the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

There will also be a federal election in Australia, the biggest aid donor in the Pacific, and a change in government will almost certainly have impacts in the region.

Given the sway that the national security community has on both sides of Australian politics, the centrality of Pacific engagement to foreign policy, particularly in response to China, is unlikely to change.

Likely climate policy change
How that manifests could look quite different under a conservative Liberal/National party government. The most likely change is in climate policy, including an avowed commitment to invest in nuclear power.

A refusal to shift away from fossil fuels or commit to enhanced finance for adaptation by a new administration could reignite tensions within the Pacific Islands Forum that have, to some extent, been quietened under Labor’s Albanese government.

Who is in government could also impact on the bid to host COP31 in 2026, with a decision between candidates Turkey and Australia not due until June, after the poll.

Pacific leaders and advocates face a systemic challenge regarding climate change. With the rise in conflict and geopolitical competition, the global focus on the climate crisis has weakened. The prevailing sense of disappointment over COP29 last year is likely to continue as partners’ engagement becomes increasingly securitised.

A major global event for this year is the Oceans Summit which will be held in Nice, France, in June. This is a critical forum for Pacific countries to take their climate diplomacy to a new level and attack the problem at its core.

In 2023, the G20 countries were responsible for 76 percent of global emissions. By capitalising on the geopolitical moment, the Pacific could nudge the key players to greater ambition.

Several G20 countries are seeking to expand and deepen their influence in the region alongside the five largest emitters — China, US, India, Russia, and Japan — all of which have strategic interests in the Pacific.

Given the increasingly transactional nature of Pacific engagement, 2025 should present an opportunity for Pacific governments to leverage their geostrategic capital in ways that will address human security for their peoples.

Dr Tess Newton Cain is a principal consultant at Sustineo P/L and adjunct associate professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. She is a former lecturer at the University of the South Pacific and has over 25 years of experience working in the Pacific islands region. The views expressed here are hers, not those of BenarNews/RFA. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.

Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua –- and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.

Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as “betrayals”:

• READ MORE: The hopes and fears of displaced West Papuans as a Prabowo presidency looms
• At ICJ, lawyer for Palestine rips US and Fiji for defending Israel
• Fiji human rights group condemns ‘troubling’ support for Israel at ICJ
• West Papua: Once was Papuan Independence Day, now facing ‘ecocide’, transmigration
• COP29: Pacific climate advocates decry outcome as ‘a catastrophic failure’

1. Fiji and PNG ‘betrayal’ UN votes over Palestine
Just two weeks before Christmas, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip under attack from Israel — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against were Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.

The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.

Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.

The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.

Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.

Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.

Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.

However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.

Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.

Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.

Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.

Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.

The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.

In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.

Condemning the US and Fiji, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared: “Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative.”

Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.

However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.

2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo
For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.

This year was no different in spite of the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate such a visit.

Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.

A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.

But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.

Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.

Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.

Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.

And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.

3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation ‘progress’
When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead (mostly indigenous Kanaks), intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.

I was quoted at the time by The New Zealand Herald and RNZ Pacific of blaming France for having “lost the plot” since 2020.

While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.

This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.

“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.

France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.

In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.

New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.

But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.

However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.

On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.

In other words, back off on the independence demands. Rabuka was quoted by RNZ Pacific reporter Lydia Lewis as saying, “look, don’t slap the hand that has fed you”.

Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.

But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.

5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.

Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.

This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.

Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.

The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.

The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.

The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.

Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.

Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.

Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:

“Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”

The first large-scale environmental impact assessment of Rio Tinto’s abandoned Panguna mine in Papua New Guinea has found local communities face life-threatening risks from its legacy.

The independent study was initiated after frustrated landowners in PNG’s Autonomous Region of Bougainville took their longstanding grievances against Rio Tinto to the Australian government in 2020.

British-Australian Rio Tinto has accepted the findings of the report released on Friday but has not responded to calls by landowners and affected communities to fund the clean-up.

• READ MORE: Other Panguna mine reports

Rio Tinto abandoned one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines in 1989 when a long-running dispute with landowners over the inequitable distribution of the royalties turned into an armed conflict.

The Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment report found the mine infrastructure, pit and levee banks pose “very high risks,” while landslides and exposure to mine and industrial chemicals present “medium to high” risks to local communities.

Flooding in downstream from Panguna — caused by a billion tons of mine tailings dumped into the Jaba-Kawerong river system — was reported as posing “very high” actual and potential human rights risks.

“The most serious concern is the potential impact to the right to life from unstable structures, and landform collapses and flooding hazards,” the report concluded, with the access to healthy environment, water, food and housing also impacted.

More than 25,000 people are estimated to live in the affected area, on the island of 300,000 in PNG’s east on the border with Solomon Islands.

“Rio Tinto must take responsibility for its legacy and fund the long-term solutions we need so that we can live on our land in safety again,” Theonila Roka Matbob, lead complainant and Bougainville parliamentarian, said in a statement.

“We never chose this mine, but we live with its consequences every day, trying to find ways to survive in the wasteland that has been left behind.”

“What the communities are demanding to know now is what the next step is. A commitment to remediation is where the data is pointing us to, and that’s what the people are waiting for.”

In August, Rio Tinto and its former subsidiary and mine operator Bougainville Copper Limited along with the Autonomous Bougainville Government signed an MoU to mitigate the risks of the ageing infrastructure in the former Panguna mine area.

Last month the three parties struck an agreement to form a “roundtable.”

Rio Tinto in a statement after the report’s release said the roundtable “plans to address the findings and develop a remedy mechanism consistent with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.”

“While we continue to review the report, we recognize the gravity of the impacts identified and accept the findings,” chief executive of Rio Tinto’s Australia operations Kellie Parker said.

Rio Tinto divested its majority stake in the mine to the PNG and ABG governments in 2016, and reportedly wrote to the ABG saying it bore no responsibility.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama in welcoming the report thanked Rio Tinto “for opening up to this process and giving it genuine attention and input.”

In a statement he said it was a “significant milestone” that would help with the “move away from the damage and turmoil of the past and strengthen our pathway towards a stronger future.”

Bougainville voted for independence from PNG in 2019, with 97.7 per cent favoring nationhood.

Exploitation of Panguna’s estimated U.S.$60b in ore reserves has been touted as a major future source of income to fund independence. The referendum result has yet to be ratified by PNG’s parliament.

The first report of the Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment identified what needs to be addressed or mitigated and what warrants further investigation.

The second phase of the process will conduct more intensive studies, with a second report to make recommendations on how the “complex” impacts should be remedied.

A 10-year civil war left up to 15,000 dead and 70,000 displaced across Bougainville as PNG forces –supplied with Australian weapons and helicopters – battled the poorly armed Bougainville Revolutionary Army.

Panguna remained a “no-go zone” despite the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001, and access has still been restricted in the decades since by a road block of former BRA fighters.

A complaint filed by the Australian-based Human Rights Law Centre on behalf of affected communities with the Australian government initiated the non-binding, international mechanism to report on “responsible business conduct.”

They alleged that Rio Tinto was responsible for “significant breaches of the OECD guidelines relating to the serious, ongoing environmental and human rights violations arising from the operation of its former Panguna mine.”

“This landmark report validates what communities in Bougainville have been saying for decades – the Panguna mine has left them living with an ongoing environmental and human rights disaster,” HRLC legal director Keren Adams said in a statement.

“There are strong expectations in Bougainville that Rio Tinto will now take swift action to help address the impacts and dangers communities are living with.”

The two-year, on-site independent scientific investigation by Australian engineering services company Tetra Tech Coffey made 24 recommendations on impacts to address and what needs further investigation.

Comprehensive field studies included soil, water and food testing, hydrology and geo-morphology analysis, and hundreds of community surveys and interviews.

Outstanding demands from the community include that Rio Tinto publicly commit to addressing the impacts, provide a timetable, contribute to a fund for immediate and long-term remediation and rehabilitation and undertake a formal reconciliation as per Bougainville custom.

A class action lawsuit brought by 5000 Bougainvilleans against Rio Tinto and subsidiary Bougainville Copper Limited for billions in compensation earlier this year is unrelated to the impact assessment reports. Rio Tinto has said it will strongly defend its position.

Republished from BenarNews with permission.

An initial hearing of a class action against mining giant Rio Tinto over the toxic legacy of the Panguna copper mine on the autonomous island of Bougainville has been held in Papua New Guinea.

The lawsuit against Rio Tinto and its subsidiary Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) is seeking compensation, expected to be in the billions of dollars, for what plaintiffs allege is historic mismanagement of the massive open copper-and-gold mine between 1972 and 1989.

More than 5000 claimants backed by anonymous investors are seeking damages for the destruction that sparked a 10-year-long civil war.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville and independence reports

The Panguna mine closed in 1989 after anger about pollution and the unequal distribution of profits sparked a landowner rebellion. As many as 20,000 people — or 10 percent of Bougainville’s population — are estimated to have died in the violence that followed between pro-inependence rebels and PNG.

Although a peace process was brokered in 2001 with New Zealand support, deep political divisions remain and there has never been remediation for Panguna’s environmental and psychological scars.

The initial hearing for the lawsuit took place on Wednesday, a day ahead of schedule, at the National Court in Port Moresby, said Matthew Mennilli, a partner at Sydney-based Morris Mennilli.

Mennilli, who is from one of two law firms acting on behalf of the plaintiffs, said he was unable to provide further details as court orders had not yet been formally entered.

A defence submitted
Rio Tinto did not respond to specific questions regarding this week’s hearing, but said in a statement on September 23 it had submitted a defence and would strongly defend its position in the case.

The lawsuit is made up by the majority of villagers in the affected area of Bougainville, an autonomous province within PNG, situated some 800km east of the capital Port Moresby.

At least 71 local clan leaders support the claim, with the lead claimant named as former senior Bougainville political leader and chief of the Basking Taingku clan Martin Miriori.

The lawsuit is being bankrolled by Panguna Mine Action, a limited liability company that stands to reap between 20-40 percent of any payout depending on how long the case takes, according to litigation funding documents cited by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

While the lawsuit has support from a large number of local villagers, some observers fear it could upset social cohesion on Bougainville and potentially derail another long-standing remediation effort.

The class action is running in parallel with an independent assessment of the mine’s legacy, supported by human rights groups and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), and funded by Rio Tinto.

Rio Tinto agreed in 2021 to take part in the Panguna Mine Legacy Impact Assessment after the Melbourne-based Human Rights Law Centre filed a complaint with the Australian government, on behalf of Bougainville residents.

Legacy of destruction
The group said the Anglo-Australian mining giant has failed to address Panguna’s legacy of destruction, including the alleged dumping of more than a billion tonnes of mine waste into rivers that continues to affect health, the environment and livelihoods.

The assessment, which is being done by environmental consulting firm Tetra Tech Coffey, includes extensive consultation with local communities and the first phase of the evaluation is expected to be delivered next month.

ABG President Ishmael Toroama has called the Rio Tinto class action the highest form of treason and an obstacle to the government’s economic independence agenda.

“This class action is an attack on Bougainville’s hard-fought unity to date,” he said in May.

In February, the autonomous government granted Australian-listed Bougainville Copper a five-year exploration licence to revive the Panguna mine site.

The Bougainville government is hoping its reopening will fund independence. In a non-binding 2019 referendum — which was part of the 2001 peace agreement — 97.7 percent of the island’s inhabitants voted for independence.

PNG leaders resist independence
But PNG leaders have resisted the result, fearful that by granting independence it could encourage breakaway movements in other regions of the volatile Pacific island country.

Former New Zealand Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae was appointed last month as an independent moderator to help the two parties agree on terms of a parliamentary vote needed to ratify the referendum.

In response to the class action, Rio Tinto said last month its focus remained on “constructive engagement and meaningful action with local stakeholders” through the legacy assessment.

The company said it was “seeking to partner with key stakeholders, such as the ABG and BCL, to design and implement a remedy framework.”

Copyright ©2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.

High in the forested mountains of Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville Island lies an abandoned, kilometer-wide crater cut deep into the earth.

Formerly one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines, the open pit now serves as an unsightly monument to the environmental and social chaos that underground riches can create.

Run for years by a subsidiary of Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto, the Panguna mine earned millions for Papua New Guinea (PNG) and helped bankroll its newfound independence. But it also poured waste into local waterways and fuelled anger among locals who felt robbed of the profits.

• READ MORE: Other Pangune mine reports

When an armed uprising ultimately shuttered the mine in 1989, the impoverished island was left reeling.

Nearly three decades later, in late 2022, human rights activists, the local government, and the mine’s former operators joined forces to produce a definitive assessment of the mine’s toxic legacy.

Their report, due to be released later this month, will become the basis for negotiations aimed at getting the mining companies to finally clean up the mess and compensate affected communities.

But its supporters now worry their efforts will be undermined by a class-action lawsuit launched in May against the mine’s erstwhile operators. The legal effort is being championed by former rebel leaders — and backed by anonymous offshore investors who stand to make hundreds of millions of dollars if it succeeds.

Worldwide litigation boom
The lawsuit is part of a worldwide boom in litigation financing that seeks to take multinational companies to task for ecological or social damage while potentially reaping a fortune for lawyers and funders.

Critics in Bougainville worry the lawsuit will reopen old wounds at a time when the island is making a push to break free of Papua New Guinea and become the world’s newest sovereign nation. Many Bougainvilleans are hoping to reopen the mine, using its wealth to fund their own independence this time around.

The region’s government and many local leaders believe the class action could put the mine’s revival at risk. There are also concerns the lawsuit would leave many Bougainvilleans empty handed, while the anonymous foreign investors would walk away with a significant share of the payout.

Unlike the official assessment, which seeks to identify everyone who needs to be compensated, the class action will only share its winnings — which could potentially be in the billions of dollars — with the locals who have signed on. Others will get nothing.

“There’s already fragmentation in the community and families are already divided,” said Theonila Roka Matbob, who represents the area around Panguna in the local Parliament and has helped lead the government-backed assessment process as a minister in the Autonomous Bougainville government.

She speaks from personal experience. The chief litigant in the class-action lawsuit, Martin Miriori, is her uncle. The two are no longer on speaking terms.

A losing deal
Gouged from Bougainville’s lush volcanic heart, the Panguna mine in its heyday supplied as much as 45 percent of PNG’s export revenue, providing it with the financial means to achieve independence from Australia in 1975.

The windfall, however, did not extend to Bougainvilleans themselves. Ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of PNG’s population, they saw Panguna as a symbol of external domination.

The mine delivered only a miserly 2-percent share of its profits to their island — along with years of environmental havoc.

During the 17 years of Panguna’s operation — from 1972 to 1989 — over a billion metric tons of toxic mine waste and electric blue copper runoff flooded rivers that flowed downstream towards communities of subsistence farmers. The result was poisoned drinking water, infertile land, and children who were drowned or injured trying to cross engorged waterways.

In 1989, enraged Bougainville locals launched an armed rebellion against the PNG government. The mine was shut down, closing off a vital source of revenue for the national government in Port Moresby.

A brutal civil war raged on for nearly a decade, leaving more than 15,000 people dead, while a naval blockade by PNG’s military obliterated the island’s economy.

A peace deal in 2000 granted Bougainville substantial autonomy. But nearly a quarter-century later, the legacy of Panguna and the war it provoked is still deeply felt.

Few paved roads, bridges
There are few paved roads and bridges in the island’s interior. Residents earn a modest living through cocoa and coconut farming, or by unregulated artisanal mining in and around the abandoned Panguna crater.

Rivers polluted by years of runoff are still an otherworldly shade of milky blue.

At least 300,000 people are estimated to live on Bougainville, including as many as 15,000 who live downstream of the mine. Of those, some 4500 have joined Miriori — Roka’s estranged uncle and a tribal leader whose brother, Joseph Kabui, served as the first president of autonomous Bougainville — in seeking restitution through the class-action suit.

“We’ve got to make people happy,” Miriori said. “They’ve lost their land forever, environment forever. Their hunting grounds. Their spiritual, sacred grounds.”

‘Alert to opportunities’
Miriori took many by surprise when he became the public face of the suit filed in PNG’s National Court in May against Rio Tinto and its former local subsidiary, Bougainville Copper Limited.

While the tribal leader and former rebel is a well-known figure in Bougainville, the funders of the lawsuit are not. They have managed to keep their identities secret in part because the company behind the suit, Panguna Mine Action LLC, is registered on Nevis, a small Caribbean island that does not require companies to publicly disclose their shareholders and directors.

Miriori declined to comment on who was behind the company, saying, “I will not tell you where the funding is based … you can source that from our people down there [in Australia].”

James Sing, an Australian based in New York, is Panguna Mine Action’s chief public representative. He initially agreed to an interview, but later referred reporters back to a London-based public relations agency, Sans Frontières Associates.

The agency declined to reveal Panguna Mine Action’s investors.

Litigation funding documents obtained by OCCRP, however, shed some light on the history of the case. The documents show that Panguna Mine Action began to investigate the possibility of a class-action suit as early as July 2021.

The Bougainvillean claimants, led by Miriori, were formally brought into an agreement with the company and its Australian and PNG lawyers in November 2022. The suit was publicly announced this May.

Handsome profit
The lawsuit’s investors stand to profit handsomely from any eventual settlement: Panguna Mine Action is poised to receive a cut of 20 to 40 percent of any payout resulting from the suit, with the percentage increasing the longer the process takes, the funding documents show.

In interviews and statements, both Miriori and Panguna Mine Action have put the potential value of any award in the billions of dollars.

The lawsuit’s financiers defend their substantial share of the potential benefits as standard practice.

“The costs of launching and running the class action against a global miner are significant, and almost certainly could not be met from within Bougainville without funding from an external party,” the company said in its statement.

Panguna Mine Action added it would bear sole responsibility for costs if the lawsuit is unsuccessful.

According to Michael Russell, a Sydney-based class action defence lawyer, such funding arrangements are typical in the burgeoning world of litigation finance, where investors seek out cases that promote virtuous social causes while offering huge potential payoffs.

A similar case is unfolding in Latin America, where more than 720,000 Brazilians are seeking $46.5 billion as part of a gargantuan class action against mining giant BHP and its local subsidiary for their role in a 2015 dam collapse.

In such cases, funders can justify walking away with significant cuts of any winnings because of the substantial risk they face of losing their investment if a case fails, Russell said.

Such cases were rarely initiated at the grassroots level by the victims themselves, he added.

“Most of the time, either the plaintiff firms or the funders will be the catalyst for a claim,” he said. “They are very alert to opportunities.”

Rival restitution plans
Government officials including Miriori’s niece, Roka, say the class-action case, which is due to hold opening arguments in October, threatens to derail the ongoing impact assessment aimed at calculating the full cost of the mine’s environmental impact and developing recommendations for addressing the damage.

The assessment, which counts community members among its stakeholders and bills itself as an independent review, is supported by Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, which has hailed the project as “an important step” towards rectifying the mine’s devastating impact on thousands of Bougainvilleans.

However, while Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper are both funding the project, they have not yet committed to paying for any compensation or cleanup. Roka said she was concerned the lawsuit could reduce the company’s willingness to engage with the process, since it could view the assessment as a tool that could be used against them in the courtroom.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama backs the impact assessment and has lambasted the class action suit as the work of “faceless investors . . .  taking advantage of vulnerable groups.” (His office did not respond to an interview request.)

He also expressed concern that the court proceedings threaten to “disrupt” his government’s efforts to reopen the mine, which still holds an estimated $60 billion in untapped deposits.

Bougainville’s leaders see the mine as key to securing the island’s economic future as it sets out to form an independent state — a dream that drew overwhelming public support in a 2019 referendum.

Exploration licence
Earlier this year Toroama’s government granted Bougainville Copper a five-year exploration licence for the Panguna site.

The lack of media and polling in Bougainville make it hard to measure public opinion on plans to reactivate the mine, but many locals appear to support reopening it under local control as an essential tool for achieving independence.

Bougainville Copper’s brand is still toxically associated with Rio Tinto and its past abuses, despite the fact that the international mining giant gave away its majority stake for no money in 2016.

The publicly traded company is now majority co-owned by the governments of PNG and Bougainville, and Port Moresby has pledged to hand over all its shares to the autonomous region in the near future.

Panguna Mine Action acknowledges that its effort could stand in the way of the mine’s reopening — but the company says that is a good thing.

“It is our understanding that the people of Bougainville do not wish mining to be recommenced under any circumstances or, alternatively, unless Rio Tinto and Bougainville Copper acknowledge the past, pay compensation and remediate the rivers and surrounding valley,” the company said in a statement.

Rio Tinto declined to comment. Mel Togolo, the chairman of Bougainville Copper, told OCCRP that the lawsuit was the work of “a foreign funder who no doubt is seeking a return on an investment.”

View of the tailings located downstream of the Panguna mine. Photo: OCCRP / Aubrey Belford

‘Only those who have signed will benefit’
The fight over Panguna adds even more uncertainty to long-running anxiety over Bougainville’s future.

With global copper prices soaring on high demand for renewable energy and electric vehicles, the Panguna mine would be an attractive prize for both Western mining companies and firms from China, which is dramatically expanding its influence in the South Pacific.

Since a future Bougainvillean state would be economically dependent on the mine’s revenue, some have raised concerns that control of the mine could become a proxy battle for geopolitical influence in the broader region.

For his part, Miriori expressed little concern that a multibillion-dollar payout might stir resentment by reaching only a fraction of the people affected by the mine’s environmental destruction.

“Only those who signed will benefit,” he said, adding that the opportunity was made “very clear to people” through awareness campaigns.

“Those who have not signed, it’s their freedom of choice.”

Among those who did not sign is Wendy Bowara, 48, who lives in Dapera, a bleak settlement built on a hill of mine waste. Bowara said she is looking to the government-backed assessment, not the lawsuit, to deliver compensation and clean up Panguna’s toxic legacy.

“We are living on top of chemicals,” she said. “Copper concentration is high. I don’t know if the food is good to eat or if it’s healthy to drink the water.”

But while it may seem odd given her grim surroundings, Borawa says she strongly supports reopening the mine.

“It funded the independence of Papua New Guinea,” Bowara said. “Why can’t we use it to fund our own independence?”

Allan Gioni contributed reporting.

Aubrey Belford is the Pacific editor for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.

About 4500 Bougainvillean residents now back a lawsuit against mining giant Rio Tinto.

This is an additional 1500 people from the autonomous Papua New Guinea region joining the action since it was filed in May this year.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama said the lawsuit was disappointing and was pursued by those people acting against Bougainville’s interests.

• READ MORE: Other Panguna mine reports

The government was not backing it in any way, shape or form, he said.

The claimants are seeking billions of dollars in compensation from Rio Tinto which operated the Panguna copper and gold mine in the 1970s and 1980s before it was forced to shut by civil war.

The mine was at the heart of that war which brought death and devastation to Bougainville over a 10-year period until 1997.

They say Rio Tinto, which was the majority shareholder in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) at the time, is responsible for the large scale environmental and social harm that resulted from what was one of the biggest mines in the world.

A former senior Bougainville political leader, Martin Miriori, who is the lead claimant of the class action, said the “large increase in claimants demonstrates the strength of feeling among local people that Rio Tinto and BCL must make amends for decades of environmental devastation”.

He said “this issue will not go away, as the legal action has attracted strong support, and reminded the world of the destruction caused by the mine operator’s reckless actions.”

A first court hearing is set for Port Moresby on 10 October 2024.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A New Zealand politician and human rights activist with a strong connection to Tonga’s Democracy movement and other Pacific activism has been farewelled after dying last week aged 80.

Keith Locke served as a former Green MP from 1999 to 2011.

While in Parliament, he was a notable critic of New Zealand’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan and the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002, and advocated for refugee rights.

• READ MORE: Other obituaries, reports on Keith Locke

He was appointed a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to human rights advocacy in 2021, received NZ Amnesty International’s Human Rights Defender award in 2012, and the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand’s Harmony Award in 2013.

Locke was often a voice for the Pacific in the New Zealand Parliament.

In 2000, he spoke out on the plight of overstayers who were facing deportation under the National Party government.

As the Green Party’s then immigration spokesperson, he supported calls for a review of the overstayer legislation.

Links to Pohiva
“We are a Polynesian nation, and we increasingly celebrate the Samoan and Tongan part of our national identity,” Locke said at the time.

“How can we claim as our own the Jonah Lomus and Beatrice Faumuinas while we are prepared to toss their relations out of the country at a moment’s notice?”

Locke had links to Tonga through his relationship with Democracy campaigner and later Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pohiva, who died in 2019.

Locke defended Pohiva in 1996 when he was a spokesperson for the Alliance Party. He said he was horrified that Pohiva and two colleagues had been jailed for comments in their pro-democracy newspaper Kele’a.

He criticised the New Zealand government for keeping silent about what he described as a “gross abuse of human rights.”

In 2004, Locke called on the New Zealand government to speak out about what he called the suppression of the press in Tonga.

Locke, who was then the Greens foreign affairs spokesman, said several publications had been denied licences, including an offshoot of the New Zealand-produced Taimi ‘o Tonga newspaper.

Vale #KeithLocke, tireless and fearless campaigner for peace, justice and a sustainable future for a green planet … I’ll also remember him for friendship and commitment to independent truth publishing and OneWorld progressive bookshop. – @DavidRobie, editor, #AsiaPacificReport pic.twitter.com/SC0obJzfOA

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 21, 2024

Tribute by Asia Pacific Report editor David Robie.

‘Speak out as Pacific neighbour’
“We owe it to the Tongan people to support them in their hour of need.  We should speak out as a Pacific neighbour,” he said.

In 2007, ‘Akilisi was again charged with sedition, along with four other pro-democracy MPs, for allegedly being responsible for the rioting that took place following a mass pro-democracy march in Nuku’alofa.

“As the Greens’ foreign affairs spokesperson I went up to Tonga to support ‘Akilisi and his colleagues fight these trumped-up charges. I was shocked to find that the New Zealand government was going along with these sedition charges against five sitting MPs,” Locke said in an interview.

“I was in Tonga not long before the 2010 elections with a cross-party group of New Zealand MPs. We were helping Tongan candidates understand the intricacies of a parliamentary system.

“At the time I remember ‘Akilisi being worried that the block of nine ‘noble’ MPs could frustrate the desires of what were to be 17 directly-elected MPs. And so it turned out.

“Despite winning 12 of the popularly-elected 17 seats in 2010, the pro-democracy MPs were outvoted 14 to 12 when the votes of the nine nobles MPs were put into the equation.

“However, in the two subsequent elections (2014 and 2017) the Democrats predominated and ‘Akilisi took over as Prime Minister. I am not qualified to judge his record on domestic issues, except to say it couldn’t have been an easy job because of the fractious nature of Tongan politics.

“And ‘Akilisi has been in poor health.

‘Admirable stand’
“As Prime Minister he took an admirable stand on some important international issues, such as climate change. At the Pacific Island Forum he criticised those countries which stayed silent on the plight of the West Papuans.”

Locke said that Tonga may not yet be fully democratic, but that great progress had been made under Pohiva’s “humble and self-sacrificing leadership.”

Keith Locke was also an outspoken advocate for democracy and independence causes in Fiji, Kanaky New Caledonia, Palestine, Philippines, Tahiti, Tibet, Timor-Leste and West Papua and in many other countries.

His remembrance service was held with whānau and supporters at a packed Mount Eden War memorial Hall on Tuesday.

Dr Philip Cass is an editorial adviser for Kaniva Tonga. Republished as a collaboration between KT and Asia Pacific Report.

There is an important story to be told behind the story Aotearoa New Zealand’s mainstream media has been reporting on in Kanaky New Caledonia. Beyond the efforts to evacuate New Zealanders lies a struggle for indigenous sovereignty and self-determination we here in Aotearoa can relate to.

Aotearoa is part of a whānau of Pacific nations, interconnected by Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. The history of Aotearoa is intricately woven into the broader history of the Pacific, where cultural interactions have shaped a rich tapestry over centuries.

The whakapapa connections between tangata whenua and tagata moana inform my political stance and commitment to indigenous rights throughout the Pacific. What happens in one part of the South Pacific ripples across to all of us that call the Pacific Ocean home.

• READ MORE:  Kanaky New Caledonia unrest: Macron lifts state of emergency ‘for time being’
• French repressive policies in New Caledonia have ‘betrayed’ Kanak hopes — David Robie video
• Amid Kanaky New Caledonia’s unrest, I saw first-hand the same colonial white privilege that caused it
• West Papua independence group slams French ‘modern-day colonialism’
• Other Kanaky New Caledonia reports

Since the late 1980s the Kanak independence movement showed itself to be consistently engaging with the Accords with Paris process in their struggle for self-determination.

The Nouméa Accord set out a framework for transferring power to the people of New Caledonia, through a series of referenda. It was only after France moved to unilaterally break with the accords and declare independence off the table that the country returned to a state of unrest.

Civil unrest in and around the capital Nouméa which has continued for two weeks, was prompted by Kanak anger over Paris changing the constitution to open up electoral rolls in its “overseas territory” in a way that effectively dilutes the voting power of the indigenous people.

Coming after the confused end of the Nouméa Accord in 2021, which left New Caledonia’s self-determination path clouded with uncertainty, it was inevitable that there would be trouble.

Flew halfway across world
That France’s President Emmanuel Macron flew across the world to Noumea last week for one day of talks in a bid to end the civil unrest underlines the seriousness of the crisis.

But while the deployment of more French security forces to the territory may have succeeded in quelling the worst of the unrest for now, Macron’s visit was unsuccessful because he failed to commit to pulling back on the electoral changes or to signal a meaningful way forward on independence for New Caledonia.

Paris’ tone-deafness to the Kanaks’ concerns was evident in its refusal to postpone the last of the three referendums under the Nouméa Accord during the pandemic, when the indigenous Melanesians boycotted the poll because it was a time of mourning in their communities. Kanaks consider that last referendum to have no legitimacy.

But Macron’s government has simply cast aside the accord process to move ahead unilaterally with a new statute for New Caledonia.

As the Kanaky Aotearoa Solidarity group said in a letter to the French Ambassador in Wellington this week, “it is regrettable that France’s decision to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of the Kanak people to their right to self-determination has led to such destruction and loss of life”.

Why should New Zealand care about the crisis? New Caledonia is practically Aotearoa’s next door neighbour — a three-hour flight from Auckland. Natural disasters in the Pacific such as cyclones remind us fairly regularly how our country has a leading role to play in the region.

But we can’t take this role for granted, nor choose to look the other way because our “ally“ France has it under control. And we certainly shouldn’t ignore the roots of a crisis in a neighbouring territory where frustrations have boiled over in a pattern that’s not unusual in the Pacific Islands region, and especially Melanesia.

There is an urgent need for regional assistance to drive reconciliation. The Pacific Islands Forum, as the premier regional organisation, must move beyond words and take concrete actions to support the Kanak people.

Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism
The forum’s Biketawa Declaration provides a mechanism for regional responses to crisis management and conflict resolution. The New Caledonian crisis surely qualifies, although France would be uncomfortable with any forum intervention.

But acting in good faith as a member of the regional family is what Paris signed up to when its territories in the Pacific were granted full forum membership.

Why is a European nation like France still holding on to its colonial possessions in the Pacific? Kanaky New Caledonia, Maohi Nui French Polynesia, and Wallis & Futuna are on the UN list of non-self-governing territories for whom decolonisation is incomplete.

However, in the case of Kanaky, Paris’ determination to hold on is partly due to a desire for global influence and is also, in no small way, linked to the fact that the territory has over 20 percent of the world’s known nickel reserves.

Failing to address the remnants of colonialism will continue to devastate lives and livelihoods across Oceania, as evidenced by the struggles in Bougainville, Māo’hi Nui, West Papua, and Guåhan.

New Zealand should be supportive of an efficient and orderly decolonisation process. We can’t rely on France alone to achieve this, especially as the unrest in New Caledonia is the inevitable result of years of political and social marginalisation of Kanak people.

The struggle of indigenous Kanaks in New Caledonia is part of a broader movement for self-determination and anti-colonialism across the Pacific. By supporting the Kanak people’s self-determination, we honour our shared history and whakapapa connections, advocating for a future where indigenous rights and aspirations are respected and upheld.

Kanaky Au Pouvoir.

Teanau Tuiono is a Green Party MP in Aotearoa New Zealand and its spokesperson for Pasifika peoples. This article was first published by The Press and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makiba has described the Post-Courier’s front page story yesterday regarding a meeting between Bougainville and national government leaders as “sensationalised” and without substance.

The Autonomous Bougainville Government (AGB) had warned it might use “other avenues to gain its independence” should the PNG government “continue to be mischievous” in dealing with the Bougainville independence agenda.

Makiba said the report was the work of individuals with vested interests and was designed to derail the progress made so far over the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA).

• READ MORE: Other PNG independence reports

He also announced that the Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) meeting scheduled for yesterday had been postponed until tomorrow because agendas had not been supplied on time by the joint technical team (JTT) headed by the Chief Secretary and his Bougainvillean counterpart Kearneth Nanei.

“The restoration development grants, Bougainville Copper Ltd shares, and fisheries revenue sharing agreement were matters being dealt with by the joint technical team due to the technical and legal nature of the process,” Makiba said.

“The joint technical team comprises departmental heads and technical professionals from both the national government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government [which] will conduct consultations before jointly drawing up agendas for the JSB to deliberate.”

Makiba said the system currently in place through the joint technical team was very transparent and allowed for constructive discussions from both sides before it got to the political level.

‘Sticky subjects’ resolved
“Any disagreement or issues relating to any sticky subjects are resolved at that committee level,” Makiba said.

“To suggest or imply that the government is bulldozing matters or turning a deaf ear to any issue is an understatement,” Makiba said.

He urged both parties to respect the peace agreement.

The Bougainville warning was sounded by ABG Attorney-General and Independence Implementation Minister Ezekiel Massat just as the ABG delegation headed to Port Moresby for the JSB meeting with the national government.

The Bougainville delegation, led by President Ishmael Toroama, is due to meet with the national government to discuss the ratification process outlined in the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the constitution.

Massat said that there had been events that had happened which Bougainville had not been consulted on by the national government, consequently defeating the purpose of the peace agreement.

He cited the appointment of Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Wagambie Jr and the current JSB meeting which had been called and changed by the national government without consulting ABG.

Resolution from last JSB
“While the ABG will be participating, it wants to see the two parties set into motion the resolution from the last JSB, for the parties to agree to call in a moderator to try to resolve the impasse over how results from the 2019 Referendum will be tabled and ratified by the National Parliament,” Massat said.

The ABG also demands that a bipartisan committee be established comprising national and Bougainville members to urgently communicate awareness about the Bougainville issue and independence agenda to all members of Parliament before the ratification vote.

Massat said the lack of consultation of the national government might create “suspicion and mistrust” and Bougainville might be forced to pursue other legal means to achieve the “Bougainville people’s dreams of independence” as shown in the overwhelming majority vote in the 2019 referendum.

Republished with permission.

Papua New Guinea and Bougainville appear no closer to the tabling in the National Parliament of the referendum on independence.

The non-binding referendum, conducted in 2019, as required by the Bougainville Peace Agreement of 2001, resulted in 97.8 percent of voters supporting independence for a region torn apart by civil war in the 1990s.

It was to be tabled and ratified last year but was delayed further by the threat of a no-confidence vote in the Marape government, which has led to Parliament not sitting again until the last week of May.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

A sticking point for both parties are the conditions under which MPs would vote on ratification.

Bougainville believes this should require a simple parliamentary majority but the PNG Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manasseh Makiba, has set a two-thirds majority of MPs — an absolute majority.

The Bougainville minister overseeing the implementation of independence, Ezekiel Masatt, believes this is not valid, at this point, but would be later, when a constitutional amendment becomes necessary.

Masatt has also warned that ratification of the referendum is not Bougainville’s only path to independence.

Close to completing constitution
He said Bougainville is close to completing the writing of its own constitution and using this document, it could declare its independence, bypassing the PNG Parliament.

“Having that constitution we would be following in the footsteps of Papua New Guinea in adopting that constitution and then getting independence by adopting that independent constitution,” Masatt said.

“And the precedent is Papua New Guinea. We are not doing anything unlawful. That is how Papua New Guinea attained its independence from Australia.”

The second draft of the Bougainville constitution is due at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Masatt is pursuing the plan for a moderator to be brought in to solve the issues holding up progress.

Bougainville has a timetable laid out to achieve its goal of independence by 2025 at the earliest, or 2027 at the latest.

Moderator would be beneficial
Masatt said to overcome the delay a working moderator would be beneficial, and that role could be much broader than the referendum issue.

“Every time we vote at a JSB [meeting of the Joint Supervisory Body involving both governments] we make commitments and we say all these things need to be attended to and when we come back to the next JSB the same issues are still littering the JSB agenda, because apparently nobody has worked on it.”

Masatt believes this working moderator could provide expert conflict resolution skills, and would bring staff who could deal with the other issues not confined to a ratification agenda, but the general autonomy issues affecting Bougainville’s relationship with Port Moresby.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Two years after beginning consultations, the Bougainville Constitutional Planning Commission has released its first draft of a home grown constitution.

Bougainville expects to become independent of Papua New Guinea within three years and writing a constitution is a key part of that process.

The draft constitution is the result of 40 commissioners travelling throughout Bougainville to garner the people’s views.

• READ MORE: BCPC reviews first draft of constitution

The commissioners included women, youth and former combatants, and church representatives.

The data collected by the commissioners was then compiled into a draft constitution by Australian National University professor Anthony Regan and Katy le Roy.

President Ishmael Toroama welcomed the first draft but said work is still needed to fine tune the document.

A final first draft is expected next month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition spokesperson for Bougainville affairs Sir Puka Temu has warned the Papua New Guinea government not to take the Bougainville ratification process lightly and has called for an urgent leadership meeting.

He urged Prime Minister James Marape and his Minister for Bougainville Affairs, Manasseh Makibato, convene an urgent meeting between the two governments.

Sir Puka said that the government’s inability to ratify the referendum results last year went against the understanding set out in the Era Kone Covenant and the Wabag Roadmap by both the Autonomous Bougainville government (ABG) and the government of PNG.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville reports

“Prime Minister James Marape and the Minister for Bougainville Affairs need to come out clearly on when they will ratify the referendum results in Parliament and give their assurance that they will not fail on their part of the agreement,” Sir Puka said.

“The ratification is the responsibility of the national government and not the ABG’s.

“The people of Bougainville did their part by peacefully conducting the referendum and engaging in meaningful dialogue with the national government on when to ratify the results.

“The Marape/PANGU-led government have already failed their end of the bargain to ratify the results in 2023. And they are continuing to fail the people of Bougainville by delaying their decision on when the results will be ratified.

PM ‘not serious’
“It is evident the Prime Minister and his government are not serious about Bougainville, as there was no mention of it in the first sitting of Parliament this year had it not been for a question without notice from the Member for North Bougainville Francesca
Semoso.

“If the government were serious about ratifying the results, they would have made the ratification a priority of theirs on the first sitting of Parliament.

“Yet the government has opted to adjourn Parliament to May 28 nearly halfway through the year, and even then, the ratification of the results are not guaranteed to be a business of the Parliament.

“With the ABG presidential elections set for next year, the people and leaders of
Bougainville are running out of time.”

Sir Puka said Marape had had more than five years to ratify the referendum results, yet there had been many promises and little action.

“James Marape is in fact the post-referendum prime minister – it is his leadership that will coincide with the future of Bougainville, and he must not take that status lightly,” Sir Puka said.

Now that Marape had exhausted his international trips over the last two
years, he should pay serious attention to the pressing issue domestically.

‘Delaying and distracting’
The leaders and people of Bougainville would soon catch on to Marape-led government’s approach of “delaying and distracting”.

“ABG President Ishmael Toroama and his leaders have been very diplomatic, very
patient, and understanding throughout this ongoing process, however, Mr Marape must not think that this considerate treatment will last forever.

“I also appeal to the four Bougainvillean MPs in government to critically assess if Mr Marape is doing all he can in his powers to fulfill the results of the referendum.

“Three of you are in PANGU Pati yet the party leader and your fellow colleague PANGU MP and Minister for Bougainville Affairs are causing rifts and not results.

“The people of Bougainville have decided, and regardless of the ratification process that continues to be delayed, those results will still be there in history. The ball is in the government’s side of the court to guide this process or stand by and watch if they take too long.”

Sir Puka also said he would ask to meet President Toroama to formally discuss the opposition’s alternative policies and position regarding Bougainville as the shadow minister.

Republished with permission.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama has called on Prime Minister James Marape to spell out “clearly and honestly” his fears about Bougainville obtaining independence from Papua New Guinea.

Toroama made this call over the PNG government’s delay of the referendum ratification process, which has been stalled beyond the required period for Parliament to give its blessing under the provisions of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA).

The national government and ABG convened the Joint Supervisory Body (JSB) meeting in Port Moresby yesterday where Marape and Toroama both addressed the members.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville independence reports

“Honourable Prime Minister what is your fear? Toroama asked. “What is your apprehension?

“Is it that we will have nothing to do with PNG? Is it to do with the rest of the country seeking the union of PNG?

“Is it that you no longer take our referendum seriously?

“I appeal that we resort to our Melanesian customs, values, strengths which will continue to serve us.

‘Ultimate cry for freedom’
“Honourable Prime Minister, our position on this ratification pathway is simple.

“Bougainvilleans have voted for independence. That is the outcome that the BPA talks about as being subject to the ratification of the national Parliament; and that is the outcome that the national Parliament has to confirm, endorse, sanction, finalise, or ratify, according to Melanesian culture and protocol,” Toroama said.

“Honourable Prime Minister, we must not forget that Bougainville’s journey as a result of the conflict and the ultimate cry for freedom, self-determination and independence has been long, challenging and without a doubt, costly.

“More than 20,000 lives have been lost, infrastructure demolished to basically nothing and the rule of law, while being reconstructed slowly, mainly exists through traditional laws and systems.”

However, said President Toroama, on 30 August 2001, a peace deal had been secured by the people of Bougainville with the government of Papua New Guinea.

“It stopped a decade old conflict, established an autonomous government, and guaranteed a referendum to be held after 10 years but no later than 15 years.

“This was the Bougainville Peace Agreement — a peace deal that has been hailed as a great success story.

“Many years have gone by and the novelty of it all has rubbed off to some extent, yet its real value lies in the unknown nature of the referendum pillar of the agreement.

“The people of Bougainville have democratically exercised their constitutionally guaranteed right to choose their future and have voted for independence through a stunning 97.7 percent vote.”

Republished with permission.

Papua New Guinea’s Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manasseh Makiba, believes an absolute majority is needed for the vote on the Bougainville referendum because it involves changing the constitution.

Makiba told Parliament last month that two thirds of MPs would need to support the independence push, drawing the ire of Bougainville’s Minister of Independence Mission Implementation Ezekiel Massatt.

Massatt said officials from both governments had already agreed that a simple majority would suffice.

• READ MORE: PNG Parliament to decide on Bougainville
• Other Bougainville reports

Last month Massatt told RNZ Pacific that what transpired in the last session of Parliament gave the Bougainville leadership no confidence that they could achieve independence under a government led by Prime Minister James Marape.

But Makiba said the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution allowed for Parliament to make a decision on the 2019 Bougainville referendum which resulted in a 97.7 percent vote in favour of independence.

The National newspaper reports Makiba saying that, as an issue of sovereignty, the vote on Bougainville’s future has to be done with the same majority as that required for constitutional amendments.

He said officials had overstepped their authority in making a commitment to a simple majority.

Prerogative of Parliament
Makiba said it remained the prerogative of the Parliament to make its decision as to the appropriate voting majority.

He also rejected claims from Massatt that the national government was putting up roadblocks.

Makiba said the national government had been very supportive and committed to implementing the provisions of the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the PNG Constitution.

He said leaders needed to refrain from misleading people with the wrong information.

“The people must hear the correct information and the process and rule of law must be respected, followed, and upheld at all times,” he said.

“If certain leaders are not happy with the ratification process proposed to the Parliament to debate and adopt by way of Sessional Order they have the option to go to the Supreme Court to get interpretation on the ratification process,” he said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A cabinet minister in Bougainville is furious that the Papua New Guinea government has decided to make a vote on independence an absolute majority instead of the agreed simple majority.

Last week, the PNG Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Manaseh Makiba, made a long-awaited parliamentary statement on Bougainville’s independence referendum, committing to tabling the document before the end of this year.

PNG MPs will be asked, at some point in the coming years, to vote on the independence question based on negotiations over the referendum outcome which voted almost 98 percent in support of independence from PNG.

• READ MORE: Other Bougainville reports

But Makiba angered Bougainville by unilaterally announcing changes to the nature of that vote.

Bougainville’s Minister of Independence Mission Implementation, Ezekiel Massatt, said the PNG government has switched from the agreed simple majority of votes to an absolute majority, which is two-thirds of the 118 MPs.

“We are unhappy about that particular aspect. We think, that while the NEC (PNG National Executive Council) has the authority to initiate matters that go before Parliament, it’s a matter that should have been run past our side and we could have that argument of whether it should be a simple majority or an absolute majority.”

No confidence in Marape government
Massatt said what transpired in the last session of Parliament gave the Bougainville leadership no confidence that they could achieve independence under a government led by Prime Minister James Marape.

He said they are putting as many obstacles in the way of Bougainville independence as possible, including the ongoing debacle over finance, despite Makiba claiming Bougainville was the biggest recipient of funding among the 22 provinces.

Bougainville, under the Peace Agreement, is guaranteed funding called the Peace and Restoration Grants, which Massatt estimates is now a billion kina (NZ$453 million) in arrears.

Added to this are the annual provincial grants and a separate promise from Prime Minister Marape of 100 million kina (NZ$45 million) each year for several years.

But Massatt said this money is not coming through, or at the very most just trickling through.

Marape told Parliament the Bougainville issue remained the single biggest matter before MPs.

He said his government was committed to seeing the Bougainville Peace Agreement process through to its proper conclusion.

Shareholding not transferred
The Prime Minister also told MPs the government had followed through on its promise to give its 36 percent shareholding in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) to the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), but that had not happened.

The ABG has earmarked the re-opening of the Panguna mine, which was run by BCL, as a critical part of establishing the region’s economic viability.

Attempts to reach Makiba for comment on the matters raised by Ezekiel Massatt, have, so far, been unsuccessful.

A Joint Supervisory Body meeting, where representatives of both governments discuss issues pertinent to them, is set to be held in Madang in two weeks time.

A non-binding referendum held in Bougainville in 2019 resulted in 97.7 percent of Bougainvilleans supporting independence.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Community leaders around Panguna mine in the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville want mining giant Rio Tinto to help out following recent flooding.

Rio Tinto was the owner/operator of the mine which has laid derelict for more than 30 years.

Fears of the threat from flooding in the river system near the mine have increased in recent years.

• READ MORE: Other Panguna mine reports

Recent heavy rain has choked rivers with mine tailings waste, resulting in several communities being swamped.

Residents have reported peoples’ homes have been inundated, water supplies and food crops compromised.

The flooding risks were highlighted in an independent report by Tetra Tech Coffey published last year.

This report was prepared as a baseline to inform an independent human rights and environmental impact assessment that launched in December 2022 and which Rio Tinto committed to fund in response to a human rights complaint by 156 local residents.

Phase 1 of the assessment is due to report in mid-2024.

Immediate funding call
Community leaders are calling for immediate funding from Rio Tinto for tangible action to address urgent health and safety issues in their communities, as well as a commitment from the company now that it will fund long-term solutions after each phase of the impact assessment.

To date, Rio Tinto has agreed to fund the human rights and environmental impact assessment only.

The chairperson of the Lower Tailings Landowners Association, Bernardine Kiraa, said: “Our communities are drowning in mine tailings waste.”

“The recent flooding damaged peoples’ houses, food crops and water sources. Women have been having trouble finding clean water to wash their babies.

“We worry about the spread of mosquitoes and disease following the flooding.”

Theonila Roka-Matbob, who is a local MP and local landowner, and who led the campaign for the environmental assessment said: “We have welcomed Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of the Panguna mine.”

“We know the process will be a long one. But we have been dealing with the disaster caused by the mine for decades.”

‘Always worrying about food’
“We are always worrying that the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe is not safe. We worry about levees collapsing and mine waste flooding our lands and communities,” she said.

“We need tangible action now to address urgent health and safety issues. And we need to know what Rio’s intentions are after the impact assessment – that they will stick with us and fund the long-term solutions we need.”

The legal director at Australia’s Human Rights Law Centre, Adrianne Walters, said: “Communities are being asked to be patient while the impact assessment progresses over a number of years.”

“But they also need action now and a public commitment from Rio Tinto that it will actually remedy the devastating impacts of the mine.”

“Rio Tinto’s commitment to assessing the impacts of its former mine is an important first step,” Walters said.

“The company now needs to publicly reassure communities that it is firmly committed to funding the long-term solutions that will allow them to live safely on their land.”

Rio Tinto gave away its shares in Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) in 2016 but it has subsequently agreed to the funding of the human rights and environmental assessment.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Anzac dawn ceremonies have been held across the Pacific region, with tributes paid to both Anzac and Pacific Island soldiers killed in the two world wars.

Papua New Guinea
In Papua New Guinea, World War II veterans were among those who attended a dawn service held at the Bomana War cemetery in Port Moresby.

Bomana is the largest war cemetery in the Pacific, containing the graves of 3779 service personnel, the majority of whom were Australian — many of whom fought while sick with malaria.

• READ MORE: ‘Tears always fall’ – Cook Islanders remember their fallen Anzac heroes
• Other Anzac reoports

“Their suffering was immense and endurance beyond measure,” Australia’s Minister for International Development in the Pacific, Pat Conroy, said in his speech.

“They died in defence of Australia. What happened here is important to our national story and forged a deep friendship between Australia and Papua New Guinea,” he added.

The empire of Japan invaded Papua New Guinea in 1942, capturing more than half of the country before being pushed back by an Allied counter offensive — a campaign which resulted in the deaths of more than 7000 Australians, 4684 Americans and more than 200,000 Japanese.

An unknown number of Papuans were killed, many of whom served as scouts and stretcher-bearers.

Papuan deaths included 40 members of the Papuan Infantry Battalion who died fighting alongside the Anzacs.

“We will never forget the Papua New Guineans who fought alongside and supported the Australians in the hardest of times,” said Conroy.

“Forty graves are of soldiers from the Papuan New Guinea Battalion who fought bravely alongside the Australians.”

Samoa
Samoa became a battle front in 1914, when the then German colony was invaded by the New Zealand army in a bloodless take-over. A number of Samoan Anzac soldiers served in the World War, three of whom are known to have died.

Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa acknowledged Samoa’s war contributions in her Anzac Dawn Ceremony speech in Apia.

“Anzac Day provides us with a reminder of the close and enduring links between Samoa and its Pacific working in close collaboration to ensure that we can coexist in a region of peace and stability.”

“As we consider the enormity of the sacrifice made, let us remember that their true and lasting legacy are the freedoms we continue to enjoy to this day.”

American Samoan US Army representatives were honoured at the service for their sacrifices — according to the US military, ethnic Samoans have the highest enlistment rate.

Many New Zealand soldiers of Samoan heritage also participated in World War II and recent conflicts in countries such as Afghanistan.

Having no standing army, Samoa contributes police officers to peacekeeping missions around the world.

“No doubt, the Anzac spirit lives on in the work of those servicemen and women currently involved in operations overseas including United Nation peacekeeping and humanitarian missions” said Fiame.

“Let us also take this time to reflect on the families and communities with loved ones currently deployed.”

President of Returned Services Association and Deputy Prime Minister Tuala Tevaga Ponifasio expressed his gratitude to the Anzacs for their sacrifices but also paid tribute to Samoans who fought for independence.

“Today we paid tribute to those soldiers from New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and all those Samoans who gave their lives for those nations,

“Our brothers and sisters who served in the United States Military . . . we salute and honour you.

“A lot of Samoans lost their lives during colonial times and were subjected to unfair treatment, their names are not written on these memorials but are written in our hearts,

“War is something we all hear about but we fail to comprehend, it’s violent practice that is won not by weapons but by the hearts and minds of soldiers.”

Fiji
Fiji contributed a total of 1255 volunteers (the majority being European expats) to World War 1, with 173 never returning home from Europe.

In World War II, the former British colony committed around 8000 troops to the Pacific War — one of the highest rates of enlistments from a Commonwealth country, 50 of whom died in the Solomon Islands campaign.

Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka paid his respects by laying a wreath at Fiji’s National War Memorial Site in Suva where a dawn service was held.

New Zealand High Commissioner to Fiji, Charlotte Darlow, said Anzac Day celebrated a special bond between Fiji and the Anzacs.

“Standing here today, there is a shared sense of unity, comradeship, and collective security, but it is important to remember that today’s peace comes from the hard work and sacrifice of previous generations,” said Darlow.

“Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand, alongside other regional partners, have all been part of that story.”

Tonga
In Nuku’alofa, the Tongan military hosted a dawn service at Pangai Lahi Park near Nuku’alofa’s waterfront.

Tongans participated in both World Wars, with the Tonga Defence Force deploying two contingents to the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942. Two Tongan soldiers were killed.

A New Zealand Defence Force representative along with High Commissioner Matthew Howell attended the service, where they commended Tonga for its contributions to World War 1.

“Ninety-one Tongan soldiers volunteered to fight in World War 1, 10 in the Australian Imperial Force, 62 in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and 15 in the Maori Battalion, two died on the battlefield and another would succumb to disease,” he said.

“Anzac Day is not just about those who served long ago, its also about those who continue to serve till this day.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama today condemned a visiting Papua New Guinean member of Parliament for “mocking” the autonomous region’s independence aspirations during a drunken exchange in Buka last week, saying that he must “atone for his blunder”.

A video of Ijivitari MP David Arore allegedly abusing security guards and airport staff while getting ready to board a plane out of Buka last Friday has stirred wide condemnation by national and Bougainville leaders.

“Let us take this criticism in our stride and use this as motivation to continue to develop and progress,” President Toroama said in a statement, adding that sovereignty was “rightfully ours to claim”.

• READ MORE: President Toroama’s response to David Arore’s behaviour
• Makiba not impressed by Arore’s drunken behaviour
• Other Bougainville independence reports

“We are a people who have withstood tougher challenges than the words of a drunken man,” he said.

Arore’s visit to Bougainville was part of a delegation led by the Minister for Bougainville Affairs, Mannaseh Makiba. The visit was to help national MPs better understand the autonomous arrangements on Bougainville and meet local leaders and the people.

Toroama said the trip was a success but strongly criticised the behaviour of MP Arore, saying he did not have the “right to use it to insult our leaders and our people”.

“Sovereignty is rightfully ours to claim, we have paid for it with the unfair exploitation of our resources, our lives and the blood of the people who sacrificed their lives fighting for their freedom in an unjust war,” President Toroama said, referring to the now-closed rich Panguna copper mine and the decade-long civil war over the exploitation and environmental degradation.

Unfair comparison
It was unfair for Arore to even compare infrastructure development on Bougainville to that of the rest of the country because Bougainville was a post-conflict region that was only now “steadily gaining traction on development and peace”.

“Bougainville bankrolled PNG’s independence and set the very foundation for every form of development in this country,” President Toroama said.

“Subsequently, we had a war waged on our people by the very same government we built.

“You [Arore] can mock our shortcomings in development but do not mock the sanctity of our aspirations to be an independent nation.”

President Toroama thanked Bougainvilleans who witnessed Arore’s “tirade of insults” directed at the Air Niugini and National Airports Corporation (NAC) staff for “maintaining civility”.

“In this respect we proved that despite his inebriated state and the discourteous behaviour our people still showed respect for the office that he occupies as a national leader.”

But President Toroama called for an investigation, saying Arore “understands our Melanesian traditions” and he was “stlll subservient to the law”.

Minister apologises
A PNG Post-Courier report by Gorethy Kenneth and Miriam Zarriga said the delegation leader, Bougainville Affairs Minister Manasseh Makibe, had apologised for the behaviour of MP Arore.

“We left in good note. However, such behaviour by an MP is wrong and unacceptable,” Makiba said.

“We will not allow the unfortunate incident to deter the progress we have made and good working relationship we have with Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) leadership and people.

“We were not aware of this incident until now. Generally, our visit was well appreciated by ABG.

“I apologise for Mr Arore’s behaviour.”

According to reports, Arore insinuated that Bougainville’s independence was “not negotiable”, among other derogative comments he made at that time.

Arore told the Post-Courier he would not apologise as what he had said was not intended to upset Bougainville, its people and the leadership.

“I will not apologise. I have nothing to apologise for because I did not say something wrong, I did not abuse anyone and there was no commotion,” Arore claimed.

“All I said was, ‘Yumi laik kisim independence (if we want independence), yumi stretim balus na stretim hausik (we must fix our airport and our hospital)’.

“I said these same sentiments in Manus, where I said to the leaders there, ‘Manus has a big and very good airport but the town is in shambles’.

“I think we have made this very minor issue a very big one.”

‘We’ll have him arrested’
Police Commissioner David Manning said the incident of a MP allegedly drunk and disorderly on a flight would be investigated with him waiting on NAC and Air Niugini for a report and complaint.

“We will have him arrested. We are awaiting the NAC and Air Niugini,” he said.

Civil Aviation Minister Walter Schnaubelt said: “He (Arore) was also allowed to board the plane drunk, which is a security breach.

“So (we are) getting a report from our team on the ground so further preventative action can be taken. This sort of behaviour must not be tolerated, and we leaders must lead by example at all times.”

MP Arore is a member of PNG’s parliamentary law and order committee. The Ijivitari Open electorate is in Oro province.

In 2019, a non-binding independence referendum was held in Bougainville with 98.31 percent of voters supporting independence from Papua New Guinea.

Report compiled from Bougainville News and the PNG Post-Courier with permission.

RNZ Pacific

The autonomous government in the Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville is finally organising byelections next month in two seats that have been without representation for many months.

The elections, in Nissan and Haku constituencies, will be held on February 22, with nominations set to close tomorrow.

The Nissan seat has been vacant since July 2021, after then-Health Minister Charry Napto and his wife and child were among seven people lost at sea when a banana boat carrying them disappeared.

The Haku seat became vacant after the death of Xavier Kareku in March last year.

The writs were issued by the Speaker of the Bougainville House of Representatives, Simon Pentanu, in Buka on Tuesday.

Pentanu said he was happy to issue the writs so that the people can exercise their democratic rights and he called on candidates to campaign peacefully and let the people decide the leaders of their choice.

Acting Electoral Commissioner George Manu said the delay was due to a lack of funding.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

On the 61st anniversary of the first raising of West Papua’s symbol of independence — 1 December 1961 — the Morning Star flag:

We, the Indigenous caucus of the movement for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice, and demilitarisation of the Pacific, call for coordinated action for key campaigns that impact the human rights, sovereignty, wellbeing and prosperity of Pacific peoples across our region.

As guardians of our Wansolwara (Tok Pisin term meaning “One Salt Water,” or “One Ocean, One People”), we are united in seeking the protection, genuine security and vitality for the spiritual, cultural and economic base for our lives, and we will defend it at all costs. We affirm the kōrero of the late Father Walter Lini, “No one is free, until everyone is free!”

• LISTEN TO RNZ MORNING REPORT: Activists, academics fight plans to put nuclear waste in Pacific Ocean

We thank the mana whenua of Ōtepoti, Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa, the National Centre for Peace and Conflict and Kā Rakahau o Te Ao Tūroa Centre for Sustainability at the University of Otago for their hospitality in welcoming us as their Pacific whānau to their unceded and sovereign lands of Aotearoa.

We acknowledge the genealogy of resistance we share with community activists who laid the mat in our shared struggles in the 1970s and 1980s. Our gathering comes 40 years after the first Te Hui Oranga o Te Moana Nui a Kiwa, hosted by the Pacific Peoples Anti Nuclear Action Committee (PPANAC) at Tātai Hono in Tamaki Makaurau.

Self-determination and decolonisation
We remain steadfast in our continuing solidarity with our sisters and brothers in West Papua, who are surviving from and resisting against the Indonesian genocidal regime, injustice and oppression. We bear witness for millions of West Papuans murdered by this brutal occupation. We will not be silent until the right to self-determination of West Papua is fully achieved.

We urge our Forum leaders to follow through with Indonesia to finalise the visit from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua, as agreed in the Leaders Communiqué 2019 resolution.

We are united in reaffirming the inalienable right of all Indigenous peoples to self-determination and demand the sovereignty of West Papua, Kanaky, Mā’ohi Nui, Bougainville, Hawai’i, Guåhan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Rapa Nui, Aotearoa, and First Nations of the lands now called Australia.

Of priority, we call on the French government to implement the United Nations self-governing protocols in Mā’ohi Nui and Kanaky. We urge France to comply with the resolution set forth on May 17th, 2013 which declared French Polynesia to be a non-self-governing territory, and the successive resolutions from 2013 to 2022. The “empty seat policy” that the administering power has been practising since 2013 and attempts to remove Mā’ohi Nui from the list of countries to be decolonised have to stop. We call on France to immediately resume its participation in the work of the C-24 and the 4th Commission of the United Nations.

Nuclear justice
We grieve for the survivors and victims who lost their lives to the nuclear violence caused by over 315 nuclear weapons detonated in Marshall Islands, Australia, Kiribati, Johnston Atoll and Mā’ohi Nui by the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France. The legacy and ongoing nuclear violence in our region is unfinished business and calls for recognition, reconciliation and reparations to be made by nuclear colonisers are long overdue.

We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia and France to deliver fair and just
compensation to Indigenous civilians, workers and servicemen for the health and environmental harms, including intergenerational trauma caused by nuclear testing programs (and subsequent illegal medical experiments in the Marshall Islands). The compensation schemes currently in place in all states constitute a grave political failure of these aforementioned nuclear testing states and serve to deceive the world that they are recognising their responsibility to address the nuclear legacy. We call for the United States, United Kingdom/Australia, and France to establish or otherwise significantly improve
accessible healthcare systems and develop and fund cancer facilities within the Marshall Islands, Kiribati/Australia and Mā’ohi Nui respectively, where alarming rates of cancers, birth defects and other related diseases continue to claim lives and cause socio-economic distress to those affected. The descendants of the thousands of dead and the thousands of sick are still waiting for real justice to be put in place with the supervision of the international community.

We demand that the French government take full responsibility for the racist genocidal health effects of nuclear testing on generations of Mā’ohi and provide full transparency, rapid assessment and urgent action for nuclear contamination risks. While the President of France boasts on the international stage of his major environmental and ecological transition projects, in the territory of Mā’ohi Nui, the French government’s instructions are to definitively “turn the page of nuclear history.” This is a white-washing and colonial gas-lighting attitude towards the citizens and now the mokopuna of Mā’ohi Nui. It is
imperative for France to produce the long-awaited report on the environmental, economic and sanitary consequences of its 193 nuclear tests conducted between 1966 and 1996.

We proclaim our commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons and call all states of the Pacific region who have not done so to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), namely Australia, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. We urge Pacific nations along with the world’s governments to contribute to the international trust fund for victims of nuclear weapons implemented by the TPNW. We urge Aotearoa/New Zealand and other states who have ratified the TPNW to follow through on their commitment to nuclear survivors, and to create a world free from the threat and harm of nuclear weapons through the universalisation of the TPNW. There can be no peace without justice.

We oppose the despicable proposal of Japan and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to dump 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive wastewater next year in 2023, and support in solidarity with the citizens of Japan, East Asian states and Micronesian states who sit on the frontlines of this crisis. This is an act of trans-boundary harm upon the Pacific. We call on the New Zealand government and others to stay true to its commitment to a Nuclear Free Pacific and bring a case under the international tribunal for the Law of the Sea against the proposed radioactive release from TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi planned from 2023 to 2053.

Demilitarisation
We condemn the geopolitical order forced upon our nations by imperial powers, who claim to be our friends, yet treat our islands as collateral damage and use financial blackmail to bully us into submission. We demand that the United States remove and remediate all military bases, infrastructure, debris and nuclear and chemical waste from the Pacific. Of priority is the US-owned nuclear waste storage site of Runit Dome on Enewetak Atoll which threatens nuclear contamination of the ocean and marine-life, on which our lives depend. Furthermore, we call for all remaining American UXOs (unexploded ordnances) from World War II in the Solomon Islands, which cause the preventable deaths of more than 20 people every year to be removed immediately!

We support in solidarity with Kānaka Maoli and demand the immediate end to the biennial RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercises hosted in Honolulu, Hawai’i. We urge all the present participating militaries of RIMPAC to withdraw their participation in the desecration and plunder of Indigenous lands and seas. We support in solidarity with the Marianas and demand an end to munitions testing in the Northern Marianas and the development of new military bases. We rebuke the AUKUS trilateral military pact and the militarisation of unceded Aboriginal lands of the northern arc of Australia and are outraged at Australia’s plans to permit further military bases, six nuclear-capable B52s and eight nuclear-powered submarines to use our Pacific Ocean as a military playground and nuclear highway.

We call on all those committed to ending militarism in the Pacific to gather and organise in Hawai’i between 6-16 June 2024, during the Festival of the Pacific and bring these issues to the forefront to renew our regional solidarity and form a new coalition to build power to oppose all forms of military exercises (RIMPAC also returns in July -August 2024) and instead promote the genuine security of clean water, safe housing, healthcare and generative economies, rather than those of extraction and perpetual readiness for war.

We view colonial powers and their militaries to be the biggest contributors to the climate crisis, the continued extractive mining of our lands and seabeds and the exploitation of our resources. These exacerbate and are exacerbated by unjust structures of colonialism, militarism and geopolitical abuse. This environmental destruction shifts the costs to Pacific and Indigenous communities who are responsible for less than 1 percent of global climate emissions.

As Pacific peoples deeply familiar with the destruction of nuclear imperialism, we strongly disapprove of the new propaganda of nuclear industry lobbyists, attempting to sell nuclear power as the best solution for climate change. Similarly, we oppose the Deep Sea Mining (DSM) industry lobbyists that promote DSM as necessary for green technologies. We call for a Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty to be implemented by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and for safe and equitable transition to better energy solutions. We reject any military solution for the climate crisis!

We recognise the urgent need for a regional coordinator to be instituted to strategise collective grassroots movements for self-determination, decolonisation, nuclear justice and demilitarisation.

Our existence is our resistance.

We, the guardians of our Wansolwara, are determined to carry on the legacy and vision for a Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific.

• More information

The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) wants to delay the next meeting of the Joint Supervisory Body with the Papua New Guinea government, claiming Port Moresby is “dragging the chain” on drawing up critical constitutional regulations..

The key focus of the ABG is on achieving independence by 2027 by the latest.

This latest dispute comes despite both governments committing last April to the Era Kone Covenant which lays out how the independence referendum results would be tabled in the national Parliament, and the manner in which that institution may ratify the results.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Bougainville independence

At that time Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama commended the national government for its unwavering support for the Bougainville Peace Process.

He said the Era Kone Covenant laid out a timeline and a roadmap for the ratification of the referendum results in the national Parliament.

PNG Prime Minister James Marape at the time reaffirmed his commitment to the outcomes, saying his government would continue to work within the spirit of the peace agreement.

“We’ve established a pathway that we should work towards and we on the national government side, I just want to assure Bougainville that it doesn’t matter who sits in this chair in 3 months’ time, the work for Bougainville has been set and the work we have set will continue on,” Marape said.

Failed to engage
But a national government’s technical team has since failed to engage with its Bougainville counterparts to develop a jointly agreed draft of the regulations.

ABG Minister Ezekiel Masatt said this week this lack of commitment from the national government has frustrated the ABG leadership and prompted its call for a deferral of the Joint Supervisory Body meeting.

The PNG government, and its technical team, have called for nationwide consultations on the Bougainville issue, but Masatt said the ABG’s position was that ratification of the outcome of the consultation on independence was for the national Parliament and not all the citizens of PNG.

He said there was no legal basis for such a proposed nationwide consultation.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama says Bougainville’s future as an independent sovereign nation is inevitable and nothing can change the resolve of the government and people from achieving sovereignty.

And he warned in the Autonomous Bougainville Parliament that no foreign government or foreign leader would dictate to Bougainville the outcome of the Bougainville peace process.

He said it was an outcome that would be negotiated with the government of PNG through the legal framework that guided this process.

• READ MORE: Other reports on Bougainville’s future

In his address to the ABG Parliament, An irate Toroama responded to the Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles whose remarks on Bougainville’s political future were addressing the members of the House of Representatives.

“From the outset, let me say it once more within this Honourable House that Bougainville’s future as an independent sovereign nation is inevitable,” the president said.

“There is nothing that can change the resolve of our government and our people from achieving sovereignty as an independent nation.

“I would like to comment on the statement by the Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles whose remarks on Bougainville’s political future has finally made Australia’s position very clear.

Australia ‘bargained neutrality’
“Australia has bargained their neutrality in the Bougainville peace process for the sake of geopolitical manoeuvering and maintaining control of the Pacific region from their perceived threat of Chinese influence in the region.

“Deputy Prime Minister Marles claims Australia is being neutral in the Bougainville peace process.

“However, his remarks pledging Australia’s support to the government of Papua New Guinea just as we are preparing for the ratification contradicts his statement.

“The pledge can be viewed as a calculated move to intimidate Bougainville and pre-empt the outcome of the ratification by the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea.

“As a witness and signatory to the Bougainville Peace Agreement, the Australian Government should maintain its neutrality instead of pre-empting the outcome of our political future.”

Direct intervention
In principle, this pre-emptive act in itself was a direct intervention by the Australian government on the internal affairs of Papua New Guinea.

“It is an action that will directly influence the National Government.”

This had given rise to questions on Australia’s continued involvement in the peace process and their presence on Bougainville.

“As President of Bougainville, I am not in a position to comment nor speculate on the foreign policy of foreign governments who have diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea.

“Though we do not have foreign affairs powers, countries dealing with Bougainville must understand that our political arrangements are not the same as the other provincial governments of Papua New Guinea.”

Gorethy Kenneth is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

Prime Minister James Marape says Papua New Guineans will be consulted on key constitutional questions relating to Bougainville’s 97.7 percent vote for independence.

In his maiden speech after being voted in as the country’s 9th Prime Minister, he said the issue infringed on PNG’s national unity and it touched on sovereignty, which was a huge constitutional burden for the government and the people.

He said the Autonomous Region of Bougainville was an important agenda for his government and that by 2024 the referendum vote issue would be brought to Parliament.

• READ MORE: Other PNG elections reports

“This question for Bougainville is a test to our national union. We will consult with the rest of the country because our people must have a say,” Marape said in his speech.

“This year and first half of next year we will consult the country on some of the key constitutional questions and we will work to the plan that we set out in Wabag, in that by 2024 we bring the matter to Parliament.

“It is a political question so a political solution must be found.

“I have and continue to have one vote. But the question on altering our national boundary is a constitutional matter, and the entire nation must be consulted. The result of the referendum stands as high as Mt Wilhelm. It cannot be diluted.

“We will deliver on that political commitment to find that political solution that is mutually acceptable to Bougainville and Papua New Guinea.

“The journey is still a long way ahead … when our union is in question, it infringes on our national unity, it touches on our sovereignty which is a huge constitutional burden on us.

“Our union together was placed together by the constitutional definition in 1975, it will only take a constitutional amendment to unbundle this union.

“I want to ask Bougainvilleans, fear not, Papua New Guineans fear not. Let’s take this journey together and we find a political solution to this political question to our people in Bougainville.”

Gorethy Kenneth is a PNG Post-Courier senior journalist. Republished with permission.

Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama has visited Guava village in the heartland of the Panguna mine in Central Bougainville to pay his respects to the resting place of Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) leader Francis Ona.

It was the first time President Toroama had visited Guava in 25 years after the 1997 Roreinang coup that split the BRA into two factions.

Ona, who was president and supreme commander of the BRA, favoured a “fight to the last man’’ strategy.

• READ MORE: Bougainville war and peace

The other faction, headed by his second-in-command Joseph Kabui, wanted a peaceful solution to the Bougainville Civil War.

President Toroama, who was then the BRA’s chief of defence, sided with Kabui and so began the peace talks that would result in a ceasefire and the eventual signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001.

Ona remained in Panguna with his Mekamui faction.

“As a young man, in 1989 I joined many others in the Bougainville Civil War,” Toroama said.

“We were not called, nor were we recruited.

‘Revolutionary ideals’
“We simply believed in Francis Ona’s revolutionary ideals to protect the land and our people,’’ Toroama said.

“Within the first 18 months, we had closed the Panguna mine and began our fight for political independence.

“We started the revolution with bows and arrows in 1989 but towards the end we were launching offensives against the security forces with better equipment and tactics.

“From 1989 to 1997 we gave our lives to protect Francis Ona and his dreams of independence for Bougainville,’’ President Toroama said.

“I am here today to remind the family of Francis Ona and the people of Guava and Panguna that my commitment to the revolutionary ideals of our leader has not wavered.’’

Republished with permission.

Last week the Bougainville Autonomous Government announced an agreement had been reach with Panguna landowners to reopen the island’s controversial gold and copper mine.

Once the backbone of the Papua New Guinea economy, Panguna has been idle since the civil war began more than 30 years ago — a war the mine was at least partly responsible for.

But now the leaders of the five major clans in the Panguna area — Basikang, Kurabang, Bakoringu, Barapang and Mantaa — have said they will allow the mine to reopen.

Don Wiseman of RNZ Pacific asked Islands Business specialist writer on PNG Kevin McQuillan about the significance of the decision:

KMcQ: “This is hugely significant. It’s significant for the people of Bougainville, the Bougainville Autonomous Government, the national government, and, dare I say, probably the whole region. But on the other hand, it also creates a huge dilemma for the national government. Panguna was probably the second biggest copper and gold mine in the world, and at one point and accounted for two fifths of Papua New Guinea’s GDP.

“So when it was operating, that was a huge source of income for the national government. But it wasn’t so much of course, for the people of Bougainville, which prompted the 10 years civil war in part. The other element of that civil war, apart from the poor income that the operators gave the people of Bougainville was the environmental damage to the island of Bougainville.”

DW: President Ishmael Toroama has said that being able to open Panguna again is a critical step on the road to independence, in terms of showing economic viability.

KMcQ: “Yes. And that’s reflected also in the fact that there’s been mounting pressure over the last probably 10 or more years for the mine to open because the generations coming through have had very little in the way of food, shelter, clothing, educational opportunities, so on and so forth. And a lot of that pressure to reopen has come from the younger generation, because they want the opportunities that they know exist.

“For the national government it creates the dilemma of having agreed to discuss Bougainville breaking away, but not wanting to break away. What does it do to keep Bougainville within the fold, because the potential income for not just for Bougainville but for the country as a whole is enormous — 42 percent of GDP when it was operating.

“It may not be as much when it does get back up and running, but it will certainly be a significant contributor to the PNG economy. So where [Prime Minister James] Marape and whoever takes over as prime minister, if he loses the election this year, goes with discussions on Bougainville and its independence is hugely significant for the country as a whole.”

DW: This idea that President Toroama has of it being a conduit to independence may in fact work in the other direction.

KMcQ: “Well, it all depends on the negotiating skills really. The other element that comes into play is that BCL — Bougainville Copper Ltd — is now jointly controlled by the Papua New Guinea government and the Bougainville Autonomous Government, through a company called Bougainville Minerals Ltd. They both own a 36.4 percent share in Bougainville Copper.

“Over the past few years there have been promises from the national government to transfer that 36.4 percent shareholding that the national government has to the people Bougainville, which would give it roughly 72 percent shareholding in Bougainville Copper. It’s never happened.

“The national government has held off transferring that money despite the promises that it would do so. And this is going to be a key negotiating point in the future of independence. The national government, of course, does not want Bougainville to go independent. And there are options. There are other options.

“It’s not a binary choice of either independence or not. It could be that the negotiations see the Bougainville area stay within, if you like the parameters of Papua New Guinea, but having a high degree of independence. But whatever that actually means, nobody’s really going to know until the negotiations finish.”

DW: Yes. So the PNG government could hold on to shareholding and still earn from Panguna. Even if it went to this lesser form of independence.

KMcQ: “Yes, it could. But you can really bet your bottom dollar that if the national government holds on to its 36.4 percent shareholding, which was given to it by Rio Tinto, despite those promises, that will be a matter of a court case.”

DW: Now you talk about a lot of people being very keen to see the mine reopened. But there are also many, many people who certainly don’t want to see it reopen.

KMcQ: “They do but what has given this announcement the impetus is that clan chiefs’ representatives from the five major clans from the area have agreed to this resolution to re-open the mine.

“There will always be opposition to reopening the mine. There always has been, even over the last 10 years, when previous president of Bougainville, Fr John Momis, wanted the mine to reopen.

“There was a significant minority. Well, a vocal minority is probably more accurate, deeply opposed to the reopening of mine on environmental grounds.”

DW: With these announcements the minuscule share price for Bougainville Copper has soared.

KMcQ: “Well, it has doubled on news of this announcement. And it means that BCL has a market capitalisation of around about NZ$260 to NZ$265 or NZ$270 million . The point about the doubling of the share prices is the support that it reflects for the re-opening of mine.

“Plus it also, it paves the way for a company to be a little bit more settled in the prospects of the process of reopening the mine. The last valuation that they had to reopen the mine, which was several years ago now, said that it would cost between around about NZ$6 billion to reopen the mine. But over its lifetime, it would earn roughly $75 billion.

“So it’s a high risk, high reward investment. But the fact that this resolution has been made, declared, share prices doubled. It means that Bougainville Copper is probably a lot more confident this week than it was last week that it could go ahead and do some preparatory work for the reopening of the mine, which could take five to seven years.”

DW: They are just eyewatering figures aren’t they?

KMcQ: Well, it shows the potential. I mean this is a mine that was the second biggest gold and copper mine in the world. And there will be a lot of companies, global companies keen to get involved. Rio Tinto has put its fingers into the air and sniffed the wind and it realises that this could finally happen.

DW: You mean Rio Tinto is lining up to to work with its former company?

KMcQ: “Well, it certainly looks that way. In 2016, because of the criticism that Rio Tinto had, or was receiving because of the huge environmental damage that it caused to the Bougainville area, it gave away its mine.

“It had a choice of either fixing up the environment or walking away, as it saw it. So it walked away — gave those shares equally to the Bougainville government and the national government. But now it wants to get back involved.

“And over the last week it has been talking about repairing some of the environmental damage that it caused during the mine’s operation. But there are other companies involved around the world, which could get involved.

“I’m thinking Glencore, the Swiss-based development company could get involved as well. Now, the reason why this is important is because BCL does not have the financial wherewithal to go and reopen the mine at a cost of $6 billion.

“And it’s only gotten roughly NZ$260 million in play. And really, it doesn’t have the expertise to reopen the mine, develop it, run it. It would have to go into partnership with one of the big mining companies Rio Tinto, or Glencore, or somebody else.

“The former president, Sir John Momis, had negotiations or had talked to China about the possibility of a Chinese company moving in and developing the mine. So in the current climate of debate around China’s role in South Pacific, one has to wonder just what impact that might have on the Australian, New Zealand, American governments.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The dormant Bougainville Copper Limited share value has more than doubled overnight on the Australian Stock Exchange following a resolution to reopen the rich but controversial Panguna copper mine.

Landowners from the mine area and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) signed a joint resolution last Friday to reopen the mine, causing the leap in its share price.

The ABG’s current 36.4 percent (146,175,449 shares) shareholding was worth K146.2 million (NZ$63 million) when the shares were worth 40 cents each on Thursday.

• READ MORE: Panguna mine at centre of bloody Bougainville conflict set to reopen after 30 years

On Friday afternoon, however, the share value was worth K325.2 million (NZ$152 million) when they increased and closed at 89 cents, a jump of 122.5 per cent.

That is an increase of K179 million (NZ$89 million).

It shows what a little bit of good news and perhaps a demonstration of confidence in Bougainville can do.

ABG President Ishmael Toroama acknowledged and congratulated the five clans and their respective leadership for taking the bold stand to reopen the mine.

Facilitate reopening process
Toroama said that following the signing of the joint resolutions, the ABG through the Department of Mineral and Energy Resources and other relevant departments, would now work together with the landowner groups to facilitate the process towards the reopening.

The ABG government is confident that the mine reopening would be a major boost for Bougainville’s economic future and at the same time guarantee Bougainville’s political independence.

“Today marks the ending and the beginning of a new chapter, a chapter to realize Bougainville’s independence,” Toroama said.

BCL general manager and secretary Mark Hitchcock said the significant increase in the volume of BOC’s securities traded from 10 February 2022 to 11 February 2022 and the article published on the Autonomous Bougainville Government website entitled “Panguna Landowners and ABG agree to reopen Panguna Mine” dated 11 February 2022 contributed to the latter.

“We understand the article published relates to resolutions passed during a Panguna landowner summit that was supported by the ABG,” he said.

“The landowners appear to have agreed to work co-operatively with the ABG to reopen the Panguna Mine.

“According to the article the resolutions were endorsed by the chiefs of the five major Panguna clans and the ABG will now work with landowners to facilitate a process towards reopening.

Fair representation of events
“If the article is a fair representation of the events, then this would appear to demonstrate unity amongst the landowners and, would also boost confidence in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville as it pursues economic independence.

“Bougainville Copper Limited is engaged in investment activities.

The company’s assets include the Panguna mine and associated facilities on Bougainville, and equities listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

“There is no change in the status of the shareholdings of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) and PNG shareholdings in BOC.

The PNG government’s commitment to transfer their shares to the ABG remains pending and both governments continue to hold 36.4 percent each of the shares in BOC.

“The judicial review of the ABG’s decision not to renew the exploration licence over Panguna remains in process and we anticipate proceedings to commence in the first quarter of 2022.”

The ABG has a 36.4 percent ownership stake in BCL, which is set to become a 72.8 percent majority share with the PNG national government committed to transferring over its 36.4 percent share.

Active presence on the ground
Hitchcock said BCL had long had an active presence on the ground in Bougainville with a locally engaged team.

It had continued supporting community projects and other initiatives.

Bougainville Copper’s board has strong levels of local representation with four prominent Bougainvillean directors – Sir Mel Togolo, David Osikore, James Rutana and Kearnneth Nanei.

Other board members are Sir Rabbie Namaliu, Sir Moi Avei, Dame Carol Kidu and Peter Graham.

“Over time, BCL has transformed into a truly local company,” Hitchcock said.

Decade-long civil war
Panguna mine was at the centre of a decade-long civil war between rebels in Bougainville and Papua New Guinea security forces, reports The Guardian.

It was once one of the world’s largest and most profitable copper and goldmines and still contains an estimated 5.3 mllion tonnes of copper and 19.3m ounces of gold, which would make the reserves worth about $60 billion at today’s prices.

In 1989, amid rising community anger at the environmental damage and the inequitable division of the mine’s profits, locals forced closure of the mine, blowing up Panguna’s power lines and sabotaging operations.

The PNG government sent in troops against its own citizens to restart the foreign-owned mine, sparking a bloody, decade-long civil war. A peace settlement was brokered by New Zealand in 2001.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. This article is republished with permission.

A Papua New Guinean doctor, who is alleged to be covid-19 positive, has been arrested and charged in Solomon Islands for illegally crossing the border.

The doctor, from Bougainville and employed at Nonga Provincial Hospital in East New Britain province, was arrested and charged in the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara, for illegally crossing, authorities from both countries have said.

Solomon Island Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare made reference to the case in a statement he had made, saying the doctor was now being quarantined.

• READ MORE:  Solomons covid cases pass 300 and climbing
• Solomon Islands imposes 60 hour Honiara lockdown over covid outbreak
• Australian aid to to Solomons in fight against covid

Sogavare had, in his covid-19 update address to Solomon Islands on January 18, said: “…according to our contact tracing information, the index case that brought in the infection to Pelau is a medical doctor from Papua New Guinea who hails from Tasman Island and has traditional ties with the people of Pelau.

“This doctor with nine other people, including members of his family crossed the border illegally from Tasman to come to Paleu on 9th January 2022 and it is quite disturbing that such a highly qualified person a medical doctor, blatantly disregarded our laws, breached our covid-19 regulations, and crossed our border illegally.”

“He has now started a community transmission of covid-19 to his relatives and people in Pelau.

“It is extremely disappointing that the relatives of this doctor in Pelau completely disregarded the instructions from the government to not allow any person from the other side of the border to land at or stay in any of their villages and homes.

“By allowing the doctor to enter the village they have provided the platform to start the community transmission of covid-19 in Pelau.

In this regard the relatives of this doctor have also breached the covid-19 by allowing this doctor and his family to land and stay in Pelau and started the community transmission of covid-19.”

Confirmed by Bougainville
Autonomous Bougainville Government Health Secretary Dr Clement Totavun has confirmed that the doctor, from Tasman Island, works at Nonga Hospital, and travelled to Bougainville during Christmas, got on a ship to Tasman and then on to Pelau in Solomon Islands.

“I have been advised by my covid-19 team that this is true.

“The doctor from Tasman who works at Nonga General Hospital, Rabaul, came here during Christmas and got on the ship to Tasman and on to Pelau,” Dr Totavun said.

“He was arrested by Solomon Island police for crossing the border, which is currently closed, and is currently in Honiara. Doctors at Honiara Hospital have contacted our CEO Buka Hospital and confirmed.

“I have alerted our surveillance team to check out Tasman in the coming week as the virus might be spreading there,” Dr Totavun said.

Buka Hospital chief executive officer Dr Tommy Wotsia told the Post-Courier he was advised of the reports.

Traditional border crossing banned
Traditional border crossing between Bougainville and Solomon Islands has been banned since November last year following claims that Bougainvilleans had been smuggling arms into that country to arm and train Malaita islanders seeking to overthrow the Sogavare government.

Bougainville Police Commissioner Francis Tokura said he confirmed with Solomon Islands police about the incident but could not elaborate further.

Nonga Hospital chief executive officer Dr Ako Yap and his deputy Dr Patrick Kiromat also confirmed the doctor was working with them and had been on holiday since December.

They said they had not been officially notified of the incident involving the doctor in Honiara but said he was due to return to work soon.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior journalist on the PNG Post-Courier. Republished with permission.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has appealed to his fellow Solomon Islanders at the western border not to allow Bougainvilleans into the country.

In his nation’s address last Friday, Sogavare recapped the country’s first covid-19 case recorded from a Shortland islander, dropped off by four Bougainvilleans in Shortland, who was automatically tested positive and is still in a 14-day quarantine with his seven family members who also tested positive.

The four Bougainvilleans returned home the same day and are back in their respective villages.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Island reports

Sogavare singled out the New Year delta and omicron cases recorded in Solomon Islands which were brought in by citizens returning from outside Honiara.

“The western border continues to be an area of priority for health,” he said.

“For the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force and other border force agencies, it represents a potential source of covid-19 incursion into the country.

“For example, on New Year’s Day, a man from the Shortlands travelled with four Bougainville nationals from Bougainville to Shortland.

“The four Bougainvilleans returned straight after dropping off the man.

In quarantine facility at Nila
“The man is now held at the quarantine facility in Nila along with seven of his family members with whom he had made close contact.

“They will undergo 14 days of quarantine and only released if all tests results are returned negative.

“Five who had been held at the Nila isolation ward at Shortlands will be released after serving 14 days if their results return negative.

“These five individuals have made close contact with people from Bougainville.

“My good people, living along the western border, I ask you to refrain from going across the border to Bougainville.

“I also ask you to not allow any visitors from Bougainville to your villages during the period of the State of Emergency. Please continue to be vigilant to prevent the entry of covid-19 through our western border.”

ABG health chief ‘not aware’
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) Health Secretary Dr Clement Totavun told the Post-Courier they were not aware of the incident singled out by Sogavare but also said the border had been closed since 2020 when the covid initial measures were released and PNG Immigration and other border offices had ordered immediate closure.

“There is currently a ban on traditional border crossing,” he said.

“The border is closed.

“The Border Protection Authority is supposed to man the border but surveillance at the moment is not effective.”

He said he would communicate with National Pandemic Controller David Manning on this issue.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

The Pacific year has closed with growing tensions over sovereignty and self-determination issues and growing stress over the ravages of covid-19 pandemic in a region that was largely virus-free in 2020.

Just two days before the year 2021 wrapped up, Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama took the extraordinary statement of denying any involvement by the people or government of the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea being involved in any “secret plot” to overthrow the Manasseh Sogavare government in Solomon Islands.

Insisting that Bougainville is “neutral” in the conflict in neighbouring Solomon Islands where riots last month were fuelled by anti-Chinese hostilities, Toroama blamed one of PNG’s two daily newspapers for stirring the controversy.

• READ MORE: Flashback to Kanaky in the 1980s – ‘Blood on their Banner’
• New Caledonia referendum: France’s last pocket of settler colonialism
• Solomon Islands riots push nation into slippery slide of self-implosion
• ‘Secret plot’ uncovered

“Contrary to the sensationalised report in the Post-Courier (Thursday, December 30, 2021) we do not have a vested interest in the conflict and Bougainville has nothing to gain from overthrowing a democratically elected leader of a foreign nation,” Toroama said.

The frontpage report in the Post-Courier appeared to be a beat-up just at the time Australia was announcing a wind down of the peacekeeping role in the Solomon Islands. A multilateral Pacific force of more than 200 Australian, Fiji, New Zealand and PNG police and military have been deployed since the riots in a bid to ward off further strife.

PNG Police Commissioner David Manning confirmed to the newspaper having receiving reports of Papua New Guineans allegedly training with Solomon Islanders to overthrow the Sogavare government in the New Year.

According to the Post-Courier’s Gorethy Kenneth, reports reaching Manning had claimed that Bougainvilleans with connections to Solomon Islanders had “joined forces with an illegal group in Malaita to train them and supply arms”.

The Bougainvilleans were also accused of “leading this alleged covert operation” in an effort to cause division in Solomon Islands.

However, Foreign Affairs Minister Soroi Eoe told the newspaper there had been no official information or reports of this alleged operation. The Solomon Islands Foreign Ministry was also cool over the reports.

Warning over ‘sensationalism’

Toroama warned news media against sensationalising national security issues with its Pacific neighbours, saying the Bougainville Peace Agreement “explicitly forbids Bougainville to engage in any foreign relations so it is absurd to assume that Bougainville would jeopardise our own political aspirations by acting in defiance” of these provisions.

This is a highly sensitive time for Bougainville’s political aspirations as it negotiates a path in response the 98 percent nonbinding vote in support of independence during the 2019 referendum.

In contrast, another Melanesian territory’s self-determination aspirations received a setback in the third and final referendum on independence in Kanaky New Caledonia on December 12 where a decisive more than 96 percent voted “non”.

However, less than half (43.87 percent) of the electorate voted – far less than the “yes” vote last year – in response to the boycott called by a coalition of seven Kanak independence groups out of respect to the disproportionate number of indigenous people among the 280 who had died in the recent covid-19 outbreak.

The result was a dramatic reversal of the two previous referendums in 2018 and 2020 where there was a growing vote for independence and the flawed nature of the final plebiscite has been condemned by critics as undoing three decades of progress in decolonisation and race relations.

In 2018, only 57 percent opposed independence and this dropped to 53 percent in 2020 with every indication that the pro-independence “oui” vote would rise further for this third plebiscite in spite of the demographic odds against the indigenous Kanaks who make up just 40 percent of the territory’s population of 280,000.

The result is now likely in inflame tensions and make it difficult to negotiate a shared future with France which annexed Melanesian territory in 1853 and turned it into a penal colony for political prisoners.

Kanaky turbulence in 1980s
A turbulent period in the 1980s – known locally as “Les événements” – culminated in a farcical referendum on independence in 1987 which returned a 98 percent rejection of independence. This was boycotted by the pro-independence groups when then President François Mitterrand broke a promise that short-term French residents would not be able to vote.

The turnout was 59 percent but skewed by the demographics. The UN Special Committee on Decolonisation declined to send observers as that plebiscite did not honour the process of “decolonisation”.

A Kanak international advocate of the Confédération Nationale du Travail (CNT) trade union and USTKE member, Rock Haocas, says from Paris that the latest referendum is “a betrayal” of the past three decades of progress and jeopardises negotiations for a future statute on the future of Kanaky New Caledonia.

The pro-independence parties have refused to negotiate on the future until after the French presidential elections in April this year. A new political arrangement is due in 18 months.

In the meantime, the result is being challenged in France’s constitutional court.

“The people have made concessions,” Haocas told Asia Pacific Report, referencing the many occasions indigenous Kanaks have done so, such as:

• Concessions to the “two colours, one people” agreement with the Union Caledonian party in 1953;
• Recognition of the “victims of history” in Nainville-Les-Roches in 1983;
• The Matignon and Oudnot Agreement in 1988;
• The Nouméa Accord in 1998; and
• The opening of the electoral body (to the native).

‘Getting closer to each other’
“The period of the agreements allowed the different communities to get to know each other, to get closer to each other, to be together in schools, to work together in companies and development projects, to travel in France, the Pacific, and in other countries,” says Haocas.

“It’s also the time of the internet. Colonisation is not hidden in Kanaky anymore; it faces the world. People talk about it more easily. The demand for independence has become more explainable, and more exportable. There has been more talk of interdependence, and no longer of a strict break with France.

“But for the last referendum France banked on the fear of one with the other to preserve its own interests.”

Is this a return to the dark days of 1987 when France conducted the “sham referendum”?

“We’re not really in the same context. We are here in the framework of the Nouméa Accord with three consultations — and for which we asked for the postponement of the last one scheduled for December 12,” says Haocas.

“It was for health reasons with its cultural and societal impacts that made the campaign difficult, it was not fundamentally for political reasons.

“The French state does not discuss, does not seek consensus — it imposes, even if it means going back on its word.”

Haocas says it is now time to reflect and analyse the results of the referendum.

“The result of the ballot box speaks for itself. Note the calm in the pro-independence world. Now there are no longer three actors — the indépendantistes, the anti-independence and the state – but two, the indépendantistes and the state.”

Rock Haocas in a 2018 interview before the the three referendums on independence. Video: CNT union

Comparisons between Kanaky and Palestine
In a devastating critique of the failings of the referendum and of the sincerity of France’s about-turn in its three-decade decolonisation policy, Professor Joseph Massad, a specialist in modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, New York, made comparisons with Israeli occupation and apartheid in Palestine.

“Its expected result was a defeat for the cause of independence. It seems that European settler-colonies remain beholden to the white colonists, not only in the larger white settler-colonies in the Americas and Oceania, but also in the smaller ones, whether in the South Pacific, Southern Africa, Palestine, or Hawai’i,” wrote Dr Massad in Middle East Eye.

“Just as Palestine is the only intact European settler-colony in the Arab world after the end of Italian settler-colonialism in Libya in the 1940s and 1950s, the end of French settler-colonialism in Morocco and Tunisia in the 1950s, and the liberation of Algeria in 1962 (some of Algeria’s French colonists left for New Caledonia), Kanaky remains the only major country subject to French settler-colonialism after the independence of most of its island neighbours.

“As with the colonised Palestinians, who have less rights than those acquired by the Kanaks in the last half century, and who remain subject to the racialised power of their colonisers, the colonised Kanaks remain subject to the racialised power of the white French colonists and their mother country.

“No wonder [President Emmanuel] Macron is as ebullient and proud as Israel’s leaders.”

West Papuan hopes elusive as violence worsens
Hopes for a new United Nations-supervised referendum for West Papua have remained elusive for the Melanesian region colonised by Indonesia in the 1960s and annexed after a sham plebiscite known euphemistically as the “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 when 1025 men and women hand-picked by the Indonesian military voted unanimously in favour of Indonesian control of their former Dutch colony.

Two years ago the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) was formed to step up the international diplomatic effort for Papuan self-determination and independence. However, at the same time armed resistance has grown and Indonesia has responded with a massive build up of more than 20,000 troops in the two Melanesian provinces of Papua and West Papua and an exponential increase on human rights violations and draconian measures by the Jakarta authorities.

As 2021 ended, interim West Papuan president-in-exile Benny Wenda distributed a Christmas message thanking the widespread international support – “our solidarity groups, the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, the International Lawyers for West Papua, all those across the world who continue to tirelessly support us.

“Religious leaders, NGOs, politicians, diplomats, individuals, everyone who has helped us in the Pacific, Caribbean, Africa, America, Europe, UK: thank you.”

Wenda sounded an optimistic note in his message: “Our goal is getting closer. Please help us keep up the momentum in 2022 with your prayers, your actions and your solidarity.
You are making history through your support, which will help us achieve independence.”

But Wenda was also frank about the grave situation facing West Papua, which was “getting worse and worse”.

“We continue to demand that the Indonesian government release the eight students arrested on December 1 for peacefully calling for their right to self-determination. We also demand that the military operations, which continue in Intan Jaya, Puncak, Nduga and elsewhere, cease,” he said, adding condemnation of Jakarta for using the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse to prevent the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visiting West Papua.

New covid-19 wave hits Fiji
Fiji, which had already suffered earlier in 2021 along with Guam and French Polynesia as one of the worst hit Pacific countries hit by the covid-19 pandemic, is now in the grip of a third wave of infection with 780 active cases.

Fiji’s Health Ministry has reported one death and 309 new cases of covid-19 in the community since Christmas Day — 194 of them confirmed in the 24 hours just prior to New Year’s Eve. This is another blow to the tourism industry just at a time when it was seeking to rebuild.

Health Secretary Dr James Fong is yet to confirm whether these cases were of the delta variant or the more highly contagious omicron mutant. It may just be a resurgence of the endemic delta variant, says Dr Fong, “however we are also working on the assumption that the omicron variant is already here, and is being transmitted within the community.

“We expect that genomic sequencing results of covid-19 positive samples sent overseas will confirm this in due course.”

A DevPolicy blog article at Australian National University earlier in 2021 warned against applying Western notions of public health to the Pacific country. Communal living is widespread across squatter settlements, urban villages, and other residential areas in the Lami-Suva-Nausori containment zone.

“Household sizes are generally bigger than in Western countries, and households often include three generations. This means elderly people are more at risk as they cannot easily isolate. At the same time, identifying a ‘household’ and determining who should be in a ‘bubble’ is difficult.

“‘Stay home’ is equally difficult to define, because the concept of ‘home’ has a broader meaning in the Fijian context compared to Western societies.”

While covid pandemic crises are continuing to wreak havoc in some Pacific communities into 2022, the urgency of climate change still remains the critical issue facing the region. After the lacklustre COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, Pacific leaders — who were mostly unable to attend due to the covid lockdowns — have stepped up their global advocacy.

End of ’empty promises’ on climate
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown appealed in a powerful article that it was time for the major nations producing global warming emissions to shelve their “empty promises” and finally deliver on climate financing.

‘As custodians of these islands, we have a moral duty to protect [them] — for today and the unborn generations of our Pacific anau. Sadly, we are unable to do that because of things beyond our control …

“Sea level rise is alarming. Our food security is at risk, and our way of life that we have known for generations is slowly disappearing. What were ‘once in a lifetime’ extreme events like category 5 cyclones, marine heatwaves and the like are becoming more severe.

“Despite our negligible contribution to global emissions, this is the price we pay. We are talking about homes, lands and precious lives; many are being displaced as we speak.”

Perhaps the most perceptive reflections of the year came from a young Kanak pro-independence and climate change student activist, Marylou Mahé. Saying that as a “decolonial feminist” she wished to put an end to “injustice and humiliation of my people”, Mahé added a message familiar to many Pacific Islanders:

“As a young Kanak woman, my voice is often silenced, but I want to remind the world that we are here, we are standing, and we are acting for our future. The state’s spoken word may die tomorrow, but our right to recognition and self-determination never will.”

As families prepare to celebrate Christmas with their loved ones, a safe house in Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby has kicked out gender-based violence survivors, leaving them homeless for the festive season.

One of the survivors, 37-year-old Gathy Peter from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, told the PNG Post-Courier that they were informed by staff from the safe house (named) that the house would be closed for holidays.

“So for those of us who have no family here in Port Moresby, they just left us at the Boroko police station and I have been here as I have nowhere to go,” she said.

• READ MORE: Other PNG gender-based violence reports

“Another woman, who had her two children with her, was also left here but she has since left the station premises.”

Peter is a mother of three, she met her husband (named) when he went to Bougainville for the crisis and they got married, and in 1997 they moved to her husband’s hometown in Southern Highlands province.

“We had three kids, one boy and two girls, but life was not good, my husband was violent, so after four years, in 2012, I took my two daughters and ran away back to Bougainville, leaving behind my son who was just nine years old at that time.”

She said that in 2017, she came to Port Moresby for work but her husband found her and forced her to move in with him again, so she moved in with him at Gereka.

Badly beaten by husband
“But the violence continued, he would tell me to remove my clothes before he started beating me, he even brought home his girlfriend to live with us, telling me that she was his niece,” Peter said.

In June this year, Peter was badly beaten by her husband, who cut her with a machete from her head down to her feet.

“He kicked me in the face when I cried out in pain — when I spat the blood out, three of my teeth fell out too.

“A neighbour came in and stopped him, and I took the opportunity to run away, and walked from Gereka to 6-Mile at around 11pm in the night.

“I passed out somewhere near 6-Mile in front of a small tucker shop.

“A woman from there assisted me to the Gordon police station to file an official report with the FSVU (Family and Sexual Violence Unit), and I was put into a safe house (named).”

With no family and friends in Port Moresby, she was left homeless but was assisted by the Boroko Juvenile Unit to win her case against her husband, who has since been sentenced to two years in prison.

In safe house for six months
Peter has been living in that safe house for more than six months but was dumped at the Boroko police station car park area.

She is living at the precinct of the Boroko police station. She is far from home and family.

“Christmas is near and I long for my children and the white sandy beaches of my home.”

Attempts made to get comments from the safe house were unsuccessful yesterday.

However, according to the sources — women who were given refuge at the safe house were all sent back to their families as the safehouse was closing for the festive season.

Only Gathy Peter and the mother of two were dropped off at Boroko Police Station as they do not have families in Port Moresby.

However, the mother of two has since been given refuge at another safe house, leaving Peter behind.

Rebecca Kuku and Marjorie Finkeo are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.

Extensive damage to food crops across South Pacific atolls has followed three days of high spring tides in the region.

Reports into The Pacific Newsroom show the tides have afflicted Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Solomon Islands and the archipelago islands of Papua New Guinea.

Videos show extensive damage in villages as the tides sweep in.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific climate change reports

Tide charts predict there will be another night of it tonight.

The phenomena is not directly related to global warming and sea level rise, but is an ominous pointer to what could happen.

Known as a perigean spring tide, it is influenced by the new Moon. The one underway now is the 11th and last for this year.

Why this one has proven so damaging in the Pacific is likely to be a result of the developing La Niña. Sea level rise could also be a factor. In places like the Marshall Islands winds were also helping create big swells.

Impact on Carteret Islands
One place dramatically affected this week are the Carteret Islands, part of PNG’s autonomous Bougainville region. Home to 2600 people, and already sinking due to a combination of seismic and global warming effects, it appears to have suffered extensive sea water contamination of its gardens.

Low lying areas around Malaita’s main town of Auki, in the Solomon Islands, suggest serious problems there.

Flooding in Auki, Malaita, Solomon Islands. Image: Tim Saki Misimake

Video shows extensive damage occurring on the islands in Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia.

The Pacific Island Times quotes FSM President David W. Panuelo saying they are aware of what is happening.

“We are watching what’s happening,” he said in a statement. “I would ask our citizens to feel assured that their government is aware of what’s happening, and is ready to take action.”

Giff Johnson in the Marshall Islands said there was not so much damage but a big clean up was needed. They were expecting more tonight.

Majuro airport road flooded
Writing for the Mariana Variety he said at Majuro roads by Amata Kabua International Airport in Majuro were down to single lane traffic Monday afternoon as heavy equipment operators moved up and down the long roadway clearing rocks and debris that blocked the road from inrushing tidal water.

Waves washing over boulder barriers caused flooding on the roads half a meter deep before receding.

Aotearoa climate researcher Dr Murray Ford of Auckland University told Johnson he believed sea level rise was a major factor in this week’s events.

“An event like this would have been relatively innocuous in the 1990s, but sea level is notably higher today then back then. Sea level rise is increasing the frequency and magnitude of these sorts of events.”

Dr Ford said Monday’s inundation came during “the highest tide of the month at 2.14 metres.”

From Nauru, Formosa Emiu, wrote of being spooked by the ocean creeping up the backyard: “No sand or reef or rocky pinnacles seen, no noise or crashing waves, very calm, but very high sea level”.

• Pacific tide charts are available here

Asia Pacific Report is a partner of The Pacific Newsroom. Republished with permission.

Climate change and the Carterets yesterday. Video: Bougainville Today