Inter Press Service: 3 January 2000
BOUGAINVILLE: NEW PAPERS REVEAL AUSTRALIAN ROLE IN USE OF FORCE
Australia's role in the already shaky peace process for the Bougainville conflict in Papua New Guinea is likely to come under further challenge from independence supporters, following new revelations found in previously secret Australian government documents. They reveal that Canberra considered the use of military force to overcome landowner opposition to the development of the Bougainville copper mine
By BOB BURTON in Canberra
AUSTRALIA'S role in the already shaky peace process
for the Bougainville conflict in Papua New Guinea is likely to come under
further challenge from independence supporters, following new revelations
found in previously secret Australian government documents.
These documents reveal that Canberra considered the use of military force
to overcome landowner opposition to the development of the Bougainville
copper mine -- the source of restiveness that later became a full-blown
rebellion that has yet to be fully settled today after 11 years.
The previously secret 1969 Cabinet submissions were released to the
public on on the first day of the year by the Australian Archives Office.
They reveal that even prior to the construction of the Panguna copper
mine in Bougainville island, the Australian Government knew of the mounting
landowner opposition to the project and discussed the possible need to use
military force to ensure it proceeded.
Prior to its independence in 1975, Papua New Guinea was administered by
Australia.
Con Zinc Rio Tinto (CRA), an Australian mining company, was pushing to
develop the massive copper deposit that became the Panguna mine.
A 1969 intelligence committee report, appended to one of the Cabinet
submissions, reveals that officials ridiculed mine opponents as
''collaborators with the Japanese'' during World War II, dismissed as
''suspect'' the motives of a member of Papua New Guinea's Parliament leading
concerned landowners and argued that he was ''probably motivated by self
interest''.
In a submission to Cabinet in April 1969, the Minister for External
Territories, C.E. Barnes infomed his Cabinet colleagues of opposition to the
mine proposal before the project had even been established.
Barnes said that ''until CRA has entered into occupation of the land that
it requires, difficulties with the native people, including in some areas
opposition to the acquisition of land or pressure for secession, may be
expected''.
''If the CRA project is allowed to falter the government's policy for the
economic, social and political development. . .will be placed in jeopardy,''
he warned. Worse still, Barnes said, the Australian Administration could
also ''be liable to pay substantial damages to CRA'' if the project did not
proceed.
Barnes discounted the prospect of a secessionist movement emerging as
''unlikely'' but conceded that there was ''a possibility of passive or
active resistance to the occupation of land in conjunction with the CRA
project''.
Barnes urged his Cabinet colleagues to consider the ''deployment of
elements of the Pacific Islands Regiment (PIR)''. Barnes noted that Cabinet
had already given its approval for ''planning to be put in hand for the
provision of military assistance as a last resort''.
The Cabinet was less enthusiastic than Barnes, referring his proposal to
an Inter-Departmental committee.
In a separate submission in August 1969, Barnes supported a proposal from
CRA that they be allowed to use up to 1,600 Asian workers for the
construction of the project.
''It is suggested that workers indentured from Asian countries are more
amenable to control and discipline and would be less likely to cause serious
social problems on Bougainville than large numbers of Australian or European
construction workers,'' he wrote.
The mine, which became many times larger than discussed in negotiations
with
landowners at the outset, obliterated extensive areas of villagers' gardens
and poisoned the river with mine wastes.
The environmental damage and social dislocation caused by the mine
catalysed
a civil war from 1988 to 1997 between independence-minded Bougainvilleans
and the government of Papua New Guinea that was determined to maintain
national
unity at all costs.
The civil war cost more than 10,000 lives, many of the casualties
resulting from a PNG Government blockade that prevented medical supplies
from reaching the island.
After the collapse of PNG government and attempts to employ mercenaries
to wipe the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) and re-open the mine, a
truce was
negotiated.
Since December 1997, 250 unarmed troops and civilians from Australia,
Fiji, New Zealand and Vanuatu have monitored the truce and commenced civil
reconstruction talks.
In late November, the peace process received a setback when the PNG
Supreme Court overturned a decision by the PNG Parliament to establish the
Bougainville Reconciliation Government (BRG), which included former leaders
of the secessionist BRA.
The decision ordered the restoration of the provincial government that
has been rejected by Bougainville community leaders.
After the court ruling, the leader of the BRA, Francis Ona, withdrew from
the disarmament process and warned the PNG Government that it was willing to
take up arms again unless the people of Bougainville are given the option of
voting at a referendum on whether they want independence.
''These so-called reconciliation talks are being manipulated by the PNG
and
Australian Governments to protect their own economies,'' Ona told an
Australian
journalist. ''Without proper independence, exploitation, destruction and
social problems will return. Mining will return and that will not bring
peace but only bring war.''
Australian Defence Minister John Moore, addressing Australian troops in
Bougainville just before Christmas, put pressure on the PNG government for
a quick resolution of the protracted Bougainville crisis.
He suggested that he wants to withdraw the Australian unarmed peace
monitoring contingent by the end of 2000. ''The boys in Bougainville,
they're committed there until April next year. We hope, certainly I hope
that we can get them out of there by the end of next year,'' he said.
(END/IPS/ap-hd-ip/bb/js/00)