Asia-Pacific Network: 2 March 1997
BOUGAINVILLE: CHAN FIGHTS FOR SURVIVAL
Scandals over South African-based mercenaries recruited for intervention in the Bougainville war and Australian hired police to protect businessmen have exposed the vulnerability of Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan's leadership in Papua New Guinea. With a general election in June, Chan now faces a bold challenge from the country's founding father, Sir Michael Somare.
By DAVID ROBIE in Port Moresby
THE FOUNDING father of Papua New Guinea has launched a campaign to wrest national leadership again while beleagured Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan tries to stem a scandal over mercenaries.
Sir Michael Somare, affectionately known as "The Chief", shepherded PNG through to independence from Australia in 1975 and was three times prime minister.
In what is being billed as his last political fight, the charismatic Somare has declared war on Pangu Pati, the political party he founded and the ailing administration led by Chan.
"If Ronald Reagan can be president of the United States at 70, I don't see any reason why I cannot be prime minister at 61," Somare said.
Pledging to combat spiralling corruption, Somare gave an impassioned speech at a recent rally about the "rot" that was afflicting the nation and the urgent need for a clean-up.
He has formed a broad National Alliance to contest the June general election with other dissident but influential politicians, including Melanesian Alliance leader John Momis, a former Catholic priest who helped draft the national constitution more than two decades ago; human rights lawyer Bernard Narokobi; and former Manus provincial premier Steven Pokawin.
Accusing Somare of trying to split the Pangu Pati, a junior partner in the coalition government, Prime Minister Chan however has become preoccupied with the political fallout from recent revelations over the hiring of African-based mercenaries to intervene in the eight-year-old Bougainville civil war.
The crisis has come at a time when the country of four million people is under a World Bank structural adjustment program and the health and education sectors are crippled by dwindling funding.
Chan has been condemned by Pacific regional partners Australia, New Zealand and the Solomon Islands over the K34 million military deal and has faced domestic demands for his resignation.
The Governor of the National Capital District, Bill Skate, a former parliamentary speaker, branded the mercenary decision "an act of madness". National newspapers and community leaders reacted with disbelief.
"If the government thinks mercenaries can solve the Bougainville crisis for them before the general elections, they are wrong," said the daily Post-Courier.
"This apparently is a blunder which will cost the people of PNG millions of kina and will put the peace process further and further out of reach."
In January, Somare, Momis - the regional MP for Bougainville, Narokobi, and Local Government Minister Peter Barter travelled to the war-torn island in a bid to establish a dialogue with the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and to seek freedom for five captured soldiers held hostage.
Although they failed to win freedom for the hostages, the four politicians achieved a breakthrough in bipartisan communication with the rebels.
However, they were attacked by Prime Minister Chan and Defence Minister Mathias Ijape who opposed their trip because it was not sanctioned by Parliament.
Now the revelations about the presence in PNG of about 40 foreign contract soldiers hired by the British company Sandline International - the prime minister calls them "trainers" not "mercenaries" - has seriously damaged the credibility of the Chan government.
Sandline reportedly subcontracted to Executive Outcomes, a South African-based company whose mercenaries have fought in Angola in return for oil concessions and Sierra Leone for diamond mine rights.
Further allegations by a leading Australian newspaper that Chan and his family are major shareholders in a security company run by two Australian brothers accused of hiring and arming Australian police and former anti-terrorist soldiers to work in PNG have fuelled the crisis.
The brothers, reportedly under police investigation in Australia and PNG, were said by the Melbourne Age to have brought in the recruits to settle life-threatening disputes in two secret paramilitary style operations.
In one case PNG rascals (criminals) had reportedly threatened to kill businessmen at a goldmine on Fergusson Island in Milne Bay province last year and earlier this year.
The other case involved an oil palm plantation at Popondetta in Oro province in 1995.
The brothers, named as Cedric Rodrigues, 29, and Mark Rodrigues, 27, are directors of a PNG-registered company, Network International Security Pty Ltd. Chan and his family are reported to be major shareholders and company records name the prime minister's son, James Chan, as a director.
Early reports about the mercenary deal spoke of a decisive "surgical strike" against the BRA in a bid to assassinate the hardline rebel leadership.
While denying this version, Prime Minister Chan and Defence Minister Ijape have insisted that the Sandline company's military advisers would not be in the frontline.
The task of the trainers, presently based at a military camp near the northern town of Wewak, would be to "guide operations".
Chan also hinted that the foreigners were needed for training on the 1000 km border with the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya where Melanesian separatist rebels of the OPM (Free Papua Movement) often operate.
But the government has not clearly answered allegations about the funding of the mercenary operation.
The share price of Orogen Minerals, the state-backed resource development company publicly floated last year, fell 13 cents to $A3.18 after publication of a "top secret" letter signed by deputy Prime Minister Chris Haiveta on January 23, 1997.
The letter indicated a link between the Sandline contract and a payment of K33.6 million from government funds raised from Orogen.
Since then newspaper reports have alleged that the company nominated by Haiveta to channel the funds for the Bougainville operation did not legally exist.
Registrar of Companies Anthony Bewan confirmed that North Fly Highway Development Company Pty Ltd was deregistered in March last year.
Meanwhile, Somare says a government led by him after the election would weed out "unscrupulous and corrupt leaders".
He has pledged to give agencies such as the Ombudsman Commission and an anti-corruption commission more teeth and to empower them to prosecute leaders found to be corrupt.
"The National Alliance is out to throw out leaders who have succumbed to foreign influence and to corrupt deals in which they have sold out tomorrow's Papua New Guinea for today's political grandstanding," Somare pledged.
"A certain kind of fire and national purpose has been missing in our national life in the second 10 years of national independence. We want to rekindle that fire."
David Robie is a New Zealand journalist and author specialising in Pacific affairs. He is currently acting head of the University of PNG's South Pacific Centre for Communication and Information in Development.
