Bougainville United over Death - in Pictures

This is not a tradition so knew to the people of Bougainville. In the 1960s people from all over Kieta and Siwai took the then international airport of Aropa by storm as they moaned and waited for the bodies of two medical students that butched in Goroka, a Panguna's Luke Robin and his mate from Siwai.

In the early 1980s, the again, waiteds in tears for another butched Bougainvillean boxer, John Aba from Rorovana who was killed while servicing his car in Port Moresby, PNG's capital of criminalism. And much later, came more people killed in the many areas of Papua New Guinea.

At these moments, Bougainvilleans cry in unity, under the raging sun of PNG's rapacious colonisation of this Solomon island of Bougainville.

Thursday, the 23 February 2012, saw a thousand Bougainvilleans on the streets of Buka port, airport and the Hahela Catholic mission. This time, Bougainvilleans were brought home 45 pieces of the tang'get off-cuts (plant) representing the 45 lost Bougainvilleans that perished on the morning of 2 February 2012 off the coast of Huon Peninsula in the ill-fated Rabaul Queen.

Pieces of this useless plant, is what PNG is giving back to the longed subjugated people of Bougainville for the lost of lives to its failing service delivery systems.

PNG's Air Niugini jet delivering tang'get to the Bougainville administration

Bougainville government leaders, having received the parcel of plant, tang'get proceed to transport

Procession to Hahela Catholic Mission for a memorial service

After the Hahela service, the procession was led back into town to the main Buka port where the three Rabaul Shipping vessels are now being kept by the ex-combatants where a wreath ceremony was done in respect for the fallen Bougainvilleans.

Crying Bougainvillean hearts at the Buka wharf

People release their wreaths for their loved ones and country man and woman into the sea of the Buka Passage beside the MV Solomon Queen

Wreaths on the water

The releasing our heart into the water through the symbolism of a wreath, we had least did pacify our minds. But are we to release the three Papua New Guinea's Rabaul Shipping's locked-up ferries?

The man who led drunkards on the 3 February 2012 morning as the news hit the Buka town, David Perakai from the Tumpusiong Valley, says, 'Papua New Guinea and Peter Sharp have to compensate Bougainvilleans, then we talk'.

David Perakai

According to mostly mainland Bougainvilleans, now occupying the three ferries, they won't free the vessels for we have been slaves to PNG since the 1960s. Most obvious option available is the burning and sinking of the ships into the Buka Passsage. So, Peter Sharp, the owner of Rabaul Shipping and monopoly holder of the PNG coastal shipping has serious problems, if not, to save his outdated vessels.



Poetic Lamentation on Gold Money Squandering

Since 1990, officially, Bougainville was on an economic standstill as a direct result of her 'fight for right' against the Bougainville Copper Limited and the Papua New Guinea government that benefited by far as the indigenous people stood on the periphery in wonder.

But once, the Bougainville Peace Process attained its momentum from around 1998, economic revival came out with a healthy gallop that was never experience before the bloody conflict that at least, took the lives of more than 15 000 people.

Cash cropping now dominates, followed by gold mining.

Gold Panners at work

But the most, notable problem across Bougainville, worst is the Kieta areas where gold panning is so vibrant, is uncontrolled spending. Last year, thinking about this concern I wrote this poem as my personel voice of lamentation to the enormous hurt we are giving back to Bougainville, our motherland.

The poem;

Koromoni Man

Kupe!

Kupe, o Kupe...

Kupe man...mountain man.

The gold miner,

miner of the Crown Prince Range

of squandering.

When Bougainville cry money

you heap her carton beer.

You snore in midget stash,

but feign a money flower on the streets of Arawa.

O midge of the land;

the false prophet!

O you scurrying wind of squandering

and barren dreams so high in Kieta.

Not wind of change you is,

but fade of the motherland,

o Kupe!

Kupe.

Commentary

Kupe is where the first actual mining operation started on Bougainville in the mid-1930s. Today, it is also a well known alluvial mining villages in Central Bougainville, but unfortunately, houses only a few good-users of money.

This are the very few that, say, contribute to the general economic rise of Bougainville through spending on their social and economic needs, like investing through the children in educational goals for the island.

Majority, though save money, but do save without set priority goals. These are the very lot that are so easily tempted by the success of others into unplanned expediture. An highlight, is what I often term as, the Land Cruiser culture on Bougainville, that is, when a neighbour purchases a new Land Cruiser, suddenly, a whole village brings in Land Cruisers (second hand and new).

Certain unconfirmed sources claim that, from gold panning alone, Bougainville is losing some K1 00 000 000 to K3 00 000 000 per annum. A great waste of local resources as it is also known for the cocoa industry that now, without direct Bougainville to overseas buyers trading, disadvantages the  islanders by benefiting Papua New Guineans.

Another lot, are just squanderers, these lot labours under the scourging tropic sun each day and in the afternoon the money is gone with the wind. They often live on credit (dinau) in every retail outlets and more they are with the beer sellers.

The culture of saving money for long term developments or needs (not wants) is still so far away to a average Bougainvillean man, though, compared to their political masters, the Papua New Guineans, money is not that hard to earn as a result of the conflict, that once the late rebel leader said as, 'a university' for them.

Thus, who steps out to fight this negative culture for this soon-to-be-independent nation, remains to the Bougainvilleans and their political leadership.

• Koromoni, is a Nasioi name for the Kupe Goldfield in Central Bougainville. It means, Koro, is gold and moni, is money. So the name is, Gold Money.

Mining in Bougainville

The first European to discover the Solomon island of Bougainville was the French explorer Louis Antoin de Bougainville who reached the island in July 1768. This discovery then lead to the worst for the innocent islanders through mining and relegation.

According to R.J. Cornelius, gold and copper mineralisation  was known on the island as far back as the pre-1914 German days. But proven traces were known in the 1920s through copper specimens discovered on [transported cargo from Kieta] identified in PNG's Rabaul town.

Panguna Pit

In 1929, a Jack Comb from Kekereka Plantation (now Arawa) prospected up the Bovong River and discovered gold at the Kupe Village and the site on the Crown Prince Range, was proclaimed as Kupe Goldfield on May 1930. In December 1932, Tapuu Reward Claim (Moroni Village) was pegged by C. W. M Evans after prospecting up the Tumpusiong Valley from the West Coast followed on by the Pangki'rangku (mine pit today) Reward Claim in February 1934 to G.A. Myers.

In the same year, 1934, a Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, Dr Duhig established mining operations at Kupe. In 1936, a hydrologist Richard Alexander MacLellan managed the project with cheap labourers from Kieta and South Bougainville who were often paid with tabacco tins.

To its closure due to the Japanese invasion in WW2, the operation did produced 1789 ounces of gold and 80 ounces of silver for the Catholics in Brisbane.

Kupe Village, today. The mine is still mined today where the cloud line is visible

Earlier on, though, Kupe Goldfield was transfered to Bougainville Gold Options NL and later to Jack Comb and then the Bougainville Syndicate as did  Pangki'rangku and Moroni Claims. This, according to Kupe's oral records were partners to the Bishop Dr Duhig.

In 1935, geologist N.H. Fisher who later became the director of Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources, reported the 3 mineralisation sites in Australia thus prompting further interest in the later years.

CRA geologist, Ken Philips followed these records, and tracked up the Kupe Village and entered the Panguna area in the 1960s and born was Bougainville Copper Limited to the disadvantage of the Bougainville islanders.


Sources: http://www.onemine.org/ and http://www.pngbuai.com/ and stories from Kupe Village in Central Bougainville

Poem of Crying over our divided islands of Solomon

Ovau Island is My Heart

by Leonard Fong Roka

Ovau island is my heart
Torau Bay knows that...Olava knows that...
Moisiru knows that, and
Tokuaka likes that...

Ovau island is my heart
Kamaleai knows that...Ghaomai knows that, and
Harehare longs to see that...

Ovau island is my heart
Toumoa knows that...Kariki knows that, and
Birambira dreams for that...

Ovau island is my heart
Nukiki knows that...Poroporo knows that...
Malivanga knows that and
Polamai cries for that...

Ovau island is my heart
O heart,
Of my divided Black Solomons.

Thoughts to Ovau Island is My Heart

Any conscious Bougainvillean or the rest of Solomon chain knows how painful it is to think of our home islands being handled as cheap commodity without our knowing with that artificial lines drawn to the good of the colonialist and today, their lover girl, Papua New Guinea.

Sitting on the fine beaches of Ovau, Poroporo and others in what is now the Western Province of the Solomon Islands, one could shed tears trying to figure out how cruel the British and Germans were to dumping our biggest island, Bougainville was dumped into a strange society of PNG in 1975 against the will of the people.

Ovau island, is the nearest largest island outside Olava in Buin but separated from its motherland, Bougainville, by the infidel PNGean border.

In minutes, on a fine day, one paddles his canoe to Ovau from Olava...Can one paddle a canoe to New Guinea and back in a day? No! So that means we, Bougainvilleans are in a cultural, political, social and economic hell with our colonisers, the New Guineans.

This poem tries to set light to a Bougainvillean or a brother Solomonist that it is time to think and work back our way down history.

Then, we can get Bougainville in its rightful place.

Standing on the Kangu wharf and in the background are the little islets surround the larger Shortland island

Also from Kangu, are the islands divided off from Bougainville by the cruel British, Germans and Australians as they dumped Bougainville into the state of Papua New Guinea.

Tumpusiong Valley in Pictures

Continuing on, Tumpusiong Valley people are adapting well to the hazards created for them by the BCL through its Panguna mine since the 1960s to 1989 when the Bougainville Revolutionary Army had it shut. Though, pain is there in the hearts and minds for the suffering from the exploitation of Bougainville for the benefit of the rapacious New Guineans.

To Bougainvilleans, who are Solomon islanders, the mine developed strange and foreign New Guineans.

But, today Tumpusiong Valley that is so economically vibrant. Peoples' lives so rapidly reaching for the high standards of living through gold panning, business activities and you name it.

Tumpusiong West central

Tumpusiong's shopping centre, Pangki'ranaru. Travellers pass through this centre into South Bougainville

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Erosion cutting the barricade of Kabarong river and soon to divert Kabarong into the Biamp'paa river. Below is the Biamp'paa which is about 150 metres below the Kabarong

Gold miner

Kids working for school fee in the gold field of Tumpusiong

Tokuu village in Tumpusiong West

Babatani, a gold buyer in the valley

Only, BCL community development project, a footbright still standing but soon to be uprooted by erosion

People erecting homes with BCL remains. Mak'osi hamlet

Birimpi river at Pirurari village

Kabaronau Community school, one of Tumpusiong's schools

Panguna Upper Tailings in Pictures

Upper Tailings is the name associated with BCL, but today my people call our home, Tumpusiong Valley that in our language means, 'along the dirt'. It the valley that directly received the BCL's waste and up until this very day, still suffers the consequences. But still our people are adapting to make a living out of this calamity.
The valley starts from the Pirurari village below the gravel dumps and stretches west to the Konnuuku village bordering Evo area of Kieta.

Pirurari (below)

Tumpusiong's main attractions is the Pit Drainage Tunnel at my home, Mak'osi hamlet in East Tumpusiong

Best Buy: Tonanau market in East Tumpusiong

Government on the sand: Ioro 2 LLG office right in front of the Pit Drainage Tunnel

Central Tumpusiong

Money Blood: Gold miner in Central Tumpusiong

Tumpusiong's recreational area in West Tumpusiong

BCL flood barricade wall in West Tumpusiong now erosion is rapidly dealing with it

Erosion at work in West Tumpusiong

Though it is a hot valley being clothed by slowly recolonising vegetation, Tumpusiong is valley that is home to people that are innovative and business minded. It is home to Bougainville's well known political leaders, the late Joseph Kabui and his brother, Martin Miriori who are my blood relatives.

(to be continued)

Bougainville Politics: Father of Meekamui (B)

In the Meekamui Pontoku Onoring (government), Damien Dameng was the leader and his cousin, Philip Ne'sii was the administrator. The brothers, due mainly because of what all saw as destruction of the land by the mining company CRA at its developmental stages at Panguna, won hearts throughout Kieta and allies across Bougainville that together later created the Napidakoe Navitu (a powerful political movement led by Sir Paul Lapun).

Philip Ne'sii (above with me), was mostly based at home and travelled less. He was incharge of the parliament and other activities associated with the movement. The streamlining and promotion of Meekamui was paramount.

Meekamui Parliament

The parliament, to Ne'sii, ought to consist of four (4) political parties made up of the 4 major clans known in Bougainville and housed in a square building with the speaker (below photo) at the centre and the north side of the whole. To him, it was also, a 'holy of holies' seat (today it is still respected). But during the crisis the building was destroyed and now rock bases remains (picture below).

To the west, the parliament had the chamber made up of the Basikang and Bakoringku clans and had their 100 members. To the east, was the chamber for the Kurabang and Barapang clans and their 100 members. The south end ought to house the women and Bougainville's minorities.

Just climbing up a sharp camber from the parliament's zone, was the government structure designed with a concrete star build in 1972 according to Philip Si'nee.

As the above picture shows, the centremost square hole, represented the government of Bougainville and to the four (4) ends are the major clans that together make up the government.

(on the speaker's throne)

Commentary on poem, 'Kawas Meri'

Kawas Meri

by Leonard Fong Roka

Papa simukim kabu'ra

Mama salim taro

Barata wokim banis danis

Na ol salim yu kam lo bilak bokis kantri

Insait lo balus yu krai

lo lukim naispela kantri Bougainville isilip sore

namel lo solwara Solomon wantem hevi, na yu tok:

'Ba mi kam bek na dai lo yu'.

Ai bilong papa hait

Nus bilong mama pas

Han bilong barata ilus pinis

Na yu painim fridom imomo yet

olsem san bilong nambis

Yu bilas olsem misis na English olsem mama kakaruk

Tokples Buin, Nasioi o Haku ilus natin, na yu tok:

'Kiara, yu racist and undemocratic'.

Papa idriman

Mama isilip

Barata istap lo tudak

Na yu bihainim ol ivitu o ere'reng na givim skel lo ol

Ol kisim skel kisik skel olsem ol kisim lo taim bilong war...

taim ol kilim na katimkatim barata, uncle o papa bilong yu

husat ipait lo gutpla bilong yu

Ol kisim skel na yu tok:

'Aung, mind your own business'.

Papa hamamas

Mama hamamas

Barata hamamas

taim balus pundaun lo Buka, na ol krai:

'Kawas meri igat save pinis'.

source: http://asopa.typepad.com/files/leonard-rokas-bougainville-anthology.pdf

Commentary

I was a student when the Bougainville conflict erupted in 1988 on the streets of Arawa. It was not actually the Panguna mining area that saw the first attacks, but it was the New Guinean squatter settlement on the edges of Arawa town, then provincial capital.

One should know why? New Guinean Redskins were are problem to Bougainvillean harmony and freedom in their own island and not in a certain corner of New Guinea.

I write to educate Bougainvilleans to know who they are and understand what history had for them. We, as the Peace Process came in, have absolutely forgotten our recent past and try to foster sweet co-existence with the recent killer of ours. They blockaded us to die as we were struggling for our divine rights. We suffer the consequence of mining on our land, but who benefited from that Panguna mine? They label us, into New Guinea Islanders, but are you Redskin as them? Can you paddle a canoe from Lontis to Rabaul as you can from Olava to Ovau?

In Kawas Meri the message is: see the past, know the present and predict the future!



Bougainville Politics: Father of Meekamui (A)

The idea of Meekamui was just recently promoted into Bougainville politics by the late Francis Ona who actually adopted it. The concept was actually older than himself and was created by a student at Saint Joseph High School, Damien Dameng from Irang-Panga valley in the Panguna District.

Damien Dameng was born in 1930 in his Dongtare hamlet. He was in primary school at Sovele Catholic Mission, Bana District, when WW2 came to Bougainville. After WW2 he reenrolled at Orami Tokples school learning mainly the Catholic's catechism. Later in transfered to Buiana, a school led by Fr Mueller still in Panguna. In the 1950s he was in Tunuru Catholic Mission where he was once suspected with Betoro, a woman from Topinang, and was punished. In retaliation for this, he attacked a nun, he recalls as Sr Julianna for reporting him to an American priest Fr Hogan.

Fr Hogan removed from Tunuru to transfer him to Puru'ata in Torokina but ended him in Mamarego Catholic Mission in Bana where he remained for 2 years. After he was moved to Rigu where he did Standards 9 and 10.

And it was in Rigu's libraries that certain literature on the shelves to not interest him. By this time, he was to go to Tsiroge in Buka to learn trade but saw that the mission was destroying Bougainville and Bougainvilleans so he decided to attack  the Catholic Church. So he called a Br Bozaar, an Australian, that, 'I am not going to Tsiroge, but I am going home'. This was now the 1960s!

By this time, the Hahalis Welfare Society in Buka and others were on, and Damien Dameng called a few leaders in Kieta to Irang and told them: 'Mission is killing us so let's go to our culture'. So, born was his group, the Meekamui Ponto'ku Onoring.

He began protesting against the CRA exploration in the area (as shown above) with his moment that immediately had many followers across the now Panguna District. As supports came in, agendas broaded as well to nationalism and independence for Bougainville.

What is Meekamui Pontoku Onoring? Meekamui is simply 'holy land' in the Nasioi language. Pontoku is the sacred sites, eg caves with a significant deveopment a clan's mythological historical deeds. Then, Onoring, which means,'I am secure', comes from the culture where by, a person when dealing with external forces, eg disputes, feels more comfortable right at his home. Often, when dealing with issues he might ask his enemies to his home for negotiations.

And for his movement, the pillars were 3, he wanted all these concerns to drive Bougainville to its roots of pureness. The pillars are:

• Western education, belongs to the bad spirits
• Western health belongs to the dogs
• Western religion belongs to immature kids

These ideas, he says, were also presented to the United Nations at Kieta when they visited along side the 6 live pigs he brought for the church and government representatives.

The movement, forcefully closed schools in Deumori and others for 3 years in the early 1970s when the late Francis Ona was a young student but was exposed to its impact. Thus, when he took it, he added a bit on, he called it: 'Meekamui Pontoku Si'punng eta osi'kaai-aang'.
(to be continued)

(hating my camera was Dameng when I visited him)

 He is around 82 years old today and was suffering weak legs from malaria. A very famous dog meat eater in Kieta.

He told me also that he was about to close a school that educates the children to grow stupid in a cultural sense.

But when I left him, I was told he fell off a landslide and was in a critical condition in his Dong'tare hamlet that I was in with him and toured his 1960s government (after 1975 was called, 50 toea govt) monuments.

My 2011 Holiday in Pictures

Posing at Panguna's Mao Dump overlooking my home, the Tumpusiong Valley below.

Disturbing Blaise Tabari, a gold miner by the Kavarong river where he mines

Relaxing upstream Bi'ampaa (later named as Jaba by whiteman) in Panga Village of Panguna District

Wandering around the mine pit looking for lubricants for our hydro generator

When it was boring, I watched movies on my laptop powered by our hydro genset...Bougainville Style!

With the grandson of Bougainville father of the Meekamui ideas in the early 1980s, Damien Damang of Irang Village in Panguna. This is in Irang.

Panguna's local tourist in the Panguna mine's pit workshop area

In my house 2 at home

Stealing from grandma's dish

Sleepy-headed at our hydro generator

Telling stories to my nieces to make them laugh