Bougainville, the European Love Bites

Leonard Fong Roka

One biggest law that is promoted by all for all is: ‘love one another, as you love yourself’. Love, is simply, according to Oxford English Dictionary is ‘a strong feeling of affection’. So, we could say it is a feeling of fondness that every human person, being a social animal, possesses despite our nature of being so different to each other.

In society, every man thinks and behaves differently to each other; man is a selfish being, as a single object. This nature is the root of all conflict of interest and violence in our societies today. With available resources, man pursues his interest irrespective of its neighbour.

Thus, disregarding this fundamental and undebatable nature of humanity, religion and government—the two worst culprits in our world’s problems today—aggressively enforce the notion of love in societies that culturally and socially despise each other.

In these shocking realities thus, the state of Papua New Guinea was created. To the narrow minded politicians so indoctrinated by their fanatical missionaries, they called to Papua New Guineans: ‘You are a nation of Papua New Guinea’ and the addition of a curse phrase, ‘God bless Papua New Guinea’.

Religion, of course, as seen through the history of European imperialism, was a tool of colonialism. It shaped the mindset of the Melanesian to consider his world as being barbaric and bad. It narrowed the long established creativity of the Pacifican as worthless of praise compared to the European thinking.

Christianity saw our arts of harmonious existence with the kind of environment we are familiar with in the Pacific as anti-developmental and will bring us no positive progress.

After killing our Pacific ways of thinking, religion calls us to love each other in the violent social, political and economic chaos it had brought us to die a slow death in.

The great state of Papua New Guinea, since 1975, operated under a national constitution that is nothing, but ‘LOVE’. Through the various parliamentary creations of law, the constitution through a iron fist rule, orders us to live harmoniously.

So far, as PNG existed peacefully? As there, being any positive economic progress for us to see and create hope that tomorrow is fine for our children?

Bougainvilleans kicked out New Guineans with the help of the barrel of the gun, as of mid-1988. Where was that concept of ‘one people, one nation; one country, God bless Papua New Guinea’? Did Bougainvilleans know its existence? Did Bougainvillean felt its impacts? I wonder.

Bougainvilleans started fighting without any regard to the SUPREMACY of the PNG Constitution or any repercussions. They fought on a land they had divine connection to; whilst, the poor settlers of the squatter settlements around Kieta gave a fruitless struggle in a land that had no LOVE for them.

In this context, religion and government gives nations no TRUE LOVE.

So, when we create a country, that state must be centred on the natural social ecology of the people to their land.

Pacific, which is also known as a sea of islands, to be politically and economically stable, ought to be constructed on the basis of the pre-colonial bonding between the man and his land.

European LOVE that is so powered by the Pacific relegation agent, Christianity, has belittled Pacific islanders by removing them from the reality of their roots and turned us into drifters with no source of strength; the very powers of creative and adaptive thinking that enabled our ancestors to conquer and colonised the vast ocean of islands before the imperialist westerners.

Thus, for us as Bougainvilleans, to create our island nation, the constitution should be guided by the bonding of the man to his land; in there, there is a source of strength to function as a state where citizens enjoy the common good.

With that, know that the western concept of love is disaster to any developing state and the Bougainvillean ways of love is our prosperity.

John Nenou remembers the Kuveria massacre

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

AS THE MINING PIT of Panguna grew day-by-day, so the waste rock and gravel multiplied in tonnage and thus dump after dump of gravel sprouted, changing the familiar landscape that John Nenou (commonly known as Tampamai throughout Kieta district) grew up with.

John Nenou in centre with military trousers and Francis Duaung with yellow umbrella

To control the build-up of gravel in the village of Pirurari and the rest of the Kavarong valley, Bougainville Copper diverted the Kavarong River through a ‘V’-shaped concrete system towards Nenou’s Sinare hamlet causing the most enormous continuous landslips he had ever seen.

Like many of the young local landowners, he was a-nobody to Bougainville Copper, who only employed men in white-collars, polished office boots and a piece of useless degree paper.  Most of those, by far, were non-Bougainvilleans.

As a youth, Nenou, without an opportunity to gain a formal education, watched as the mining expanded towards his home. He was a bystander as his land was exploited by persons he didn’t know.

These people, for no good reason, scolded and terrorised him as he walked through Panguna township. He and other young men faced near-death from the Papua New Guineans from outside. In the Panguna cinemas and night clubs, a black man entered at his own risk.  The redskins ruled the streets.

Nenou, from the 1970s on, became the champion of break-and-enter in the residential camps like Kusito. The small camp canteens were intruded at will by him and his followers from Dapera village and the Onove villages, to the west of the mine and Nenou’s home.

At weekends he and his gang would drink beer and stone BCL vehicles.  Or they would drive around in the heavy trucks, front-end loaders and graders, hijacking them from where they were left to rest at night along the tailings areas.

Because of such, he became an icon in the police cells of Panguna, Arawa and Kuveria.

Prison did not help the youth, who saw this as just a redskin’s slap in the face for the poor Bougainvilleans.

Resentment grew further in Nenou’s heart when he was chased angrily out of the BCL employment office in the early 1980s by a non-Bougainvillean. Defeated, he walked home and, in broad day light, executed a non-Bougainvillean man who was sightseeing, and dumped him unnoticed into the ‘V’-shaped waterway. This was his first blood.

The Bougainville crisis erupted in late 1988. This was good ground to express his anger. On a particular night, he and his companions walked to the gravel spreading conveyor network at Kusito and knifed a bunch of BCL security men.

After this operation, in early January 1990 at Pirurari village, he inadvertently walked into a PNG Defence Force troop ambush and was captured; tortured and brought to the Kuveria CIS detention centre, 30 kilometres north of Arawa.

After two weeks in prison nursing his wounds, he and his fellow mates were harassed by a few CIS officers. Others, he says, were very good to the prisoners, who they treated properly. But, how could one escape when locked in brick walled rooms with a tiny window screened by steel bars? There was no hope.

One night, as he was resting after a day of grass cutting, hope arrived. Playfully running his finger through little gaps in the brick work, he discovered a rusty piece of hacksaw blade concealed by someone before. His heart rejoiced that Keravat, where the authorities were planning to ship notorious criminals like him, was not his destiny now.

The next day he began working with his four other Bougainvillean roommates. They sawed the metal in the middle of the night. The two centimetre thick steel took two weeks to saw through.  It was kept there, intact. No need to rush things. Nenou was experienced in the art of escape.

A week after the completion of the steel bar cutting, his first planned day to walk to freedom had to be altered. On the day of taking off, a redskin was locked up with them, bringing their number to six.

The Bougainvilleans did not trust the new person, only later on discovering he was a good fellow. They agreed that he was to tell the authorities he was kept at gunpoint when they left. For that, they would come back and liberate him.

So, at 2 am on the morning of 14 January 1990, when only a single guard was on duty, one of Nenou’s Bougainvillean partners climbed to the high window and bent the bar and out he crawled.

Others followed, and across the open field to the rear of the guard they darted towards the two metre fence. Four men made it over the fence, but the fifth was still struggling with the barbed wire when the guard noticed him and gunshots rang through the still night. But he made freedom as more armed CIS personnel arrived to assist.

The men slipped into the thick jungle and headed for the Manetai Catholic mission where some people from the Panguna area had settled. There they met with a contingent of Panguna BRA men and planned an attack on the detention facility.

For two days they remained theit planning. Nenou led the job, since he was familiar with every corner of the CIS camp. In his mind, he also knew which of the CIS officers he wanted killed.

So, in the early hours of 17 January 1990, the poorly armed men moved in on Kuveria, axing their way through the fence and heading straight to the targeted houses of those who had ill-treated the Bougainvillean prisoners.  They caught them unprepared.

Four of the most hated CIS warders were killed. One was pushed into his burning house as he struggled to run free, while others were shot or axed to death. Altogether, there were six deaths and 80 prisoners liberated, loaded onto CIS transport and driven away.

The BRA had young Francis Duaung wounded with a shotgun pellet in his head, but he survived and was operated on in Honiara in the Solomon Islands.

John Nenou was pleased with his efforts to getting rid of the cruel CIS officers and engineer one of BRA’s earliest success stories. He laughs when he tells the youths of his experiences in the Kuveria prison.

Reposted here from: Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2011/09/john-nenou-remembers-the-kuveria-massacre.html

This article appeared above from 23 September 2011

Bougainville is importing dirty influences

Leonard Fong Roka

Before the 1988 Bougainville conflict, there were less Bougainvilleans living a life in the areas of New Guinea. But due to the conflict, there had being a comparative rise of Bougainvilleans flocking in and living in New Guinea’s various urban, country side and institutions; all because, as they say it, there is hell in Bougainville.

Nurtured in Bougainville

There is economic, political or social inferno on the island, I agree. But, whose problem is that; these New Guineans, or us the people of Bougainville? I see, maybe because of my stupidity that the problem in Bougainville is a Bougainvillean issue and it is, seething insanity for us running away to New Guinea.

Here are some sickening verbal attacks a few Bougainvilleans living in the New Guinea paradise are making on Bougainville: ‘upla stretim Peles and bai mipla kam’, ‘mi poret lo dai’, ‘level blong pay rates em too low’ or ‘mi kisim experience pastem and then go lo peles’ and there are more of these foolish remarks from Bougainvilleans.

Such thinking Bougainvilleans are a sick bunch of false prophets; liars and cheats; wolves inside sheep coating and they are dangerous to the Solomon island of Bougainville and it is these lot of Bougainvillean are the ones creating a fearful problem for our island.

The Samoan writer, Albert Wendt in his 1996 novel, Sons of the Return Home highlighted the problem of being strangest to our own land because we have being nurtured in a foreign setting; that foreign and harmful environs, handicaps the acceptance of one’s motherland and its ways of acting out the daily ecological interactions of life. 

In Bougainville, today many youngsters that did not exist during the peak of the conflict but live in the heaven of Papua New Guinea are becoming a bunch of social problems. Many of our fingers point to the guns, but we do not analysis who the prick is handling that gun.

In mid-2011, on the streets of Arawa, a couple of these nurtured-in-PNG Bougainvillean kids and their cronies were knifed by a band of business men for breaking into stores and stealing.

After 2005, for example in Arawa, many people who were in Papua New Guinea as we struggled during the conflict days had being increasing. That increase, did also coincided with a number of armed criminal activities because of what I call idolatry.

Bougainvilleans have one bad aspect that is worth mentioning. We are good at worshipping the good and the bad. That is, for example with the crisis we saw men who might have fought very well in a certain operation as a hero. As he and his men enter our village pigs are slaughtered to feed him. We kneel as he passes.

With this problem coming from PNG, people may collect a heresy claiming that a certain kid is a rascal in Port Moresby without the subject’s knowledge in fact, he might have being a pick-pocket criminal. Once this kid enters the village and hears gossips and answers our questions with lies, of course, we have empowered him with high esteem and status that will have Frankenstein impacts in our society where guns are readily available for our use. This too, we blindly worship.

For these circumstances, the imported subject goes into ex-combatant attire with a created perfume of Port Moresby rascal to harm Bougainville.

The man who we call a rebel or resistant, is a man with likes and dislikes we know of, but this new problem we are adopting from the crime infested Papua New Guinea into Bougainville is the one you and I ought to be carefully monitoring for the betterment of Bougainville.

Noah Musingku's Words to Bougainville and the World

Extracted from UV-Stract Updates in Face Book

It is my pleasure to address the SIWAI DISTRICT PEACE & SECURITY FORUM today. I was invited by Mr. Peter Siunai of UNDP to make a presentation at your forum today, and I’m glad to have my representative Mr. Philip Mapah present this short speech.

Peace is our number one priority at all times. In the absence of it there is chaos, crisis, bloodshed and the like. However, there are many types and levels of peace making avenues and strategies we Bougainvilleans have been working on through our triune governments [ABG, Meekamui and Papaala].

Papaala Head Office, Tonu

When the first Bougainville Crisis erupted in 1975 I was then doing my grade four (4) at Tonu Primary School. As a child I watched our people burn down police vehicles, offices, residential quarters and other government properties in major centres like Buin, Boku, Kieta and Buka. I saw truckloads of aggressive looking people with spears, knives, axes, spades, shovels, etc, going around digging up airports, burning down aid posts, patrol stations, and anything that represented PNG’s handiwork. Fortunately, no bloodshed was recorded.

When the second Bougainville Crisis erupted in 1989 I was then studying at UNITECH, Lae. I came home for the Christmas holidays in November 1988 and realized an aura of intensity. Our Panguna Landowners were already hard in protests, and a cold-blooded murder near Aropa of a pregnant woman, had already triggered things to a new level of intensity. Protest marches by Panguna landowners soon turned into an armed conflict, and RAMBOs and MILITANTS were formed to fight back the giant Rio Tinto Mining Conglomerate.

I returned to school and tried to contribute in some meaningful way towards our common struggle for freedom and independence. As I was outside of Bougainville, my main contribution then was in taking care of Bougainville students at various institutions in PNG or further overseas, negotiating for their allowances and scholarships, seeking financial assistance for their food/accommodation during holidays, making press statements on their behalf if/when needed, meeting with governments and making our points known, etc.

Ten (10) years later in 1997 our Co-Presidents late Francis Ona and Joseph Kabui split Bougainville’s leadership into what we have today. Vice President Kabui opted for a softer stand against PNG claiming that round table discussion was the only way forward for Bougainville, whilst President Ona took a hard stand claiming that since our army had already won the battle against foreign intruders, there was no need for such discussions.

Those who sided with Vice President Kabui followed a Peace Process funded by Australia and New Zealand. The entire process became publically known as the “Bougainville Peace Process”, and the international community was heavily involved in funding peace and security for our people. Various political settlements were discussed including greater provincial governance, autonomy, statehood, free association, independence, etc, and they finally settled on Autonomy.

Those who sided with President Ona also followed a Peace Process of their own, funded from their own pockets. Their Peace Process was designed to be implemented without surrendering their guns. The UNOMB head of mission Ambassador Noel Sinclair soon recognized Meekamui’s stand as proper and handed a set of UN rules including universal declaration of principles for indigenous rights, human rights, etc. In doing so, the UN formally recognized both governments as proper and legal.

Thus, since 1997/98 Bougainville has had two UN recognized governments running in parallel or side by side. Both governments are legal, legitimate, and wholly representative of the indigenous people of Bougainville. There are however, several interesting differences between the two governing systems:

(i) Those under ABG stream are obligated under their agreements to surrender and/or dispose off, or containerize their guns. Those under Meekamui are not obliged to surrender their arms as ex combatants may simply register the serial numbers of their guns with their government and keep the guns in their possession.

(ii) Those under ABG receive annual budgetary funds from PNG government, Australia, New Zealand, etc, whilst those under Meekamui receive no such funds but sacrifice to create their own independent/sovereign financial and banking system.

(iii) Those under ABG have easy access to cash funds from PNG and can easily make claims and/or submissions for funding from their government whilst those under Meekamui have to sacrifice and painstakingly wait for their government system to complete and deliver their long awaited funds when ready.

INTERNATIONAL DEBT CONTROL SYSTEM

1. So far our ABG has incurred about PGK 1.00 billion worth of debt (dinau) to/from Australia and New Zealand which our children will be required to repay in future. All the monies that Australia and NZ have given to Bougainville since 1997 under the Bougainville Peace Process will be calculated as foreign debt and passed onto our central bank for repayment. In other words, our own government is knowingly or unknowingly tying up our children /grand children to huge external debts (dinau).

2. Accordingly, by the time Bougainville is granted referendum and independence under that system our external debts will have reached many billions of Kina. It seems that our educated elites, economists, diplomats and politicians do not understand the “modus operandi” of the present international debt system. They think that the funding they are getting from foreign countries such as PNG, Australia, NZ, Japan and China, is “free money from some Santa Claus overseas”. One day our children will curse us at our graves for leaving such a huge debt behind.

3. Why am I saying all this? I believe that true peace and security for Bougainville will be achieved when Bougainville gains her full independence or sovereignty. And full independence /sovereignty will be realized when Bougainville becomes totally free from foreign control. And what is foreign control? Foreign Control is a situation whereby a country is controlled or manipulated from another developed country through the international financial and banking system. And it’s commonly referred to as International Debt Control System.

4. When Bougainville realizes her full independence or sovereignty as a nation there will also be a sense of total freedom, liberty, unity, forgiveness, peace and security flowing naturally at all levels of society. And we are getting closer and closer to our ultimate goal as each day passes. Bougainville will now realize her full freedom, independence and security without incurring any unnecessary foreign debts.

5. Bougainville must realize her independence /sovereignty as a nation in order to experience total peace/harmony on the ground. Of course, we must have sufficient peace and security today to do our daily businesses and perform government tasks, etc, towards independence/sovereignty. And that’s what I believe this forum aims to discuss.

6. However, I’m more concerned about the bigger and overall Peace Process that Bougainville must realize in her developmental process towards full independence, freedom and sovereignty. Bougainville must be free from all foreign debts /dinau. There’s no reason why we should be foolhardily tying up our future generations to huge foreign debts /dinau as we’ve done so far. We must urgently take stock of all our dealings with foreign countries, including PNG, Australia, NZ, Japan and others like China which the ABG is currently courting.

INDEPENDENCE AND SOVEREIGNTY:

There is a huge difference between the concepts of Independence and Sovereignty which many of our people are not aware of. Simply put, a sovereign nation is one that does not owe money to another nation or system. A sovereign nation is supposed to be the head and not the tail, a lender nation and not a borrower nation.

The way Bougainville is going at the moment under ABG is all clouded with foreign debts. As I said above, Bougainville’s external debt /dinau to Australia and NZ has already reached a massive PGK 1.00 billion and will keep increasing. We are following a pre-designed /foreign concept of independence. We cried for independence in 1975 and again in 1990, and our colonizers said “OK we can grant your independence but you must pay for it. We will finance your independence but you will forever be indebted to us”.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have decided to talk on this special subject today because our foreign debt/dinau is increasing daily at an alarming rate. As said above, I fear that by the time ABG completes her agreed process of independence our external debt will have reached about K10 billion. This is too much and must be avoided at all cost. Our educated elites, economists, accountants, bankers, politicians and diplomats have not provided us a solution. Where are they going to get the money to repay these debts? Why are they foolhardily subjecting our future generations to foreign debt control? Is there a way out for Bougainville within the circumstances?

FREEDOM FROM DEBT = PEACE AND TRANQUILITY.

Ladies and gentlemen, you might be wondering why I’m talking about foreign debts/dinau in a forum that is supposed to be discussing about Peace and Security in the Siwai District. Is there any relation between foreign debt/ dinau and peace & security?

It is commonsense that all Bougainville Governments have been divinely appointed to contribute from different angles towards our common goal of true freedom /independence /sovereignty. We have a triune governing system on the ground divinely created to procure true freedom, peace and tranquillity for our nation.

Whilst the ABG was concentrating on providing basic governmental services such as health, education and infrastructural developments the Twin Kingdoms of Papaala and Meekamui were focussed on setting up Bougainville’s own independent /sovereign international financial/ banking system. Whilst the ABG was incurring huge foreign debts/dinau the Twin Kingdom was concentrating on how those debts can be repaid. Whilst the ABG was subjecting our grand children to foreign debts /dinau the Twin Kingdom was creating a way for freeing our grand children from all foreign debts/dinau.

The Twin Kingdom will soon be contributing massively and tangibly to the Bougainville Peace Process. We have been working hard on the international side of things since 1998 without your knowledge /awareness. Whilst ABG was providing basic services to our people the Twin Kingdom was busy setting up an alternative international monetary and banking system that would repay any debts incurred by ABG in her peace making process. In this way Bougainville will not have to bow down to another foreign nation like PNG, Australia, NZ, Japan, China, or whoever.

I am glad to announce here that the Meekamui government and her international financial and banking system is now officially recognized by many countries of the world including 27x European nations, the European Central Bank, and European Union Commission, as a distinct sovereign government and nation. Our central bank (central bank of Bougainville) has just received its BIC/SWIFT Code which is CBOBPGPMXXX and ISO 9362. The PNG government and BPNG protested and tried to block it off but official recognition and endorsement by superpower nations in Europe had more weight. This is just one milestone breakthrough for us. We have many other breakthroughs too many to name here.

Recognition and awarding of BIC/SWIFT Code to our central bank of Bougainville means that our banking system is now fully recognized by all other international banks including WB, IMF, BIS, etc. Our banks can now transfer funds directly from Bougainville to any bank in PNG, SI, Fiji, Australia, NZ or wherever we want it to go. This was not possible in the past because PNG had an upper hand over Bougainville. However, sheer persistence and determination to bypass PNG and operate on the international scene as a sovereign nation/system finally broke the record when European Central Bank and European Union Commission came to our rescue recently.

Our central bank of Bougainville is now in the process of issuing /circulating our sovereign gold-based currency – Bougainville Kina (BVK) – electronically at the exchange rate of 1:1 against the Euro. Our first project will be to repay Bougainville’s outstanding external debt of PGK 1.00 billion to Australia and NZ. ABG incurred all that money on behalf of all Bougainville; therefore, we feel obliged as a complementary government on the ground to repay all that debt /dinau and start afresh. In this way Bougainville shall be totally free from all foreign control systems and not repeat the same mistakes that PNG went through when she gained her independence from Australia in 1975.

Thus, I feel relieved today when I look around and see that Bougainville will now be the only developing country in the world that is totally free from foreign/external debts. All other developing countries in the world had incurred tremendous amounts of foreign debts in their drive for independence. Thus, they remain indebted to some developed foreign countries. Surely, a new light is shinning in Bougainville for the world to see and follow. Though the ABG incurred PGK 1.00 billion debt, a complementary government has arisen to repay it outright. This is known as UNITY OF GOVERNMENTS which is the only way all Bougainville people can work together in total peace and unity. When the governments are united all people on the ground will likewise be united.

Therefore, despite lack of cooperation from ABG, the Meekamui /U-Vistract Government went ahead and completed its international financial/banking system. It is now our honour and privilege to repay all that K1.00 billion debt that ABG incurred in her Peace Process to date.

With such freedom on the international front the Twin Kingdom will now concentrate on more peace and freedom on the domestic scene. The next phase of Bougainville Peace Process is going to be much more exciting as it’s going to be financed by our own money. Foreigners will no longer be financing our Peace Process as before and enslaving our children for eternity. Rather we will be financing it ourselves. And rather than waiting for budgetary funds from PNG we will now be funding the ABG and Meekamui governments to bring full restoration, development and reconstruction to our nation and people.

Thank you once again for inviting me to your conference.
HM

NOTE: This speech is said to have being given at a Siwai District Peace & Security Forum on 24 MAY 2012. In my two articles, A Letter to Noah Musingku & UV-Stract, I commented on this essay.

Snoring Love

By Leonard Fong Roka

You snoring, love

I snored too

Looking into the brilliant heavens

Where saints reign

Like biggy bosses

Till that rooster called me: a

Sleeping child under a crystal morning

Kokore’ko!

You snoring, love

In your own perfect world

Your beauty sings innocence

Of tranquility

Like that of swaying laughing coconut palms

At Tau’sina island

I am longing for…

You snoring like purring, love

Of my lifetime’s Darby and Joan deeds

Your waking yawn

Shakes that welkin god

Beyond him conscience

Though still,

You are snoring

My song of calmness

That voice shall borne

The winds and rains that pots fragrance

To my heart’s straying emptiness…

O, snoring love.

LOOK BACK: Bougainville thanks Japan for 15 bridges

THE people of Panguna and the Mekamui government have expressed gratitude to the Japanese Government for building 15 bridges for Bougainville.

Japan funded Bakanovi Bridge in Central Bougainville (Photo: Anthony Kaybing)

The Japanese last week officially handed over the 15 bridges built under the first phase of the Japanese bridge project.

Panguna Landowners Association interim chairman Michael Pariu and Mekamui Government of Unity president, Philip Miriori said they were grateful.

Pariu said the people of Panguna felt a special connection with the project because it was initiated and directly negotiated by one of their very own most prominent and highly respected leaders, the late Joseph Kabui.

“The people of Panguna are very proud because this is a historic achievement by one of our own leaders, we can closely associate with this very important project,” Pariu said.

“Such an achievement we feel should clearly demonstrate what the leadership of Panguna can really offer to change the course of history and open a new chapter for Bougainville in terms of its post conflict infrastructure development and economic recovery,” he said.

Miriori said they hoped the bridge project could be seen as start of more good things to come to the people of Bougainville from the government of Japanese Government.

 “After completing all other bridges in south and west coast Bougainville under Phase 2 and Phase 3 of the project, the people of Panguna would like to call on the Japanese Government to seriously consider upgrading and sealing all our main trunk roads throughout the region because for far too long we have been tricked and given so much lip service by other more traditional donors in the region whose policy is to simply maintain the roads year after year so that we can keep going back to them and be heavily dependent on their foreign aid with their so-called advisors who eventually end up being the main beneficiaries of such aid.

“It is hoped that the recent meeting that our President Chief John Momis with the Japanese ambassador may pave the way for the rehabilitating of the Kokopau-Arawa-Buin highway, which should then be named Yamamoto Highway,” the Panguna leaders said. 

Source: Post Courier, 27.March.2012

Bougainville, Guns gave us light and hope

Leonard Fong Roka

We have today, in our post crisis society, a bunch of people that by sight or hearing of a gun would quickly condemn this lethal weapon. But, to us few, despite the fact that we had suffered because of the gun still should claim that through the barrel of the gun Bougainville has or did earned respect as people that ought to be respected.

Bougainvillean Fighter (depananikints22.blogspot.com)

That is, we go by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Tse Tung’s words that, ‘FREEDOM COMES from the BARREL of the GUN’.

Going down Bougainville’s history lane, North Bougainvilleans showed the very first resistance against infiltrators of our beloved homeland in 1768. In the book, Bougainville, A Personal History, Douglass Oliver (1973: 19) records Louis de Bougainville’s account of 4 July 1768:

‘They made signs that they were to fetch us cocoa-nuts. We applauded their resolution; but they were hardly gone twenty yards, when one of these perfidious fellows let fly an arrow, which happily hurt no body. After that, they fled as fast as they could…’

We had that imprint of repelling strangers, but to the ever established imperial influence of Europe, we failed thus colonialism had mistreated us with far reaching negative consequences that our bows and arrows could not resist.

Getting our island off its sister islands of the Solomon archipelago, like a mere piece of object without our consent, colonialism did tin fished us into New Guinea where we had to watch our fate without awareness in the calm painted across our faces by the laws and corrupt politicians.

Our island being considered ‘an integral part of Papua New Guinea’ by myopic people is our fate as a unique people of the Solomon chain of islands. I am not getting this off my abdomen as a spider does to erect its cobweb, but the United Nations greatly pushes through its various Rights articles, for example, the Indigenous Rights. Under these rights Bougainvilleans have every right to pursue self determination from the ignorant PNG politics.

From this slow death, resistance rescued us. Rebellion made us to re-think our political and economic gait in a hard way. The conflict gave us the right to design our destiny and all, now depends on you and I.

As Bougainvilleans, we need to look towards the betterment of our lives along with our land that was handed over to us by our ancestors. And to survive and function as a successful state, the past is where we look to in order to built our society within the context of twenty first century globalisation. For to me, merging our values with external adopted ideas of politics and economics provides a concrete foundation as we can learn from the Chinese approach to development.

In this light, our positioning in the polarity of global politics where, we see a world of Sino-Euro tug-of-war evolving, we can design a hybrid mechanism of approach and deal with our governmental affairs that should bring tangible results.

This line of thinking today across Bougainville as sprouted not because of the provincial government system they gave us in 1976 to shut the fuck out of us, but simply because of the guns that were fired beginning around mid-1988.

We had a long line of resistance in our history. One example is the one noted by Jinks. B, Biskup. P and Nelson. A (eds) (1973), in the book, Readings in New Guinea History where in 1889, Sohano villagers destroyed a trading station established by Hernsheim and Co. and ate the trader (pg 161). These readings pinpoints that this was done because a trader mistreated and disrespected a local village kid as New Guineans had being doing to us since 1975.

In this air of mistreatment and disrespect of Bougainvilleans and their island, we know of, was the ignorant injection of Red skins (New Guineans) into our island by the colonial powers to work the many Bougainvillean cocoa and coconut plantations. This process suppressed and derived us from any space to breathe the air of innovative change for the betterment of self.

However, what gave a positive benefit to the planters and settlers energized the New Guinean to do whatever they wanted to on our island.

In what is now noted by history as the Rorongo Uprising of 1960, we read and watch in film documentaries our mothers from the village of Rorovana and others protesting violently against the CRA establishments and land grab at Rorongo (white man called it Loloho). We painfully watch and read our mothers of the land being baton by colonial police composed of mostly New Guineans (oral history documents this well).

 And one final incident that is worth mentioning as noted by Mamak, B. and Bedford, R. (1979: 12) in their book Bougainvillean Nationalism, for it created resentment in the Panguna area was the Christmas Eve 1972, was the murder of Dr. Luke Robin 32 and from Panguna and his mate Peter Moini 30 and from Siwai in South Bougainville who were trainee medical persons in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Thus, with this long unseen cry of Bougainvilleans we took up the gun to write our way out. In the words of PNG’s famous blogger and activist, Martyn Namorong, he said of us in his 2012 essay, Development & anti-development: what's in a word? That:

‘There is a limit to the patience of human beings. It took 20 years of patience until the Bougainvilleans became totally fed up with a system that was basically screwing their lives and giving them peanuts. How long will the patience of the rest of Papua New Guinea be tested? Now here's a development we all don't want to see!’ (http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2012/06/development-anti-development-whats-in-a-word-1.html ).

In late 1988, when the Aropa Plantation workers from New Guinea raped and then killed a mother of Bougainville from the Kongara who was a nurse by profession, as she was returning home after work, guns came out to free our island from the claws of exploitative suppression.

Thus, the gun was our wind of change and hope.

LOOK BACK: Pay our People Before Killers, says Mission

THE Catholic Archdiocese of Rabaul has challenged the Government to sort out the banking dilemma faced by Bougainvilleans before it pays one toea to Sandline International.

Archdiocese spokesman Lawrence Stephens said in Vunapope at the weekend that the crisis of

Bougainvilleans who had money tied up in the banking system needed to be confronted. He claimed the stalled accounts could run into millions of kina.

For the past 24 months, following the peace pact signed in Arawa in 1997, thousands of Bougainvilleans have been emerging from the bush. Since then, hundreds have been knocking on the doors of commercial banks, seeking to withdraw their savings from accounts they operated before the crisis began in 1989.

While the commercial banks have been helping, the major hurdle is the fact that all money from their accounts has been transferred to the Department of Finance. To date, it appears that the Government is not co-operating in trying to repay the money to the account owners. As a result, hundreds of Bougainvilleans have spent months in Rabaul trying to get their money. Many have fronted up at the Catholic archdiocese headquarters at Vunapope to seek help.

The church has been vocal and is also helping the Bougainvilleans as much as possible.

Mr Stephen said: "Bougainvilleans entrusted the banks with millions of kina before the crisis. We are aware that hundreds of thousands of this money are still tied up in the banking system and we guess this figure runs into millions. Now we hear that Sandline will receive a settlement of many millions in compensation for the cancellation of a contract planned to involve killing Bougainvilleans and other Papua New Guineans."

Mr Stephens said the people needed a sign that they and their interests came before those of hired killers and their political cronies. "The banks tell us the money is being held by the Department of Finance and that it takes six to 10 months to retrieve it," he said. "Bougainvilleans have waited 10 years to get access to their funds."

He said in spite of continued calls by non-Bougainvilleans for the Government to settle the matter, nothing had been settled. "Bougainvillean funds are still tied up in the same Department of Finance now preparing to pay Sandline," he said. Mr Stephens said the people of East New Britain were trying to help the people from Bougainville, who had been stranded for months.

 "In East New Britain, people are showing their concerns for their fellow citizens," he said. "What we all need is evidence that the National Government is prepared to do its duty by its citizens and release their funds."

Mr Stephens said our international credibility as a nation was worth nothing if our people could not see evidence that the State was working in their interests. "Before one toea is paid out to Sandline, our servants in the Parliament and the Finance Department must return Bougainvillean bank account funds to the rightful owners," he said.

Last week, a group of Bougainvilleans who have spent over half a year in Rabaul, trying to get their money, called on the Government to look into this issue urgently.

Source: Post courier - 5 May 1999

A Bougainvillean poem that had me shedding tears

by Leonard Fong Roka

This poem is the cry and the voice of a Bougainvillean who ‘nature is designing his fate against his wishes’ to act i.e. migrate and let go his traditional cultures forwarded to him or her by her very apical forefathers.

This is a voice that makes me think, as mainlander of Bougainville: what have I in store for our weeping outer islanders? As Bougainville’s tomorrow’s political, economic and social decision makers, what is our design of Bougainville?

How are we to strategize and structure a Bougainville that will not be an umbrella of cultural genocide for our people in the atolls? How are we to make Bougainville a place where all cultures can harmoniously co-exist?

A beach on Carterets (asopa.typepad.com)

The realities of climate change

  BY BEATRICE TANEU

A poem for the sinking Carterets islanders

 Right before me, I see my island sinking;
My very own island- birth place- Carterets

My source of drinking water is inundated by the rising sea level.
Inch by inch, day by day, the beautiful shoreline erodes and disappears
Together with my rich island traditions
Bewildered and confused, I watch my island being claimed by the sea.
My very own island, my birth place
How do I explain all these to the future generations?

Hopelessness sets in
I will lose my island lifestyle
My source of provider -the sea,
The coconut-hatch house styles and patterns
The mangrove seeds and swamp taros
The care free island living without security concerns
Now all that I will leave behind

Will I maintain my diving and sea ferrying skills?
Will I ever wake each morning to see the horizon again?
Will I ever continue to build coconut hatch houses?
No more, they become useless on land
So how do I survive on new land with my island skills?

Will I have the same status and respect in a new land?
Will the respect and feeling of oneness be maintained?

I am now asked to relocate to a new land in Bougainville:
There, I will lose my culture and my tradition;
I will lose my identity and status;
I will lose my island lifestyle;
I will lose my birthplace;
Clans divided and families separated
The well embedded chieftain system;
The respect and feeling of oneness;

 Who am I in a new land?”
My future hangs on uncertainties
  Please assure me it’s all a bad dream
For I don’t want to lose my very own island
My birth place
My Carterets Island

Beatrice (29) is a Bougainvillean who works as a Port Moresby-based program coordinator with one of the Australian Catholic agencies for international aid and development.  She studied at Divine Word University in Madang and ahs since worked as a development officer with a number of non-government organisations

Retrieve from: Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE (http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2011/08/the-realities-of-climate-change.html )

I did give the following comment to this poem:

My country woman, it's sad reading your poetry but that's our world and its a foolishness that you and I cannot avoid or reverse. Change is what humanity is all about.

My land in Panguna was changed by the mining that developed PNG and not our homeland. So, let's just accept what's happening all around us.

Retrieve from: Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE (http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2011/08/the-realities-of-climate-change.html )

Our fellow brothers and sisters of the atolls are already calling on us, mainlanders not to waste time politicking but to prepare Bougainville for the inevitable negative impacts of global warming.

The same voice from Carterets can be heard in Mortlock, Tasman and Fead as shared by Raroteone Tefuarani from Mortlock in her essay Takuu-My Atoll, My home, place of my ancestors (http://asopa.typepad.com/asopa_people/2012/06/takuu-my-atoll-my-home-place-of-my-ancestors.html )  

In my part of Bougainville, the relationship of mainlanders to our fellow people of the atolls is so positive. Our outer islanders and fellow brothers from the rest of the Solomon chain add mix on the streets of Arawa; this is exactly what a ‘true’ Bougainville is.

The atoll people run businesses and even dominate some corners of Arawa that, one has to be mindful to bother them for they really do kick ass off.

And one thing, I for long have noted is our Bougainvillean used name for New Guineans, redskins. For us, we do not apply this name to our people for they are not aliens to Bougainville. This had really being a clear recognition from Bougainvilleans knowing who a Bougainvillean is.

Thus, respecting that identity and unity is now our duty into the future.