Bougainvilleans must look to Bougainvillean ways of harmony

Leonard Fong Roka

As a Bougainvillean, nurtured during the peak of the crisis and having witnessed the whole crisis from the start, my perception is set to be and shall be anti-Papua New Guinean to my very moment of death.

Many in Bougainville that are so blinded by their Christian faith and Human Rights stuff turn to push for RECONCILIATION and LOVE to carry on. If I forgive the BCL will they ever restore back my Panguna Valley to its old beauty? If one tells me that the answer is a ‘NO’, but, we need to move on from here with a new approach. I will tell him you are too foolish and Bougainville at this very critical time of progress does not need your thinking.

A reconciliation in Panguna, 2009

This line of thought must be applied in dealing with Papua New Guinea for, it is now or never!

Forgive and Forget by a means of retributive justice is ‘real justice’ for Bougainville. In life we need to balance out the human and spiritual aspects of life. To my mind, forgiveness is entirely spiritual and so does not heal; retribution, again is also the same. Life thus, must be balanced out for a lasting peace for Bougainville and Bougainvilleans.

Man, from one angle is influenced by his physical environment and for Bougainville, that is the continuous interaction and exposer of each individual coming to face each other day by day. In this understanding I consider the traditional forms of ritualistic, compensationary and forgiveness as realistic, reflective and logical for Bougainvilleans.

It is a nightmare for me, when seeing and smelling the rust and dirt of the Panguna mine, every day I wake up. This is because, when we think of the mine itself, was developed by the colonial powers for Papua New Guinea; Bougainville, as a part of PNG did not have a say or representation in the whole operation.

And when it was us, the Bougainvilleans were suffering for the good of PNG, we were not justly treated as a marginalise Solomon Islanders amidst the New Guinean world. We were not protected as it was our right in the United Nations various RIGHTS. Bougainville had not an established strategising by the short sighted PNG government in the Melanesian context a complementry goal.

My thoughts can be argued here, but if the culturally, geographically and ethnically alien and dorminant Papuans and New Guineans then on the street of Arawa and Panguna respected us, Bougainvilleans could not have employed the lethal gun and bullets to drive them out of our Solomon Island of Bougainville.

Bougainvilleans took up guns to fight off exploitation and suppression. But, shamelessly Papua New Guineans responded by bringing into Bougainville their Australia breasted Papua New Guinea Defence Force thinking a of a swift victory over Bougainvilleans as it was in Vanuatu.

Foolish was Rabbie Namaliu, whom I was hearing people talking back in 1988. The Vanuatu crisis was different because the people were what we can refer to as ‘a nation’ with little conflict of interest. But for Bougainville and Papua New Guinea, Bougainvilleans were Solomon islanders and not New Guineans.

In the research work of Ulukalala Lavaka Ata (1998), he noted the words of Bougainville late rebel leader, Joseph Kabui as saying in a 17 May 1991 speech:

'It is a feeling deep down in our hearts that Bougainville is totally different than PNG, geographically, culturally. It's been a separate place from time immemorial. Ever since God created the Universe, BougainviUe has been separate, has been different.'

We were different and that require respect by the Papuans and New Guineans.

Bougainvilleans, as a group of people of non New Guinean or Papuan origins, deserve a special political arrangement in the greedy and uncertain Papua New Guinea constitution.

One New Guinean Highlander friend (Personal Communication) of mine, recently told me in an email:

‘We as New Guineans then thought we were a majority people by population and landmass and so, underestimated the Bougainvilleans as a minority that would fear us as we illegally occupied their land, took their jobs and belittled them in their tiny island hundreds of miles away.

I, today see the reality of our stupidity of migration and settlement on Bougainville. I see this from the village where influx of people into my own province seeking employment some-what is creating inharmony as it was in Bougainville’.

This insights from a New Guinean seemingly has substance and logic across the country, Papua New Guinea today. The national politicians so carried away with ‘self’ ignore the fact that in the name of national development Papua New Guineans continue to suppress each other. Highlanders continue influx the Morobe province, for example, there they continues conflict often leading to death.

Thus, in this light, Bougainvilleans have now at the cost of innocent lives attained the power to have much say in its destiny.

At the cost, we have freedom in Bougainville for the PNG Constitution had moulded our thinking to be religious retards without a root that our ancestors survived with before the infiltration and occupation of our island by colonisers and Papua New Guinea before 1988.