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On Saturday 1
October 1994, after renewed pressure from inside the Government of Papua New
Guinea (PNG) and from Australia for him to postpone the start date of the
conference, PNG’s Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, appealed directly to
Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating to insist that the Australian Defence
Force (ADF) deploy the South Pacific Peace Keeping Force (SPPKF) prior to the
start date of 10 October. Chan pointed out that the deployment time could be
reduced if troops were moved by air rather than by sea. He called for a
substantial advance party to be deployed to Arawa by 8 October to establish a
presence. Keating contacted the Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert
Ray, soon after a conversation with Chan and told him to instruct the ADF to
have the SPPKF on Bougainville before the peace conference started on 10
October.[1]
Confirmation
that the peace conference would start on 10 October had a significant impact.
Pre-deployment training stopped.[2] HMAS Tobruk had to be loaded
with personnel and stores in less than 24 hours. At around this time, HMAS Tobruk’s
ship’s army detachment staff assessed that there was too much stock on the
wharf. The ship would be overloaded and possibly ‘bulk out’.[3] Captain Jim O’Hara’s only option
was to load HMAS Success with the stores that would not fit aboard Tobruk.
Unfortunately, both ships bulked out before all stores could be loaded. HMAS Tobruk
was also 200 tonnes over its authorised weight limit. Commander John Wells
advised O’Hara of the final weight only five hours before the vessel was due to
sail. He and Wells spent the next hours calculating the risk in allowing her to
sail on schedule.[4] Any delay would result in the SPPKF
not getting on the ground in Bougainville in time to set up the peace
conference venue and protect delegates. O’Hara analysed the weather forecasts
for the voyage to Bougainville. Fortunately the weather was on the side of
Operation Lagoon—calm conditions. O’Hara and Wells accepted the
increased risk and HMAS Tobruk sailed on schedule.
While HMAS Tobruk
and HMAS Success were at sea, the main body of the combined force flew
out on 6 October in Australian and New Zealand C-130 Hercules transport
aircraft. To satisfy Chan’s request, a 100-strong advance party flew directly
to Buka Island airfield from Townsville to meet up with four Black Hawk
helicopters and two Caribou transport aircraft that had been
pre-positioned there to fly them to Arawa by 8 October. HMAS Tobruk
arrived in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, on 7 October 1994.
Brigadier Peter Abigail, his staff, the main force of the SPPKF and the ADF
logistic support force were aboard by 2.00 a.m and HMAS Tobruk sailed
from Honiara at 5.00 a.m. on 8 October. The previous 24 hours had been a tiring
period for all personnel. The cramped conditions and the general excitement at
finally being inbound to Bougainville were not conducive to catching up on lost
sleep.[5]
HMAS Tobruk
anchored in Arawa Bay at 5.30 a.m. on 9 October. This arrival, less than 24
hours before the start of the conference, meant that neutral zones had not been
secured, the conference site was not set up and administrative support for the
conference was not in place. Planners had assessed that it would take seven
days to achieve these objectives. The 100-strong advance party had been working
without rest since arriving the day before to secure the conference site and
set up facilities, but there was still much to do.[6] Troops on HMAS Tobruk now
had 12 hours to do what they could during the daylight hours of 9 October.
Just to add to
the challenges facing Abigail and his headquarters,
when [HMAS] Tobruk
berthed alongside Loloho Jetty, a combination of high hills surrounding the
berth, the metal cranes, warehouses and ship ore loading facilities on and
adjacent to the jetty resulted in the loss of both HF [High Frequency] and VHF
[Very High Frequency] communications. Without SATCOM [satellite
communications], HQ Combined Force would have had no strategic or tactical
communications, other than UHF [Ultra High Frequency], for approximately 16
hours.[7]
The origins of
these problems lay in disjointed planning. Like logistics, communications
planning for Operation Lagoon had followed a divided approach;
vertically between each level of command and horizontally between each Service.
At the strategic level, the mechanism for joint planning, the Joint
Communications Planning Group sponsored by the Director General of Joint
Communications and Electronics, had not met. If it had, subsequent problems
would have been reduced.[8] There would have been one point of
contact for allocating and clearing frequencies with PNG authorities. As it
was, the combined force depended on Inmarsat terminals to provide telephone,
facsimile and data services back to Australia that were ‘subject to congestion
due to the uncontrolled access to the overall system’.[9]
At the
operational level, ‘there was poor information flow from all parties’,
according to one navy report.[10] A Land Headquarters report noted
some army and navy coordination problems that resulted in late arrangements for
the distribution of cryptographic equipment and an unnecessarily large number
of communications and cryptographic plans.[11] At the tactical level, Abigail’s
senior communications officer, Major Bill Teece, was not appointed at the
outset as the Chief Communications Officer to develop a joint communications
plan and bid for additional equipment. This left each Service to make separate
communications arrangements for Operation Lagoon.[12] Also at the tactical level, HMAS Tobruk
had not received a substantial update ‘to its communications fit’ for two years
and its HF receivers and transmitters continually broke down and took some time
to repair.[13] Army signallers rigged army RAVEN
tactical radios on HMAS Tobruk’s flag deck that enabled Abigail and his
staff to communicate with Australian radio operators who were with SPPKF
platoons, giving Abigail a good understanding of the progress of South Pacific
contingents. There were persistent problems communicating between army RAVEN
equipment and non-RAVEN equipment being operated by the navy and the air force.[14]
Force Employment
The consequences
of putting the tactical level of command under pressure were now beginning to
show on the ground and offshore in Bougainville. Communications capabilities
were limited from the beginning. There had been no time to test the satellite
communications (SATCOM) equipment that had been fitted to HMAS Tobruk.
Communications managers had not anticipated the impact of the infrastructure
around Loloho on communications. The crash in communications was a great source
of frustration for General Peter Arnison who was trying to command Operation Lagoon
from Victoria Barracks in Sydney.[15] It was during this time that three
Bougainvillean gunmen opened fire on a PNG Water Board party. The gunmen fled
after firing a volley of shots, leaving the workers unharmed. This was a hasty
‘hit and run’ attack—an unsettling start for the SPPKF’s first day in Arawa.
The sound of shots, and then a noisy clearance operation by the PNG Defence
Force (PNGDF), involving use of hand grenades and automatic fire, frightened
several hundred Bougainvilleans in the vicinity, who had gathered for the
conference, as well as the inhabitants of a nearby displaced persons camp.
However, there appeared to be an immediate loss of confidence in the SPPKF.
Word of the incident and PNGDF retaliation soon got around those who had
already gathered for the conference, and over 600 Bougainvilleans in the camp
who were normally protected by the PNGDF.[16]
The withdrawal
of PNGDF troops from the outskirts of Arawa had also caused problems on the
roads leading to the conference site at the Arawa High School. Locals began
approaching members of the SPPKF with reports that groups of armed young men
were intimidating and robbing people coming to the conference. Colonel Feto
Tupou convened an emergency meeting of the Ceasefire Committee at the Arawa
High School at 5.15 p.m. on 9 October to discuss these reports and the shooting
incident. Mr Nick Peniai, a representative from the North Solomons Interim
Authority, informed the meeting that the optimism present when delegates began
arriving in Arawa had been replaced by fear. The robberies, intimidation,
shooting incident and the ill-disciplined PNGDF response had lowered the morale
of those gathered for the conference and the inhabitants of the Arawa displaced
persons camp.[17]
These incidents
put Tupou, Colonel Sevenaca Draunidalo and the SPPKF in an awkward situation.
Criminal gangs had become emboldened by the PNGDF withdrawal. The displaced
persons and the hundreds of delegates gathering in the Arawa area were at risk,
especially at night. Peniai called for a curfew and regular patrols to ensure
security. The Rules of Engagement (ROE) for Operation Lagoon permitted
the questioning (but not detention) of persons behaving suspiciously. The ROE
were silent about the confiscation of weapons in the neutral zones. There was
also no provision for curfews or interventions to protect the lives and
property of Bougainvilleans if they were assaulted or robbed. The expectation
of ordinary Bougainvilleans was that the SPPKF was there to protect them during
the conference. In reality, the SPPKF was not authorised to enforce full
control over neutral zones or anywhere else in Bougainville. Peacekeepers were
there to maintain a deterrent presence during the conference. The ROE of
‘presence’ would be insufficient to deter criminals from going about their
business. The SPPKF may have had the right mission, but it did not have robust
ROE to achieve it. The difficulty in controlling armed groups on the ground was
emphasised on the day the conference opened when one of the Australian Sea
King helicopters returned from a routine reconnaissance mission with two
bullet holes in its tail section. O’Hara reported stirringly that, ‘this was
the first occasion [that] the RAN [Royal Australian Navy] had incurred battle
damage since the Vietnam War’.[18]
Later that day,
one of Abigail’s attached intelligence officers informed him that the PNGDF had
set an ambush, supported by Australian-supplied Claymore anti-personnel
mines, on the main route into Arawa. Local PNGDF forces appeared to be using
the conference as an opportunity for payback. Abigail told the local commander
to abandon the ambush site and move his troops out of the area.[19] As dangers increased, ADF
communications capabilities decreased. Communications between Arnison and Abigail
and their staffs were breaking down or overloaded. Lieutenant Colonel Steve
Ayling, a communications staff officer with Headquarters Australian Defence
Force (HQ ADF), reported that the Inmarsat satellite, through which most
communications were being sent, was overloaded and there was also congestion
elsewhere in the Defence network.[20]
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