Guns in Bougainville: remove them by Bougainville likes

By Leonard Fong Roka

When Bougainvilleans protested against the mining in Panguna and the reckless political marriage into Papua New Guinea, the pre-independent administration of PNG, had armed police on them to throw them into the prison cells of Kieta, then the government station.

Bougainvillean and his gun (Photo: Justin Teneke)

In late 1988, when the New Guinean plantation laborers of Aropa raped and murdered a local woman, Bougainvilleans stood up to strike back on the aliens that had long tortured them the government of PNG deployed armed police on them. PNG only wanted rascals—Bougainvilleans—behind bars at Kuviria detention centre.

What erupted at Aropa, moved to Toniva town, Kieta town and into Arawa town. Bougainvilleans began attacking New Guinean squatter settlers.

When the PNG police arrived with the brutality on the island, Bougainvilleans also began looking for arms. The crisis spread towards South Bougainville and North Bougainville.

The PNG government was not interested in addressing the root causes of Bougainvillean upraising but it was there with its undisciplined security forces in hot pursue of money and pride that its little army gained in Vanuatu.

New Guineans did not see Bougainvilleans as humans that needed respect as a minority group of the Solomon Islands that it was ruling. They were interested in the wealth that was developing them and prestige this island was giving them in the international arena.

Guns gave Bougainvilleans the dignity as humans in the realm of cruel PNG politics.

However, when the Bougainville Peace Process came into existence, PNG ran ahead to propose to Bougainvilleans that they must ‘do away with the guns’ for it was an impediment to true peace and development.

PNG kicked so hard and so ‘Weapons Disposal’ began one of the three pillars of the ‘Terms of Referendum’ signed in 2001 at Kokopo in East New Britain.

Across Bougainville, few weapons were contained but not all. Why?

Bougainvilleans are not stupid! They know the history of their island from the colonial era into the pigsty of New Guineans since 1975 that oral history has saved for them.

When leaders of Bougainville and the liars of Papua New Guinea, brokered the peace effort, they looked at the wishes of the United Nations, the PNG leaders, Australia & New Zealand and the loud voices of Bougainvilleans. The dislikes and likes of the gunman were ignored once again.

What Bougainvilleans must know is that, our gunmen are the men who took up weapons in 1988 or had took up arms in the midst of the crisis.

They saw how Bougainville was mistreated. So why force them to throw away their guns? Did we address the reason why they took up the gun?

Many Bougainvilleans say: ‘Once we are independent then we will destroy our guns’.

In this line of words, a leader must identify the rightful strategies to removing guns in Bougainville. Careful analysis of the current PNG-Bougainville political arrangements has a stench of ‘repetition of pre-1988 history’ to the many gunmen in Bougainville.

 Ain’t we witnessing it? Though we have political power, realizing that is problematic because we are trying to take off from the scrap and our government opens the door too wide for the people and organizations we rejected to come back.

Thus, with the gun, men feel they still have the power to tune the politicians if things go wrong. It is confidence in self and the road to our goal of nationhood.

Every problem involving guns that is happening in Bougainville after the Bougainville Peace Agreement has an instigating issue behind it. Someone is getting someone into suppression or exploitation that is why, one is resorting to guns.

Thus, guns are not a problem in Bougainville as it is in Papua New Guinea where they hunt each other as animals.

There are amicable strategies to get rid of guns but we ignore them.