Panguna Internal Geopolitics and the Panguna Re-opening possible Problems

Leonard Fong Roka

In the ABG website, New Bougainville Bulletin, Panguna was recently noted as the only Bougainville’s readily available wealth as ABG’s President John Momis stated: ‘This is because my government believes that as the Panguna Mine helped bankroll Papua New Guinea’s independence in the 1970s, it too can again bankroll Bougainville’s autonomy and independence’ (Aneisia, 2013).

With the story of wealth creation soaring high, all decision makers are being consciously narrowed down to dealing with the known political factions and the landowners, but in the Panguna district there are people that do not worship this political factions nor are they landowners in the mine lease areas but rather, they are a populous lot that exist in the inaccessible inland areas. Sadly, re-opening strategists are hopping over an issue that needs catering for alongside the re-opening agenda.

A Kori family's canteen in the gold panning valley of Tumpusiong at Pingnari Kori settlement

 

In geographical terms, the Panguna District, as it was known since 2010, is made up of 6 areas. They are: the Pine valley on the port-mine access road, the Panguna mine site itself, the Tumpusiong Valley, the Toio Valley, the Orami area and the Biampanari valley.

In demographic terms the Pine, the Panguna mine site and the Tumpusiong Valley are readily accessible to most infrastructure development laid by the gone Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL). These three areas access services readily and socio-economic indicators, like the level of education, are in the positive rungs. Furthermore, all these three locations host the main landowners in Panguna.

But the inland areas of Biampanari and the Toio are way backwards because of distances and rugged terrain the people here daily have to conquer to reach the Morgan to Bolave (Bana District) section of the Panguna to South Bougainville highway. On the other hand, Orami is different. The topography in the Orami area is rugged and the two feeder roads, Sikoreva-Kori and Bolave-Orami, were built in a fashion not suitable for the environs. Thus from dereliction the roads are not accessible by vehicles so people have to leave their homes in the night to reach the closest spot on the highway with their saleable garden produce, their sick patience and even to go to school or shopping in Arawa or Panguna mine site area.

With Orami there is its sister village of Daru that borders Panguna with Kongara 1. These two villages have their own primary schools and Orami’s produces cocoa and Daru is denied by climatic conditions not suitable for cocoa and the distance to the road.

Up the Biampanari we have the villages of Iarako, Rumba, Sirobana, Kori, Irang and Pangka. These villages produce the highest cocoa volume in Panguna. Up the Toio we have the villages of Damara, Tumpuruno, Diri, Widoi, Karanau, Poaru, Mosinau and Utongpunta. Oral history differentiate only the village of Poaru, where majority of them settled here after journeying from the Tumpusiong Valley area through the Panguna mine site thus they are custodians of land areas under the mining lease lands.

During the start of the conflict in 1988, young men from these isolated villages stood behind the disgruntling landowners to force BCL to shut down; the late Francis Ona ran off to Mosinau village to hide and the first Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) soldier was killed at Orami. Also in comparison to other areas of Panguna, more young men of these villages were killed in direct action by pro-PNG resistance and PNG soldiers. These are contribution these people have done for the betterment of the landowners who were long being treated as animals by corrupted leaders, the PNG government and the BCL.

As the New Zealand brokered peace process gained momentum in Panguna and business opportunities raised, these people migrated and settled in the Panguna mine site and some in the alluvial mining valley of Tumpusiong. Many have become successful in business like owning retail outlets and gold trading. Most businesses operated in the Panguna mine site today are owned by these immigrants and event are larger number of them have purchased land blocks in the east coastal areas in Wakunai and Tinputz and grow cocoa there.

These successes on land they do not own, since 1998, were a source of resentment with the locals. On this conflict also, was born the Panguna District and its establishment in the midst of immigrants at Karona in Panguna. Thus its operations were continuously disturbed by the conflicts of interest that often had the immigrants on one side and locals, like people from Dapera and Moroni villages on the other.

Due to these issues, the Panguna district administration operates from Arawa despite the fact that they have the most classic building then the rest of the 12 other districts of Bougainville.

And with the dawn of the Panguna mine re-opening talk in the air, we have a problem that needs the same treatment as the issue of concern; we the landowners are indebted to these people, and BCL and the PNG government the pair that exploited Panguna, when looking at the Panguna District, have not to look at the landowners since they are already in the BCL-landowner affair, but they need to look for ways to accommodate these Panguna mine site immigrants.

To the people of Panguna, BCL and the PNG government meant to bring them into extinction. As it was practiced later under the Australia-backed PNG blockade of the Solomon island. BCL did not bother to bring roads in the inland areas of Panguna, for its interest was the Papuans and New Guineans development; not Bougainvilleans.

As regular travellers into inland villages, we are told, ‘You Tumpusiong people will be soon benefiting from the Panguna mine that is soon to be operating whilst we your relatives perish in this forgotten world’. But such words is a tip of the ice berg of issues that has high probability to affect re-opening of Panguna that leaders are not interested to visit.

There are more questions regarding Panguna’s inland people now controlling the Panguna mine site. As landowners talk about mining and walk in and out of offices, these people are left feeling out of place. They run nearly all businesses in Panguna and are we planning anything or any means, to accommodate them? They will benefit, but will that gain ever change their homes in the inaccessible mountains?

One leader, in 2012 told a village meeting in Damara to settle a dispute over the Jaba bridge maintenance that: ‘We the inland people will not benefit from this fuckin mining talk; landowners must only remember, we lost our young men in their problem with BCL. Only let the chief negotiators of Panguna re-opening and the BCL just to built us the best roads systems and bridges such as what the Japanese are doing on the Arawa-Kokopau highway right to our villages and talk about mining.

‘Through such a development, then we can collect the spill-over benefits from the mine and improve our standards of living. But remember we, the uneducated do not need non-Bougainvilleans once more in Panguna’.

From these words, decision makers in the re-opening of Panguna talk, must work out plans to repatriate these settlers home. But how could such a step be pragmatic? The only solution to that came from the chief in Damara: BCL and ABG must built roads and bridges connecting all the inland villages so that they can partake easily to every change that takes place in their district. Before the conflict, BCL did not directly involve with the Panguna communities, it ignored them outright. And now, is it coming with a change of heart?

If so, many are asking, ‘why are a few Panguna students attending tertiary institutions in PNG not benefiting from the Bougainville Copper Foundation (BCF) school fee assistance scheme? BCF serves only one student when there are more than two coming from the same household. But these few a Panguna people whom their land BCL and PNG exploited to marginalize them.

BCL is returning with its old culture of belittling us the indigenous people of Bougainville. Is the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) prepared to re-mould this tycoon to a body that will start thinking like a Bougainvillean? Most meetings and talks are seemingly being done to please BCL!

Tall J, O’orang & MTRL alluvial mining in the Tumpusiong Valley

Leonard Fong Roka

As way back as 2008, an Edwin Moses from Sireronsi village and an Amos Ove from Kongara were in an underground contact with Americans, Steve Strauss and Mike Holbrooke. Their dialogue was an interest to tap into the lucrative alluvial gold panning in Central Bougainville.

Jaba Industries company logo

Then they connected the Americans and their company Tall J whom were said to be specialized in small scale mining to the so called Meekamui Government of Panguna led by Philip Miriori (president) and Philip Takaung (vice president) a pair that, when talking about BCL to the media had being so anti-mining.

In early 2009, Edwin Moses, Amos Ove and Philip Takaung formed their own company under the blessing of the Meekamui Government which they named O’orang with all executives from their respective villages and Amos Ove as the manager and Edwin Moses as director to start formal negotiations with the Americans.

Tumpusiong Valley sedimentattion that hosts the gold

After O’orang was established, Tall J money began entering Bougainville. O’orang was assigned to lay out the ground work for possible mining operations in Panguna, especially the Tumpusiong Valley where Amos Ove was married. The valley had tones of gold washed from the Panguna mine’s long operations and today it is one of the main alluvial gold attractions in Kieta. The company’s attempts to lure the targeted people were often met with opposition but the report that went to America was of positive progress.

So back in America, there was excitement to have established a link on one of Pacific’s richest islands and their landowners, from debriefs O’orang passed on from Bougainville. Thus money flowed in and O’orang members earned American money and drove around in new vehicles.

In mid-2009, the Americans and O’orang met in Honiara to finalize a go-ahead for a joint venture on establishing an alluvial gold mining operation in Panguna. A week later, a team of nine Americans arrived in Panguna with a Komatsu front-hand loader and three other equipment for sampling and other preparations under the leadership of Steve Strauss to learn that nothing had being done out of their money.

Jaba Industries operations site in the Tumpusiong Valley

Spending months in Panguna, with Philip Takaung also renting rooms to them, they tried to sort things out themselves. Half of the Americans returned seeing that their money was wasted on liars that the people hardly respected. Even Amos Ove was making his own money by having the mechanical loader on hire after they were chased out of the Tumpusiong Valley in their first attempt. But the other half stayed on under the leadership of Steve Strauss and Mike Holbrooke.

With the Americans around them and Amos Ove gone due to illness, Philip Takaung and Edwin Moses began to fast track negotiations with various people around Kieta. They visited the Eivo area; went into certain parts of Kokoda; frisked the whole Panguna valley for partners, especially the Tumpusiong Valley. They entered Kupe, where an Australian company once had a gold mining operation in the 1930s, three times and on the fourth visit, angry Kupe people chased them.

By Christmas 2009, all Americans left accept Strauss who was so concerned in finding ways to recover the money they had spent. By early 2010, the Americans had spent some K1.7 million through O’orang in order to secure alluvial gold mining operations with the people.

Mr. Michael Tona, MTRL deputy chairman

As the year was fast winding down Strauss saw no hope and was packing to leave Bougainville when a Michael Dendai and Michael Tona who were not involve in Tall J first attempts in the Tumpusiong Valley walked into him in Panguna with a claim that they and their families owned much of the west Tumpusiong Valley tailings area.

 Strauss was relieved and forged an agreement with the pair and also donated an open bag land cruiser to serve the Tumpusiong communities that was controlled by Michael Dendai since.

In a series of meetings held at Panguna within a period of two months, a new company, Middle Tailings Resources Limited (MTRL) led by Michael Dendai and Michael Tona was born. O’orang also fought hard not to be left out in this new relationship and was accepted and Strauss again fought to secure more off shore funding for this new operation.

Closer look at the camp in the middle of the BCL created barren land

This time funding was secured from a Chinese partner and more Americans began to arrive to pave the way forward for the Tumpusiong project. And seeing the Chinese money on their hands Dendai and Tona carelessly fast tracked the go-ahead of the project without engaging the majority of the west Tumpusiong community members in decision making. But still the project was steaming on with the happy MTRL gang.

So the joint venture named as the Jaba Industries was consisting of O’orang owning 33.33% shares; MTRL owning another 33.33% and Tall J holding the last 33.33% of shares. In all three joint venture partners, the unidentified Chinese financier was catered for; that is, the Chinese were shareholders in all three companies. At the same time, Tall J had certain percentage of shares in the 33.33% shares owned by O’orang in Jaba Industries concerning the K1.7 million Tall J money O’orang corrupted.

All things sorted, equipment and plants, funded by the Chinese, began arriving one at a time for the whole of 2011 and half of 2012; plants were kept at Birempa on the Morgan-Panguna mine access road near Edwin Moses’ home. Plants include dump trucks, an excavator, a front-hand loader, a number of open bag land cruisers and gold processing equipment. And during the Christmas break of 2012, establishment began at Toku village in the western section of the Tumpusiong Valley.

With heavy sedimentation intact, the project could last

Alongside the development conflict also surfaced. The locals were brawling with the MTRL executives over decision making processes as landowners witnessing the fact that Michael Dendai was running the MTRL as his private business because on paper, collective decision making was the way and that majority beneficiaries should have being the community.

Also despite the fact that the men involved with the creation of MTRL were the close relatives of current ABG mining mister, Michael Oni, the parliamentarian have being said to knew nothing of this development. So people also public condemned MTRL and Jaba Industries as illegal businesses.

 The main village of Toku further boiled with strikes. In a launching and dedication ceremony held in December 2012 just before Christmas at the mining site, the other half of the Toku villagers did not attend nor did they ate the food that was brought to them.

Furthermore, the locals were angered by the project when, all executive positions in the joint venture was held by the O’orang who were not even landowners in the Panguna mine site or the Tumpusiong Valley but were from the inaccessible by car hinterland villages of Pangka and Mosinau to the south-east of the Panguna mine who now squat in the remains of the Panguna township causing a lot of disharmony with the people owning the Panguna mine and town areas like the Moroni people and even the Panguna District administration.

Tumpusiong Valley

Most of the Tumpusiong men were employed as security guards earning a K75 per fortnight. Plant operators and so on were the O’orang employees. And point of argument was, to the former BRA fighters, Mr. Dendai was not at home during the conflict and now was walking over them thus he was not accepted to be a sole decision maker in this project.

Somewhere in late 2012, the Chinese partner under the cover of Jaba Industries announced that it shall be releasing a K300 000 community development packet and two vehicles for the Tumpusiong Valley around the 2012 Christmas period. The people waited as they watched the test-run of the operations that produced a positive result in a week’s operation in January 2013 that was shipped overseas as a sample.

But to their dissatisfaction in the mid-January of 2013, a new accusation surfaced that the awaited K300 000 development packet was already deposited into Michael Dendai’s bank account in 2012. Without any hesitation, the villagers torched the gold processing equipment in broad day light.

After this, all Tumpusiong men working as security guards at the mining site walked off, with a demand to Jaba Industries to solve the issue or pack up and leave.

Walking out Rich from the Autonomous Bougainville Government

Leonard Fong Roka

To many sound-minded ordinary Bougainvilleans, we know that the twenty thousand people perished on our island in the name of FREEDOM! That is, our relatives’ lives were lost for our island to be free from the claws of Papua New Guineans and their exploitation and subjugation of our land and people.

Many died for our island but we still ignore them

Thus, when our young men took up arms and violence in 1988 against the illegal New Guinean squatter settlers, the Bougainville Copper Limited and the PNG National Government, we the people stood up with our hearts for them.

These peoples’ ambition and sacrifice is not so much characterized by many leaders and a handful of Bougainvilleans. But the post conflict Bougainville, is a massive fireball of opportunists, tearing the Bougainville our people died to save, apart.

To date, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) budget is fast going beyond K300 million whilst tax the Bougainville’s Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) branch is collecting is snailing way behind with this year, 2013, is predicted to be around K12 million.

With our ambition for nationhood with this alarming financial gap, our people still run around with the desire for compensation for crisis created loses. Our few business men also are reluctant to pay tax with a loud call for compensation for all they had lost amidst the ten year old conflict Bougainville has gone through.

To most ordinary Bougainvilleans around my area, the Tumpusiong Valley, the wrong precedence is displayed to our people by far, by our politicians who ignore the fact that they are public figures and should lead the people of Bougainville by example if we really respect the issues we fought and died for on our island.

To most people, who painfully observe the shit in Bougainville politics, our politicians and bureaucrats live not by the directives of the norms of the public offices they hold. Many public officials of Bougainville are an eye sore and nuisance to the community. They do not uphold the principles our very people have died for and lead Bougainville into the realm of corruption and personal prestige and power.

And in these desperate times, leadership is so challenging since even the people are also too powerful than the government itself!

According to the people in the Tumpusiong Valley of Panguna, we are voting people who are weak and coward into power; or, we are getting old timers into ABG and Waigani parliaments who had not walked with us through the path of the crisis thus they easily put on PNG shoes to play the game since they do not share the vision approach of our island with those of us who had suffered.

Most ABG parliamentarians are well noted by ordinary people as looters of public offices they hold. Amongst these, the notable figures, who had came out of the public office rich with public property, especially government vehicles are: Glen Tovirika (Veterans Affairs Minister  of the First ABG House), Robert Sawa Hamar (back bencher), Ezekiel Masat (Police Minister of First ABG House) and Joseph Watawi (Vice President of the First ABG House).

Many Bougainvilleans dream to lead Bougainville; yet they lack the power to influence positive thinking and education within their own families! To be a leader, it is about time Bougainvilleans start practicing it on their own families.

In Bougainville two noted examples of this break-down was seen at the passing away of Deputy Administrator Andrew Pisi in 2007 where his extended family members of Moroni village in Panguna came and ransacked the Administration office in Arawa.

They walked away with all office materials like computers, furniture and a vehicle costing nearly a million kina. Then for the administration to get in, new materials need to be purchase and this practice will always get the seesaw away from development allocation to the recurrent allocation of the ABG budget.

With the passing away of Chief Administrator, Peter Tsiamalili in late 2007, again with saw his well-known son Peter Tsiamalili (Jr) helping himself with his late father’s official vehicle; all efforts to return the vehicle failed.

The question is: ‘Are we, as leaders and ordinary people, interested in saving Bougainville for the benefit and betterment of the future generations?’

This problem also is present around two former ABG presidents. People know that with the ABG laws, the presidents has entitlements when leaving office but the pair should be noted as guilty against the people of Bougainville by getting or having their family members helping themselves with property valued more than their legal entitlements.

When the first ABG president, late Joseph Kabui passed away in mid 2008, his official vehicle was locked at his residence in Hutjena as a bargaining tool for the release of the entitlements. But when the entitlement was released and his wife purchased her family a vehicle, the ABG official vehicle for the president was not returned till today.

Again, with James Tanis, when he was voted out of office in 2010 and seating President, John Momis getting in, James Tanis had destroyed in his single year of 2009 as president a official vehicle in an accident in the northern tip of Buka island and walked out of office with another vehicle which he sold and replaced with a truck that he used as a PMV to serve the Nagovis-Arawa road.

Ordinary people of Bougainville struggle to make ends meet; yet our lazy leaders are leaving office rich, and tell people that their island needs more money to run. More money for the island with this trend means more corruption and the derailing of the Bougainville progress to independence.

Can the current Bougainville Administrator, Raymond Masono and President, John Momis change this nerve wrecking issues? I wonder when the ABG will start going down to the people of Bougainville and their thoughts about their island.

The Month of Mary in Bougainville

Leonard Fong Roka

The European Christianity landed on the Solomon island of Bougainville in the early 1900s. Since then it had enormous impact on the people in terms of bridging the island to economic, political, and social and many other aspects of development.

Walking with our imported faith

Through the islanders suffering, that they endured since the colonial era, for self determination away from the ethnically and geographically strange Papua New Guineans that still rule them, Bougainvilleans had sticked to their imported religious cultures and to some extent, local Bougainvillean religions are also held onto.

With faith we have moved

To the Roman Catholics, one such period of deep religious observation, is the month of October. This month in the Church calendar is observed as the Month of Mary who is the mother of Jesus.

Since my family is one devoted Catholics in our home, the Tumpusiong Valley, I often fall prey into the pilgrimage visits of praying the rosary from village to village processions.

In our destroyed home, we still live

The ritual attracts us all: the children and the adults. Thus, on every walk and prayer day, our hamlets are all empty as we visit and pray with our relatives.

In the Lord we stand

Our mining giant, Rio Tinto, destroyed home valley is governed under the Deumori Parish (sometimes referred to as only Panguna). It is made up of three (3) major villages that are Enamira, Onove and Darenai. But to this day, there is not a village but a scattered cluster of hamlets that employ the original village names as its tag.

Through hamlets we visit

On the month of October our valley church leaders has the duty of inviting the parish priest to come into Tumpusiong and celebrate mass of launching the Procession of the Statue of Mary. Then we start visits from hamlet to hamlet.

In the walk, from one hamlet to the next, we pray whole the rosary and other supplementary prayers from saints and so on. In between we sing songs and walk the journey be it short or not.

In hamlets we pray

On the day of launching, the Statue of Mary remains with the opening hamlet. On the next morning we move to the next.

Family chapels in the hamlets

So often we start from our main Darenai Primary School and move from hamlet to hamlet that are separated by the Rio Tinto made desert; over some mountains, through forested hills.

Singing hymns in the bush

This pilgrimage is well planned to take the whole month of October each year. By the very last day of October the statue that belongs to our Tumpusiong Valley arrives with us at Darenai Primary School where it started its journey.

Handing the statue to Darenai community in 2012

We close the month with the priest and food.

Darenai community leading prayers in 2012

So every October I love to go home early to walk with my people as a family. I love the joy of reunion with friends and family in an air of religious dedication.

Clement Nabiau’s Path to Militancy in 1988

Leonard Fong Roka

NOTE: Oune is a small enclave of people between the Avaipa (Eivo) and Ioro (Panguna) with their own dialect of the Nasioi language. They occupy the villages of Onove, Enamira, and Darenai that surrounds what is now referred to as the Panguna mine’s Upper Tailings zone of the Kavarong River. Today, the area is commonly called, the Tumpusiong Valley that is ‘along the dirt’ in Nasioi because of the mine waste the valley was destroyed with.

The area is home to the late ABG president, Joseph Kabui and his elder brother, Martin Miriori and the other notable figure in Bougainville political history, late Luke Robin whom his killing in the early 1970s alongside his Buin brother, Peter Moini in Goroka resulted in increase of anti-PNG and BCL demonstrations in the past. And compared with most of Panguna District, it is the area with most educated people in the past and even today.

As the mining giant, Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia (CRA) was clearing the jungles and digging up the mountains of Panguna in the 1960s, downstream, the Kavarong River dumped waste in tonnes on Clement Nabiau and his Oune people daily. They were watching as their food sources in the river and surrounding banks were biologically mutilated by a force that was beyond their understanding.

Mr. Clement Nabiau

 

To the Oune people, the CRA and the colonial government that had offices dominated by the New Guineans and White men was beyond their reach in terms of their level of western education. So, their strategy was to wage war on their works and politically rescue Bougainville from the infiltrating New Guineans through independence.

In 1968 when the Oune people organized themselves into a body, Clement Nabiau was 13 years old.

Then, under the leadership of Catholic missionaries educated leader from the Avaipa area, Michael Aite (then nicknamed, Makakii (physically slow growing person)), the people created their village level governing body called, Oune Mumungsina. The inauguration was witnessed by known leaders of Bougainville, namely Mr. Moses Havini and his wife and Mr. Leo Hannet. It had Dupanta village, on the border of Avaipa and Panguna, as its official headquarters.

Oune Mumungsina, then as an organization of the people, stretched its influenced to the neighboring villages of Bapong, Pisinau, Damara and the Kosia area of Avaipa.

To the Panguna people, Aite was a rare leader with his level of western education, thus many independence movements (cult groups) dissolved and joined force with the Oune Mumungsina. Aite was now an authority across Oune, Panguna, and Avaipa and beyond, he had political alliances and support for Bougainville secession from other parts of Bougainville, also.  

By this time, the Panguna mining was fast developing and the Tumpusiong Valley was engulfed by the washout from Panguna mine site beyond imagination.

Oune Mumungsina’s first strike against CRA was an order on the people to uproot the survey pegs marking the area of the Special Mining Lease (SML) at Onove. Young children like Clement Nabiau were regularly following the elders to unearthing the pegs and bringing them back to the surveyors’ camp at Dau, a stream at Onove.

According to Nabiau, the colonial administration response was a built up of police at the Dau camp. This did not stop the people, so a kiap, later called a meeting with the disgruntling people. As the Oune people waited for the kiap’s visit, word reached the leaders that the Guava villagers with their leader, Oni who had signed the go-ahead of the mining earlier had said that the anti-mining Oune people will be their house-keepers and cleaners in the future as they sit and sleep in luxury from the mine benefits.

So the Oune leaders plotted that the coming meeting with the kiap was now for an attack of the Dau camp, the kiap and the police.

In the planning, the chief of Enamira, late Kuirua, was to wave a leaf he was holding in the air as a gesture of a start-up-the-fight order to the people.

So on the meeting day in June 1969, the Oune people went with clubs wrapped up in leaves and man with bows & arrows waiting on the edges. Smaller kids like Nabiau had stones in their hands and waited around listening to the elders’ guidance.

But at the meeting place, Kuirua was there arguing with a police officer from Nagovis, called Potuga and the people waited when the order for starting the fight would come. In the delay, three short tempered elders (ring leaders of the CRA peg uprooting); I’ampama, Karo’aung and I’mu took the order into their hands, so I’ampama rushed at a kiap’s officer and grabbed his neck intending to choke him to death. So the fight broke out.

Nabiau helped throwing stones at the police and CRA employees. To the youngster, the elder I’mu was so powerful. He was throwing the police officers one by one into the Dau stream against the rocks below. Neither side wanted to succumb to defeat thus both remained defending with the Oune ruling physically despite the amount of tear gas thrown on them by the police.

Later in the afternoon, Karo’aung saw that there would not be an end to the fight so he gave himself to the police. Seeing what his partner was doing, I’mu, also gave himself up to be arrested. So the fight halted with dismay as the leaders surrendered.

The police took the pair to Kieta, then the colonial government administration headquarters, and were sentenced for six months.

After completing their term, they returned and were welcomed at Onove village as heroes with a feast and the people’s struggle against CRA and the government continued.

The next encounter with the colonial government by the Oune Mumungsina as Nabiau remembers was in Arawa. Then, the Bougainville leaders Fr. John Momis and Leo Hannet were in New York seeking independence for Bougainville from the United Nations (UN). The people were glad as they waited for the pair in New York. But when the news was negative, the Oune people stormed the government building known as the White House in Arawa in 1974.

There they marched around the White House ordering the self-government of PNG to get out of Bougainville. But their cries were landing on deaf and insane leaders from New Guineas and Australians so they went into hiding of weeping over their island being raped by strangers.

Later on in 1975, Nabiau and his Oune people got another demonstration order from Dupanta. They were to be hitting Arawa again. Before marching into Arawa, leaders gathered at Dupanta and planned a sport bazaar that went for weeks at Onove village. Food was to be brought by respective villages as far as Nagovis for the people.

People were also grouped into two: one group was to remain at Onove playing sport and administering food supply for the Arawa group whilst the next, were to march for Arawa seeking independence from the government and remain in Arawa for as long as the agreement for Bougainville secession was reached.

As planned for, the sport bazaar at Onove was launched and march for Arawa went off! Oune Mumungsina was helped by the Mungkas Association led by a man called Linus Konuku from Buin. This was a group formed by Bougainville students in Port Moresby and it provided funds to hire trucks that transported people from Onove to Arawa. Food was also trucked from Oune.

A week or so, before September 1, 1975, according to Nabiau, they were transported into Arawa. There they demonstrated ordering the self-government of PNG to get out of Bougainville.

The police confronted them since the Papuan government officer, known as Vincent Kekeio hated what the Bougainvilleans were talking about, with tear gas and baton but they stood despite being chased around the White House by the police. In this police instigated violence, two police officers were attacked by the demonstrators; one received a club blow from I’ampama. Slowly the demonstrators reached calm after days of confrontation with the New Guinean police.

No government official was there to receive their cries so after days of meetings with the people on the lawns of the White House, the frustrated Leo Hannet declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) and Bougainville was now the Republic of North Solomons on the 1 September 1975. Bougainville ran under this UDI for a number of days and later they Oune people were told that what they had being happy about was illegal.

Once again, Nabiau and his people were defeated by foreigners who were destroying their land and culture.

Demoralized they returned home. The news was shocking for the sporting people at Onove who played and waited for weeks for good news of Bougainville being free from the foreigners nearly leading to an internal fight for the Oune Mumungsina.

With the political fight getting setbacks due mainly to the lack of educated people for the Panguna area, the Oune Mumungsina targeted now the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL).

In the early 80s, the Oune people blocked and occupied the Jaba Pump Station that pumped the Toi’o River to the Panguna Concentrator since Kavarong alone was not enough to supply the water to process the ore. Mine operations were disturbed for some hours.

Nabiau and the elders occupied the pump station for a day and according to him, BCL bribed the elders thus the protest was called off.

The next protest Nabiau attended was at the BCL head office in Panguna known as the Pink Palace. This march happened in 1979 and was to protest for a raise in royalties that the people hoped for an immediate feedback from BCL.

The Oune people assembled at the Pink Palace with their petition but the BCL authorities inside bothered not to act swiftly after receiving the petition as required by the people who were there outside under the shimmering heat of the sun.

Out of frustration, some of the protestors headed straight to loot the Panguna’s AEL supermarket in the town section. Nabiau was in the group drinking soft drinks when the police intervened and chased them with tear gas and shouts calling them, ‘insane black bastards’.

Nabiau escaped uninjured. But some of his friends were injured and others were arrested but later released.

After some years of calm but with weeping hearts and a desire to shut the mine, Nabiau got himself with his Oune people blocking the port-mine access road at the Camp 10 bus depot area. This occurred in 1981.

The demonstration went for a day with the government and BCL getting their riot police on Nabiau and the demonstrators for the first time.

Then around 1988, Nabiau was with the Oune people and other supporters having a seat-in strike blocking access to vehicles at the pit-access tunnels. Traffic was disturbed again for a day and bus never brought in workers into the pit area of the mine.

The last demonstration Nabiau and his Oune people organized was in 1989 and, it was the protest that finally had BCL packing and PNG in shock; it was the protest that had the late Francis Ona, running into hiding and later had Bougainville into a anarchy that leaders had struggled to solve.

In early 1989, after listening to all the fights happening around Arawa, the Oune people saw it right to shut the mine by force.  Thus, young men were ordered by elders to bring all BCL’s plants stationed on the tailings control areas to the Tungsing creek.

One of Bougainville’s known politician, Martin Miriori used his vehicle to bring young men to various locations along the Tumpusiong Valley to bring the plants. Once all plants were brought, section of the Panguna-Jaba at the Tungsing creek was destroyed.

Again Oune history was repeated. The people plotted for an attack on the police and assigned a local politician, Wendelinus Bitanuma to negotiate and if he disliked the talks, he was to wave his handkerchief so that the men can start attacking the police.

To Nabiau, this was an opportunity to get the all-New Guinean policemen bathing in their blood for as the police arrived, a local officer from South Bougainville had secretly told and identified to the protestors that the police had stocked all tear gases and arms in a particular van. He told them that when they decided to attack, they must secure in advance the van with his help.

Traffic was blocked off for hours. Later in the day, police led by Commander Luke Pango arrived at the scene to negotiate the re-opening of the road. For the Oune people, local politician Wendelinus Bitanuma led the meeting with the police.

But Wendelinus Bitanuma never gestured what the men were waiting for but no one took the order into his own hands and the issue was sorted by Bitanuma and not by the men.

During the day, the late Francis Ona, who was in a meeting with the BCL walked out of the meeting and prepared to go into hiding since as he claimed, ‘They [Oune] have started the fight, so let’s go to war with the company and PNG’ and militancy began led by attacks by the Oune men.

Clement Nabiau began the commander of the very first organized militant group formed by the young men from the Oune area and was called the, RUMBO ONE.

Charles Bangki weeps on for his Wife and Daughter after 23 years

Leonard Fong Roka

‘Operation Tampara’ as the PNG government effort that included the riot police and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) to quell the Bougainville uprising was known since May 1989 to early 1990, it was so damning for the old Charles Bangki of Mosinau village in Panguna who was a runaway refugee in  the Kongara (1) area of Kieta District.

Mr. Charles Bangki

 

Tampara is a Nasioi word that means ‘Good’ so the PNG government military code name of their actions on Bougainville was to mean, ‘Operation Goodness’ or ‘Operation Bringing Goodness to Bougainville’. But the government affair with the people of Kieta then was a contradiction; it harden people’s minds and hearts against the PNG government and people (the New Guineans and Papuans), so that they fully supported the militancy cause led by the deceased Francis Ona in  the late 1980s.

The government brutality on the Solomon island people of Bougainville who were fighting against the inhuman Papua New Guinean and Rio Tinto actions through the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) exploitation of their island was fierce. The government and the BCL supported each other to starve the militants out once and for all with every measure available.

The government security forces, as they were known then, torched villages and looted gardens; used airborne machine guns and mortar rounds on innocent civilians and killed innocent people, and two of the many victims, were Mrs. Maria Bangki and her 2 year old daughter, Joyce Bangki.

The PNGDF, upon arrival in May of 1989, concentrated their energies in the areas surrounding the BCL’s Panguna Mine in the hope of arresting the rebel leader, Francis Ona. They began their unlawful acts of torching villages from the west of the mine site, in the Tumpusiong Valley where they burned the villages that existed under the broader name of Onove.

Slowly, with the arrival of the four Australia donated Huey helicopters for support, they took the inaccessible villages of Widoi, Poaru and Mosinau in the Toio River valley, east and south-east of the Panguna Mine.

PNGDF attack on the Toio Valley was overwhelming for the war-primitive militants who had no high-powered guns or the indirect-fire power weapons like the mortar tubes and shells.

With mortar platoons attached on the Guava-Kokore ridge shelling the valley below and choppers hovering with heavy machine gun fire on the jungles, the government troops torched villages in their raid of the Toio Valley.

Thus Charles Bangki and his wife, Maria, decided to flee for safety with their children to the Bougainvillean highlands of Kongara to Dopari village in Kongara 1.

In the Kongara area, the family was a refugee but safe from the warring air of their Panguna area.

But in the month of October, the PNGDF choppers began a routine of daily visits into the highlands of Bougainville. Government troops began visiting Sipuru and Kakusira villages in Kongara 2 by road keeping the inaccessible by trucks Kongara 1 area away for the choppers.

Then on a late October morning, the government forces raided the village of Tairima that was a few minutes’ walk from the Bangki family at Dopari. With fleeing people from Tairima, the stunt people watched from the distance as the soldiers burned down homes that had taken them ages to save money and built with the government or BCL support.

By midday, mortar platoons were engaged on the Dopari village. The Bangki family and the people fled into the inhospitable jungles. Here they erected make-shift shelters for comfort and to hide from the killers and looters.

But from the safety of the jungles, they watched as Dopari village went up in flames. People wept for their valued assets to no avail as helicopters open fire on the jungles keeping the people on the run.

On the morning of 28 October 1989, false silence and peace crept through the hideouts below the impenetrable jungle canopy. The people thought the enemy might have withdrew so a band of people decided to visit their still-burning homes to fetch whatever property the inferno might have being shy of.

Seeing this, Maria Bangki had her little daughter Joyce, slung on her back and followed the other villagers to fetch some belongings they had hidden in a bush in the vicinity of the Dopari village whilst escaping from helicopter gunfire the day before.

Her husband, Charles Bangki, in fear resisted the move but she, as a mother, was not willing to see her 10 children go hungry and without clothes in the jungles whilst their clothing and cooking utensils were there somewhere concealed on their escape track beyond.

 In the prevalent peaceful afternoon air of the jungles, next to the Dopari village, returning women and grown up children and two elderly men came upon the mother and the daughter, and together they noisily began making their way deeper into the safety of the jungles following an old trial.

On the way the noisy party came upon a freshly felled tree and began slowly cutting their way through the protruding branches when a heavy round of gunfire rained on them.

Without any sense of the surrounding, the people were dispatched by the bullets from the PNGDF ambush.

In their running, the lucky escapers began to bump into each other till the whole party was about to become whole that they realized that Maria Bangki and her daughter, Joyce Bangki were not in their midst. The mother, who had her daughter playing on her back minutes ago, was nowhere to be seen.

Warm tears trickled freely under the canopies as people wept for the mother and her child.

For days and nights, nobody wandered away from their camp but remained there in mourning. In the distant surroundings, the government troops ran from village to village torching homes and looting gardens and killing domesticated animals to top up their Australian patrol rations.

No one even bothered to hunt the bushes for the bodies in the presence of the enemy till news reached Mr. Bangki’s ears  that his dear wife’s and daughter’s bodies were airlifted by their killers to the Arawa General Hospital to the north.

Charles Bangki then took a two day journey with piercing sorrow through the impenetrable jungles and rugged terrains of Kieta till he and his party reached the Pomaa Mountains in the hinterland south of Arawa town. The sight of the distant Arawa town made his knees weaker and he broke into crying on the damp forest floor alongside his sympathizers.

On the third day of his journey for Arawa, he reached the Arawa General Hospital morgue, in the company of his relatives and family members.

There in a refrigerated shipping container turned into a morgue, was his wife and daughter, so whiten by ice and distorted by bullet wounds and blood stains. Old Charles Bangki fainted in sorrow and was help and comforted by weeping relatives and family.

Since his family home of Mosinau in the Panguna area was out of bound from reach because of the undisciplined PNGDF activities, Charles Bangki took the bodies of his wife and daughter to the much safer village of Parai’ano near the Aropa airport and buried them there.

‘We paid a highest price in our fight for our rights,’ Bangki says, ‘and it is about time the combatants and politicians to be responsible in their actions and do the right thing so the Bougainville becomes independent and free from the irresponsible Papua New Guineans. Without the use of weapons in 1988, Bougainville is not ours; it would have being the Papua New Guineans’ land occupied by their illegal squatter settlements’.

Today Charles Bangki lives in Arawa with his eldest son and regularly visits his wife’s and daughter’s graves to pay respect.

‘Having left me some 22 years ago,’ he cried, ‘my wife and daughter are still around me’.

The Tongare Love

Story by Leonard Fong Roka

 You know barau, down the length and breadth of my home valley, Tumpusiong in Bougainville; I was a popular wild and sexy dancer of the Friday night parties. Drinking was my trade.

 People also referred to me as a sex maniac right across Kieta since I did pocketed myself some degree of fame with women here and there, from Panguna to Arawa and up the Bovong river valley.

 My reputation was getting sick every day; where ever I went, people would greet me as: ‘Good morning, bottle,’ or otherwise: ‘Good afternoon, doro’bauko¹.’ Pornography, was also one issue I was known as the master of—distributor and promoter. Whether this was right or wrong, that was my name that the wind blew it around with it. Regretful, you know. As sanity slowly bloomed in on me, I began developing a tendency to reject, right from the core of my loins, such ugly tags. One can say that such cabbage is taciturn, but I think it isn’t so—it’s a calamity. A disaster I crowned myself with because of my irresponsible ravings originating from the dark side of my conscience.

 

Besides, I had dreams—whether it will gain fruition or not, I had them—to become the first president of the future nation, the Republic of Bougainville.

 Such good ambitions of life had being consistently forcing me to dig down deep; lose some sleep, just to get to know more about myself as a person. Should I still remain the beacon of such dirty notions? No.

 To rid myself from all these odious prejudice, I slowly began looking for a girl—a full blooded Tumpusiong girl in the few clans available: the Bompo, Barapaang, and the Bakeraang. Within my clan, the Basikaang, I was not allowed to forage for sex; exogamy, denied what we in pidgin refer to as ‘wantok kaikai wantok²’.

 My search, you know, was met by the most inferior clan across the valley of Tumpusiong, the Bompo. There I found one girl—perfectly shaped by her creative papa, nurtured well by the doctrines founded by Helen White and workaholic because of the harsh dictates of the great Kavarong river—our river. This all happened this way.

 It was a day in August, 2006, the year of plenty as I usually know it; that I, with my head packed with all the dirty mental graphics, was leisurely strolling about at Tabarunau Trade Store grounds with a stupid friend who never hides his emotions. We knew the fact that there are girls that pass through this avenue, every afternoon out of the gold fields. So we waited, at least to win one or just to comment on her ways to attract her out into the bush.

 In the course of our aimless sauntering, we gave way for a passerby making her way out of the trade store.

 ‘E, Muru’ona, where are you off to?’ my escort, Kontemoi asked her; closely eyeing her every bodily motions.

 ‘Osi dei’o³. Good day to you.’ She passed us with openness so sweet and a guilty smile.

 ‘Kongto bakaang⁴, era,’ Kontemoi murmured, his eyes fixed on her free-moving buttocks that still denied the presence of the plain laplap she was covered with.

 She was lost down the camber to the Tong ‘are pipeline that long ago transported the mining waste from the death Panguna mine. She was heading to the hamlet Damabori. A hamlet that was so attractive to the local populace of boys since it housed some of the good looking girls in Tumpusiong.

 For us, the proverb: ‘out of sight; out of mind’ was not workable as we stood there watching her, manoeuvre her way slowly through the open gravel and rock land. For me, I was thinking about her so much: what could she say if I had asked for the thing? How could she be responding if I was making love to her? But these were just illusions, for she was not there. So, we got ourselves seated to gossiping.

 To our surprise, however, she reappeared just like an apparition and headed straight for the store.

‘E, beauty, back again?’ Kontemoi snapped with interest.

 ‘I left something over there, in the store. And, what are you two doing here?’ She passed by.

 ‘Waiting for you, baby girl.’

 She was just startled by that, and cursed Kontemoi with a laugh and headed straight for the store.

 So, there was not a smell of problem with her. We can try out asking if she could love me til it hurts. My heart beats doubled as I saw her preparing to depart. But I was fixed not to lose this chance.

 ‘Kontemoi, I am going to asked her for a minute of copulation, era,’ I told my friend. To my ill will, we moved down the Tongare drop at the snail pace.

 ‘Do just that. She’s cute, you know. Let’s wait for her here…Anikapeto⁵, era.’ Kontemoi began laughing restlessly.

 Muru’ona moved slowly towards us. My heart got hot and felt like jumping out of my chest; and you what, my lips were trembling as well. Did she note this? Who knows, but I decided not to let go this chance blossoming right here.

 “Era, Muru’ona.” I called her and took a deep breath to steady myself up as she responded by halting in front of us. “Is there any space?”

 Her lips produced no answers. I just stared at her in disbelieve as the world was spinning right there, between us in fury. Was anything wrong, but at least, I’d  released myself before things got worse or out of hand.

 There no words to keep the confrontation going, she was badly disturbed so we all went off in our separate ways. So, I was not appealing to her, was I?

 A few days later, I was resting—if not, say daydreaming—in my domicile when my student mama began smiling at me from a good distance after arriving from school.

 “Era, Sisione what did you do to Muru’ona?” she asked me, ridiculously laughing and pouting.

 I was infuriated. “This insane lunatic has put me in the public ears, again.” I was getting mad at myself and condemned her.

 “What did she say?” I glanced hard at my mama.

 “She said you asked for space,” young mama was giggling, “and that has hurt her as she considers you as her real brother.”

 “Oh I did that for fun, e’ra” I lied. Mama just laughed and walked towards the kitchen hut.

 I was frustrated a little— not that badly, though— because such experiences were part of me everyday life.

 

                                        ************

 

It was raining that Sunday morning, from Kavarong’nau, my hamlet, the Kavarong river showed signs of easing flood. At the opposite bank, around Dutumami, a few people though were panning for gold; as were, a few cockatoos that were noisily searching for ripe fruits.

 The church bell rang as I entered the partially crowded classroom church. Kontemoi, who was already seated, informatively smiled as I approached his desk-pew.

 “E’ra Muru’ona was very sad with that incident, you know,” Kontemoi began as the sing-along was gaining momentum. “Last Friday I met her with Lisa and they scolded me. For one thing, that bisi noru’ku⁶ Lisa was taking things seriously.”

 You know my mind was not connected with something divine, right there; it was there, amidst those beautiful— to the village standards— girls of the Bom’po at Damabori.

 Strange, but an interesting development was coming my way through this stubborn Muru’ona. I was thinking, “Lisa— the daughter of this popular Tumpusiong’s chainsaw man— wants it from me.” In actual fact, you should know that around this time of my life I was deciding to say no to promiscuity.

 To me, she was worth snoring by her side under on thick blanket. I saw her before. Once while on a drinking spree at Pirurari, on a Saturday, I did stared at her. She had a perfect body shape, especially those extra large bums—wide hips— compared to her whole body. I like it, very romantic.

 And Kontemoi summed it all, after listening to all the preaching of the church elder, he whispered: “And you know what, this Lisa, said that Muru’ona was not fit for you, but she is the best suit for you.”

 I was dumbfounded in the middle of the prayer session. So, I considered Lisa a blessing and partner for life, since that day.

 

                                                   **********

 

In the distance Sipuko, a rooster gave its morning cry at early dawn on one of those rare days of   early August where the night sky was over thrown by twinkling stars and meteorites.

 With a few bats infiltrating the harmony sown by the growing twilight, there I was, sitting on the lawn thinking about that Bompo’rikonang⁷, Lisa. “How am I going to contact her to avoid discovery by my other girlfriends?” Letters were the only way out.

 I also knew the medium, that was my young mama. Lisa was her classmate and best friend.

 So at that dawn I began writing before my mama woke up to walk the lengthy distance to Darenai Primary School. I just used an exercise book page to write my words in simplest English. I wrote telling her I was romantically inclined for her. That was all.

 And for a full week, I waited in anticipation for a good feedback, you know. Dirty thoughts— situations, in local pidgin, we refer to as, ‘tingting pussy⁸’— ruled my mind. I was thinking of Lisa, badly. I also lost interest in my other sex mates. Lisa was all I wanted, no matter what.

 Every time I thought about her, I listen and sung alongside my stereo the song by the backstreet boys, “As Long as you Love me”. Especially, the chorus got me the most. So, I sang the words much louder:

  “I don’t care who you are; Where you from; don’t care, What you did, as long as You love me.”

 So, what I wanted came the way I liked it. My mama slipped a note into my hands one afternoon and it read:

 

Darenai Primary School

C/ Bougainville

 

11 AUGUST 2006

 

Dear Sisione,

 

Good morning or good afternoon, taim you kisim dispel leta. Mi laik tokim yu olsem bai mitupela pren. Tasol, yu noken niusim olsem mitupla ipren, nogut mama blong yu korosim mi.

 

Noken tingting plenty tumas and slip gut tasol, bikos dream blong yu  ikamap tru.

 

Thank you

 

Lisa.

 

“This is the one for life,” I thought. That night, with the folded piece of paper resting on my bare chest I went to sleep. The night was the best in life as were the dreams it provided for Kavarong’nau hamlet.

 

                                         

                                                              *************

 

The sun, though glowing, was setting over the Darenai ridge as I stood and gazed at its glaring reflection on the Damabori roofing irons. Many people pushed wheel burrows here and there on the rocky banks of Kavarong racing against the approaching night with their alluvial gold panning stuff.

 “E, Sisione what are you doing here? On date again?” Januaries interrupted my thoughts. He was returning from school. “I left Lisa and her friends down there at the volley-ball court. She is a right pispis, barau.”

 For several days- after a few failed dates – I was wondering if Lisa was expressing herself honestly in those sweet words in childish English Pidgin letters. So, I was planning to squeeze the lemon out; and here, was that opportunity.

 “Why didn’t you pat her buttocks?” I asked him. My design brother was to glean how she could react in my respect. “You must do that. Caress her anywhere at will.”

 “Damn this is an order”, the little Januaries smiled and radiated jubilation. “Starting off, tomorrow.”

 “Tell her that Sisione is taking on that mountain girl, Rachel, as you are not giving him the thing he wants,” I told him, as we walk back home.

 Januaries was very interested, though, underage and without sita’pu⁹ he seems to know every bit of love and its making.

 “Have you made love to her yet?” he asked.

 “Yes” I lied, “down there at the three cemented tyres outside her home”

 He took hold of my left hand: “Just at her doorstep? You must be a ghost and cross this Kavarong in the nights when it is very cold and dangerous.”

 “Well, for a girl you can cross rivers, mountains and oceans, no matter what.” We paced on for the Kavarongnau elementary school where Januaries was dwelling with my brother.

 Two days later Januaries handed me a letter from my big girl, Lisa. She, you know complained about Rachel and my lies that I had made love to her. “Sapos yu pren wantaim, Rachel,” it read in one paragraph, “ pren wantaim em tasol na maski long mi¹⁰.”

 “Dear sweet heart,” Januaries read aloud the welcome address. “So, her other name is Essam, yu tok. She signs off, ‘By Essam.” Why didn’t she write, ‘Bye, Mrs Sisione. Ol meri tu ia, save laik stailim nabaut¹¹.”

 I neatly folded the exercise book page and fumbled it into my back pocket as my escort struggled for words.

 “I felt her buttocks are like a mattress,” Januaries said to me, laughing one day. To him, I thought, fingering Lisa was an achievement besides being underage bastard.

 Anywhere, brother, the world is changing everyday under our very noses— sexism boom. The toddler out there will soon start making love before a parent realizes what is going on.

 Though, I was hurt I acted as if enjoying his talk, as usually. “How did she—your wife— reacted?”

 “She just walk on. Kontemoi had Botu’to engaged, as well.”

 “This is a fucking animal. A dirty moll.” I concluded and left Januaries for my new hamlet, Poarunau.

"Ahead on the brae, above Poaru’nau, a garden fire was belching out thick cloud of smoke. “He will have something to eat, tomorrow,” I thought to myself, as I, a prick just wander around after girls’ grubby pubic.

 Later in the middle of the night, I began to write a feedback denying all these allegations. I told her that I was just perfect.

   

                                                                    **********

 

The room was packed with young and old people with square eyes. With the film Rush Hour on, kids were mingling around telling each other the movie story ahead. Everyone listen attentively to the video owner’s son whom I observed, to have some sort of a power base to talk more.

 Across Tumpusiong this was children’s culture. The motion pictures told them stories. To them, even the relationship (kinship) between the actors was readily known.

 I was frustrated but remained silent. My eyes were on the screen whilst my ears paid close attention on the various children’s talk under the heat of the setting sun.

 “E, Januaries, Kamap nau¹²?” someone asked from my back.

 “Em…. And did you see Sisione around here?” I over-heard.

 “He is over there.  Anything important? Otherwise you put him into trouble.” The man giggled to a halt because the movie was to be the prayer, right at the moment.

 Januaries just laugh and squeezed his way through the mass of people for me. Some children complained of this intrusion.

 “E, what’s up” I whispered, “what did she said?”

 “You fuckin shit.” Januaries lowered his voice into a whisper.” Your Lisa wants you right now, by 7’o’clock at the Tong’are pipline. She will be waiting.

 I looked back at the crowd to see if anybody was interested at my sudden leave but nobody seemed to be captured as all were carried away by the stunt filled movie; not even Januaries, was taken away.

 

                                                                   ***********

 

My ramble was more like a gait through heaven. The pain of my sole over sharp edged gravel was not there as I speeded up my pace in the dark. Fireflies, which in Kieta, we believe them as spirits of the death behaved strangely at my approach but I just swore at them and passed on.

 Hamlet Teng’ona, on the opposite bank of the Kavarong river was alive. People were laughing inside their kavo’ros. Maybe, the delicious smell from their cooking pots was worth chuckling at whilst I was advancing through this night for Lisa without any dinner menu. A moment with my love was my food for the long sleep.

 As I passed the final corner of the road, lights at the Tabarunau store came into view, just a mere two hundred or so metres away. I checked my watch, it was half six, so I slowed my pace.

 A lone bat loosened its grip from a tree above me and surprised me. “You evil,” I condemned it loudly and watched it heading for the Bori hamlet on the opposite bank. Maybe, his girl was there, somewhere.

 My eyes scanned the area of barren land created for us by the Bougainville Copper Limited many years ago. All was lifeless gravel, rocks and silts from Panguna and a few fireflies snooping about from the cemeteries. There were no supposed- to-be intruders of my secret love life. My wrist watched alarm rang. It was 7’o’clock, my moment to tour heaven with Lisa. We could make love there as angels stare in pure wonder.

 Unsuccessfully, I was forcing my poor eyes not to blink and in due course my toes crushed into a lone piece of rock. I swore, but then laughed when a funny thought came into me mind: only if Lisa’s father knew our date, we could be in hell. He could be chasing us all over this mining-made desert with his chain-saw screaming an inch from our rumps.

 Standing over the edge of Tong‘are gravel washout, the mining waste pipeline- that acts as a bridge over the Tong’are tributary –was now clear just like heavens above “ Thank God,” I told myself” And where are you Lisa?”

 

                                                                     *********

 

 I stood still for a moment leaving every task in hand to my pair of eyes. My sight scanned vitally with every joule of energy on the Tabarunau side of the Tong’are creek. “No-one,” I was thinking without knowing Lisa was already in a lone cluster of elephant grass trying to tame my wandering movements.

 Recognising me in the murky darkness, she and her friend stood up. Surprised, unprepared for this, I in turn made a quick turn-around and slowly paced back. “If this is Lisa,” I began my prayer with my heart beating wildly “and she must follow,” It ended up the way I wanted it. She and her companion darted to my side as my whole being perspired with joy upon recognizing who these girls were.

 I stared into the heaven: “Thank you.” The stars were twinkling in response. They knew it; the Poa’runau lone boy is now with his girl so don’t bother him. Mmm.

 No one spoke as both of our hearts were beating twice the normal rate. Every corner of our brains had love scenes. We need to kiss and make it. What?

 Though, I knew Lisa received my letter I asked hopelessly just to start up our conversation, “Era, did Januaries give you my letter?”

 “Yes” she chuckled to my relieve.

 My mind searched for many stories but none was available upon sensing her closeness. I unconsciously place my right hand over her shoulders and directed her to sit on a bare rock.

 Seeing our quick union, Lisa’s friend began to distant herself.

“Era, Tobo’nu, come get my bilum and umbrella.” She responded swiftly, and out into the dark she was lost, again.

“Era, there’s no rain but your umbrella is here,” I laughed, now my body glued to hers.

 “I haven’t made it to the village just because I was waiting for the lone boy from upstream Kavarong to come.”

 “I am just –,” I was interrupted.

 “Promise me, you will marry me,” she begged like a child, asking his father for chocolates. “Lisa, I started befriending you for that word ‘marry’,” I said holding her tightly. “But, your parents are mad over our relationship.”

 Lisa kept silent searching for words. “They’ll die trying to stop us.”

 My moist lips smashed into hers in a desperate kiss. The gravel we were on came to live as we lost our sitting position and began to roll over each other.

 In the silent darkness we were making love by the purling Kukutai brook off the brawling Tong’are creek. Our bodies engaged in perpetual hooting of pleasure without Damabori knowing it. Thank you, gods.

 Lisa was unconscious and laid flat on the silt. She knew she was no longer a girl. I sat beside her and waited as she regained strength.

 “Lisa, remember you are mine, no matter what,” I whispered into her ears. We hugged and began kissing.

 “I am dreaming we’ll be making love all over the banks of Kavarong,” I whispered. Well go as far as Ipukei’tave and Darenai school lawns, too, darling,”

 “Dako’otong¹³,” she chuckled.

 Our lips met once again in goodbye. This was a night, I told myself, never to erase off from my mind.

 Glossary

1.      Sex maniac

2.      Incest

3.      Towards home

4.      Romantically suitable

5.      There she comes

6.      Big buttocks

7.      Girl of the Bompo clan

8.      Sex thoughts

9.      Pubic hair

10.  If you are with Rachel, then let it be her

11.  Oh girls and their styles!

12.  Just arriving?

13.  It’s up to you