Bougainville’s Development Trends & the new Directives

Leonard Fong Roka

As Bougainvilleans, we were real innovative in our own right during the height of the Australia-backed Papua New Guinea blockade of our island. I witnessed discoveries, from food processing, gun smiths, electricity production, building and construction, engine mechanics, electronics, home economics, health care training, navigation, and so on were few of the many skills that the crisis brought right down to the illiterate people of Bougainville.

Mr. Leonard Fong Roka

But the peace process and the return of the so-called Eurocentric services back to the island is getting me sick to see our long known approach to change being shattered by the cash economy and a clear lack of vision and pragmatism at the political level; and corruption and personal interest in our midst.  

Politicians love fast money and impact projects that lack concrete foundations in the psyche of the ordinary Bougainvilleans. They long to see an economic miracle for Bougainville in the offices and media outlets of the world’s best known financial institutions and not an economic miracle that is snail-paced, less known but founded on solid rock that is, the people of Bougainville.

Dr. John Momis was not in Bougainville when we promoted the concept ‘mekim na save’ (do it and know it), and that is why he returned to Bougainville from Beijing with the Chinese backed mega-city on the Selau area; then meeting opposition, he gets all resources of the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) to push for the re-opening of Panguna mine. Such a drive sheds light that our leaders just do not like self reliance.

Having in mind that such a rush for an impact project on Bougainville is a need because of the imposed terms of the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) entailing that Bougainvilleans shall vote for referendum between 2015 and 2020 and such a change needs a monetary and fiscal power to sustain, I am attacking the trend or approach we are employing, and not the ABG in particular.

But I again sometimes question the merits of the BPA. Were the terms done to save Bougainvilleans to the self determination? Or, were they created to trap Bougainvilleans seeing the status quo that they won’t make it to nationhood under the dire straits?

To me, with insight on development stages outlined on The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto by W. W. Rostow (1960), I believe the ABG is not so people-power oriented. Rostow implied that ‘all societies, in their economic dimensions, must move up rung-by-rung  through these 5 stages: the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass-consumption’. The first is the subsistence economy where Bougainvilleans are so reliant on and the last is the high consumerist societies like the First World countries.

But in the current trend, we are trying to get Bougainville from ‘the stone age into the space age’ that by-passes the three power-building stages in the continuum. But it is inevitable, because the BPA orders that on us; and not us, enforcing development on ourselves.

Massive economic impact projects with external capital, to me, rob people off their innovative mind power or the capacity to discover new ideas as Bougainvilleans did through the crisis when PNG was trying to starve us to death. Thus I am saddened to see our pre-peace innovative culture dying or, succumbing to outside uncharted trade, legal and conceptual infiltration.

In the Bougainville crisis history, the years 1991 to 1995, should be noted as the years of discovery of new ideas and approaches in science, technology, society and so on. All these discoveries concentrated in Central Bougainville where most of the pre-crisis company and government materials like machinery were left to dereliction.

We made soap out of coconut oil; we drove cars with coconut oil; we distilled the sea water and got salt crystals for cooking and trading; we constructed mini hydro sets for electricity; we made guns and cartridges; we created cassava flour and yeast; we managed to heal bullet wounds; we trained health extension officers that serve throughout most of the rebel zones; we navigated the Bougainville Strait with accuracy to Taro town on Choiseul Province and the least goes on. Why should not we re-invest into this brilliant past of mekim-na-save? Why not think big but start small?

Bougainville is rich in natural resources to instigate a take-off in this post conflict economic recovery effort. But our gold, cocoa and so on has being decanted to fatten the Bismarck Archipelago. Such a negative drive gets me to say that if we just do not own our resources now, then we are losers as will be our children.

But we claim that we have fought and died for the sole betterment of our children’s future; we wanted a Bougainville that would be for Bougainvilleans; we wanted irredentism. But does the BPA promote that? Are politicians in the ABG planning for that ambition to materialize?

Our gates are open to foreign lethal dogs to come in and these serpents are coming as consultants, researchers, Bible preachers, street vendors, business partners, teachers, marriage partners, gold panners and buyers, investors and you name them on. Such infidels are not needed on Bougainville if we want Bougainvilleans to take on the ownership of their island’s economic, political and social development.

Do we really want a self reliant Bougainville?

We have a potato growing Torokina area, but still we want Australian potatoes shipped in; we have rice farmers but do not like them so we import Australian Trukai rice; peanuts grow well on our island but we want Chinese tinned peanuts; we have struggling poultry producers like Likui Trading but let them die because Kwik Kai in Morobe is contributing to our self reliance; we construct mini hydro power generators but PNG Pawa must supply power to all villages not villagers creating their own supplies; we produce cocoa and copra but we do not want to export ourselves direct overseas so  we give them to Agmark Pacific to generate more revenue for East New Britain so that their musicians can sing more nasty songs on our women.

Bougainville should by now engage into a protectionist policy to drive itself forward. It should get the process of development down to the people. The community should own and drive positive change in their midst at their own pace; and not much external dictatorship as the BPA is doing to us.

I so love the 1999 booklet, The Community Development Handbook by Flo Frank and Anne Smith. It highlights the issue of community development as a measure of that leads people to design their own destiny.

It gives us The Seven Steps in a Community Planning Process: (1). Create the vision, (2). Assess the current situation, (3). Set goals, (4). Establish objectives, (5). Development action plans, (6). Implement the plan, and (7). Evaluate progress and results. These steps should be applied on Bougainville on all levels of government to the communities; public and private sectors, too. But, sadly, the ABG leadership is just so ignorant to give tangible progress to the people.

To me these measures are the fundamentals of self reliance and growth; responsibility and people empowerment, but not a leader as so far brought the concept down to the people or as brokered a deal for people to people help and self motivation for positive change on Bougainville.

Creating employment opportunities, development strategies and economic capacity for Bougainville on what available resources the island can provide under strict protectionism and people centered foundations is the way for us to make Bougainville a better place for Bougainvilleans.