The Day Siuema went up in flames, I was born in 1989

Leonard Fong Roka

Andrew Ami told me that, ‘The day our village was torched by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) in 1989, I was born in the bushes close to our village but safe from the flying bullets that the army was firing everywhere though they were not being shot at by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) who only belonged to the Panguna area so far away from our home.’

Andrew Ami

The Siuema village is in the landlocked Avaipa area of what is now the Evo-Torau Constituency in Central Bougainville. A number of ranges forking out of the Crown Prince Range isolates it from the Panguna District thus every rivers system of the Avaipa area drains onto the Koiare area of the Banoni coast.

The villagers heard of fighting in Panguna; saw a few refugees from the Panguna area arriving in their midst, but never witnessed who the PNG army was; or who the BRA was. Life was innocent in this jungle covered area situated hundreds of kilometers west of the Panguna mine over a myriad of unforgiving mountains.

Maria Napari, Ami’s mother was pregnant with him and because of the fighting in the Panguna area; she had no hope to travel to Arawa to deliver her child in a hospital but was willing to give birth at home. She also feared the fact that the hospital in Arawa was packed with those wounded and killed in the fighting in Panguna, Arawa and Kongara.

Despite all the stories of war in the distance, Siuema kept calm for the people knew they were not landowners of the Panguna mine but the wild jungles and mountains that surrounded them was their life that kept them occupied.

According to Andrew Ami, his home was not developed.

‘Then we had no homes with roofing irons,’ he told me. ‘Every home was made of materials provided by the jungle and our village was made up of hundreds of sago thatched houses founded on a flat piece of land situated along the banks of the Naniuka River.’ 

From here, people walked for hours across rivers, swamps and a series of mountains to reach the nearest place with road systems for vehicles and that is the area now known as Tumpusiong Valley of Panguna in the south-east.

But the harmony was infiltrated in one of the final months of 1989 by the PNG army.

As usual the villagers woke for a Sunday service with the local catechist whilst a few naughty ones wandering off for fishing trip down by the rivers so secured in the canopy covers of the jungles from the flying PNG army helicopters that were said to be attacking some places in the Kieta area.

‘My mother, with me in her womb, woke late that Sunday,’ Ami said. ‘My father left her at home and marched towards the centre of the village where the church was.’

The people began their service well with the service leader completed their procession to the alter area of their church in a relaxed and faithful mood and air.

While the church was there talking to God, out there along the Naniuka River, the fisherman one of whom was inborn Ami’s elder brother discovered the footprints made by hundreds of boots.

They did not wait but darted back to the village in time to let the villagers know and order and evacuation.

As people began rushing here and there to get hold onto a few of their belongings, the army also indiscriminately began firing at the confused people; with bullets dominating the air, people were off into the jungles that surrounded the village.

Maria Napari was also running at her own pace through some massive tangle of undergrowth when labour pains struck her and a few of her relative came to her rescue.

Andrew Ami laughs, ‘Some women directed my mother under some huge rotting boles that they thought was safe from the bullets. There they make sure her mouth was blocked with a woman’s open palm over it to avoid her from screaming; and I was born on the run.’

With the successful delivery, the woman called him ‘Ami’ for ‘Army’ that was attacking them.

In the midst of their jubilation of adding another man in their clan in the jungle, out there, their village was being torched from end to end of the village.

‘Till this very day, ‘Ami says, ‘my people wonder why the PNGDF burned our village to ashes. Our people are not landowners of the Panguna mine area; there was no one in the village that had joined the militants in Panguna in 1989, thus we were innocent.’

He told me that more than fifty sago thatched homes went up in an inferno that the people never had seen before.

‘Because our houses were so close to each other,’ Ami said, ‘people say maybe a few were torched but the wind connected the fire to other house and our whole villages was consumed.’

Andrew Ami feels good about the background of his name. He says his villagers remember their nightmare in 1989 when the called his name.

Her dear mother really valued the name she and her helpers gave her son and even spoke about it on her death bed as she passed away recently living behind her special son, Andrew Ami.