Bougainville Manifesto 8: The 1990-1991 Crisis

Leonard Fong Roka

To the state of PNG, Rio Tinto and BCL, Bougainvilleans were nobodies of the Solomons that have to be raped off their resources to finance PNG and its citizens who are not at all geographically and ethnically relatives of Bougainvilleans.

But the trio did not know that Bougainvilleans were humans that are adaptive to negative or positive changes; whether the adaptation is planned or not, they need to change to cater for the externally driven changes on their land and society.

The late Francis Ona with every available pressures of change on his shoulder did rush at his numerous goals and history should agree that his ambition for a better Bougainville were not that strategically concrete. Bougainvillean teacher, Lance Itta in his article, A civil war of resources (Post Courier, 23 August 2013 pg 10), implied an organized maneuver by Ona when he tasked a Philip Takaung in recruiting militants; but one as to ask why this turn the crisis of Panguna into a civil war.

The answer is simple; the players were practically incapable of politically leading Bougainville out of the vacuum created by the departure of the PNG state institutions and the demise of the provincial administration.

Let me go to my PNG ATTITUDE article, We don’t want Bougainville as a land of warlords (2012), and start with this scene:

‘All these great military men of Bougainville - although at first fighting to get rid of Bougainville Copper Limited, Papua New Guinea and its Redskins - went off-track in mid-1990.

This divide was created by the late Francis Ona’s inability to administer and control his men and therefore to control Bougainville.

Fighters forgot our cause of freedom and went for war-gains. Think about Ishmael Toroama’s words in the video documentary Coconut Revolution: ‘When I fought everything got into hands…’

Did we fight for personal property or peoples’ freedom? Often, at gun point personal property was removed from owners or guardians; Bougainvillean women were raped, innocent persons were killed….’

According to a BCL webpage post entitled, Chronology of Peace Process (n.d.), on May 1989, the Panguna mine was closed and PNG declared a state of emergency on Bougainville and sent its undisciplined PNGDF to fight Bougainville rebels. But on March 1990, a ceasefire was reached and international representatives were observing the withdrawal of the PNG security forces. 

If Philip Takaung was recruiting the BRA then, what structure was he placing them into? What was his power of influence over these men? Chinese revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong, had Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung (1964) to back his political drive to change China but sadly Bougainville did not have such a determined leadership from the late Francis Ona.

So in March 1990, when the PNG government state of emergency created care center occupants began to head home to their PNGDF burned villagers, the militants headed into the urban areas to experience a lifestyle they had never had before and now they deserve it as heroes or liberators of Bougainville.

One witnessed scene: In one of these days, my parents were in an Arawa clothing shop known as Haus Bilas when a band of BRA men entered. They stood watching as they took new shoes and began helping themselves saying to themselves: ‘Wear shoes boys, we have frozen in the bush fighting for this land’. Rotten opposite!

But in Panguna, Francis Ona, after returning home from his hideout and turning his Guava village into the seat of Bougainville power disregarding Arawa, was creating a power structure and order for his militants amidst tension he was the catalyst to.

Francis Ona, who was now the supreme commander of the BRA, organized the BRA structure with his followers in Panguna. The men were stationed there living and eating like gone BCL employees in the company facilities.

In Panguna, the whole BRA companies were given specific sections of the township to reside on. There was law enforcement on the ground; also, with this each BRA unit leaders were provided with the BCL vehicles to perform their duties. But this was military jobs defined by the leaders and absent was the political structure all these make-ups could function within.

Francis Ona was not prepared to give away his hard-earned glory to the known political personalities like the late Joseph Kabui who was now doing nothing in Arawa, the capital.

His prestige was to be protected outright. He was guarded 24/7 by armed men and women at his village; he also had a unit of witch doctors that also guarded him from sorcerers and kept evaluating his health. With that his home was being maintained. A few BCL plants were ordered to upgrade his hideout and he also took ownership of a number of expensive BCL cars and others.

All these happened as the entire BRA and opportunists watched in disbelief.

So Francis Ona opened trouble. BRA men and opportunist fought each other over the BCL properties in Panguna, especially vehicles at first. After the BCL goodies were done with, the reckless BRA and other rascals ran for private properties as Francis Ona kept silent.

The recklessness also disintegrated the big BRA men into creating own spheres of influence in the fight for personal gains. Vehicle after vehicle and other properties appeared in the backyard of individual BRA commanders and those few dangerous BRA man. But all BRA and opportunist of Kieta had gained something for himself.

In Panguna, the Guava villagers used guns to control Panguna for themselves or scare away people whom—gaining nothing against the armed men—begin dismantling BCL houses and so on, to replace their homes back in the villages that the PNG government had burn.

Seeing this chaos, the former PNGDF soldier and BRA leader, Sam Kauona who had also left Panguna for his home in Tororei, then decided to involve the Panguna brothers Joseph Kabui and Martin Miriori who were doing nothing in Arawa as the result of the August 1990 suspension of the North Solomons (Bougainville) Provincial Government by PNG.

Kauona also got the brothers connected with Francis Ona and in 17 May 1990, the second UDI in Bougainville history happened in Arawa with the creation of the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG). But the BRA engineered chaos was already out beyond the perimeters of Kieta and out of reach from the BIG.

Whilst UDI celebrations was on in Kieta, Kieta BRA and opportunists and their followers in other parts of Bougainville were out disturbing peace and justice on Buka Island and much of north and a few areas in South Bougainville and central Bougainville.

To all these the Buka Islanders, according to a online Australian government house committee appendix document entitled, Outline History of the Bougainville Conflict (n.d.), re-invited the PNG army on 13 September 1990 under the blessing of the NEC and eventually leading to the signing of the Kavieng Agreement on the 5 August 1990 calling on the PNG government to establish rule only on Buka and let go Bougainville.

Francis Ona now had some myopic reasons to talk and accuse fellow Bougainvilleans whom, he himself cannot provide the leadership to, many now saw as being betraying Bougainville or much popular phrase then, ‘Salim Bogenvil go bek lo PNG na BCL’ that was known well on the Radio Free Bougainville campaigns and news reels.

The BRA then went reckless as a ‘secret police’ tracking down moles inside Bougainville with orders from Francis Ona. Many innocent Bougainvilleans met their fate; lost their property that were confiscated as punishment by BRA elements thus, leading to spontaneous birth of anti-BRA groups the very first of which was the Buka Liberation Force (BLF) that was created on Buka Island.  

Under the very nose of Francis Ona and his BRA, Bougainvilleans turned against each other; the BIG was late with its leader, the late Joseph Kabui, to exercise power over Bougainville for the now considered military hand of BIG, the BRA had already scared away the Bougainville people.

Bougainvilleans were hunting and killing each other throughout the island as were Francis Ona and Joseph Kabui were playing their own politics in Kieta without control over the whole island of Bougainville.