A week in Kanauro: Buin District weapon culture and anti-social behaviour

Leonard Fong Roka

It is a post Bougainville Crisis scene across south Bougainville that the male population seem to be welded to a bush knife or a grass knife where ever he seem to be.

An assembly at Kanauro Primary School

From the ordinary village settings, the educational classrooms, the traditional feasting nights, other social gatherings and so on the Nagovisi man, the Siwai man or the Buin man is always armed with an offensive weapon—a dangerously sharpened worn out or brand new knife.

With such a culture south Bougainville has the record high of death and injury caused by the application of a knife. Alongside their knives of all categories—imported or home re-designed—guns step in where knives fail.

Such a culture is worst in south Bougainville and a week at Kanauro Primary School, in the Baubake Constituency of Buin District, spells out the residues of what should be an irritating anti-social behaviour in this part of Bougainville.

The question Bougainville needs to ask is: who are we arming ourselves with such offensive weapons against? The New Guineans and Papuans that troubled us from the slums around our pre-Bougainville Crisis urban centres are no longer prevalent; the Papua New Guinea Defence Force is not around shelling us; the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) or the Bougainville Resistant Force (BRF) should be myths by now with civility conquering our world, but why a knife in my hand or gun in my car and home?

I travel home regularly to Buin from Buka or vice versa and aboard there would be a rifle or two. Often I wonder why we had a Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001 but still from leaders down to villagers we still have these weapons around.

Every morning at Kanauro Primary School I watch our future leaders, the students coming to school with knives, and feel insane; I often ask myself ‘what is my new home Buin up to by enculturating its future with a knife culture?’

The 10-year Bougainville Crisis taught me that a person with any form of weapon is a secured one and with authoritative strength gained from the confidence of having a weapon. It is such characters that caused havoc during the Bougainville Crisis and thousands of our people had to be sacrificed.

At Kanauro Village and Kanauro Primary School the highlighted concerns are deeply rooted and observable.

About a hundred meters away from the staff houses 8 in every 10 persons that march up or down the main Buin-Siwai highway at Kanauro has a knife; and the ratio is also the same for the students that come to school.

Exploring the classrooms, at least, all has knife wounds and high degree of vandalism. Students and community hardly respect teachers and school property over time.

There is random stealing of lunch and property by the senior students from the lower graders and villagers stealing from staff members and this hurts the whole harmonious coexistence for better learning or peer education or public relations.

All round the year, according to the teaching staff here, they have preached change oriented positive information to the kids at assemblies and classrooms. They have allocated for religious figures to talk to the school every morning on Fridays.

But as the leaders talks students grumble behind at the elders as some of the corrupted personalities and worth not listening to.

Such irresponsible behaviour to the few old folks was unknown for this school since its creation in 1981 till 1990 but this is a post Bougainville Crisis development.

But Bougainville should know that the crisis had no physical existence but it is us the people that need to ask ourselves what our responsibility and contribution is and should be to building a new and free Bougainville.

At Kanauro, there is a lesson worth learning, and that is Bougainvilleans are yet to learn that our island is changing and must change. Society is stubborn to see and accept change happening in our midst. From the public offices in Buka right down to villages like Kanauro Bougainvilleans are locked in a past that is not productive in this age of openness and adaptation.

In Buka Bougainville has public servants that still see and treat ABG as a provincial government and thus evoke no sweeping changes and progress for Bougainville; and in Kanauro, we have people that are reluctant to bring about change and development upon themselves through their available resources like cocoa i.e. simple things like building permanent houses for families, solar electrification for their homes.

At Buka ABG spends on consultants, advisors and so on to induce change onto a public service body that sees the ABG as not an independent government when it is; and down at Kanauro, people spend their hard earned cash from cocoa on alcohol and howl their days boozing whilst spending their nights in bamboo walled and sago leaf thatched homes and kids roam around in worn out or odd-looking stitched clothing.   

Thus who will bring change when the elderly with experience of time are the ones leading the boozing gangs or the public servant is a reluctant one to change?

The answer lies on Bougainvilleans learning why our island and people have struggled against political and economic colonization and PNG since the 1960s; this is a personal and leadership challenge for all ordinary Bougainvilleans and the government.

I feel such a search back in time can have the Bougainville society and the Kanauro villager and the ABG officer in Buka see light on where to go on from the autonomous stage of government to a progressive and free Bougainville that thousands have suffered and died for.  

ABG’s ‘Bougainville China Corporation’ a disaster for Bougainville

Leonard Fong Roka

The current Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) house took power in 2010 and had scrambled available resources and energy on the ground for an economic recovery based entirely on Asia friendly economic strategies and Chinese investment in Bougainville. 

Thus in the rush, the Bougainville Executive Council (BEC) approved a Bougainville China Cooperation Committee (BCCC) in early 2011 with the key role to ‘promoting and coordinating joint venture Chinese investment in Bougainville, and establishing strategic partnership with China to fully support President Momis’ Vision: Change for Better Future’.

According to PNG’s Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) in Port Moresby since getting power the ABG had created a number of companies between 2010 and 2013 with all key positions held by Chinese figures and key Bougainville parliamentarians and their local business cronies. 

Amongst the companies the more detailed are the ABG owned Bougainville Public Investment Corporation Limited with task to provide legal position for ABG to go into any joint venture business, a number of ABG-China jointly owned including Bougainville General Development Corporation Limited with a tasked to create one capacity development company for every industry, Bougainville Import and Export General Corporation Limited with a task to promote direct export and import between Bougainville and China and Bougainville Energy and Water Development General Corporation Limited that was tasked to develop hydro power and water conservation infrastructure projects and so on.

But political reluctance and lack of technical resources had silenced all registered companies living two, Bougainville General Development Corporation Limited (BGDE) and Bougainville Import and Export General Corporation Limited (BIEGC), operating as the protective legal shield for reckless Asian influx into Buka Town to operate retail outlets and not performed what they were created for.

According to the PNG Labour Office in Port Moresby their records state that BGDE has five employees and the BIEGC has four employees in Bougainville. This is a contrast to the population of Chinese said to be under the leadership of Jason Fong (real name Zhenxiang Fang who is an executive/managing director of Timesview Investment (PNG) Ltd) who was established as the Trade Commissioner between Bougainville and China by the Momis-Nisira government.

But this whole Bougainville China Corporation or the Momis-Nisira model is being questioned by President Momis’ owned parliamentarians and Bougainville’s concerned citizens since, according to public opinion, the Momis-Nisira model is no different from the Kabui Model or the Bougainville Resources Development Corporation (BRDC) engineered then by the former Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) leader Sam Kauona and was resisted by ABG for giving away 70 percent of Bougainville mineral wealth to Australian businessman Lindsay Semple. 

‘We the ABG leaders created all these companies and invited all these Chinese,’ an ABG member who did not want to be named told me, ‘but now we cannot control them because we do not have the capacity thus they are now on their own doing whatever they want to do on Bougainville at their own will.

‘They are running their own businesses and playing around with our laws since the ABG had mandated them to do so through the Bougainville China Corporation. We had not learnt anything from what these Chinese corrupted PNG law enforcers to exploit PNG had.

‘Beside, some of our own parliamentarians are beneficiaries to all these Chinese operations, a clear example was the recent China-Meekamui arrangement that were getting scrap metal in Panguna, many thought it was a sole Meekamui operation but few of our ABG leaders were in the core of the operation there.’

Bougainvillean communities are becoming frustrated with the ABG leadership and Chinese culture of trickery in doing business.

According to a BCCC paper, one of ABG’s aims of getting China has a strategic partner, was that China had abundant capital and high expertise (aim #3) but this is contradictory in the Chinese operations on Bougainville.

What now can be witnessed in the Buka Town is that all the Bougainville China Corporation activities seem to be retail outlets; a handful of restaurants, vehicle spare part sales, wholesales, hardware, and more still to be coming. Currently under the leadership of the said trade commissioner Jason Fong a massive vehicle spare part wholesale is under construction (pictured above) which, according to Bougainvillean employees working for the Bougainville China Corporation, is aimed to choke all other car dealers in Bougainville.

From Buka, the Bougainville China Corporation did also established in Toniva in Kieta originally with the claim of establishing a manufacturing operation known as the Toniva Industrial Zone. The start-up product was the manufacturing of roofing iron but they started off by manufacturing bed frames, tables, chairs and so on for a few weeks.

But to the surprise of the people shipping containers of food items arrived in Kieta for a wholesale operation that led to men raiding the establishment late November 2014. This raid followed an October 2014 claim to the ABG member of North Nasioi and ABG Minister for Primary Industry, Hon. Nicholas Daku, of K600 403.30 by a local contractor, Bougainville Metal Fabricating & Welders who were contracted by the Bougainville China Corporation to build the Toniva Industrial Zone. 

Over the duration of the construction phase the ABG-Chinese companies BGDE and BIEGC had not paid them for the labour, equipment usage, and so on nearly getting the company bankrupt.

The PNG Labour Office in Port Moresby stated its officers in Buka are also facing dilemma with the implementation of their legal responsibilities on the ABG-Chinese operations on Bougainville.

When Department of Labour, the Internal Revenue Commission, Customs, and so on attempt to exercise their duties where fault is identified in areas of work permits and other related agendas the Chinese direct them to ABG presidential and vice presidential offices.

In other conflicts the ABG parliamentarians had confronted the government agencies defensively in protection of the Chinese activities that are not at all activities initially said to be the functions of BGDE and BIEGC. 

Bougainvillean businesses feeling the sting of Asian take-over

Leonard Fong Roka

‘Bougainville is such a small place that need us the indigenous people to be in charge of developing it in terms of business and other economic activities,’ Luke Maneu from Siwai in south Bougainville told me, recently. ‘The ABG and our MPs in the National Government should be the ones pushing the laws and systems to create a conducive environment for localization of all cottage industries.’

JN Trading and Asian BCM

Mr. Maneu had successfully operated a retail outlet in Buka Town since 2009 till 2011 when the Asian influx and affected his operations leading him to venturing into other businesses like operating a PMV service and a guesthouse.

‘With the Asian entry into Buka Town,’ Mr. Maneu said, ‘my business had been harmed as are with the other businesses owned by fellow Bougainvilleans. Customers had left us for the cheaper Asian goods.

‘I think we are said to be expensive in our shops because we do not have the entrepreneurial power base that is a business culture thus we are learners that need time and government input to make things right for all our services to the Bougainvillean public. So in these terms, the Asian influx is murdering us the Bougainville people so a few of us are trying to spread the risk of dying.

‘I am moving into other areas to save myself from succumbing to the Asian takeover. With more areas to earn something I am safe for the time being. To Bougainvillean businesses time is not with us. Soon we will see more Bougainvillean businesses leaving the scene because they cannot stand the might of all these Asian operations.’

Few other Bougainvillean business houses I visited namely Wedelyne, JN Trading, TM Trading, Haput Clothing, Maia Clothing and Evokong shared the same fear.

The Asian operations are taking all the business activities they have been doing over the years before the Asians were invited to Bougainville.

‘Earlier we heard that the ABG was inviting Asians to work in multi-million kina impact projects like the said oil palm in Torokina, ’Chris Haput of Haput Clothing said. ‘But we were amazed to see them setting up tiny retail booths all around.

‘From one or two booths they went all over Buka Town grabbing and renting off large buildings from Buka people and not the ones from the mainland of Bougainville. Mainland property owners around Buka Town seem to have been anti-Asian and run their properties themselves but we are all facing the same threat.

‘So a lot of mainland businesses seem to slowly move to Arawa and other places in mainland Bougainville where the people are against Asians. The Toniva setup in Kieta was attacked this week by locals and that is good since the ABG is not willing to protect us.’  

Haput Clothing operates next to one of the many Asian BCM Trading retail outlets legally owned by a Siwai lady, Mary Lyn, who is a second wife of a Chinese who exists as a Lyn.

According to JN Trading, a husband and wife operation running a retail outlet and a guesthouse, that operates next to the main BCM Trading that Mary Lyn has some power over admitted that the Siwai lady is not in good mood with the whole BCM Trading and its many retail outlets.

‘Mary Lyn is our neighbour and best friend,’ Nathan Haliken, the husband in the JN Trading, said. ‘She admits she’s been exploited by her Chinese husband who also has a wife and children back in China.

‘She knows her marriage is a marriage of convenience and not love. The Asian wants to make money in Bougainville under her protection and so she, despite being the director in the IPA certification, she has not much power over all the BCM trading retail outlets spreading around the tiny Buka Town.’

The JN Trading also lose customers at their Buka Market boat-stop location when the BCM Trading began to rent the room next to them. The BCM Trading next to them and under Mary Lyn registered as a restaurant but also sells 10 kg rice bales and other goods; and also, had been selling beer late at night to drunkards.

Evokong and Maia Clothing, both from Kieta and have their business presence in both Buka and Arawa, admitted that their operations in Buka Town had shrink in terms of daily takings with cheaper goods offered by these Asian multinational business operations.  

Wedelyne, a local business from Buka, on the other hand followed Luke Maneu’s strategy to survive. They had ventured into PMV services and Taxi and a retail outlet.   

Most Bougainvillean businesses, both owned by Buka islanders and mainlanders of Bougainville, feel operating in Buka is not worth their sacrifices and are starting to flee the Asian takeover of Buka Town and move to the mainland Bougainville.

In the mainland of Bougainville Asians had being invited and once seen has going off-track they had been kicked out. The Toniva setup in Kieta has faced it first wave of attacks by locals and soon will be going up in flames report are suggesting.

Over the weekend (night of 28-29 November) Asians in Buka Town were hinted that certain businesses of theirs were under target by disgruntling locals thus a midnight lone police vehicle and officer’s surveillance at a BCM Trading indirectly informed the few drunkards that the Buka Police had been penetrated by the Asian tycoons.

Anti-Asian feeling is growing amongst the Bougainvillean business houses and ordinary people in Buka Town and time will tell us the next move. 

Initiated by the ABG, an Asian syndicate is taking over Bougainville

Leonard Fong Roka

In 2013 the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) created a company referred to as Bougainville Import/Export Limited, with a Port Moresby based Chinese, Jason Fong. The company’s Investment Promotion Authority (IPA) records lists top Bougainville parliamentarians like current President Dr. John Momis, and subordinates like Albert Kinani as directors and 

shareholders.

But the company had setbacks; however, the ABG-Jason Fong creation then, Bougainville is now undergoing an uncontrolled rush on its cottage industry that the Bougainville Constitution’s Section 22, 23 and 24 indicates must be owned or preserved for the people of Bougainville.

On this ABG-Jason Fong pavement now Bougainville’s Buka Town has Asian businesses like Norak Trading, BCM Trading, Happy Sound Trading, and a few other tentacle operations.

And all these do not pay tax to the Buka Internal Revenue Commission (IRC).

This is because this syndicate has a problematic business operation strategy. For example, under BCM Trading, there are a number of retail outlets around Buka Town. All these shops operate under the single BCM Trading’s IPA certification. However, when it comes to noting their cash incomes (returns, etc), BCM Trading’s bank statements do not prove its other BCM Trading branches are depositing into its bank account.

In the IPA certificate for BCM Trading, the Siwai lady married to the Asian manager who also had left his wife and children in China is noted as the director/shareholder but she has no statutory obligations or requirements but rather that is with her Chinese husband.

Which means the marriage is also a business marriage to exploit Bougainville.

Furthermore, this syndicate has one tax agent based in Port Moresby. According to investigations, the man who aliases between this syndicate and the government authorities is one common figure shared by all other Asian businesses in other parts of PNG. 

This tax agent prepares tax returns and financial reports for the entire network and in Bougainville’s Internal Revenue Commission (IRC) approaches these numerous Asian shops in Buka, they all refer them to the common tax agent in Port Moresby; and in such an arrangement, Bougainville loses much taxable income.

The Bougainville arm of this syndicate is also breaking PNG labour laws under the auspices of the ABG politicians.

Most employees of these shops have work permits for Rabaul and Hagen and other PNG areas and not Bougainville. But the cunning strategy of avoiding attention is the fly-in-fly-out practice noted by the Bougainville employees of these Asian shops.

‘Every fortnight,’ Josephine Dumi, a Gogohe shop assistant to Happy Sound Trading, said, ‘we see new Chinese coming and going.

Such a business operations have Bougainville getting nothing in areas like personal income tax for the payroll records are fluid and hard to keep track of by the IRC.

‘You cannot see them during the day but you could be amazed at night when they get together at their new community hall near the New Dawn on Bougainville offices. There are many and many of them now here in Buka and they tell us they want to go further to Arawa and Buin, too.’ 

But in Buka, unlike the Bougainville mainland it is hard to remove them now by force since they are protected by politicians.

Local Buka people are also greatly benefiting from rent paid by this syndicate for the short term but for the long term self reliance for Bougainville is doomed.

Bougainvillean employees in the Happy Sound Trading said their employee is paying K30 000 a month to a local Gogohe businessman and politician so far. Also, the vice president of ABG, Patrick Nisira, has his security firm that protects all these syndicate business operations.

All this is happening under ABG’s wishes for a better Bougainville.

I’m now a degree man: my university journey realised a dream

LEONARD FONG ROKA

IT was the coastal trawler MV Solomon Queen which took me away that February afternoon in 2011.

 

I was carried away from my Solomon island of Bougainville across the Solomon Sea to the New Guinean town of Rabaul in East New Britain.

Then, after a few hours catching up with relatives from Ragunai village, I left on the ill-fated MV Rabaul Queen for Kimbe and on to Lae.

In 2013, the Rabaul Queen was to sink in bad weather with heavy loss of life.

From Lae we hit the highway through the Markham Valley, over rugged terrain into Madang Province and thence to Madang town’s Divine Word University.

It was a three day journey from Bougainville to Madang that finally had me stuck to the university for four years.

And today I can claim to have undergone a rite of passage for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in PNG Studies and International Relations. The testamur will be handed to me next March.

When I left my Bougainville, I had a vision. But that vision was not a university-stirred dream, for that was born in 1997 in the classrooms of Arawa High School when a few bullets were jetting around me.

I carried my vision in two exercise books and a binder of some 200 pages of A4 paper. Beyond that my vision was silent in an unheard struggle for realisation.

With my dream burning in my heart at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2004, I faced a number of academics and showed them my bound leaves of paper. But would not win the struggle through them.

My destiny was to wage a lone war through the system; and, in time, this led me to Divine Word University and its resources.

The university gave me the key on my 2011 registration day and it was up to me to open the door and choose from the treasures within.

 

I came as a self-sponsored student and felt ashamed in the company of scholarship students and talked little.

But I struggled on with my dream. A dream even my course mates knew nothing about.

Then in mid-2011, my Communication Skills lecturer, Mrs Aiva Ore, introduced us to social media and showed us blogs and websites.

Thus I was at work checking blogs and reading them when, by chance, I caught sight of Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG Attitude.

I looked at the professional writings therein and did hesitate at first; but the vision took off and infiltrated PNG Attitude.

So I began doing assignment essays for submission to the lecturer and another version to PNG Attitude. And on every moment I saw my writing in PNG Attitude I was dancing somewhere high in the skies.

Once shy, writing earned me a reputation and some form of status over those first two years amongst my university mates. Now I felt free and I could talk freely.

I debated without fear that I was a self-sponsored student; but even this was eradicated in 2012 when I returned as an assisted student flying on a government ticket just like those I once feared to look in the eye.

As I progressed with PNG Attitude, my dream came to fruition piece by piece in the Crocodile Prize competition. When a few of my writings appeared in the Crocodile Prize Anthology 2011 I felt that I was now an author.

Through 2012, my writing was consolidating with nurturing from Keith Jackson, Philip Fitzpatrick, my Divine Word University lecturers and the free DWU internet service.

It was now beginning to contribute to my academic advancement, and the proof was in that academic transcript that secured me government assistance.

2013 was the greatest year of my life both positively and negatively.

Positively, because of freelance writing I began meeting with people of high stature in films, writing and academia.

Negatively, I began receiving a handful of threats because of the same writing.

Threatening phrases like ‘you in Madang means you under my control’, ‘you need to be death, ‘your writing is your coffin’ and ‘you will do nothing positive under the sun and die useless’.

I felt powerless under these threats and was contemplating withdrawing from university but my Bougainvillean course mates Daphney Toke and Ancitha Semoso helped me back.

But overriding these threats a dream was realised. There was my name on the front cover of a book. Pukpuk Publishing released my first book, a collection of poetry, The Pomong U’tau of Dreams.

Then my dancing heart received the 2013 Crocodile Prize award for short stories. Following rapidly was my second book, a collection of short stories, Moments in Bougainville.

My happy heart half-regretted that I was attaining such significant achievements after so many years. But all I had was this life and I had no right to question it and its ways.

Thus I grasped another life’s desire and decided to settle down. I met my partner, Delpine Piruke, who is from Nakorei village in Buin, South Bougainville, when she was a student at Madang Teachers College, In June this year my daughter Dollorose came into my dreaming life.

But my dream is still dragging me to write more. I have loved calling myself a keyboard politician for Bougainville using all the resources Divine Word University has given me.

In January 2014, I completed by Bougainville crisis memoir covering my experiences with the conflict from 1988 to 1997. That book, Brokenville, is the only book written about the crisis by a Bougainvillean.

I was so proud when, in the 2014 Crocodile Prize, it was awarded Ok Tedi Book of the Year.

Such a life of writing in Divine Word University had taken me from bring a backward little known Panguna man out to the wide world.

Today I am often a focus of discussion in the Bougainville political realm. I have met and chatted with great Papua New Guinean figures like Brigadier General Jerry Singirok and Sir Paulias Matane, who were once just illusions. I travel to give talks away from where I am based. And I feel more is in the pipeline.

 

Universities overseas used my writings. Organisations are being moved by what I write to do research on Bougainville. And I am still dreaming.

With three books published and a fourth book coming later this year there is a fifth done and snoring in my laptop.

My goal is to reach further in writing where no fellow Bougainvillean has yet reached.

For I am still dreaming. I am dreaming to attain more that life has for me.

My life as a Bougainville dreamer at Divine Word University from 2011 to 2014 is over. That key was given to me in 2011, but it was me that decided whether to open the door or sleep with it.

At Divine Word University, in four solid years, I feel I have written my name into the history books.

Suspicious but booming ‘Torokina Real Estate’ in Madang

Leonard Fong Roka

A few minutes’ drive north of Madang Town there is a block of land with sprouting number of houses surrounded by coconut palms and squalid type homes of the indigene. And the strangeness of this place is that the locals are often wondering about this Bougainvillean name and that the regularly visiting Asian seems to be telling them that this is a Bougainvillean property.

Torokina Real Estate

I was lucky finally to get a clear view and inside stories that a premises gardener had for me while travelling with fellow Bougainvillean Divine Word University students.

A count gave me ten completed high standard family homes for rent to clients. The block of land is well secured by security fencing and within the perimeter the gardeners are doing the finest of jobs beautifying the housing project.

And one noted fact is that the housing project is just a tip of the iceberg; there is evidence of expanding beyond the current stages.

To the workers there the business would be raking thousands of kina for Bougainville economy.

And according to the gardener and the main gate keeper, the origin of the project goes back to my homeland Bougainville and my government, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG).

As the 2010 Bougainville election was stirring, the pair said, Henry Chow the owner of the Lae Biscuit Company in Lae contributed some money to President Dr. John Momis election project.

Thus this relationship paved the way for many development activities that the ABG is pursuing.

In 2012 the PNG national government made a funding commitment to allocate K500 million over a 5 year period to rehabilitate infrastructure throughout Bougainville and one of those was the Torokina oil palm project. And from this some money was diverted to Mr. Chow and that is now in this Torokina Real Estate, here in Madang.

Torokina Real Estate Notice on North Coast Highway

According to these workers here, back in Bougainville, the feasibility study over the site in Torokina was previously done by a Siwai group and the report was presented to the ABG. But still the ABG ordered a bit for a next round of feasibility studies and this time the award went to Hakau Holdings, the subsidiary company of Lae Biscuit.

Hakau Holdings undertook the feasibility studies and also took ownership to invest a part of what it is working on in the Ramu Valley of Madang Province to Torokina, Bougainville.

And like many other Asian companies that toil and suck PNG wealth, Lae Biscuit, through Hakau Holdings has entered Bougainville to grow oil palm, and now have a shipping business known as the Chebu Shipping Company.

To the workers of Torokina Real Estate, they said, Bougainville is becoming rich by investing in oil palm in Torokina, real estate here in Madang that is creating them jobs, and the massive shipping industry they are hearing about with Mr. Henry Chow.

They said the Torokina Real Estate they working for is worth K7 to K9 million and it is managed by Henry Chow’s family members.

Bougainville independence champion Alexis Sarei dies

By Aloysius Laukai


One of Bougainville’s former leaders, DR.ALEXIS HOLYWEEK SAREI died at his home in Gagan on Buka island this morning.

Alexis Sarei

He was aged 80.

DR. SAREI was born on March 25^th,1934 and got his middle name Holy week because he was ordained as a Priest on Holy week.

DR. SAREI was the District Commissioner for the North Solomons Province from 1973 to 1975 and as the President of the Secessionist Republic of the North Solomons from 1975 to 1976.

When the North Solomons Province was given the first Provincial Government by the National Government he became the Premier of North Solomons twice.

The first from 1976 to 1980 and again from  1984 to 1987.

From Premiership he also served as the Papua New Guinean High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

During the Bougainville conflict, DR. SAREI left home and stayed in the USA where he was married and returned to contest the second house for the Autonomous Bougainville Government in June 2010.

The second house of the ABG saw three former Bougainville leaders winning seats one by President MOMIS FOR THE Presidential seat, the Nissan seat by former Premier and Regional member LEO HANNET and the late DR. SAREI who won the PEITS seat.

Due to ill health, DR. ALEXIS SAREI was replaced at the end of last year.

Meanwhile the ABG President, Chief DR. JOHN MOMIS  in his condolence message said that it is with great sadness that I would like to pay tribute to an exceptional man who led an exceptional life and was a true son of Bougainville, the late Dr. Alexis Sarei.


The late Dr. Sarei was in all forms a man who led a remarkable life in the service of the people of Bougainville and Papua New Guinea. His caliber as a leader cannot be questioned as he proved to be an able administrator and leader notably during his tenure as Premier of the former North Solomon’s Provincial Government, as PNG’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and of late as the Member for Peit Constituency in the Autonomous Bougainville Government.


The passing of the Late Dr. Alexis Sarei signifies an immense loss to the people of Bougainville as he is held in high regard as an elder statesmen and a formidable leader during the early years of this country’s formation. I fondly remember him from our time together at the Seminary in Madang where he was ordained a Priest along with the Late Archbishop Sir Peter Kurongku and Bishop Gregory Singkai after which he attained his doctorate in the Vatican City in Rome, Italy.


The Late Dr. Alexis Sarei also served as the Chief of Staff of the then Chief Minister of PNG Sir Michael Somare. He was also Bougainville’s first Premier and the first Bougainville District Commissioner. In light of the achievements of this great man the people of Bougainville and in particular the people of Solos can be proud of the Late Dr. Alexis Sarei as one of our truest sons.


On behalf of my family the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the people of Bougainville, I would like to thank the family of the Late Dr. Alexis Sarei and the people of Solos for the services rendered to the people of Bougainville and this nation as a whole. I pray that the Almighty and Merciful God may grant him eternal rest and console his family during their time of bereavement. He will be remembered as one of Bougainville’s truest sons. May he Rest In Eternal Peace.

Source: New Dawn on Bougainville Link: http://bougainville.typepad.com/newdawn/2014/09/no-title-15.html