Bougainville, Our Fight Our Freedom

By Leonard Fong Roka

Without the crisis, Bougainvilleans still would not have known what it is like to be a Bougainvillean on Bougainville- LFR

Bougainville is an island of the Solomon chain of islands. Solomon archipelago is part of the Melanesian group of peoples and islands that (together, with Micronesia and Polynesia)  makes up the Oceania region of the South Pacific family of independent and dependent states that is so securely surrounded by the Pacific’s ring countries or regions like Australia, the South East Asia, China, Russia, North America and South America.

Leonard Fong Roka (right) in DWU

Alongside its sister islanders and islands, Bougainville had a rich pre-colonial history. Inter island migrations, fighting, social networking (trade and marriage still continues significantly) and land grabbing (the very recent were the Torau’an of central Bougainville, who entered from the Treasury islands).  

This communion of oneness was shattered with the dawn of colonialism. Colonialism drew a line through the heart of great family relations. The colonial masters told Bougainvilleans, ‘the Shortland islanders are bad for your health, education, culture, and economics. You are one people, one country and one nation with the alien New Guineans’.

But the questions is: Can one paddle a canoe from Lontis (Buka) to Kokopo (New Guinea) and back as one does from Olava (Buin) to Ovau (Shortland group)?

There are questions to be asked and questions yet to be answered. A conservative Kawas should be conscious of/ for the betterment of a raped society. That’s what has already being on the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Autonomous Bougainville Government is struggling for.

The cruelty of colonialism was harsh. So ingrained with injustice, was it to the Bougainvilleans and her sister islands of the Solomons.

Colonisers came firstly, with the Jewish history book, the Bible to unroot Bougainvillean religions. These were faiths and beliefs that serve the natives for thousands of years. They enabled the Bougainvillean to endure the burden of travelling from Asia across the sea of islands and to colonize this beautiful land.

These local faiths empowered the Bougainvillean to toil the island till the late arrival of the aliens.

Then, they brought their education and money. The western books, knowledge and life were good for the Pacific and Bougainville. English, Latin, Dutch or German was life giving languages or thoughts of wisdom. They created and own the Pacific, the world and the universe.

They said that the Bougainvillean life of agricultural subsistence was bad. It is too small and reflects greed. The society and Bougainville does not benefit from it. Plantations and mining were good for Bougainville. They produce cash for the people and development for the island once exported to Europe and imported back.

As western ideas spread and industrialisation of Europe expanded, more resources were required to keep the steam. Bougainville saw cocoa and coconut plantations and the Panguna copper and gold mine that gobbled their chaste land and sacred jungles.

The human aliens grabbed jobs and build squatter settlements around all urban centres. They intimidated, terrorised and shamed the traditions and cultures of Bougainville. The government that was blessed by the colonisers to rule the socially, politically and economically displaced islanders paid no heed to the cries of the land and its children.

Anti-mining protestors of Rorovana village were tortured by New Guinea police, students and other successful persons were murdered under inhuman circumstances in New Guinea. The rests of the disgruntling people (cronies of the foreigners) in Panguna, Loloho, Arawa, Kieta, Toniva and Aropa got cash handouts to quell their dislike of the cruelty on the motherland.

This divide-and-conquer approach to Bougainville gave birth to the Bougainville conflict that has kept Bougainvilleans suffering since 1988 to this very day.

But as they breathe, the islanders should know that, the fight is not over yet. Australia created PNG as its buffer state. In 1988, when the Bougainville militants were often taking to upper hand on the PNG soldiers, Australia brought in gunships and pilots. Then, around 1991, a bunch of Australians were in Panguna teaching the BRA men how to make shotguns and also building the three  homemade armoured vehicles that justified the donation of three Australian armoured vehicles in late 1992 to PNG.

D6 dozer converted into a armour car for the BRA by two Australians at the Pit W/Shop in Panguna. There were three, a fronthand loader and a 10 cubic dump truck and the above D6 caterpillar dozer (source: pacificwrecks.com).

So under this climate, an open minded Bougainvillean is at an advantaged position in decision making for the future politics around PNG-Australia relationship and Bougainville’s place within this syndicate.

But this suffering, fooling and killing has immeasurable blessings for the islanders, also.

The late Francis Ona’s leading of sabotage campaigns on mining activities and equipment; and, hostility on non-Bougainvilleans in 1988 should be seen as a breathing ground for Bougainville. A window of change, or a moment that our long neglected voice, was something worth listening to. The crisis added value to Bougainvillean dignity or humanity, in the eyes of the cruel Papua New Guineans and its citizens and the Australians.

The long journey of pain, suffering and loss of lives and property ought to be what the islanders should see as contributions they individually did for the betterment of the society. For without those sacrifices the world would have ignored them. The ruling country, Papua New Guinea would have harmed their land and life with its long irrespective exploitation of their resources to modernise itself.

Because of human bloodshed and property loss, Papua New Guinea who through the crisis was seen as the great puppet state in the Pacific, saw that Bougainvilleans were a human race and not a mere object she had long played with. Thus, the islanders in this situation need a proper mindset and get things right at the foundation stages and not be like PNG who celebrate media-economy loudly to its citizens though, there is nothing worth celebrating for in the living standards on the ground. Socio-economic indicators preach the other side of the coin as the Port Moresby politicians control the opposite.

Against this inhuman historical treatment of Bougainville by foreigners, fifteen-plus thousand innocent Bougainvillean lives perished; properties valued into the millions were destroyed, for the good of the nation of Bougainville. So, as a Bougainvillean, what is your role now?