2005 Election Success in the Bougainville’s ‘No Go Zone’

Experiences of Leonard Fong Roka

In an air of jubilation for Bougainvilleans for the 7^th anniversary of the ABG’s birth, I turn to sit and look back at the year 2005, where the process of making the government with which we are walking with today, was sacrificed for. And that is the first ever Bougainville general election that created the first Bougainville Autonomous Government under the leadership of late Joseph Kabui.

Leonard Fong Roka, was Assistant Returning Officer for Ioro Constituency (Panguna) for the first Bougainville General Election in 2005.

Unofficially walking out of the University of Papua New Guinea in 2004 I ended up supervising an AusAID project on researching crime on the streets of Arawa in late 2004. And at the same time, I was assisting the Kieta District Manager, Mr Otto Noruka, in his strategising of ‘how election should be executed in the No Go Zone’ of Ioro Constituency (Panguna).

During this period, with the formation of an autonomous government for Bougainville was in the air, the Meekamui was so active into undermining democracy or simply ‘people power’. Late Francis Ona’s two ‘iron men’, Moses Pipiro and Chris Uma, then were often at logger heads. Both were anti-ABG, but between them there was a wider political divide of who ‘was the rightful boss in the Panguna area’.

Thus, out of Bougainville’s 33 constituencies, Ioro (Panguna) was a special case for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was the Francis Ona’s Meekamui strong hold; then, it was where, most of the people who terrorised the Peace Process were based and it, also repelled any pro-peace government officials.

Upon my appointment as the Assistant Returning Officer for my home constituency as of 2 January 2005 to 31 July 2005, I got our pro-peace BRA’s ‘A’ COMPANY commander, Peter Onabui (the man who led the 7-men assault on the PNGDF in late 1992 and killed 8 soldiers), into my eight election teams. He willing accepted and helped greatly.

After securing Peter Onabui to the cause, I did created every polling booth from Arawa, with my well established knowledge of the constituency. But the only problem was the appointment of polling officials to man the booths.

The problem was the people’s culture in Bougainville, where by everybody want to be part of the effort despite the fact that the system cannot cater for everyone, especially financially. And most, when seeing themselves as being neglected resort to threat with arms. This is often demoralizing for new persons.

With my self-created 8 polling booths (some were to move from location to next to accommodate voters), that are: Okoni (mobile), Narinai, Bapong (mobile), Tonanau, Barako (mobile), Toku (mobile), Dapera and Parakake, I went about seeking former BRA men to lead.

From owned reasons, a former BRA man handed me a Colt M1917 .45 Revolver, as I was scavenging the Toio Valley south of the Panguna mine and behind the Guava-Kokore ridge looking for men to work as polling officials. I, encountered nothing negative so it was fixed, teams were ready and forwarded to the Returning Officer, Mr Otto Noruka for approval.

Then, the teams attended the 3 days election workshop at the United Church Youth Centre complex and economically geared for the tasks at hand.

The last concern to me and my teams was the transport of the ballot boxes to and back from Panguna for polling and after polling.

Thus, to the creativity of the team members, each team took responsibility of his ballot box. They transported it by placing them amidst the cargo bought by our local business men and South Bougainville vehicles who were supportive of the peace process and the elections.

This success was a slap in the face for some Meekamui officials who condemned their gate-keepers for not being committed to their line of duty. So, to this internal friction, the number of men at the Morgan Junction was increased and they were really active by thoroughly foraging every cargo transported across their line, for they were later told that some of the ballot boxes entered Panguna not on Panguna vehicles but rather on trucks belonging to some Siwai persons from South Bougainville.

As the polling was under progress, I and the Returning Officer, engaged on discussing means to have the ballot boxes safely returned for counting. His plans, was for the boxes to be air-lifted from the Bana District in South Bougainville. Whilst, gesturing a ‘yes’ for the RO, I supported an armed transport through the Meekamui checkpoint by night that was suggested to me by the teams.

So, whilst the airlifting story was on the road and Meekamui saw no hope of winning the game, the ballots boxes were neatly wrapped to look like trailer of dry cocoa beans and transported through the checkpoint after the completion of polling.

Note: Only one polling booth, that is Okoni, lost a ballot box to a bunch of armed thugs (in the absence of their leader, Leonard Tamava) who got it and destroyed them with bullet holes from firing at it. But, it was replaced and Tamava warned them to prepare their coffins first and terrorise his team members.