Thoughts on Migration Control that is Vital for Bougainville

Leonard Fong Roka

Freedom of movement control in and out of Bougainville is unvoiced by politicians because of the spell of democracy and freedom; it is not also mentioned in the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Bougainville Constitution specifically with emphasis for the trouble-torn island as one of the means into addressing the conflict, but it was one of the very reasons that caused the death of some twenty thousand innocent Bougainvillean lives.

Bougainvilleans were created by divine design on the Solomon Island of Bougainville thus if you worship God then Bougainville does not need strangers in their land

As a child before the dawn of the Bougainville conflict, elders so often told us to be careful when passing through the edges of Arawa town when coming and leaving school because of the dangerous New Guinean thugs and harassers of the slums. When the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) men were executing my New Guinean father in 1993, one of them shouted at my defensive mother that my father was not my grandfather’s nephew (a traditional norm in culture that marriage partner selection was a requirement that secured heritage rights). This was a Bougainville for Bougainvilleans proclamation.

But watching the snail progress of my island, I see that the number of New Guineans and Papuans entering and leaving Bougainville freely is increasing every year. These people do know very well that they and their government have not yet compensated the Solomon island people of Bougainville for the destruction of peoples’ lives and properties they have caused from the 1960s to the late 1990s in the Melanesian Way yet they shamelessly visit the island.

During the peak of the crisis Bougainville leaders from churches to secular organizations were so vocally racist, killers and discriminators of Redskins! Every meeting in the hideouts with government officials of the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG), there was always condemnation or prayers to God to help the BRA kill the Redskins of the infiltrating PNGDF.

But, where did we throw away that spirit of nationalist pride?

This is one of the controversial and unaddressed issues that the illegal groups like the Meekamui on Bougainville sometimes have had won peoples’ hearts with by claiming that the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) is selling Bougainville back to the dogs! And I do agree with most anti-ABG groups that the leaders in the ABG and Waigani are ignorantly selling Bougainville to the foe.

Many would argue that most Redskins coming to Bougainville are here to help rebuilt Bougainville since Bougainville is way back in terms of human resource. Such a notion supports the influx of Redskin teachers and missionaries and few others; but, does it justifies the increase in the number of Redskin street vendors, second hand sellers, newspapers sellers, marriage hunters and holiday makers on the raise especially on Buka island? Is Bougainville willing to accept New Guinean and Papuan squatter settlements in the near future? I believe not.

This does not fit well with the reasons for the long and bloody Bougainville conflict!

According to Divine Word University’s Dr. Jerry Semos, the Bougainville people were offered the right for referendum as one of the three pillars in the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) by the UN Committee on Decolonization notably for Bougainville’s history of being a forced colonial and political annexed island; its experience of regularly struggles to save its identity and autonomy and the issue of the many forms of genocide Bougainvilleans are subjected to by the careless majority Redskin Papua New Guineans.

But sadly, elected Bougainville leaders in Waigani and the ABG are not at all vocal and active about protecting the unique Bougainvillean identity and cultures of the northern Solomon archipelago area and addressing problems on the ground. They are out there running after money for their bellies and not the betterment of the people.

To most concern but silent Bougainvilleans, it is about time leaders should think outside the box of the BPA and Bougainville Constitution and create laws with the PNG government as allowed for by provisions in the BPA for collectively addressing concerns affecting Bougainville to control the movement of educated Bougainvilleans out of Bougainville and Redskins entry and departure in and out of the island.

One such critic, secondary school leaver turned businessman from Panguna, Steven Domiura, 31, claims that the ABG and the PNG government should formulate laws that should ban New Guineans and Papuans entry into Bougainville. These people should enter Bougainville only with travel permits that should have high priced money to obtain and collected by the ABG helping the Bougainville internal revenue collection effort.

To him, Redskin were the great instigators of the Bougainville crisis by being the great benefactors of Panguna wealth and illegally stealing our land for their settlements and later with the secessionist revolt, rejecting a dialogue for peace but employing force to eradicate Bougainvilleans who were fighting for their rights.

This idea prompts me to add the idea I had for long thinking about that, if there was creativity in the Bougainville politics, the current ABG house, should have had jointly with the PNG government, created legal amendments associated with the drawing down of powers and functions to the ABG that should paved the way for denying the provision of employment for certain professions to Bougainvilleans outside of their homeland. And some readily available professions that should be considered with such an arrangement are: nursing (health extension officers, outpatient staff), teaching (primary and secondary school), police, correctional services, accountants (the lower grades) and so on.

Such an exercise should have addressed the shortage Bougainville faces in these areas not because of lack of local professionals but because many such qualified Bougainvilleans are out there in different corners of PNG.

Furthermore, political leaders in Bougainville are still sleeping in formulating legal frameworks to retain back its human resources that are being created outside of the island. The ABG by now should have had created laws with the blessings of Waigani that should get its graduating students from universities and other tertiary institutions to serve their first five or so years in Bougainville then go elsewhere.

My dreams are against the issue of Human Rights but to address our Bougainville problems, Human Rights must be defined in a way that Bougainville needs are considered in order to bring about changes that upholds the dignity of the Bougainvillean person.

A strict control on people movement in and out of Bougainville is only one gesture out of many I believe can help address certain problems on the island and create a cranny to identify more means to tackle other issues.