Leonard Fong Roka
Signed in Arawa on the 30th August, 2001, the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA) officially
ended the 10 year Bougainville civil war. It has three major pillars for
Bougainville to uphold till referendum is held between 2015 and 2020.
The three pillars: (1) Autonomy (Part B of BPA), (2)
Referendum (Part C of BPA) and (3) is the Weapons Disposal (Part E of BPA). Part
E specifically targets all combatants of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army
(BRA) and the Bougainville Resistance Force (BRF).
Around mid-2003 the United Nations verified that the
Bougainville weapons disposal program had reached Stage II (Weapons locked in
containers ready for destruction). But hitherto the weapons disposal so far has
occurred only 50-50 success/failure ratings.
This is not because Bougainvilleans want war; or are hostile
to each other, but it is because many combatants are now viewing the third pillar
as an outright disrespect for the 20 thousand Bougainvilleans that perished in
the conflict and, the long history of struggle Bougainville and its people
endured since the colonial era to the creation and maturation of PNG.
To the few silent former combatants who now see the Third
Pillar negatively stand that only the gun gave Bougainville the kind of respect
it now has from the cruel Papua New Guinea state and the Bougainville Copper
Limited. Without the combatants taking up arms in 1988 Bougainville soon have
been a legend.
‘Our land would have being for the PNG government and people
if we did not take weapons and chase them out,’ Chris Bitunau, a 1988-1997 BRA
fighter, told me from Panguna. ‘So I do not and I will not destroy my stock of
weapons since I value them as the means that halted the sedimentations from the
Panguna mine and the colonization by illegal PNG squatter settlers.
‘We cannot throw away our Bougainville history; the future
generations have to see and feel these guns, they have to know the owners of
these guns in pictures and in stories.’
The number of combatants standing by Chris Bitunau’s hopes
of preserving weapons and the stories associated to them is increasing
throughout Bougainville. To them the United Nations and the Autonomous
Bougainville Government (ABG) should do changes in the Third Pillar and find an
honorable disposal of all weapons on Bougainville.
‘The UN and ABG should fund and built three museums each for
north, central and south Bougainville,’ Chris Bitunau told me, ‘and then get
writers like you [referring to me] to collect our stories in the war; asked
questions like ‘why did we joined the BRA or BRF?’, ‘where did and how did I
get this weapon?’ and so on and preserve them with our guns and photos in these
museums for people to come and see and know what happened.
‘Under such a weapons disposal project then we as uneducated
ex-combatants can also financially benefit in the long run as could our
children. You know visitors can pay a little fee at the gate and visit the
combatants’ museum and we benefit.’
To Chris Bitunau such a weapons disposal approach for
Bougainville shows high respect for combatants, their families, the killed 20
thousand Bougainvilleans, and the long history of struggle for Bougainville
against colonial and PNG suppression.
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ReplyDeletenever disarm, this is the same as giving your freedom away. You will only be on equal par if both sides are armed. Do research and you will find that to disarm a population is the first step to the outright controle and even extermination of that population!!. Do you think Papua New Guinea will respect Bougainvilles struggle for freedom if guns did not give bougainvillians an egual standing?of course not, it is through the m16 slr gpmg sr88 etc...that bougainville was ever heard in the first place!..those guns are channels of your voice! as a nation you are nothing without them!..all nations have to have an army to defend themselves and there is no logic in bougainville giving up its right to self defence when it wants to become a nation!
ReplyDeletethere is a time and place for disarming, that is after independence is achieved!...there is no point is disarming now when bougainville has not yet achieved its independence. Upon gaining independence then those arms can be transferred to bougainvilles national defence for or put in museums as they are historical for bougainville to pass on its stories to the next generation. Those guns represent freedom and independence for bougainville and without it the island will be wiped out like what indonesia and the usa are doing in west papua where the locals cannot arm themselves and defend themselves significantly. Imagine if a refferendum occurs and PNG says NO to bougainvilles independence..how are you going to be heard?no one will take you seriously because you are under complete controle being fully disarmed even before gaining independence. The war is not over, you still have not gained independence, there is a quiet and ongoing war to disarm you, after that you will have lost to the same people (aus/png) who have quietly disarmed you and not given you independence in the long run.
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