Philip Miriori, a problem in Bougainville politics

Leonard Fong Roka

It was in May when travelling to Port Moresby for the Lowy Institute’s PNG Young Voices Conference that a Bougainvillean academic told me that ‘President Momis should retire from politics if he loves Bougainville.’ But his words, though significant in its own terms, did get me back to my homeland, the Panguna District and all its nasty and irrelevant politics.

Bougainvilleans sometimes should appreciate us, the stubborn Panguna people, for our contribution to physically rebel the old Bougainville problems of exploitation, indoctrination and genocide landed on us by the colonial administration of the Germans since 1886-1905 window, supported by the Australians and inherited by the Papua New Guinea state since 1975.

We the Panguna people also played significant roles in the peace process on Bougainville since 1997 and also before that; but our problem is that we have that internal mi-tu-man (I am also a difference) conflicts.

Looking down the history of the Bougainville ‘armed’ crisis in 1988 we can see that there is a replica of past events with external bonding this time that further complicates Bougainville progress in the Kieta area.

In the 1980s when the late Francis Ona of Guava village was up with his militant activities, the late Joseph Kabui from the neighboring village of Enamira was in the podium of the North Solomons Provincial Government representing the authority of the day. This was, to the eye of a politically illiterate Panguna man, a Panguna man vs. Panguna man crisis then.

And coming the peace process efforts since 1997 it was a Panguna man, the late Joseph Kabui, running the pro-peace game and it was a Panguna man, the late Francis Ona, that run a anti-peace campaign. Thus this has direct impacts on Panguna District itself and the wider Kieta area of Central Bougainville. I do believe the psyche of the people was affected.

This is not a Panguna problem anymore for it had spilled over from the brim of Panguna politics and beyond to the ends of Bougainville.

Soon after traditional figures of Bougainville politics, Francis Ona and Joseph Kabui were off the screen by way of their death Panguna saw a rise in too many little-men running for the shoes of their relatives. And all these little-man are vying to be the next Francis Ona at the wrong time in the political transition of Bougainville.

And one of this little-man of Panguna is Philip Miriori.

Before I talk about who Philip Miriori is, we need to know the realm Philip Miriori is playing in or from.

The 2013 research paper, The Gangs of Bougainville: Seven Men, Guns and a Copper Mine, by Stan Starygin says that:

 

 Philip Miriori, and Philip Takaung declaring themselves Ona’s successors. Miriori and Takaung brought Pipiro back to command the MDF troop severely depleted by the departure of Uma’s loyalists.

Miriori and Takaung rebranded Ona’s Kingdom of Me’ekamui into the Me’ekamui Government of Unity (‘MGU’) and significantly softened Ona’s stance on the ABG resulting in a landmark memorandum of understanding (‘the Panguna Communiqué’) in 2007. The Panguna Communiqué signaled, in part, a complete break from Ona’s positions and, in part, their significant alteration. As such, through it, the MGU denounced Uma’s checkpoint as having “abused and misused its objectives and rules of engagement under the Me’ekamui government” and as having the purpose “to blockade the Panguna people”,⁶⁵ condemned “the use of arms and violence”⁶⁶ and acquiesced to what can, perhaps, be best termed as a ‘two political viewpoints, one administrative structure’ arrangement with the ABG.67 In return, even though ABG has no such authority by any constitutional provision and ABG reciprocated by allowing the MGU to have its “own contingent plans on arms containment”⁶⁸ and, of course, a promise of bringing resolution of “social issues and development issues”,⁶⁹ “financial assistance, economic benefits, development packages, good and service”,⁷⁰ and “other services”;⁷¹ all of these translate into ABG bringing money into the MGU-dominated  area, which doubtless was the main reason for this rapprochement for the MGU.

 

Philip Miriori, Philip Takaung and Noah Musingku were the trio vying to be successors of Francis Ona when he died. But conflict pushed Noah Musingku to Siwai where he pursued his Papaala Twin Kingdoms and Chris Uma out of Panguna to Arawa to run his anti-Panguna version of Meekamui. With two non-Panguna rivals out Miriori, Takaung and a BRA man, Pipiro, all from Panguna created their Meekamui Government of Unity (MGU) with Philip Miriori as president.

 

And so the 2007 signing of the Panguna Communiqué between the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) under the late Joseph Kabui and the MGU that catapulted Philip Miriori to be a nosiest and hard-to-trust destructive little-man of Panguna.

 

And we the Kietas are good noise-makers. I said this in my 2012 PNG Attitude story, Bougainville politics & the characteristics of its people, that:

 

 In Central Bougainville where the Kietas are politically and economically dominant, I see a lot of ‘big mouths’ that just cannot stop talking. Central Bougainvilleans are creative in exporting their dreams without testing the practical outcomes of those thoughts. But this population also readily absorbs change and adapts change to create results.

 

We talk and talk and talk. This could be noted even with the Central Bougainville MP in Waigani, Communications Minister Hon. Jimmy Miringtoro who talks hard in the media negatively attacking ABG but when the ABG responds with real facts, he hides for awhile to get fresh air.

 

And with Philip Miriori and the current exchanges with the ABG on the Panguna mine re-opening issue Miriori is an Octobers with too many hands.

 

In a New Dawn on Bougainville (3 June) story, Me’ekamui’s Miriori challenged to be honest about mining, our President Dr. John Momis blasted Miriori:

 

I challenge Mr. Miriori to tell us about his foreign advisers, and what they are doing to make money for foreign interests. They included two Americans with the Tall J Foundation, Stewart Sytner and Thomas Megas. There are documents freely available on the Internet that show they claim that Mr. Miriori sold them mining rights in areas to the north of the Panguna Special Mining Lease. I challenge him to tell us is what Sytner and Megas claim is true.
What about the other investors in Tall J? What advice did they give to Miriori? What about the Tall J investor who brought in the Chinese scrap metal dealers? What advice did he give? What about the advice that Mr. Ian Renzie Duncan gives?
“Mr. Miriori is not being honest about the future of mining. His hands are not clean in relation to mining.
“Mr. Miriori is not being honest about foreign advisers. Again his hands are not clean.
“I challenge him to be honest on these matters. I challenge him to enter these debates only when he has clean hands.

 

Dr. Momis attacks are real facts that Philip Miriori when accusing ABG on mining runs his own deals to attract foreign mining and even scrap metal groups into Panguna. With the scrap exhausted scrap metal industry Panguna people at most had gain nothing when foreign groups walked away with tonnes of Panguna scrap.

 

And the general culture of these Meekamui figures is known by all foreign opportunists: ‘just decant a cup of K1 coins into their mouth and they open the door wide’. And this is a chronic characteristics; their existence is the ABG’s politics that does not satisfy the hearts and minds of us, Bougainvilleans.

 

And even their political fantasies, so cocooned with threats, is hanging on the thread and they will get a natural dead if ABG plays a kind of politics that wins the hearts and minds of the people of Bougainville.