14th birthday

Papua New Guinea

A not so happy 14th birthday

By Liz Thompson

PAPUA New Guinea was fourteen years old as a sovereign nation on September 16. The opening of the 15th anniversary is looked on with both fear and enthusiasm by most. In the face of continuing unrest and no solution to the Bougainville crisis, Nama liu warned the nation in his independ ence day address that the country must set aside its differences. Indeed, as the Bougainville copper mine remained closed, the financial figures for next year are continually bleaker. With the mine providing 17 per cent of the national and 40 per cent of export revenue, 1990 finances are going to be hard hit. The continuing drop in world copra and cof fee prices, two of Papua New Guinea’s other major exports, half the copra

being previously produced in Bougain

ville, does not improve the economic outlook.

Negotiations took another tragic turn

on Sunday, September 10 when John Bika, the Minister for Commerce who headed a commission responsible for negotiating with the landowners, was shot dead at home in front of his family.

Bika was on his way to Port Moresby to see the signing of an agreement he had been instrumental in engineering be tween the National government and the landowners. The agreement was reached after exhaustive talks between both par ties. Offers by the national government included half the government’s equity in the mine on very reasonable terms,

greatly improved compensation and

community developments valued at ab out K2OO million. In addition to this Bougainville Copper Limited has come forward with a package worth K4O mil lion to cover a seven-year period. Prime Minister Rabbie Namaliu called the agreement “a very generous package by anyone’s standards”. The signing was seen as a landmark. But due to the shooting of Bika, it was indefinitely post poned.

Justice Minister Bernard Narakobi confirmed the growing opinion that the

militants were increasingly alienating

themselves from the rest of the com munity. In the killing of Bika the people of Bougainville had lost a good leader

and the people of PNG had lost a man of reconciliation. He had appealed to the North Solomons people not to be “fooled anymore by the militants with

their propaganda and trickery”.

The unusually large degree of orga

nisation amongst the militants and their supply of arms point to the possibility someone was helping from outside.

Namaliu agreed that could be the case: It is not possible for a group to purpor trate these kind of activities or this kind of violence for the past 10 months with out them having advisers or people trained in military tactics,” he said. He added that the government knew the militants were getting weapons from within the province and from other parts of Papua New Guinea, again pointing to the existence of a far broader network.

Namaliu said government had a good idea who were helping the militants but he didn’t say if they were locals or fore

igners.

The government continues to promote policies that can diversify the economy.

Agriculture is being encouraged more

than anything else to help rural develop ment and put the brakes on urban drift.

The Bougainville rebellion continues to haunt the government. □