Bougainville tragedy comes to light
p. 19 · Read in the full issue
AS limited traffic again begins to flow to Papua New Guinea’s secessionist island of Bougain ville Australians are, for the first time, seeing the extent of the human tragedy created by the civil strife and the seven-month blockade by the national government.
Estimates suggest thousands of people have died of preventable diseases. With all services cut the 4000 children born since the blockade began in May 1990 have not been vaccinated.
Malaria, leprosy and yaws are on the increase and many women have died giving birth. The total blockade of the island meant there have been few medicines available and almost no petrol or transport. In some places people are reported to be short of clothes and other basic necessities.
Because of a lack of batteries to power their radios many people have lost contct with the outside world and, in the tense situation of standoff between the Bougainville Revolution
ary Army and the PNG Defence Force, have become prey to wild rumours which periodically sweep the island.
Schools and hospitals are now beginning to open again with volunteer labour but they are still without electricity.
Revelations of Bougainville’s plight, including a recent ABC Television Four Corners program documenting human rights abuses by the PNG army, have intensified demands on the Australian government for humanitarian assistance.
For almost a year a consortium of non-government aid and church organisations (NGO’s) has been pressing the federal government for action to alleviate the human suffering on our doorstep. Since the lifting of the blockade the delicate task of negotiating entry to Bougainville has become somewhat easier and the Australian government has contributed over a quarter of a million dollars to the NGO’s relief efforts.
Along with the International Red Cross the consortium is the only group to have gained the approval of both the PNG government and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army for their activities. Until now the burden of relief efforts has been taken by the Solomon Islands Christian Association, an ecumenical organisation which has arranged for desperately needed medicines to be smuggled into Bougainville through Solomon Islands’ neighbouring Western Province.
Many Australians feel Australia, with big commercial interests on Bougainville and its SASO million a year defence aid to PNG, is partly responsible for the Bougainvilleans’
plight.
In the Four Corners program Blood on the Bougainvillea screened at the end of June Colonel Lee Nuia, the Commander of the PNG Defence Force responsible for Bougainville, confirmed claims that Australian supplied helicopters had been used as gunships to strafe villages on Bougainville and that one had been used to dump the bodies of six executed Bougainvilleans at sea.
The Colonel also confirmed reports that it was the PNG Defence Force which was responsible for the executions. The six victims, of what has now become known as the St Valentine’s Day massacre, included a United Church Pastor.
Until the Four Corners interview Colonel Nuia had told the PNG government that he had been unable to find evidence that the massacre took place.
In PNG the revelations led to the sacking of Colonel Nuia as Bougainville Commander. In Australia they renewed questions over Australia’s military aid program to PNG.
Western Australian Green’s Senator Jo Valentine called for
the scraping of Australia’s entire Defence Co
operation Program.
Instead of channelling military aid to fuel PNG’s internal crisis, Senator Valentine said, “Australia should be developing regional forums and training programmes to use negotiation and mediation skills to resolve conflict.”
Its a sobering fact that over the past year Australia’s military aid to PNG increased by around 30 per cent. Like Senator Valentine, many Australians see that simply as fuel for the fire.
The Australian chapter of Amnesty Interna tional has asked the Australian government to ensure that any further military aid cannot be used to violate human rights and has called for legislation which would specifically prohibit transfers which might contribute to human rights violations.
Despite the reaction to the Four Comers program there has overall been little debate over
Australia’s response to the Bougainville crisis.
While literally thousands of hours of television and radio have been given over to Australia’s role in the gulf war, the plight of the kurds or the Bangladeshi flood victims, very little time has been given to Bougainville.
Although the Bougainville crisis is clearly not on the same scale, one would have thought that given Bougainville’s proximity to Australia, PNG’s strategic importance and the fact that the secessionist rebellion was re-ignited by the activities of an Australian company mining on the copper rich island, there would have been more public comment.
So why the silence?
Certainly one reason is the lack of television footage showing
the plight of Bougainvilleans.
Viewers in Australia watched every shocking detail of the Kurds flight from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, they saw old people and babies dying in their loved ones’ arms in the freezing and filthy conditions in the camps high in the mountains on the Turkish border.
The response was huge public concern and generous donations to relief funds.
Over the past year the plight of the Bougainvilleans has prompted just a few television news items and only two TV
documentary pieces.
Undoubtedly the blockade, which banned journalists from entering Bougainville, had much to do with that. For more than six months not one journalist went to Bougainville. Even then reports on conditions on the island were only heard after a few reporters crept in through Solomon Islands Western Province.
The lack of coverage is also a reflection of the priorities of Australian news organisations and editors.
While editors are prepared to follow international media organisations into detailed coverage of the politics of other regions, they are not prepared to strike out on their own and provide similar coverage of our near and important neighbours.
Costs and difficulties getting the necessary government approvals are only part of thee problem.
The other is editors’ perceptions. Many see Papua New Guinea’s complex politics as impenetrable and Australia’s relations with PNG as little more than a hangover of the past.
Perhaps it is time Australia’s media organisations plucked up the courage to break away from the herd mentality and look seriously and sympathetically at the difficult decisions being made in PNG. □