Coming to grips with Bougainville

From The Editor's Desk

Last month’s South Pacific Forum meeting in Honiara in the Solomon Islands was a resounding success in terms of being cordial, non-controversial and discussing all the Tight’ issues. There were resolutions made on trade, econ omic advancement, environment, re gional law enforcement, and so on. But the burning issue in the region, the Bougainville dilemma, did not so much as even rate a mention.

Not only did it not even make it on the meeting agenda, the whole Bougainville question was cleanly swept under the carpet as if it did not exist. Despite being the hottest story in Honiara as far as the media was concerned, the regional leaders did not see it fit to discuss the issue, let alone make a resolution on it.

And that is not for a want of trying by the people of Bougainville. There was a formidable contingent from the island including Bishop Zale and Mike Forster and there was also Rosemary Gillespie’s account, backed by what she said were signed statements of the horrors the people of Bougainville suffered at the hands of the Papua New Guinea defence force troops.

Gillespie, a lawyer fighhting for hu man rights, spent time on the island and was, by all accounts, giving an indepen dent assessment of the situation there.

But our leaders preferred to refer to the whole Bougainville saga as an internal matter for PNG to sort out.

Given PNG has a point in not wanting to give in to the secessionist demands.

Once a precedent is set, there is no telling

where it will end. But it cannot be denied that there are claims of gross abuse of human rights coming from Bougainville.

PNG, of course, denies there is any truth in these claims. Bougainville people insist they are true.

So, on humanitarian grounds, wouldn’t it have made sense for the

Forum leaders to call for an independent observer mission to be sent to Bougain ville to decide once and for all how much truth there is in the stories? Wouldn’t it have made sense, on humanitarian grounds, to find to what extent the people of Bougainville are affected by the blockade imposed by PNG.

It does not take much imagination to work out what could happen to the island’s people without medical supplies and personnel; without basic essentials of education for the children now growing up there; and without links to the outside world.

From accounts Pacific Islands Monthly has received, people are surviving on a subsistence level only and relying on make-shift measures to cope with their problems. There are tales of people dying of curable diseases and minor infections because they do not have the medical back-up. They have, according to one account, gone back a hundred years in time from a once prosperous area with a bright future to a ghost town with no hope in sight.

What has surprised most people is the non-reaction the problem received at the Forum meeting. The situation, on our very own door-step and with no signs of abating, needs to be addressed. And what better forum to get an objective, independent hearing than the South Pacific Forum meeting last month. n I

Gillespie: told of horrors on Bougainville