Politics Or Humanity?

xiTi *1 • -ii 1 n , i • While regional leaders retuse to dISCUSS .p. . , - • ry-, • nn .

Bougainville, Martin 1 litany writes ° 7 , y that reports of human rights abuse l o continue to pour out of the area.

THE CRACKLE of the radio filters through the night air and breaks through the murmur of voices. Conversation ceases as all ears strain to listen to the announcer. “The Bishop has crossed the boarder,” smiles Martin Miriori as he looks up from beside the radio. There were smiles all around for the small victory. Such small victories keep the

people of Bougainville go ing.

Bishop John Zale of the United Church of the Bou gainville region has made it through the Papua New Guinea security forces pa trols around Bougainville and is on his way to the Solomon Islands. With him he is bringing a little more hope, another possibility to bring the plight of his people to the attention of the world.

He is on his way to Honiara where the heads of 15 regional countries are meeting for the annual South Pacific Forum. Per haps they can help.

The voice of Radio Free Bougainville crackles again as the announcer dedicates his next song Evil Ways to the Papua New Guinea security forces.

This breaks a few faces into smiles.

The smiles belie the seriousness of the cause Bishop Zale and Miriori, secretary of state and hu man rights co-ordinator, are fighting for. They rep resent the self-styled Bou gainville interim govern ment which wants inde pendence for the copper rich island from PNG.

Traditionally and

:ulturally Bougainville is

Dart of the Solomon Islands. It is only Doundries drawn by

colonialists in recent times that have made it part of PNG. The interim government says they represent the majority of the people and they want to break from PNG. PNG says about two thirds of the Bougainvilleans want to remain with them.

Who do you believe?

“Why not allow the people to decide

for themselves,” asks Mike Forster, Bougainville’s United Nations represen tative. “Give us self-determination and the people can decide what they want, just stop the violence and the killing.”

The PNG government has imposed a blockade on Bougainville stopping supplies of food and medicine going in.

The interim-government says thousands have died because of a lack of medicine and accuses the PNG security forces of terrorising and killing innocent people.

PNG says its forces only attack mem bers of the Bougainville Revolutinary Army (BRA). They say the Bougainvilleans are being terrorised by the BRA and they are protecting the people. The interim-government says the BRA is a necessary evil which protects

the people.

Who do you be lieve?

Bishop Zale made it safely to Honiara but the regional heads of government could see no good reason to dis cuss the matter. The two-day 23rd South Pacific Forum meeting ended on July 9 with no official mention of Bougainville. It was perhaps the biggest news in Honiara but it never made the meet

ing agenda.

It wasn’t for the want of trying by the interim-government.

Well before the Forum started it was lobbying for Bougainville to be put on the agenda.

Bishop Zale, Forster, Miriori and Moses Havini, Bouganville interim-government representative in Aus tralia, held press con ferences, wrote letters and lobbied to get the Bougainville issue on the agenda and dis cussed at this Forum.

They were politely

told it was an internal matter for PNG, Even though PNG defence patrol boats have crossed the

Bougainville Revolutionary Army: a necessary evil?

boarder into the Solomon Islands and attacked villagers, it was an internal matter. Although the Solomon govern ment has been sympathetic to the cause of Bougainville, granting Miriori a two year residential permit, it perhaps diplomatically avoided the issue. But relations between PNG and the Solomon Islands have been strained in recent months.

The finger has more then once pointed at Australia for supplying weapons, ammunition and helicopters to PNG who in turn use these against civilians on

Bougainville.

Asked if he had any concerns about the situation in Bougainville, Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, replied he was concerned there was an armed secessionist movement on Bougainville.

‘I have witnessed their atrocitI have heard their lies, and they have been proved to be lies . J

— Bishop £ale

“It’s a matter of concern to us, to the neighbourhood, but I think the Forum regard it as an internal problem for Papua New Guinea, as we did,” Keating said.

Forster laughs sarcastically at this.

“Before the second world war the League of Nations said the Jews in Germany were an internal matter, in the 1960 s Australia said South Africa’s racial problems were an internal matter, now they say Bougainville is an internal matter,” Forster said shaking his head.

“When will people realise that it is no longer an internal matter, no longer a political matter, but a matter of hu manity.”

Keating was asked if he thought there will come a point when it will stop being an internal situation.

“We’re hoping that a political settle ment can be arrived at, and in my discussions with prime minister Mamaloni I urged that the quicker dialogue be re-established between the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, the better, ” replied Keating.

He said if it were to be proved that Australian-supplied Iroquois helicopters were being used as gun-ships in a “defensive manner” this would be con trary to the conditions under which they were given to PNG, and Australia would suggest to the PNG government they be withdrawn from the service area.

However, Keating said Australia could not take them back.

Australian human rights lawyer Rosemarie Gillespie, 51, ran PNG’s blockade to reach central Bougainville and return in time for the Forum. She says she has proof the Iroquois helicop ters are used as gun-ships and shoot at unarmed civilians.

In Honiara she

produced statuatory

declarations which tell of the horror of the war on the

Bougainvilleans by

the defence forces. If they are true then the purpose of the South Pacific Fo rum should be ques tioned is it any thing more then a tight-knit group which meets annu ally for a bit of back slapping and a good time?

One declaration from a Moses Tseraha Kukun tells of how “PNG armed forces poured petrol on Chief Joshua Sevo and burned him to death... This year Stenis Latu was shot, tied to a log, taken up in a heli copter while still alive, and thrown to his death from the

helicopter People

are being tortured

under interrogation,

with knives and

razor blades. Reports say they are cut ... bit by bit ... until the person bleeds to death. Two brothers, Lawrence and Michael Koal, and Tobias died that way.”

Another declaration from Reverend John Wesley Ririan of Kieta says a PNG patrol boat flying the Red Cross flag shot at them while they were fishing.

Steven Lipa of Engoa Village writes he was with Gillespie on June 10, this year, in a banana boat travelling from Kariki to Engoa. He said when the boat was near Oema Island in Solomon waters a PNG army plane came from the north, circled over them, then swooped low,

firing at them.

Lipa said they had to jump out of the boat run over the reef and hide in the bush. Both he and Gillespie cut their feet badly on the reef.

The 30 or so other statutory declar ations Gillespie produced tell of similar attacks by the PNG forces and of the atrocities they commit.

Fairy stories or fact?

According to PNG foreign secretary, Gabriel Dusava, Gillespie’s declarations have no credibility as they are signed by people only known to her. He also accuses her of breaking PNG law by

entering the country illegally.

Dusava said Gillespie would have been let into Bougainville had she requested the PNG government. The Bougainville claims in Honiara obviously worried PNG prime minister Rabbie Namaliu enough to issue a statement titled “More BRA Lies in Honiara” during the Forum

meeting.

In it he urged the Australian and other regional governments not to respond to every allegation made by the BRA and its agenda in Honiara.

Namaliu said the BRA had a vested interest in undermining PNG’s relations with its Pacific neighbours, including

Bishop Zale: slipped through PNG patrols

Australia. “If the security forces are so bad, why is it that thousands of villagers and their families have fled from the BRA and have sought the protection of the security forces and the administra tion?

“The thousands of innocent men, women and children, living in our care centres, have a very different message.”

The Bougainville delegation in Honi ara replied to this by saying the “care centres” spoken of by PNG are no more than concentration camps of the PNG army created after the destruction of Bouganville villages. They ask why, if the people in the care centres are so happy, does PNG not let observers in to see for themselves.

The interim government says the failure of the Forum to address the Bougainville situation is filled with hypocrisy.

“There are precedents within the Forum member countries for the separ ation of Bougainville from PNG against the tide of colonialism. The ex-colony of Gilbert and Ellis Islands into Kiribati and Tuvalu is a case in point, the Federated States of Micronesia is an other,” they say.

Forster says all his group is asking for is an observer mission to come and see for itself.

Bishop Zale who slipped through PNG army patrols to reach the Forum says PNG has been lying to the world.

“I tell you this in all good conscience and in the sight of God the Father. I have witnessed their atrocities, I have heard their lies and they have been proved to be lies,” said Bishop Zale. “The PNG government has lied to us so many times, and had lied to the world so many times, that they have no truth left in them.

They have promised us many times that the blockade will be lifted and the medical supplies allowed in. They have promised us they will talk with us, they have promised us essential services, school supplies, cooking pots, clothing, tea and sugar, they have promised us they will cease using the gun to solve the issue. Nothing has come.”

When Forster brought up their case at the UN he was told he should try and get it raised at a regional forum first. He and the others tried that and have failed.

The 23rd South Pacific Forum is over.

Radio Free Bougainville buzzes into life again. It is Bougainville chiefs with desperation in their voices. They ask how the people of the Pacific, their brothers, can just ignore them.

The Pacific leaders don’t hear the call.

They are busy with their cocktail parties, their dinners and their speeches. Empty words that mean nothing to the children of Bougainville who die on a dirt floor as their mothers give birth to them under the light of a kerosene light.

Fact or fiction? □