Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 01:20, 8 August 2015

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article is missing information about Error: you must specify what information is missing.. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (July 2013) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bougainville conflict" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Bougainville Civil War
District map of Bougainville (North Solomons) though with the international boundary incorrectly placed southeast of Shortland and Ovau and Fauro islands
Date 1 December 1988 - 20 April 1998 Location Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Sea Result Bougainville Peace Agreement Creation of the Bougainville Autonomous Government Occupation in southern Bougainville & area around Panguna mine continues.
Belligerents
Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea Defence Force File:Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary logo.jpg Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary Maritime Operations Element Air Operations Element Buka Liberation Front Bougainville Resistance Force Buin Resistance Force Supported by: Australia File:Autriservice.gif Australian Defence Force Rio Tinto Group	Bougainville Interim Government Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) Numerous PNG army defectors, foreign supporters, & local tribes Supported by: Solomon Islands
Commanders and leaders
Julius Chan Jerry Singirok Paias Wingti Bill Skate Rabbie Namaliu	Francis Ona Sam Kauona Theodore Miriung† Ishmael Toroama Joseph Kabui
Strength
4,700 Soldiers (peak) File:Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary logo.jpg Several hundred Two Balikpapan class landing craft & four pacific class patrol boats Five Bell UH-1 helicopters, 2 CASA/IPTN CN-235 transport planes ~2000 Resistance fighters 40 Police & military advisors	20,000 Militia (peak)
Casualties and losses
+200 killed File:Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary logo.jpg~50 killed None 4 Bell UH-1 helicopters destroyed, 1 damaged, & 1 CASA/IPTN CN-235 transport plane rendered unusable 1,000+ resistance fighters killed none	Bougainville Revolutionary Army: +300 killed (In fighting with PNGDF; unknown killed in fighting with police & militia)
16,000-22,000 Bougainville civilians killed (1,000-2,000 deaths due to combat) 1,000+ Cases of rape 42,000-67,000 Bougainvillean refugees, plus Approx. 20,000 foreign & "educated" refugees.

The Bougainville Civil War, also known as the Bougainville Conflict or simply as The Crisis, was an armed conflict fought between Papua New Guinea and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), who were fighting for independence. The war has been described as the largest conflict in Oceania since the end of World War II, with approximately 15,000 to 20,000 Bougainvilleans killed.

Historical background (1969-1988)

Drilling began in the early 1960s, with the discovery of vast copper ore deposits in the Crown Prince Mountain Range in southern Bougainville Island in 1969, leading to the establishment of the huge Bougainville Copper Mine by the Australian company Conzinc Rio Tinto.

The Panguna mine began production in 1972 under the management of Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL), with Papua New Guinea as a 20% shareholder. At the time, the Panguna mine was the largest open cut mine in the world. It provided over 45% of Papua New Guinea's national export revenue.

BCL paid more than one billion dollars in tax and dividends to the PNG Government, $33 million to landowners ($28.5 million in compensation for land lost, etc, and $4.5 million in royalties), and another $83 million in royalties to the Provincial Government.

The mine brought thousands of non-Bougainvilleans to the island, most of whom were Papua New Guineans, who were known as "red-skins" by the Bougainvilleans because of their red skin colour, in comparison to the black Bougainvilleans. Many "white-skins", mostly Australians, were also brought in to work the mine. This immigration caused further tension among the Bougainvilleans, who did not want foreigners on their land, especially the "red-skins," because of their cultural differences.

Along with racial and cultural differences, Bougainvilleans alleged that the mine was causing irreparable environmental damage (an accusation in part supported by the discoloration and pollution of a previously clean river (the Jaba River) near the mine by Tailings (of which, around 50 million tonnes was simply dumped into the river every year) and herbicide (allegedly Agent Orange, though according to Rio Tinto, a different chemical, "brush killer 80" was used, although both defoliants have the same components, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, in the same proportions as one another) from the mine, and the destruction of a large plot of fertile land to construct the Panguna mine. In return, the locals demanded $10 billion (over three times the mine's value).

Over a decade earlier, the issue of compensation went to the High Court of Australia, where it was found that the compensation was inadequate under ordinary federal Australian law, but that as an external territory at the time, Papua New Guinea was not guaranteed the same standards that applied to mainland Australia

The 1988 landowners had never received any of the compensation for the land taken that their forefathers had received. The size of the mine workforce had fallen from 10,000 during construction to about 3,500, and Bougainvilleans only occupied about 30 per cent of those positions. By the mid-1980s, young people from all over Bougainville were increasingly resentful about the lack of employment opportunities.

In 1987, cousins and local leaders, Francis Ona and Pepetua Serero called a meeting of landowners around Panguna, forming the Panguna Landowners' Association. Serero was selected as "Chairlady" and Ona as General Secretary. Ona had previously worked for BCL, and had witnessed the effects the mine was having on the environment.

Thus, in late 1988, Ona voiced the islander's demands in a meeting with BCL's management, during which he stated that he wanted the mine closed, and $10 billion in compensation.

It was there that his demands were allegedly met with comic disbelief, $10 billion was much more than the mine was actually worth.

To make matters worse for the islanders, a New Zealand company, commissioned by the company to do an environmental review into the accusations of pollution, reported in a meeting with Ona in November, 1988, that they found no evidence to support the local's claim that the Jaba river had been polluted.

Thus, enraged at what he felt was corporate ignorance and corruption, Ona stormed out the meeting, stole 50 kilograms of explosives from the mine, and created the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), which soon began guerrilla attacks against the mine.

Insurgency

They started by holding up it's magazine, and committing numerous acts of arson and sabotage (e.g. setting the mine's buildings alight, blowing the mine's power pylons, thus cutting the mine's power supply). These BRA forces were commanded by Sam Kauona (the BRA's spokesman), who was a former soldier in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force, who had previously trained in Australia, and had defected in order to become his right-hand man.

The BRA's knowledge in the use of the explosives allegedly came from a BRA guerrilla that formerly worked as a demolitions expert for the PNGDF.

On May 15, 1989, the Panguna mine was evacuated and officially closed due to alleged terrorist attacks against it's workers, but in March of the next year, in its place came 600 armed elite PNG Mobile Police Squad officers (aka. "blackshirts") and military (under the command of PNGDF officer Jerry Singirok, who would later serve as the commander of the PNGDF during the Sandline affair of 1997), arriving to the island with the purpose of arresting Ona, and reopening the mine.

Equally determined as the rebels (as the Panguna mine provided the PNG government with over half its yearly GDP), they soon began to target villages they suspected harbored support for Ona with searches, beatings, arbitrary arrests, and killings at the hands of the police becoming commonplace. Australia, also eager to support its business interest, donated five Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters (and allegedly, pilots to operate them) to the PNG government, ostensibly, though, for non combat purposes. Soon after, the PNG army began to convert the helicopters into gunships, which they did simply tying a rope to the top of the roof of the helicopter's interior, next to the sliding doors, then tying a knot at the bottom of the rope, then expanding it so as to allow for a hole to form, then placing an M60 machine gun through the hole, with the gun barrel facing outwards.

With civilian casualties from the police crackdown and subsequent raids by the Iroquois helicopter gunships increasing, so did the Bougainvilleans discontent with their government, and support of Ona and his BRA, which by now had no shortage of recruits (membership increased colossally from just 30 in 1989, to 20,000 in 1991, 1/7 of the island's population at the time) rallying under the banner of an independent Bougainville.

By March 1990, with military and police casualties in the dozens, Papua New Guinea withdrew and imposed a blockade on Bougainville, enforced by the five Iroquois helicopters and four Pacific-class patrol boats that had been purchased from the Australian government in the early 1980s (which by now, was also allegedly beginning to send combat advisors to the PNG government).

Ona responded by unilaterally declaring independence, and set up the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG), but it had little power, and the island began to descend into disarray. The command structure set up by the BRA seldom had any real control over the various groups throughout the island that claimed to be part of the BRA. A number of raskol (criminal) gangs that were affiliated with the BRA, equipped largely with weapons salvaged from the fighting in World War II, terrorized villages, engaging in murder, rape and pillage. Bougainville split into several factions, and a civil war began.

Civil War

Much of the division in this fighting was along clan lines (besides the Blockade, there were 70-80 minor tribal conflicts allegedly taking place on the island); the BIG/BRA was dominated by the Nasioi clan, causing other islanders to view it with suspicion. On the island of Buka, north of Bougainville, a local militia was formed which succeeded in driving out the BRA with the help of Papuan troops during a bloody offensive in September. Multiple agreements were signed and not honored by any side. The BRA leadership of Ona and Kauona fell out with some of the political leaders, such as Kabui. Several other village militias, which together became known as the resistance, armed by the PNG Defence Force, forced the BRA out of their areas.

Papua New Guinea's policy towards Bougainville hardened after the defeat of the incumbent government at the 1992 elections. New Prime Minister Paias Wingti took a considerably more hardline stance, and angered the Solomon Islands, after a bloody raid on one island that was alleged to be supporting the Bougainvilleans. The Papuan army, in alliance with the resistance, succeeded in retaking Arawa, the provincial capital, in January 1993. Papuan Foreign Minister Sir Julius Chan attempted to gather a peacekeeping force from the nations of the Pacific, but Wingti quashed the idea. He subsequently ordered the army to retake the Panguna mine, and was initially successful. However, his government was short-lived, and in August 1994 was replaced as prime minister by Chan.

Chan announced his intention to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, meeting with Kauona in the Solomon Islands and arranging for a peace conference to be held in Arawa that October, with security provided by an Australian-led South Pacific Peacekeeping Force. However, the BIG leaders boycotted the conference, claiming that their safety could not be guaranteed. In their absence, Chan's government entered into negotiations with a group of chiefs from the Nasioi clan, headed by Theodore Miriung, a leader in the 1975-76 Republic of the North Solomons independence movement, former National Court judge (acting), and lawyer for the Panguna Landowners Association. This resulted in the establishment of a Bougainville Transitional Government in April 1995, with it's capital in Buka. Miriung was named prime minister of the new government but frequently clashed with Chan by criticizing abuses committed by Papua New Guinean soldiers.

By 1996, Chan was beginning to get frustrated at the lack of progress. In January, following a round of negotiations in Cairns, Australia, between the BRA, BTG and the PNG government, a PNG defense force patrol boat fired upon Kabui and the other delegates when they returned to Bougainville. The next month, the home of the BIG's representative in the Solomon Islands, Martin Mirori, was firebombed. Chan decided to abandon attempts at peace, and on 21 March 1996, he gave the go-ahead for an invasion of Bougainville under the new commander of the PNG defence forces, Jerry Singirok.

Sandline

Under pressure from human rights groups, the governments of Australia and New Zealand declined to provide military support, forcing Chan to begin to look elsewhere. Thus began the Sandline affair, where the government of Papua New Guinea attempted to hire mercenaries from Sandline International, a London-based private military company, composed primarily of former British and South African special forces soldiers, which had been involved in the civil wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. With negotiations with Sandline ongoing and incomplete Chan ordered the military to invade anyway. In July the PNG defense forces attempted to seize Aropa Airport, the island's principal airfield. However, the attack was a disaster, suffering from poor logistical planning and determined resistance by BRA fighters. In September, BRA militants attacked a PNG army camp at Kangu Beach (allegedly in retaliation for the earlier fatal shootings of several local civilians, and wounding of three children), near Buin, with the help of members of a local militia group, killing 12-13 PNGDF soldiers and taking five police and army hostage, who were later released after successful negotiations between Bougainvillean and Papua New Guinean leaders (See Ceasefire and aftermath). The following month, Theodore Miriung was assassinated. Although Chan's government attempted to blame the BRA, a subsequent independent investigation implicated members of the PNG defense force and the resistance militias. Discipline and morale was rapidly deteriorating within the ranks of the PNG military, which had been unable to make any substantial progress in penetrating the mountainous interior of the island and reopening the Panguna mine. Chan decided that his best chance to recapture the Panguna mine was with the Sandline mercenaries.

However, this too turned out to be a disaster. News of his intention to hire mercenaries was leaked to the Australian press, and international condemnation followed. Furthermore, when Jerry Singirok heard of the news, he ordered the detaining of all the mercenaries on arrival. In the resulting saga, Prime Minister Chan was forced to resign, and Papua New Guinea came very close to a military coup. Indeed, the officers in charge had the parliament surrounded, but steadfastly refused to go any further. In the end, however, they got their way, with Chan's resignation and the removal of the mercenaries from Papua New Guinean territory.

Ceasefire and aftermath

Sandline sparked a low point in the Bougainvillean war. Since 1997, a ceasefire has largely held on the island. Breaking with Ona, Kauona and Kabui entered into peace talks with the government of Bill Skate in Christchurch, New Zealand, which culminated in the signing of the Lincoln Agreement in January 1998. Under the terms of the agreement, PNG began to withdraw its soldiers from the island and a multinational Peace Monitoring Group was deployed. Legislation to establish a Bougainville Reconciliation Government failed to win approval in the PNG Parliament.

A Bougainville provincial government of the same status as the other eighteen provinces of Papua New Guinea, with John Momis as Governor, was established in January 1999. However, this government was suspended after facing opposition from both the BIA/BRA and BTG. Arrangements were made for the creation of a modified government, to be established in two phases-the first being the Bougainville Constituent Assembly and the second being the elections for the Bougainville People's Congress. Elections were held in May, and Kabui was named President. However, the legality of this was contested by Momis, with the support of a number of tribal chiefs and Resistance leaders. In November, a new body, the Bougainville Interim Provincial Government, was established, headed by Momis. Rapprochment between Kauona and Momis led to an agreement in which the two bodies would act in consultation. An organised reconciliation process began at the tribal level in the early 2000.

Ona refused to play any part in the peace process, and, with a small minority of fighters, continued to occupy the area around Panguna mine. Throughout the decade, Ona continued to resist overtures to participate in the new government, declaring himself "king" of Bougainville before dying of Malaria in 2005. In March 2005, Shaista Shameem of the United Nations working group on mercenaries asked Fiji and Papua New Guinea for permission to send a team to investigate the presence of former Fijian soldiers in Bougainville. (UNPO) As part of the current peace settlement, a referendum on independence will be held sometime in the 2010s, with an apparent small minority of fighters left in the center of the island, and enough instability to ensure that the mine remains closed.

The Australian government has estimated that anywhere between 15,000 to 20,000 people could have died in the Bougainville Conflict. More conservative estimates put the number of combat deaths as 1-2,000.

In 2004, Thomas Tari, asked for "millions of kina as compensation for the five hostages that were released after being in captivity." A central figure in the Bougainville weapons disposal campaign, he claimed he deserved compensation for allegedly helping free the hostages. His, along with that of the former leader of the anti-secessionist Buin Resistance Force (who demanded $160,000 USD, also as compensation for helping free the 5 hostages) made months later, were both met with anger in the PNG government, and thus subsequently denied.

The area of Panguna has since been closed off by Panguna landowners, represented by the Me'ekamui Tribal Government and remains a "no go zone." The mine is controlled by the Me'ekamui Tribal Government of Unity and it's leaders, President Philip Miriori and Vice Presidents, Phillip Takaung and Stanley Ona, son of Francis Ona. The area is secured by the 500-strong Me'ekamui Defence Force (mostly former BRA & locals). The MDF is led by Commander Moses Pipero. Both President Miriori and Commander Pipero were visited and acknowledged by large feast and speeches held as part of the historic visit by the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea Peter O'Neill on 29 January 2014 to Panguna, during which he apologized for the blockade and subsequent deaths.

Alleged Australian involvement

In 1992, an independent Australian socialist newspaper, Green Left Weekly, ran an article which accused the Australian government of providing direct combat support to the Royal PNG Constabulary's notorious Mobile Police Squad, known by the Bougainvilleans as "blackshirts", which had previous reputation of human rights abuses.

The Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (AIDAB) spent over $30 million and 40 military and police advisers on a program they claimed was intended "to assist PNG to develop an effective and efficient policing operation with increased capacity to deter and prevent crime."

In an interview done by the newspaper of an alleged member of the Mobile Police Squad, allegations were made that an Australian Army Captain named Tex Howarth trained Police Mobile Squad members in the use of M60 machine guns, and "how to attack a village by helicopter."

During one such training, Howarth allegedly said in the presence of several reporters that he was organizing an "airborne assault", and bragged that the villagers "won't know what fuckin' hit 'em."

It was also alleged that the advisers were armed, and even sometimes take command of entire units.

In 1991, an AIDAB adviser named Danny Elliot allegedly drove a PNG police officer in his private vehicle to ambush a well-known raskol gang leader. During the ambush, Elliot shot him in the chest with an AR-15 rifle, killing him.

In 1992, during a riot in Mt. Hagen, Papua New Guinea's third largest city, AIDAB advisers not only patrolled alongside the PNG police, but "physically came out and started shouting orders and giving verbal instructions."

In an interview with the newspaper, when asked about what the "major function" of the Australian Army advisers was, and if they were training the Mobile Police Squad in Jungle warfare (for possible use in Bougainville), the AIDAB's Port Moresby chief stated;

"the teaching of survival skills to enable the Mobile Squad to operate in a quasi-military situation in Bougainville ... the military advisers first came to this country to help improve the survivability of the police in preparation for their operation in Bougainville. If you wish to call that jungle warfare, then that is your definition, not mine."

The article also alleged that the Australian Defence Force's training of the Mobile Police Squad "for action on Bougainville" could be in violation of the Papua New Guinean Constitution.

2000 Lawsuit

In 2000, Bougainville residents brought suit (Sarei v. Rio Tinto) against Rio Tinto, alleging that the Papua New Guinean government, using Rio Tinto helicopters and vehicles, killed 15,000 people in an effort to put down the revolt.

A 2001 Affidavit signed by Michael Somare, at the time Papua New Guinea's Opposition Leader, also alleged that the PNG government acted under instruction given to them by Rio Tinto, apparently because of the company's financial influence.

"...because of Rio Tinto's financial influence in PNG, the company controlled the Government. The Government of PNG followed Rio Tinto's instructions and carried out it's requests."

According to the affidavit, had Rio Tinto not been involved;

"...the government would not have been engaged in hostilities or taken military action on ."

In August 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected Rio Tinto's effort to dismiss the claim.

On October 25, 2011, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, issued a divided opinion holding that certain claims against a foreign corporation implicating the conduct of a foreign government on foreign soil could proceed under the Alien Tort Statute.

The company filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court for review of the decision; on April 22, 2013, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit for further consideration in the light of it's decision in a similar case in Nigeria.

See also

• History of Bougainville

References

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_-I17Phqo
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHoNTpDtyQM&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg&index=97
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg&index=141&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg
4. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/2706
5. "Revolução dos Cocos". Retrieved 26 April 2015.
6. With The Army - Papua New Guinea. YouTube. 24 October 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
7. With The Army - Papua New Guinea. YouTube. 24 October 2007. Retrieved 26 April 2015.
8. "'7. The cost of the conflict' in Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing peace in Bougainville by John Braithwaite... - ANU Press". Retrieved 26 April 2015.
9. www.aphref.aph.gov.au-house-committee-jfadt-bougainville-bv_chap2.pdf
10. "Origins of the Bougainville Conflict". National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
11. www.aphref.aph.gov.au-house-committee-jfadt-bougainville-bv_chap2.pdf
12. Mary-Louise O'Callaghan (2002). "The origins of the conflict". Conciliation Resources. Retrieved 2013-06-16.
13. https://ramumine.wordpress.com/tag/anthony-regan/
14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NCFQlsC-Y
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
16. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
18. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/bougainville-at-a-crossroads/6514544
19. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/bougainville-at-a-crossroads/6514544
20. https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/2706
21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHoNTpDtyQM&index=982&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg
23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NCFQlsC-Y&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg&index=1
24. https://pt.wikipedia.org/Revolu%C3%A7%C3%A3o_dos_Cocos
25. https://pt.wikipedia.org/Revolu%C3%A7%C3%A3o_dos_Cocos
26. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
27. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDpvxQe_Jhg
28. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHoNTpDtyQM&index=982&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg
29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NCFQlsC-Y&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg&index=1
30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHoNTpDtyQM&index=982&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg
31. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2NCFQlsC-Y&list=LLItb2dLp-6NlYuBFl4AwvKg&index=1
32. https://ramumine.wordpress.com/tag/anthony-regan/
33. http://www.themilitant.com/1996/6041/6041_18.html
34. http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=199609080005
35. http://www.kmf.org/malecki/cockroach/cr0032.txt
36. http://www.kmf.org/malecki/cockroach/cr0032.txt
37. http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/152770/bougainville-group-wants-compensation-over-png-soldier-massacre
38. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDrQ9ne5Pt4
39. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDrQ9ne5Pt4
40. "'7. The cost of the conflict' in Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing peace in Bougainville by John Braithwaite... - ANU Press". Retrieved 26 April 2015.
41. http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/152770/bougainville-group-wants-compensation-over-png-soldier-massacre
42. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/9th-circuit-corporations-sued-human-rights-violations-abroad_n_1031516.html
43. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_-I17Phqo
44. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_-I17Phqo
45. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py_-I17Phqo

• History of Papua New Guinea
• Autonomous Region of Bougainville
• Secession in Papua New Guinea
• Civil wars involving the states and peoples of Oceania
• Civil wars post-1945
• 1980s in Papua New Guinea
• 1990s in Papua New Guinea