PRIME Minister Peter O’Neill has assured the people of Bougainville that the national government is committed to ensuring that their Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) under President John Momis achieves its development programs to improve their lives.
Mr O’Neill made the commitment when he presented a cheque of K100 million to Mr Momis at Morauta Haus in Port Moresby on Wednesday.
The K100 million was appropriated under the 2012 budget and is the first component of a K500 million package that the national government has agreed for Bougainville over the next five years to 2017.
In thanking the Prime Minister, President Momis said: “This is welcome news for the people of Bougainville and we are committed to working in partnership to ensure development programs are implemented as per the Bougainville Peace Agreement (BPA).
Prime Minister O’Neill said: “The K500 million are additional funds from the national government to support key development projects that will enable the people of Bougainville to recover from the crisis.
“This will also grow their economy in order to successfully implement the autonomous arrangements entered into under the BPA. The government will continue to support ABG in the next five years with such funding to ensure the people of Bougainville receive the development services they deserve and also to make sure the autonomous arrangements are intensified.”
The presentation of the K100 million cheque and comments by both leaders may just be another official event at Waigani, but its implications are huge, both for ABG and the people and for PNG as a nation.
Just one week ago, on Wednesday September 12, members of the Ex-Combatants and Veterans Association of Bougainville went on a protest march in Buka and presented a three-page petition to Mr Momis and four of their national MPs.
The petition was signed by nine of the people’s representatives, including Bougainville Revolutionary Army general Sam Kaouna, commanders Ishmael Toroama, Glen Tovirika and Ben Kamda, and Mekamui Defence Force commanders Chris Uma, Ben Malatau and Willie Aga.
Their principal concern is the review of the BPA signed in 2001, which they argue is long overdue. The protest and petition were also to publicly express their frustration on related and pertinent issues with respect to the Bougainville Peace Process.
“The protest march is a wake-up call for all the stakeholders of the BPA and sends a very strong signal as we stated in (our) petition. Because the ex-combatants are heavily involved there is a possibility that the Weapons Disposal Program, a pillar of the BPA and the peace process, may be derailed,” the petitioners said.
There is a real possibility of some of the disgruntled ex-combatants taking up arms again, and that President Momis’s ABG may find it difficult to achieve all its priority projects and programs if the grievances are not addressed to their satisfaction.
This is very important, especially with the scheduled referendum on independence for Bougainville only less than three years away. Their concerns can’t be ignored.
BRA was the root of bloody civil conflict in Bougainville
LEONARD FONG ROKA
The unit was attached to my relative, the late Autonomous Bougainville Government president Joseph Kabui, who at the time was vice president of the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG).
I provided escort duties to my leader and partook in no armed operation except one assault on, as I see it today, an innocent Bougainvillean in Bana.
Despite the fact that my father was killed by the BRA in 1993, I consider myself a Bougainvillean nationalist.
This is because of the awareness I have for the ill treatment of my island of Solomon / Bougainville by colonisation and later by Papua New Guinea, especially as a result of the copper mine on my land of Panguna.
As Panguna people, we sparked off a conflict that saved Bougainville from the brutality of Bougainville Copper Limited, Papua New Guineans and the squatter settlements that grew on our land. (I carry a scar on my face caused by kids at the Arawa’s Morobe Camp in 1988).
But it was not our fight alone. It was a struggle for self-determination that went back to the so-called cargo cult movements like the Hahalis Welfare Society and other groups that sprung up in Bougainville, especially after the onset of the works to construct the mine.
These were groups condemned publicly but silently assisted by Catholic missionaries and a few expatriate cocoa and coconut planters. They demonstrated without violence against ‘rascals’ on our island.
Engaging the barrel of the gun, we did the old timers proud in 1988 by sending the ‘rascals’ packing in fear and pain from our beloved island. Thus did they realize the fact they were ‘rascals’ in Solomon exploiting and suppressing a people they were not related to.
In that fight we created the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. I know this name shocked the Pacific and even our Papua New Guinean rulers, or Ivitu, as we know them in Buin.
But the big question is, why did we turn on each other? This is the question that must be answered today so that we take Bougainville in the right direction.
In 1990, I was a Grade 4 student at Kaperia Community School in Arawa when the first ceasefire was signed by Sam Kauona (BRA) and Leo Nuia (PNG), known as the ‘Butcher of Bougainville’.
All the BRA men were stationed at Panguna. Law and order was observed for a month with the late Francis Ona as the supreme head.
But, as these BRA men got out of this cage, they started calling themselves redeemers of Bougainville and began to harm businesses in Arawa by looting.
Once after school, I encountered two BRA men wearing shoes they ahd not paid for, saying to the cashiers in a store known then as the Haus Bilas: “We have suffered in the bush fighting for you”.
IN
OCTOBER 1992 I WAS A KID roaming around parts of Kieta and the Bana
district in South Bougainville with Bougainville Revolutionary Army ‘A’
Company bodyguard unit.
The unit was attached to my relative, the late Autonomous Bougainville Government president Joseph Kabui, who at the time was vice president of the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG).
I provided escort duties to my leader and partook in no armed operation except one assault on, as I see it today, an innocent Bougainvillean in Bana.
Despite the fact that my father was killed by the BRA in 1993, I consider myself a Bougainvillean nationalist.
This is because of the awareness I have for the ill treatment of my island of Solomon / Bougainville by colonisation and later by Papua New Guinea, especially as a result of the copper mine on my land of Panguna.
As Panguna people, we sparked off a conflict that saved Bougainville from the brutality of Bougainville Copper Limited, Papua New Guineans and the squatter settlements that grew on our land. (I carry a scar on my face caused by kids at the Arawa’s Morobe Camp in 1988).
But it was not our fight alone. It was a struggle for self-determination that went back to the so-called cargo cult movements like the Hahalis Welfare Society and other groups that sprung up in Bougainville, especially after the onset of the works to construct the mine.
These were groups condemned publicly but silently assisted by Catholic missionaries and a few expatriate cocoa and coconut planters. They demonstrated without violence against ‘rascals’ on our island.
Engaging the barrel of the gun, we did the old timers proud in 1988 by sending the ‘rascals’ packing in fear and pain from our beloved island. Thus did they realize the fact they were ‘rascals’ in Solomon exploiting and suppressing a people they were not related to.
In that fight we created the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. I know this name shocked the Pacific and even our Papua New Guinean rulers, or Ivitu, as we know them in Buin.
But the big question is, why did we turn on each other? This is the question that must be answered today so that we take Bougainville in the right direction.
In 1990, I was a Grade 4 student at Kaperia Community School in Arawa when the first ceasefire was signed by Sam Kauona (BRA) and Leo Nuia (PNG), known as the ‘Butcher of Bougainville’.
All the BRA men were stationed at Panguna. Law and order was observed for a month with the late Francis Ona as the supreme head.
But, as these BRA men got out of this cage, they started calling themselves redeemers of Bougainville and began to harm businesses in Arawa by looting.
Once after school, I encountered two BRA men wearing shoes they ahd not paid for, saying to the cashiers in a store known then as the Haus Bilas: “We have suffered in the bush fighting for you”.
To the late Francis Ona and
his followers, closing down the Panguna mine was the bliss that blinded
them. Keeping order and governing Bougainville was neglected. Thus the
BRA recklessness grew and spread.
The BRA men, most of them
illiterate, went astray grabbing private and ex-BCL property, looting
shops and exploiting women often with the gun.
These unorganized BRA bands falsely accused innocent people of being PNG spies and tortured them. Others were accused of sorcery and killed.
The politically incompetent Francis Ona was nowhere to be seen or heard in this anarchy created under his name.
I was hearing that the BRA’s ill treatment of innocent Bougainvilleans was executed under the ‘standing orders’ of Ona. But this was a lie as I heard later that Ona was not aware of any ‘standing orders’ and he was not responsible for the suffering endured by Bougainvilleans.
The BRA posed as a body with a central command fighting for Bougainville freedom when in fact it hosted dozens of independent individuals or bands who operated at will across Bougainville.
To many of these BRA men, Buka was a strange place with beautiful women and unarmed men. So, with their new-found privileges, they invaded Buka in ex-BCL or robbed vehicles, exploiting women and terrorizing the peace.
This led Buka leaders like Sam Tulo to invite the PNG government into Buka in 1990 and resulted in the creation of the Buka Liberation Force (BLF) that fought on behalf of the PNGDF after an agreement signed in New Ireland.
The BRA response was: “The Bukas have sold off our island to foreigners” instead of admitting that it was the BRA that was dividing the people of Bougainville with their irresponsibility and recklessness. (Joseph Kabui was politically capable, but the ruler then was the barrel of the gun and Francis Ona.)
In South Bougainville’s Siwai district, responding to this BRA-BIG insanity through its creative leader the late Anthony Anugu and a few others, was created the South Bougainville Interim Authority (SBIA) to provide services to the people who now had no leader to guide them. This initiative shocked the sick BRA and BIG.
But in early 1992, these kind and valuable leaders were betrayed by Siwai BRA lunatics and they were killed in Panguna.
Thus, today it is the BRA that ought to re-evaluate its irresponsibility in the past and lead Bougainville in the right direction instead of sitting down and waiting for miracles and creating fear in the hearts and minds of my people on Bougainville.
KEITH JACKSON'S PNG ATTITUDE
These unorganized BRA bands falsely accused innocent people of being PNG spies and tortured them. Others were accused of sorcery and killed.
The politically incompetent Francis Ona was nowhere to be seen or heard in this anarchy created under his name.
I was hearing that the BRA’s ill treatment of innocent Bougainvilleans was executed under the ‘standing orders’ of Ona. But this was a lie as I heard later that Ona was not aware of any ‘standing orders’ and he was not responsible for the suffering endured by Bougainvilleans.
The BRA posed as a body with a central command fighting for Bougainville freedom when in fact it hosted dozens of independent individuals or bands who operated at will across Bougainville.
To many of these BRA men, Buka was a strange place with beautiful women and unarmed men. So, with their new-found privileges, they invaded Buka in ex-BCL or robbed vehicles, exploiting women and terrorizing the peace.
This led Buka leaders like Sam Tulo to invite the PNG government into Buka in 1990 and resulted in the creation of the Buka Liberation Force (BLF) that fought on behalf of the PNGDF after an agreement signed in New Ireland.
The BRA response was: “The Bukas have sold off our island to foreigners” instead of admitting that it was the BRA that was dividing the people of Bougainville with their irresponsibility and recklessness. (Joseph Kabui was politically capable, but the ruler then was the barrel of the gun and Francis Ona.)
In South Bougainville’s Siwai district, responding to this BRA-BIG insanity through its creative leader the late Anthony Anugu and a few others, was created the South Bougainville Interim Authority (SBIA) to provide services to the people who now had no leader to guide them. This initiative shocked the sick BRA and BIG.
But in early 1992, these kind and valuable leaders were betrayed by Siwai BRA lunatics and they were killed in Panguna.
Thus, today it is the BRA that ought to re-evaluate its irresponsibility in the past and lead Bougainville in the right direction instead of sitting down and waiting for miracles and creating fear in the hearts and minds of my people on Bougainville.
KEITH JACKSON'S PNG ATTITUDE
No comments:
Post a Comment