A New Country in the Pacific?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, NB] Telegraph-Journal

 

On Nov. 23, the people of Bougainville, a small South Pacific island, began voting in a referendum which could make it the world’s newest independent country. Results will be known in mid-December.

Bougainville is currently part of Papua New Guinea (PNG), the eastern half of the island of New Guinea. The PNG is the most populous Pacific island state, with 8.7 million citizens. 

Bougainville is about 1,000 kilometres to the east of the PNG and is part of the Solomon Islands archipelago. (The remaining Solomons are a separate sovereign country.)

Bougainville has a population of 235,000, made up of 21 distinct language groups; its people are culturally distinct from Papuans.

From the 1880s until the end of the First World War, the island was part of German New Guinea. Australia then occupied it and in 1975 it became part of newly-independent PNG.

The reasons why the residents of Bougainville are voting on independence are rooted in the region’s colonial history, as well as events relating to a mine.

The island is rich in copper, and a huge open pit copper mine located at Panguna was at the center of violence in the late 1980s.

Panguna was the first major mining project in PNG, its single most important economic asset, essential to the economic viability of PNG as a newly independent state. 

During its 17 years of operation, the mine generated 44 per cent of PNG’s foreign-currency earnings. However, only 5.63 per cent of the mine’s earnings went to Bougainville.

Many Bougainvilleans were reluctant to remain in the PNG, advocating instead for a self-governing, independent nation of their own. In 1975 they unilaterally declared a Republic of the North Solomons but failed to secede from PNG.

A compromise was eventually reached, which included establishment of a provincial government system that yielded a modest degree of autonomy to Bougainville.

But the future of the mine remained contested by many on the island. Many Bougainvilleans alleged that the mine had devastating environmental consequences for the island. Locals felt dispossessed and exploited.

A Bougainville Revolutionary Army in 1987 began to carry out acts of sabotage against the mine, which led to its closure in 1989. In turn, the PNG government imposed a shipping, aviation and telephone blockade on the island, which remained in place for seven years.

In 2001, Bougainvillean rebels and PNG government leaders signed the Bougainville Peace Agreement, which ended the fighting that left at least 15,000 dead. It included a provision for a referendum within 10‐15 years on Bougainville’s future political status.

The referendum presents two options, either greater autonomy from PNG, or complete independence. However, a vote for independence would still require ratification from the Papuan parliament.

James Marape, the PNG prime minister, has expressed a clear preference for an autonomous, not independent, Bougainville. Bougainville regional president John Momis therefore cautioned voters and urged patience.

Polls indicate a vote for independence. This is being driven by the sense of separate ethnic identity from PNG, residual animosity after the war years, and a perceived failure of the current model of autonomy.

If Bougainville does become independent, the mine could conceivably be reopened and provide a valuable source of export revenue. And that would make the prospect of a self-sufficient and self-governing Bougainville very serious.