ISHMAEL TOROAMA
| President, Autonomous Bougainville Government

PANGUNA - I am pleased to advise that good progress has been made in our ongoing discussions with Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) aimed at amicably ending long-running Judicial Review proceedings in the National Court of Papua New Guinea.

Back in January 2018, the ABG refused an extension of BCL’s EL01 exploration licence and three months later the company was granted leave by the court for a judicial review of the decision. The proceedings have remained ongoing ever since.

KEITH JACKSON

Panguna copper and gold mine, 2021 - the end of the rainbow for Australian (and the world's) con artists

NOOSA - Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama has firmly stated his government will not allow foreign investors on Bougainville to breach its laws to exploit its people and resources.

Toroama made the statement after the Bougainville Executive Council decided to refuse two mineral license applications from the Paruparu Joint Venture, a partnership between Wyndale Holdings and local company Karatapo Resources.

BAKA BINA

PORT MORESBY - What the heck is a crocodile walk? Commenting on the First Nations Writers Festival, I blurted out the words originally said in passing during my short stint in the Army.

I had used them in my book, ‘Operesin Kisim Bek Lombo’, published in 2020 by Amazon KDP.  I have since been asked what it means one time too many.

MOSES WARIO
| Facebook

Captain Belden Namah (second from left) as a junior PNGDF officer with special forces comrades

PORT MORESBY – “Pack your cargo and go to the carpark, the school bus will drop you off at the airport,” these words of the principal of Sogeri National High School were directed at the young Belden Namah.

Speechless and in despair, Namah left the principal’s office and, silently sobbing, walked down the path to the male dormitory.

Pro-independence t-shirts on sale at Bel Isi Park,  Buka,  Bougainville,  2019 (Gordon Peake)

STEPHEN HOWES
| DevPolicy Blog

Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation: Journeys in Bougainville by Gordon Peake, ANU Press, December 2022, 158 pages. ISBN 9781760465438. Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is not for sale but link here for a free download

CANBERRA - Gordon Peake’s marvellous new book Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation is based on the four years he spent in Bougainville as an Australian aid-funded adviser, from 2016 to 2019. It is both entertaining and insightful.

Peake is a brilliant writer. He writes movingly about Arawa, Bougainville’s once booming, now decaying mining town.

Maryanne Hasola (PNG Report)

MEDIA RELEASE
| Bougainville Copper Limited | Edited

PORT MORESBY - Bougainville Copper Limited has confirmed the appointment of Maryanne Hasola to the company’s board as an independent non-executive director.

Ms Hasola, from Bana District in Bougainville, is a well-regarded women’s leader who brings to the role more than 23 years’ experience in accounting and auditing in the Internal Revenue Commission of Papua New Guinea.

Gordon Peake (far left) and Angel Pesevski (bottom right) with colleagues, Bougainville, 2016 (Gordon Peake)

GORDON PEAKE
| DevPolicy Blog

ADELAIDE - Angel Pesevski, a former colleague of mine who became a good friend, passed away in Türkiye, one of the untold number of victims of the recent earthquake.

Angel and I met in Buka in 2016. He was working as a management adviser in the aid project I joined.

Bougainville chief secretary Shadrach Himata (Roselyn Ellison, Nationalpic)

KEITH JACKSON
| Sources: Bougainville News & New Dawn FM

BUKA – In a comprehensive statement on the Bougainville economy, chief secretary, Shadrach Himata, has stated that the province’s internal revenue of K20 million could increase to as much as K55 million this year.

Himata said there are many economic projects in the pipeline including a gold refinery in Arawa, due for completion in the second quarter of this year, a limestone project at Manetai, powered by the Panguna hydro, and a water bottling plant in Toniva scheduled to begin operations mid-year.

Augustine and Fitzkeith with cellphone and repurposed fire extinguisher

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - In late 2017 my father-in-law, after seeing what I did in Panguna, asked me to help built a toilet and shower facility.

I was lost. How could I help in a place where there were no hills to provide gravity feed to get water for the facility.

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – Poor Richard Marles. Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister had merely stated his support for Papua New Guinea as it moved through the thorny issue of Bougainville independence.

The general statement of support for PNG attributed to him was pretty much all he could say.

But Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama interpreted it as specific Australian support for PNG, which at present is indicating its opposition to Bougainville independence.

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - Sometime in 2017 or 2018 I wrote an article for the PNG Post-Courier office at Arawa warning people that the Panguna mine pit could turn into a lake.

Twenty years of earth being chipped away by small scale alluvial gold operations had brought the Kabarong river perilously close to breaching the pit wall.

Now, in 2022, it is happening.

BAL KAMA
| East Asia Forum

CANBERRA - The relationship between Australia and the Autonomous Region of Bougainville is in repair mode following remarks by Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles.

Marles visited Papua New Guinea in October for negotiations over an Australia–PNG defence treaty.

The rift originated from a press conference with PNG prime minister James Marape and Marles when Marles responded to a question on Australia’s position on Bougainville’s pending bid to obtain independence from PNG.

Participants in the Bougainville-UNDP Entrepreneurship and Innovation Course

NEWS DESK
| United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

PORT MORESBY - Francesca Semoso has made it her business to empower Bougainville’s women and youth to develop their entrepreneurship and good ideas by using simple resources in their communities.

Francesca is a revered and legendary female leader from the coconut fringed beaches and crystal-clear waters of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.

We live in a neo-liberal system that greatly benefits the few while harming the many who live in increasing poverty. It allows foreign companies to exploit and an elite to flourish while it subjugates the ordinary people by imposing limits on how they can benefit from development. It is a system that is unsustainable

The Buka passage (Pinterest)

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - It’s wonderful to read Leonard Fong Roka’s words about his beloved Bougainville once again. His is a voice that deserves to be heard.

Earlier this week, he drew attention to the grievous failure of Papua New Guinea's ruling elites to deliver anything of real substance to the people who elected them to govern (‘Independence? Can We Get There From Here?’).

The problem is not too few resources, a small population, a lack of investor confidence or some other excuse the politicians use to cover their incompetence. The problem is poor leadership

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - Bougainville is a small island with enough resources for its population and we should be able to deliver good lives to ourselves.

Sure, there’s the crisis of global warming to harm her, but this is a world crisis which we do not face alone.

The angry reaction of Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama to what he termed Richard Marles’ “veiled threats” should be a warning to Canberra about the need to settle past grievances

President Ishmael Toroama - suspicious of Australian motives

ANTHONY REGAN
| The Interpreter | Lowy Institute

CANBERRA - During a visit last month to Papua New Guinea by Australia’s deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles, a newspaper report on one of his press conference answers sparked a stinging reaction from Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama.

In response to the 13 October article, ‘Aust backs PNG on B’ville’, including a comment from Marles that “our job is to support Papua New Guinea and that’s what we are going to do”, Toroama issued an “angry” statement, warning that Marles was making “veiled threats”.

The government is telling the world about our forthcoming independence while in practice inviting foreigners to take over our available resources and turn Bougainvilleans into beggars

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - From childhood and into maturity most Bougainvilleans have being subjected by our elders to the word ‘Independence’.

Especially around Panguna in Central Bougainville, my own mama graun, we grew up with all the associated politics of our island forcefully seeking to become a nation in its own right.

The PNG-Bougainville leadership and citizens were designed to be tax and rent collectors, not owners of natural resources. That is why we seem to value foreigners

LEONARD FONG ROKA

PANGUNA - In Bougainville we live our lives listening to the sweet talk of the elected members of parliament in Port Moresby and here in Buka.

It’s the same old parley, and still the same old suffering that seems to get worse every day.

In the last 100 years we have had to endure hardships from oppressive regimes who sought to take away our resources, our rights and even our lives. Our struggle for independence has been a long one

Former PNG chief secretary Isaac Lupari and Bougainville chief secretary Shadrach Himata

SHADRACH HIMATA
| Chief Secretary, Bougainville Government | Edited extracts

CANBERRA -In 2019 a referendum was successfully conducted on Bougainville to decide on the status of our political future in accordance with the PNG Constitution.

An overwhelming 97.7% of our people voted for a political independence from Papua New Guinea.

When the Bougainville Revolutionary Army succeeded in routing the PNG police and military from Bougainville in 1988, the BRA turned their violence upon Bougainvilleans they believed to be enemies or just ‘easy pickings’

The young Leonard Fong Roka and torture scar picked up in a refugee camp during the Bougainville civil war. When still a schoolboy, Leonard was deployed to serve in the bodyguard of Joseph Kabui, later president of the Autonomous Bougainville Government

LEONARD FONG ROKA
| From Our Archive, 23 September 2012

MADANG – In October 1992 I was a kid roaming around parts of the Kieta and the Bana districts in South Bougainville with Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA).

I was a member of the ‘A’ Company bodyguard unit.

As an emerging Pacific Island state, Bougainville will work towards building mutual government relationships that will enhance trust, trade and investment

NEWS DESK
| Bougainville News

BUKA - The Autonomous Bougainville Government continues to make headway with its strategy to make practical the people’s 97.7% vote for Independence in 2019.

The Bougainville Independence Mission, launched by president Ishmael Toroama in April 2021, marked the beginning of the implementation of a Trident Strategy to prepare Bougainville for independence.

In 17 years since the first Autonomous Bougainville Government was formed there has been little practical action to utilise the powers to hold political and bureaucratic leaders to account

Joseph Nobatau found himself targeted as he sought to bring senior Bougainville leaders to account. He lost his influential job as chief secretary, but was later completely exonerated by the courts

JOSEPH NOBETAU

BUKA - Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama recently announced his government’s intention to enact a new anti-corruption law. 

The president, who campaigned on a platform of eliminating corruption, has since his election advocated for reform and should be commended for his focus on corruption.

“Every day we worry about levees collapsing on us, about rivers full of mine waste flooding our land and villages and about whether the water we drink and wash with is making us sick” - Theonila Roka Matbob MP

"We urgently need Rio Tinto to do what’s right and deal with the disaster they have left behind” - Theonila Matbob MP

NEWS DESK
| Bougainville News

Link here for the report, Panguna Mine Environmental & Human Rights
Link here for the report After the Mine: Living with Rio Tinto’s deadly legacy

BUKA - An independent report reviewing data on Rio Tinto's former Panguna mine has warned of serious risks to local communities from unstable mine infrastructure and flooding caused by the build-up of mine waste in rivers.

The report, produced by global environmental firm Tetra Tech Coffey, is a preparatory desktop study on the mine which will inform an environmental and human rights impact assessment later this year.

The autonomous Bougainville government said ratification of the 2019 referendum on independence will be done by the national parliament and doesn't require PNG citizens to be further consulted

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND - The Bougainville government has rejected a call from the Papua New Guinea government to hold for a nationwide consultation on the Bougainville independence referendum.

PNG prime minister James Marape proposed the consultation earlier this month.

Papua New Guinea’s parliament operates more as a collection of loosely affiliated Mafia mob bosses than a genuine democratic institution

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE - China, tribalism, corruption and a province that wants to be its own nation pose a prickly pathway for Papua New Guinea over the next few years.

The desire of Bougainvilleans for independence is not going to dissipate on the basis of a deal concocted by Port Moresby to give the province autonomous status within PNG - an offer that falls well short of expectations.

Bougainville’s dire need for foreign aid could render it vulnerable to China’s influence as it struggles to become the world’s newest democracy — and it could also become the target of Beijing’s strategic aims

BRIAN HARDING & CAMILLA POHLE-ANDERSON
| United States Institute of Peace | Edited extracts

Link here to the complete article, The Next Five Years Are Crucial for Bougainville’s Independence Bid

WASHINGTON DC - Now that Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape has been re-elected, the stage is set for him to settle what he has called the biggest issue facing the country.

This is the future political status of Bougainville, an autonomous region seeking independence by 2027.

“In mining, hard facts and foresight are important. We are very conscious of the fact that in a few years, Papua and New Guinea may be independent. Soon there may be an indigenous administration – call it a black president if you like"

Arawa headman Narug and other village leaders Monoerung Tavore (wearing glasses) and Kori (in hat) listen as kiap Max Heggen explains the Arawa Agreement under which villagers would forfeit a tract of land to allow a large town to be built to service the Panguna mine. Brown describes Narug as a tough negotiator but "thoughtful and reasonable."

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES – Bougainville District Commissioner Des (DN) Ashton paid the price for obeying orders at Rorovana when the Papua New Guinea Administration removed his authority over Bougainville Copper's areas of operation.

Following Australian Prime Minister John Gorton’s August intervention in the Rorovana confrontation, the Administration committed a special unit of a dozen kiaps to the mining operation.

'John Teosin was a complex personality and an enormously deep thinker. He was ahead of his time in many ways. Among the living dead, John Teosin shan’t be forgotten'

COMPILED & EDITED BY KEITH JACKSON
| With some useful references from Dr Robin Hide

NOOSA - The John Teosin Highway (aka the Buka ring road) connects villages along the east coast of Buka Island with Bougainville’s commercial and administrative centre, Buka Town.

The ring road plays a vital role in people’s lives as well as moving them from one place to another.

Panguna mine, derelict for 32 years following the outbreak of a 10-year civil war, becomes the main target of an ugly race for Bougainville's wealth

Bougainville rebels watch over the Panguna mine site (Encyclopaedia of New Zealand)

JUBILEE AUSTRALIA

Scramble for resources: The international race for Bougainville’s mineral wealth, Jubilee Australia Research Centre, Sydney NSW, June 2022, 44 pages. Free download here

Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd: “Scramble for Resources shines a much-needed light on the practices of the new waves of mining and exploration companies in Bougainville. Given the sheer number of Australian companies involved in this stampede for Bougainville’s resources, and the consequences for people living on the island, its findings should cause Australians to sit up and take notice”

When Bougainville people sense a threat, or get the notion they might be dispossessed of land, they will fight and protect it with their lives if they have to

"Let us ensure our agreements hold because if we do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, our hopes will collapse like the benches around the mine pit"

SIMON PENTANU MP
| Bougainville News

KIETA - The benches that wound around the Panguna mine were a conspicuous feature of the humungous pit are still visible but either collapsing because of erosion by slow-seeping water or perhaps just tired of lying around with no purpose.

The pit is a massive ‘dingkung’ (hole) on Bougainville’s landscape; it is also a massive statement that people are capable of gutting the Earth’s resources and leaving the land wasted and torn when the riches have been extracted and shipped away.

Dial of a Hallicrafters SX-99 shortwave radio receiver

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – It had dropped into my Twitter feed via @Laselki, the account of the Lebanon-based Arab Amateur Radio Network, and @Stret_Pasin, a valued supporter and one of my 8,700 Twitter followers.

It had originated in Ontario, Canada, from the historic village of Ancaster close by the US border and Niagara Falls.

It was a fleeting recording of a shortwave broadcast.

Ishmael Toroama and James Marape sit at the top table as the PNG and Bougainville governments move a step closer to determining Bougainville independence

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – The Papua New Guinea and Bougainville governments endorsed the Era Kone Covenant at a special meeting of their joint supervisory body in Port Moresby on Friday.

And Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama has spoken of his “moral responsibility to the people of Bougainville to ensure political independence is granted to Bougainville”.

Woman resists police during the confrontation at Rorovana, 1969 (Sydney Sun)

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - On 28 July 1969, Australia’s minister for external territories Charles CE (Ceb) Barnes approved the issue of CRA’s three new Bougainville leases.

The terminology that defined the locations of the areas required was particular.

They were “leases for mining purposes” and the area was “approximately 400 acres of Rorovana land for laydown areas, construction camp and general accommodation …. 194 acres south of Willys Knob for aggregate, and the first section—approximately eight miles—of the east coast road.”

CHRIS OVERLAND

ADELAIDE – In his thoughtful exposition, ‘What should we do with Bougainville’, Joe Ketan neatly outlines what is described as a 'wicked' policy problem, meaning one for which there is no good solution.

It is abundantly clear that, if Bougainville's demand for independence is not acceded to by the Papua New Guinean parliament, it is likely a unilateral declaration of independence will be declared by an angry and frustrated Autonomous Bougainville Government.

ISHMAEL TOROAMA
| Bougainville News

BUKA - It has been a year since my government launched the Bougainville Independence Ready Mission on 1 April 2021.

The mission takes a three-tiered strategic approach to the preparations for independence that must be implemented internally, domestically and internationally.

The ANU-UPNG Bougainville referendum observer team in Central Bougainville, November 2019

JOE KETAN

PORT MORESBY - In November 2019, the voters of Bougainville turned out and voted overwhelmingly for independence at a referendum expressly giving them the opportunity to have a say on their political future of their island.

I was in Bougainville for the referendum as a member of the Australian National University’s accredited international and domestic observer team.

Ishmael Toroama - Proposal to give politicians greater control over public servants failed (ABG)

JOSEPH NOBETAU
| DevPolicy Blog | Edited

BUKA - I have previously written about my concerns with proposals by the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) to remove provisions in the Bougainville constitution which protect the independence of the public service.

In this article of March 2021 (‘Good governance in Bougainville is being undermined’), I wrote of proposed amendments to give politicians control over the appointment, assessment and discipline of senior public servants, matters independent of political control.

President Ishmael Toroama - Bougainville constitution must put 'rights before resources'

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND - Bougainville president Ishmael Toroama has said the autonomous province needs a strong constitution guaranteeing the civil rights of its people.

Bougainville’s Constitution Planning Commission, comprising people representing different walks of life from throughout Bougainville, is about to begin work.

President Toroama - Decision of the five clans the "beginning of a new chapter to realise Bougainville’s independence"

KEITH JACKSON

BUKA –In a major development, landowners from the Panguna mine area and the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) have agreed to re-open the Panguna mine, abandoned after a civil war broke out in 1989.

The mine is one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits with an estimated remaining resource of copper, gold and silver valued at more than K200 billion.

BILL BROWN MBE

THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - The Bougainville operations of Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia (CRA) had dominated Australian government and Territory Administration thinking from 1964, but that all changed in September 1968.

The trigger was a report by the Australian Broadcasting Commission that broadcast details of a meeting hosted in Port Moresby by two Bougainville members of the House of Assembly, Paul Lapun and Donatus Mola.

Sam Akoitai - "A peacemaker serving all parties, political persuasions and interests"

SIMON PENTANU

KIETA – Sam Akoitai was a man true to his convictions as a national leader representing the interests of Papua New Guinea and Bougainville as a national parliamentarian.

He was a national, regional and community leader of unwavering courage and a peacemaker serving all parties, political persuasions and interests.

Joseph Watawi - ‘Bruk lus, bruk gut, bruk steret na bruk olgeta’ 

ANDREW KILVERT
| Sydney Morning Herald

SYDNEY - The autonomous region of Bougainville has lost a champion of independence and the father of the 2018 independence referendum.

Joseph Watawi, 61, who died in November, away last month, was born in January 1960 in Gohi village in north Bougainville.

Ishmael Toroama (right) has told James Marape that PNG has not honoured commitments under the 20-year old Bougainville Peace Agreement

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Bougainville’s president Ishmael Toroama has told Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape “in no uncertain terms” that it is the resolve of the Bougainville people for an independent Bougainville.”

In a statement to the Bougainville parliament on Tuesday, Toroama said he had “made it clear that it was time to let our people go to be free as an independent sovereign nation.

Reuben Siara - "We remember him for his patriotism and his will to progress the ideals of our revolutionary cause"

ISHMAEL TOROAMA
| President, Autonomous Region of Bougainville

Source: New Dawn FM News

BUKA - Bougainville has truly lost one of its great sons in the passing of Reuben Siara.

Reuben was a man who believed in Bougainville’s aspirations for independence and contributed immensely to our revolutionary cause.

Theonila Matbob - "Our work will continue until Rio Tinto has fully dealt with the disaster it left behind”

NEWS DESK
| Human Rights Law Centre

SYDNEY – Bougainville’s education minister Theonila Roka Matbob MP has won an important award for her outstanding work to hold Rio Tinto to account for the devastating effects of its mining in the island’s Panguna region.

Theonila, a traditional landowner and community leader from Makosi, downstream from the mine, received the Gwynne Skinner Human Rights Award.

Filmmakers Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet - "Ophir is an evocative re-telling of the Bougainville conflict and its legacy over the past two decades"

CATHERINE WILSON
| Pacific Journalism Review

Ophir: Decolonize. Revolutionize, directed by Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet. Arsam International/Fourth World Films/Ulster University. 2020. 97 minutes. Link here to read and see more about 'Ophir'

CANBERRA - In Ophir, a feature length documentary film about the Bougainville civil war of 1989-1998, French filmmakers Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet analyse the devastating conflict and under-reported repercussions which continue to reverberate in the region today.

Ophir in the Old Testament (Genesis 10; 1 Kings 10:22) is a land of great mineral wealth exploited by King Solomon.

In eastern Papua New Guinea, the people of Bougainville also claim Ophir to be the original name of their remote islands.

Bougainvillean woman in a still from 'Ophir',  a controversial documentary about the island's struggle against mining and for independence

KEITH JACKSON

AUCKLAND – ‘Pacific Journalism Review: Te Koakoa’, a peer-reviewed journal examining media issues and communication in the South Pacific, Asia-Pacific, Australia and New Zealand, has made a welcome return to publication after an enforced absence.

Founded by academic and journalist Dr David Robie in 1994 at the University of Papua New Guinea, it was later published at the University of the South Pacific and from 2007-2020 by the Pacific Media Centre at Auckland University of Technology.

James Marape and Ishmael Toroama - bold statements from Bougainville on independence seem to have given way to a more nuanced approach

KEITH JACKSON

NOOSA – Discussions about Bougainville inside Papua New Guinea’s parliament have had a significant and disgruntled repercussion in the autonomous province itself, NBC Bougainville has reported.

Prime minister James Marape presented a statement on the Bougainville peace process to the national parliament and opened the topic for debate amongst MPs.

Site of the Porgera gold mine in Enga Province (Porgera Joint Venture)

SIMON PENTANU

KIETA - I visited Enga Province for the first time in early July this year for a meeting between the Autonomous Bougainville Government and the Papua New Guinea National Government.

The meeting was one of a number to consult on the outcome of the Bougainville referendum on independence that showed a huge majority of Bougainvilleans favouring the creation of their own nation.

James Marape - The question of Bougainville independence is more challenging than Covid-19, the economy or any other issue

NEWS DESK
| Radio New Zealand

AUCKLAND – Papua New Guinea prime minister James Marape says the possible independence of Bougainville is the greatest challenge Papua New Guinea faces.

The sanctity of the union of PNG as one country is very important, Mr Marape said, and the Bougainville issue was bigger than Covid-19, the economy or other challenges.