Bougainville solidarity

Bougainville solidarity

@box text intro = [The following is from a letter to Hunter coal strikers from the Bougainville Freedom Movement.]

We wish to congratulate you and extend our solidarity with you in your fight against Rio Tinto (CRA-RTZ).

The people on Bougainville have suffered terribly because they dared to say "no" to CRA-RTZ-BCL.

CRA-RTZ forced the people of Central Bougainville, over their strongest objection, off their land in order to dig out the copper and gold at Panguna.

In 1969 the women of Bougainville with their babies laid down in front of bulldozers to stop the mining of their land, only to be bashed and beaten and then thrown into compounds. The mine went ahead.

The mine destroyed not only the land of the people living there, but CRA-RTZ simply threw the poisonous tailings into the river system, polluting the entire Jaba Valley all the way to the sea.

The people of Bougainville finally lost patience and shut down the mine in 1988-89.

The Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) fought the governments of Papua New Guinea and Australia to a stand still and forced them to withdraw from Bougainville in March 1990.

However, CRA-RTZ (Rio Tinto) did not intend to give away their billion dollar investment in the Panguna copper mine. Rio Tinto and the Australian/Papua New Guinea governments at their orders declared a total blockade against the people of Bougainville and tried to reconquer the independent island.

In eight years of war up to 15,000 Bougainville people and approximately 1000 Papua New Guinea soldiers have died for Rio Tinto.

We feel the strongest regard and support for you and your fight against Rio Tinto, as we have done with the Comalco workers in Weipa who beat back CRA-RTZ's effort to destroy the union.

From GLW issue 281