By Frank Enright
"The Keating government has compromised the delicate peace negotiations between the Bougainville Interim Government [BIG], the Bougainville Revolutionary Army [BRA] and the Papua New Guinea government", according to the international representative of BIG, Moses Havini.
"By insisting on Australian command and control of the multi-state peacekeeping force, by providing military 'advisers' and training, along with ... 650 'support' troops into the border area, the Australian government has violated the principles of neutrality."
Havini reminded the Australian government that it "has been a major participant in this war, providing PNG with Iroquois helicopter gunships, patrol and speed boats, mortar bombs, arms and ammunition.
"Their 'Big Brother' attitude, that 'because we are the ones that are funding the whole exercise, we will take command', smacks of the worst form of modern day neo-colonialism", Havini said.
On October 3 HMAS Tobruk and HMAS Success left Townsville with troops from Vanuatu, Tonga and Fiji — members of the South Pacific Peace Keeping Force — bound for Bougainville. As well as supplies for the SPPKF contingent, it is believed that some 600 Australian troops are on board the ships.
Recent allegations that Australia used its military aircraft on relief missions to the volcano-stricken PNG town of Rabaul to resupply PNG with ammunition for Bougainville was denied on SBS television by Australian Brigadier Adrian D'Hage. "There has been absolutely no Australian ammunition, no Caribou have been flown in", he claimed.
Vikki Johns from the Sydney Bougainville Freedom Movement believes that D'Hage is playing with words: "What was flown into Rabaul were Hercules airplanes from Australia which contained copious boxes of ammunition which was being unloaded in Rabaul. The empty Hercules airplanes then took evacuees from Rabaul to Port Moresby."
Havini says he has confirmation that some of this ammunition has been landed on Bougainville.
BRA commander General Sam Kauona, speaking from Bougainville, said, "This now brings into serious question how neutral Australia is, [particularly] when it has also been confirmed by PNG that it [Australia] will be the third party that will maintain naval surveillance between the Bougainville and Solomons sea border".
The cease-fire agreement signed by the PNG government and Kauona calls for all forces to remain in "static positions", yet Kauona reports "more and more troop activities in the mine area. There are now two platoons stationed in Panguna itself, which is now heavily fortified. Armoured vehicles are maintaining patrols and there are now some 300 troops stationed on the banks of the Kuraro River ..."
"The PNGDF is using a peace agreement to pursue their military agenda in Bougainville. Those kind of actions and disrespect will only lead us back into the unsolvable military situation in which we have all been operating for the last six years."
Newly installed PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan's comments that the Bougainville peace conference, to be held in the capital, Arawa, "would continue even if Sam Kauona was not there", has renewed scepticism as to the genuineness of the PNG government's desire for peace.
Australian human rights lawyer Rosemarie Gillespie told a press conference that she believed that the peace process was set up to achieve predetermined outcomes. One of the outcomes sought by PNG, Australia and CRA is the reopening of the Panguna copper and gold mine — the source of the war. Gillespie says that PNG and Australia have still not ruled out the use of force if the negotiations don't produce their desired outcome.
Given this deteriorating situation, BIG's representative to the United Nations, Mike Forster, called on October 7 for a UN mediator. "There are too many people depending on the success of the peace process to allow it to become a sham", he said. "The international community should be providing not only security but also some form of mediation.
"The main sticking point is the current PNG government rejection of the 'consultative' process agreed in the preliminary negotiations in Honiara."