Revived club wants to use motocross to promote peace

Transcript

The Bougainville Motocross Club has been revived after a 20 year absence, and it wants to do its part to help in the Bougainville peace process.

The club is touring the autonomous region to perform shows and stunts in remote villages, while at the same time educating people about the upcoming referendum on possible independence.

Its president, Emil Augustine, says the club was broken up by the civil war in the 1990s, and now it's back together it wants to do its part to promote peace and bring people together.

He told Jamie Tahana how he believes motocross can do just that.

EMIL AUGUSTINE: Motocross was just in its infancy stage, it was just introduced by the former expatriate employees who worked at BCL (Bougainville Copper Limited). So it was just in its initial stage when the civil war happened and so it had to go away. When it was initially introduced it really captivated people from every walk of life from young people to all ages. You know, they were really interested when a biker used to pass by on the road everybody had to run to the road to get a glimpse of them. The interested riders, they all love Motocross, they all wanted their kids to have a bike during that time, but unfortunately we had this war. Then, we identified that we would reactivate [the club] and we would compete against each other. We have our numbers really speeding up, everybody's interested and wants to own a bike and everybody is pushing us to get up and ready as soon as possible.

JAMIE TAHANA: So Bougainville is nearing its referendum on possible independence, and you're saying that through this Motocross club you're hoping to contribute to that process. How do you contribute to the referendum process with Motocross?

EA: Everyone was interested in the Motocross. They always wanted to see a guy doing motor stunts, wheelies, jumps, or a donut, things like that, so we identified that if individuals would come from their own villages [to see us] then we would do the awareness.

JT: So the crowds are coming to see the Motocross stunts because they're interested in it, and at the same time as your performance you're also giving presentations about the peace process and stuff. Is that what you're saying here?

EA: That's exactly what I'm saying. We are using the Motocross thing as an alternative approach for the promotion of peace in Bougainville and we would also like ride with our bikes to remote places where even the Red Cross don't go and make sure that everybody is enrolled on the common rolls and it is up to date before the referendum. We would also tie up with assisting NGOs who do like alcohol and drug abuse awareness, HIV/AIDS awareness, women's rights.

JT: You're getting assistance from the government and NGOs are you?

EA: Yeah, we happened to convince our governor, Joe Lera, who attended our second fundraising ride on Saturday and he promised to give us 200,000 kina (US$7,000) because he saw the motorbike thing and he also knows that our idea would work.