A former Papua New Guinea cabinet minister says Port Moresby has to do more to help prepare Bougainville for its referendum on independence.
The autonomous region is set to hold a vote in June of 2019.
A former MP for Central Bougainville and the first Minister of Bougainville Affairs, Sam Akoitai, said the National Government must do everything possible to ensure Bougainvilleans have full faith in the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) ahead of the vote, which is the final stage of the Peace Agreement.
Mr Akoitai has prepared a statement for the National Parliament's Bi-Partisan Committee, which met last week on Bougainville, and hopes the MPs will get a better idea of the issues facing Bougainville ahead of the vote.
He told Don Wiseman about his chief concerns.
Arawa, Bougainville
Photo: RNZI
Transcript
SAM AKOITAI: The message that I was alerting the Parliamentary Committee to is that Bougainville is an autonomous region, and Bougainville must not be treated as one of the provinces in Papua New Guinea, but [there needs to be] respect for the arrangements that are set out in the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the constitutional arrangements which formed the ABG. That has been my concern, that in some instances, the PNG Government has not treated the Bougainville Government as an autonomous government for the people of Bougainville.
DON WISEMAN: You see it as dragging its feet on a number of issues like the funding and so on?
SA: My concern is that these are arrangements for funding are guaranteed under the PNG Constitution. And those are constitutional grants and grants that are catered for in the Bougainville Peace Agreement. And for the purposes of restoring total peace which is the intention of the Bougainville Peace Agreement. If the National Government is not making funds available to Bougainville then that will be seen as the National Government not contributing to restoring peace in Bougainville.
DW: In your statement you talked about the impact of the Rio Tinto divestment of shares and how Port Moresby handed its shares [ to the Bougainville landowners rather than the ABG].
SA: That was one of many issues I raised as an example of the National Government trying to deal directly with factions of Bougainvilleans in relation to issues on Bougainville, and my concern is that any issues that must be addressed in Bougainville must be addressed through the ABG. The Rio Tinto issue is an issue I have a lot of concern about. My concern is that accepting the 17 percent, basically landowners or ABG accepting that would be seen as accepting the liabilities - the past and the present liabilities [caused by the destructive Panguna mine], which the people of Bougainville had been raising with Rio Tinto before and during the crisis.
DW: What you are saying is there hasn't been respect shown by the National Government for the ABG. I think you were the very first Minister of Bougainville Affairs, back in the late nineties, so this must make you feel very angry that this is happening - as a Bougainvillean yourself but also someone who has been near the top of the National Government, that the current National Government is behaving the way it is.
SA: My frustration is that it took us many hours and resources to end up with the Bougainville Peace Agreement, and Bougainville has actually lost a lot of lives on Bougainville during the crisis. What seems to be happening is that people seem not remember that there was a conflict in Bougainville that took many lives. What I would like to see [from] ABG and the National Government is to fully engage in addressing the issues, which are supposed to be completed before the referendum.
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