Australia rules out halting aid for PNG
Australia rules out halting aid for PNG
SYDNEY (DPA): Australia yesterday ruled out halting aid to
Papua New Guinea for hiring mercenary commandos to fight rebels
in the troubled province of Bougainville.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said treaty obligations
prevented a suspension of Australia's annual A$320-million
(US$249 million) aid budget for Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Australia is the biggest aid donor to PNG, its former colony.
Downer implored PNG's Prime Minister Julius Chan to cancel the
contract engaging hired commandos to kill or capture the leaders
of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA)
The BRA has waged a nine-year campaign for Bougainville
independence that has cost thousands of lives.
"I will use any vehicle which is reasonable that I possibly
can to stop this operation going ahead, but of course I don't
wish to act outside the law myself," Downer said.
"To ask us to act illegally is to ask us to be complicit in
the whole messy affair."
Chan has confirmed that up to 150 Africa-based mercenaries
have been engaged from London-based Executive Outcomes to lead a
"surgical strike" against the BRA leadership on resource-rich
Bougainville island.
Executive Outcomes is best know for hiring out squads of
African ex-military personnel for seek-and-destroy operations in
the world's troublespots.
Russian-built military transport planes hired from Bulgaria's
Air Sofia airline have ferried in personnel and materiel for an
operation budgeted by PNG's National Security Council at A$36
million.
The operation has drawn predictable condemnation from BRA
leader Francis Ona, who released a statement in Sydney describing
it as an "infamous act loathed by all moral people of goodwill".
The Labor Party, which leads the opposition in the Australian
parliament, has also expressed outrage.
Labor foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton urged Canberra
to suspend aid immediately.
"Australia requires from Downer an absolute guarantee that not
one dollar of Australia's bilateral aid to PNG is going, directly
or indirectly, to the hiring of a crew of Rambo-like assassins,"
Brereton said.