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.