Australian FM welcomes Bougainville peace treaty
Australian FM welcomes Bougainville peace treaty
CANBERRA (AFP): Australia applauded Friday Papua New Guinean
moves to sign a peace treaty that signals the end of a
secessionist war on the restive island of Bougainville.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and his opposition
counterpart Laurie Brereton will travel to Bougainville next week
to witness the signing of the ground-breaking treaty.
The pair will fly to the former capital of Bougainville,
Arawa, to take part in the signing ceremony next Thursday.
The treaty signing will formally mark the end of a decade of
civil war in PNG's easternmost province more than three years
after an often shaky truce was called between Papua New Guinea
and Bougainvillean guerrilla fighters.
"It is a very welcome development in reaching a settlement in
Bougainville," a spokesman for Downer said Friday.
PNG government ministers and officials, New Zealand's Foreign
Minister Phil Goff and United Nations peace monitor Noel Sinclair
will also witness the signing.
The signing of the treaty was flagged in Papua New Guinea's
parliament Thursday by Bougainville's governor, former Catholic
priest John Momis, who will head an autonomous island government
of what is now officially called the North Solomons Province.
Up to 20,000 lives were lost during the war, which pitted the
Bougainville Revolutionary Army against the PNG defense force.
Violence erupted in 1989 when rebels blew up power pylons
servicing Australian miner CRA's (now Rio Tinto's) Panguna gold
and copper mine, which generated most of PNG's foreign exchange
earnings.
Local clansmen, led by Francis Ona, accused the mine's
operators of polluting tribally-held lands and diluting locals'
equity in the project.
Under a peace deal negotiated in the three years since the
1998 cease-fire, Bougainville will receive autonomous powers to
establish its own judiciary, police force and tax regime.
Ona and his still-armed Me'ekamui Defense Force guerrillas,
who have thus far remained outside the peace process, are
expected to sanction the Arawa signing, Australian officials
said.