Papua-backed premier assassinated

Papua-backed premier assassinated

SYDNEY (Agencies): The premier of the violence-torn Papua New
Guinea island of Bougainville has been assassinated, robbing the
province of one of its strongest voices for peace, the PNG
government said yesterday.

Theodore Miriung, head of the government-backed Bougainville
Transitional Government, was shot on Saturday in front of his
family by at least two gunmen at his wife's village in the south
of the copper-rich island, the government said in a statement.

Miriung, a former legal adviser to the secessionist
Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), was appointed head of the
transitional government last year in a bid to negotiate an end to
an eight-year rebellion on the island, located 800 kilometers
northeast of the capital Port Moresby.

"Theodore Miriung's killing has hit at the heart and soul of
the nation of Papua New Guinea," Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan
said in a statement. "This slaughter has been an act of madness,
perpetrated by ungodly cowards."

"I urge the nation to remain calm and to let justice take its
natural course," he added.

Chan further said the government's full capability "will be
used to trace the murderers and bring them to account" for this
"dreadful and foul deed."

Chan hailed Miriung, saying he was "tireless in his searkh for
a permanent peace through negotiation and conciliation."

He urged people "to seek a lasting solution to the
Bougainville conflict."

A government spokesman said Miriung's body had been flown with
his family to the government-controlled island of Buka, northwest
of Bougainville.

Miriung had called for peace between the national government
and BRA forces and had argued against a military solution to the
crisis, which worsened earlier this year when Chan authorized a
fresh offensive against the BRA's mountain stronghold.

A government spokesman in Port Moresby declined to speculate
on the motive for the killing but said Miriung had spoken out
recently against BRA tactics in the latest upsurge of fighting.

An Australian-based spokesman for the BRA was not immediately
available for comment.

The rebels control much of the island's south and central
region, including the site of the big Panguna copper mine which
was abandoned in 1989 by its owners, Anglo-Australian resources
group RTZ-CRA, when the fighting first broke out.

Bougainville, home to 160,000 people, has been cut off from
the world since the war began, making it difficult for
independent observers to see what is happening.

Estimates suggest hundreds have died in fighting while several
thousand more have died from diseases which are now rampant on a
tropical island without health services.