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.