Mine shafted Bougainville’s hopes, leaving an economic basket-case

Bougainville’s narrative of battles and neglect naturally frames its options today. It is a long and complex one.

A referendum returning officer, left, leads an Upe man to men-only polling station in in Teau, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Picture: AP

Bougainville’s narrative of battles and neglect naturally frames its options today.

It is a long and complex one.

The first people living there, hunters and gatherers, have been traced to 30,000 years ago. About 3000 years ago, agricultural, Austronesian-speaking people who used pottery, the Lapita, arrived, probably from Asia via Taiwan.

Today Bougainvilleans speak about 16 Austronesian languages and a further 35 or so older “Papuan” languages. They are genetically heterogeneous yet are widely recognised for, and celebrate, their often deeply black skin colour.

Spanish explorers sailed around Bougainville in the 16th century, but failed to land. In 1767, Frenchman Louis-Antoine de Bougainville named the island for himself.

In 1883, the Queensland government raised a flag in Port Moresby claiming Papua — accelerating the region’s division between European colonisers.

Germany then raised its flag in Rabaul, claiming the northern part of today’s Papua New Guinea. Britain and Germany cut a deal in 1886 whereby Bougainville was administered by Germany — via its Neu Guinea Kompagnie — and most of the rest of today’s Solomon Islands by Britain.

After World War I, German New Guinea was ruled by Australia under League of Nations mandate, then after WWII under UN mandate, until PNG’s independence in 1975.

Japan seized Bougainville in 1942. Some Bougainvilleans saw this as fulfilling prophecies, including of the arrival of goods they coveted, reinforcing “cargo cults”, traces of which persist — with Noah Musingku, convicted over a pyramid scheme, claiming “kingship” of a Bougainville region.

An Upe man votes during the Bougainville Referendum at Teau in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. Picture: AP

In bitter WWII fighting, about 40,000 Japanese and 2000 Allied soldiers died there.

Over the following decade, having observed sovereignty switching during the war, Bougainville leaders began secession talk. As PNG independence approached, Bougainvilleans, who were prominent among the country’s educated elite, studied new nations being forged by decolonising “winds of change” in Africa and elsewhere. They demanded special status reflecting Bougainville’s physical and cultural distance from the rest of the country.

John Momis, a former Catholic priest and PNG parliamentarian, today President of the autonomous Bougainville government, led the charge for decentralisation. Founding prime minister Michael Somare in 1973 conceded interim district government specially for Bougainville. Two years after PNG independence, in 1977, Momis became decentralisation minister and won the model’s extension to the rest of the country via 19 provincial governments.

But then the slow-burning fuse was lit that led to the independence referendum that ended at the weekend: enter the copper/goldmine. In 1964 Rio Tinto’s predecessor company began profiling a huge ore body, the then Australian administration granted a licence, and mining began in 1972.

Canberra was delighted. This gave the new country income it had lacked, diminishing its dependence on aid by providing about 45 per cent of export revenues.

But from the start, Bougainvilleans raised concerns. Through the mine many gained jobs, their island flourished economically, but the environment suffered, “redskins” were imported from the PNG Highlands to work on plantations instead of locals, and most importantly, the PNG government failed to review the royalties scheme as the mine agreement required — building anger and frustration among younger, neglected landowners.

During his 1987 election campaign, Momis presented a claim to the mining company headed “The Wild Pig Cannot Hide From the People”, seeking 4 per cent of net sales revenue for the provincial government. The firm kicked the can to Port Moresby as legally responsible, but the national government failed to respond. Armed conflict resulted.

The massive mine closed in 1989 and remains shut. Grim civil war, aggravated by PNG military incompetence and complicated by strife within Bougainville between rival clans and combatants, persisted for a decade.

A peace deal was finally signed between PNG and Bougainville leaders in 2001, under whose terms — including autonomous government — the referendum was conducted.

Up to 20,000 deaths have been claimed as a result of the civil war. But that includes those who may have died there of natural causes — while not including others who may have perished elsewhere in PNG when the sudden loss of revenue caused by the mine closure slashed government services including health.

The cost was, in any case, immense, in every respect. Including the opportunity cost of the transformation of PNG’s development showcase — just as it had begun attracting massive new investment in agriculture, especially cocoa — into a basket-case, where it remains economically.