Bougainville Civil War

The Bougainville Civil War, also known as the Bougainville Conflict or simply as The Crisis, was an armed conflict fought between Papua New Guinea and the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), who were fighting for independence. The war has been described as the largest conflict in Oceania since the end of World War II, with approximately 15,000 to 20,000 Bougainvilleans killed.

Historical background (1969-1988)
The discovery of vast copper ore deposits in Bougainville's Crown Prince Range in 1969 led to the establishment of a huge copper mine by the Australian company Conzinc Rio Tinto. The mine began production in 1972 under the management of Bougainville Copper Ltd, with Papua New Guinea as a 20% shareholder. At the time, the Panguna open cut mine was the largest in the world. It provided over 45% of Papua New Guinea's national export revenue and was incredibly important to the economy.

The mine brought thousands of non-Bougainvilleans to the island, most of whom were Papua New Guineans, who were known as "red-skins" by the Bougainvilleans because of their red skin colour, in comparison to the black Bougainvilleans. Many "white-skins", mostly Australians, were also brought in to work the mine. This immigration caused further tension among the Bougainvilleans, who did not want foreigners on their land, especially the "red-skins," because of their cultural differences.

Civil war
In May 1990, Papua New Guinea imposed a blockade on Bougainville. Francis Ona responded by unilaterally declaring independence. He set up the Bougainville Interim Government (BIG), but it had little power, and the island began to descend into disarray. The command structure set up by the BRA seldom had any real control over the various groups throughout the island that claimed to be part of the BRA. A number of raskol (criminal) gangs that were affiliated with the BRA, equipped largely with weapons salvaged from the fighting in World War II, terrorized villages, engaging in murder, rape and pillage. Bougainville split into several factions, and a civil war began.

Much of the division in this fighting were largely along clan-lines; the BIG/BRA was dominated by the Nasioi clan, causing other islanders to view it with suspicion. On the island of Buka, north of Bougainville a local militia was formed which succeeded in driving out the BRA with the help of Papuan troops, during a bloody offensive in September. Multiple agreements were signed and not honored by any side. The BRA leadership of Ona and Kauona fell out with some of the political leaders, such as Kabui. Several other village militias, which together became known as the resistance, armed by the PNG defence forces, forced the BRA out of their areas.

Papua New Guinea's policy towards Bougainville hardened after the defeat of the incumbent government at the 1992 elections. New Prime Minister Paias Wingti took a considerably more hardline stance, and angered the Solomon Islands, after a bloody raid on one island that was alleged to be supporting the Bougainvilleans. The Papuan army, in alliance with the resistance, succeeded in retaking Arawa, the provincial capital, in January 1993. Papuan Foreign Minister Sir Julius Chan attempted to gather a peacekeeping force from the nations of the Pacific, but Wingti quashed the idea. He subsequently ordered the army to retake the Panguna mine, and was initially successful. However, his government was short-lived, and in August 1994 was replaced as Prime Minister by Chan.

Chan announced his intention to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, meeting with Kauona in the Solomon Islands and arranging for a peace conference to be held in Arawa that October, with security provided by an Australia-led South Pacific Peacekeeping Force. However, the BIG leaders boycotted the conference, claiming that their safety could not be guaranteed. In their absence, Chan's government entered into negotiations with a group of chiefs from the Nasioi clan, headed by Theodore Miriung, a former lawyer for the Panguna Landowners Association. This resulted in the establishment of a Bougainville Transitional Government in April 1995, with its capital in Buka. Miriung was named Prime Minister of the new government, but frequently clashed with Chan by criticizing abuses committed by Papuan soldiers.

By 1996, Chan was beginning to get frustrated at the lack of progress. In January, following a round of negotiations in Cairns, Australia, between the BRA, BTG and the PNG government, a PNG defense force patrol boat fired upon Kabui and the other delegates when they returned to Bougainville. The next month, the home of the BIG's representative in the Solomon Islands, Martin Mirori, was firebombed. Chan decided to abandon attempts at peace, and on 21 March 1996, he gave the go-ahead for an invasion of Bougainville, under new commander of the PNG defence forces, Jerry Singirok.

Sandline and ceasefire
Under pressure from human rights groups, the governments of Australia and New Zealand declined to provide military support, forcing Chan to begin to look elsewhere. Thus began the Sandline affair, where the government of Papua New Guinea attempted to hire mercenaries from Sandline International, a London-based private military company, composed primarily of former British and South African special forces soldiers, which had been involved in the civil wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. With negotiations with Sandline ongoing and incomplete Chan ordered the military to invade anyway. In July the PNG defense forces attempted to seize Aropa airport, the island's principal airfield. However, the attack was a disaster, suffering from poor logistical planning and determined resistance by BRA fighters. In September, BRA militants attacked a PNG army camp at Kangu Beach with the help of members of a local militia group, killing twelve PNGDF soldiers and taking five hostage. The following month, Theodore Miriung was assassinated. Although Chan's government attempted to blame the BRA, a subsequent independent investigation implicated members of the PNG defense force and the resistance militias. Discipline and morale was rapidly deteriorating within the ranks of the PNG military, which had been unable to make any substantial progress in penetrating the mountainous interior of the island and reopening the Panguna mine. Chan decided that his best chance to recapture the Panguna mine was with the Sandline mercenaries.

However, this too turned out to be a disaster. News of his intention to hire mercenaries was leaked to the Australian press, and international condemnation followed. Furthermore, when Jerry Singirok heard of the news, he ordered the detaining of all the mercenaries on arrival. In the resulting saga, Prime Minister Chan was forced to resign, and Papua New Guinea came very close to a military coup. Indeed, the officers in charge had the parliament surrounded, but steadfastly refused to go any further. In the end, however, they got their way, with Chan's resignation and the removal of the mercenaries from Papua New Guinean territory.

Sandline sparked a lowpoint in the Bougainvillean war. Since 1997, a ceasefire has largely held on the island. Breaking with Ona, Kauona and Kabui entered into peace talks with the government of Bill Skate in Christchurch, New Zealand, which culminated in the signing of the Lincoln Agreement in January 1998. Under the terms of the agreement, PNG began to withdraw its soldiers from the island and a multinational Peace Monitoring Group was deployed. Legislation to establish a Bougainville Reconciliation Government failed to win approval in the PNG Parliament.

A Bougainville provincial government of the same status as the other eighteen provinces of Papua New Guinea, with John Momis as Governor, was established in January 1999. However, this government was suspended after facing opposition from both the BIA/BRA and BTG. Arrangements were made for the creation of a modified government, to be established in two phases-the first being the Bougainville Constituent Assembly and the second being the elections for the Bougainville People's Congress. Elections were held in May, and Kabui was named President. However, the legality of this was contested by Momis, with the support of a number of tribal chiefs and Resistance leaders. In November, a new body, the Bougainville Interim Provincial Government, was established, headed by Momis. Rapprochment between Kauona and Momis led to an agreement in which the two bodies would act in consultation. An organised reconciliation process began at the tribal level in the early 2000.

Francis Ona refused to play any part in the peace process, and, with a small minority of fighters, continued to occupy the area around Panguna mine. Throughout the decade, Ona continued to resist overtures to participate in the new government, declaring himself 'king' of Bougainville before dying of malaria in 2005. In March 2005, Dr Shaista Shameem of the United Nations working group on mercenaries asked Fiji and Papua New Guinea for permission to send a team to investigate the presence of former Fijian soldiers in Bougainville. (UNPO) As part of the current peace settlement, a referendum on independence will be held sometime in the 2010s, with an apparent small minority of fighters left in the centre of the island, and enough instability to ensure that the mine remains closed.

The Australian government has estimated that anywhere between 15,000 to 20,000 people could have died in the Bougainville Conflict. More conservative estimates put the number of combat deaths as 1-2,000.