A Compilation of Human Rights Abuses Against the People of Bougainville, 1989-1996, Volume 2
Compiled by Marilyn Taleo Havini
Published by the Bougainville Interim Government, Sydney, 1996
Available from PO Box 134, Erskineville NSW 2043 (fax/phone 02 804 7602)
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
Sadly, the publication of volume two of this valuable but chilling document is unlikely to be the last. The new Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, earlier this month committed Australia to continue with the Labor government's support for Port Moresby's war on Bougainville with a promise of more "non-lethal" military aid for the PNG Defence Force.
In stark contrast to the tears shed over the Port Arthur massacre, not a peep of outrage has been heard from governments and the mass media about an ongoing massacre up to 100 times larger. The "gun lobby" in this case — the PNG and Australian governments — has the establishment's tacit support because Australian big business has millions of dollars' worth of copper at stake there. A similar hypocrisy is playing itself out over East Timor and West Papua.
What this "non-lethal" aid will comprise is anyone's guess, but it is inconceivable that Australia will suddenly stop selling weapons and ammunition to the PNG army — guns and bullets that Canberra knows are expended with abandon in Bougainville. Nor will it cease training PNG troops or providing funds to operate the Australian-supplied helicopter gunships and patrol boats which have been indispensable in maintaining the tight economic blockade of the island — a blockade that has cost thousands of lives through lack of medicines and fresh food.
The first volume, published last year, documented in alarming detail hundreds of cases of human rights abuses and atrocities carried out by the PNGDF and its local allies since 1989 as the people of Bougainville struggled to win their right to self-determination. Volume two updates the earlier list and documents abuses that have taken place up until May 1996.
Already, new reports of atrocities and human rights abuses by PNG troops have reached Green Left Weekly, the most recent on May 9 being the bombardment of civilians resulting in the arm of a 14-year-old woman being severed and her mother suffering deep wounds.
Marilyn Havini's compilation is not happy reading, but its publication brings home to activists and those in power alike the sheer scale of the brutality that is taking place on Australia's doorstep. No MP of either major party can now say with any honesty that they do not know what is going on in Bougainville.