By Frank Enright
The war against the people of Bougainville has been accepted on the agenda of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) for this year in Geneva. The Bougainville interim government representative to the UN, Mike Forster, in welcoming the decision called for the UNHRC to go further and appoint a special representative to observe the situation on the island.
Forster told the commission that basic human rights and fundamental freedoms were denied to the people of Bougainville by the occupying forces of the Papua New Guinea government. Many violations of human rights in the world today demanded a large contingent of UN peacekeepers but, he claimed, on Bougainville it would require only one peacemaker for one year.
The UNHRC has urged PNG to allow a fact-finding mission access to Bougainville and demanded the lifting of the illegal blockade imposed on the island; this has been resisted by PNG authorities.
"Terms that we use in debate here [in the UNHRC], the firm foundations of our philosophy for a better world, are long lost to a people living in the jungle in a state of fear and terror; driven from their villages and gardens, deprived of their economic rights, deprived of their cultural rights, deprived of their social, political and civil rights: without medicines, without shelter, without clothes, without services of any kind. For them the right to development means just a cup of tea", Forster explained.
Commenting on PNG Prime Minister Paias Wingti's offer to allow a delegation to visit the blockaded island, Forster said, "We welcome the initiative of the Australian government in excising from Wingti an acceptance of the parliamentary delegation visit, but one has to have this in perspective. The Australian government has been in bed with PNG since the troubles began, and it is ironic that this announcement is timed so well for the [UN] commission.
",We must have third party observation in Bougainville. Even if this does not solve the problem immediately we have to consider the human rights of the Bougainvilleans, which continue to be threatened throughout a process that is far from over."