Bougainville pickets
@body intro =— "Withdraw the PNG army from Bougainville. Lift the blockade. No mercenaries to Bougainville. Open up Queensland hospitals for Bougainville victims of the war." These were the demands raised by an emergency picket outside the Papua New Guinea consulate in Brisbane on March 4, called by the Bougainville Freedom Movement, reports Bill Mason.
"We condemn the PNG plan to attack the Bougainville Revolutionary Army using mercenaries", said Lou Gugenberger, spokesperson for the group. "[PNG PM] Sir Julius Chan's plan to use mercenaries on Bougainville and his planned attack to free Papua New Guinea Defence Force prisoners of war and retake the Panguna copper mine are serious escalations of the war. This attack is an election stunt in the lead-up to the PNG national elections", Gugenberger said.
The Bougainville Freedom Movement plans to hold weekly pickets at the PNG consulate on Tuesdays at 12 noon.
In Canberra on March 5, Paul Oboohov writes, around 30 protesters demonstrated outside the Papua New Guinea High Commission, demanding that the PNG government withdraw the terrorist mercenaries from Bougainville, along with its army, and institute a referendum on independence under UN auspices. Calls were also made for the Australian government to withdraw military aid to PNG.
Rosemary Gillespie, long-time Bougainville activist, held up to the TV cameras Australian-produced bullets and mortar bomb remnants found after attacks on civilians on the island. She pointed to photos of headless torsos of people killed in a mortar attack on a church gathering.
An attempt to speak to High Commission officials was physically obstructed by police, who declared that the building had closed for business and no-one was there.
The protest also heard greetings from organisers of a similar protest in London.
Meanwhile, Queensland Labor Party leader Peter Beattie was offering comfort to the PNG government, accusing the media of blowing the issue "out of proportion". He told the PNG National newspaper that Australian politicians should stop "bashing" PNG over a "domestic issue".