Gillespie speaks on crisis
By Dan Murphy
ADELAIDE — Growing community opposition to Australia's complicity in Papua New Guinea's war on Bougainville will be focused in a national day of action on July 25.
The depth of concern over the crisis on the troubled island was visible during a recent flying visit here by human rights lawyer Rosemary Gillespie. Between May 21 and 25, she met with trade union and church groups and addressed several well-attended meetings.
Gillespie returned form her third visit to the island under siege earlier this year. She continues to call on Australians to pressure Canberra to stop supplying equipment and training to the PNG military. Having been on the receiving end of some of this military equipment herself (she has been shot at a number of times while running the blockade), she placed emphasis on the human tragedy the war and accompanying blockade have created on Bougainville.
Despite being severely outgunned, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army continues to hold back the PNG forces. The blockade is causing serious problems. Enforced with the help of Australian-supplied helicopters and patrol boats, the blockade has slowed the flow of essential items, particularly medicines. Consequently, islanders are dying from treatable diseases such as malaria.
The war, now in its third year, grew out of locals' dissatisfaction with the conduct of the CRA, owners of the massive Bougainville Copper mine. Gillespie described the environmental havoc that the mine has caused.
Rubble was routinely dumped into rivers near the mine. Oxidation of copper in their waste has turned rivers into toxic green hazards and killed surrounding vegetation, creating a "moonscape".
The United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International and the World Council
of Churches have called for PNG to allow independent observers into Bougainville. So far they have all been refused access.
A United Nations special rapporteur was to have visited Bougainville recently. According to Gillespie, United States and Australian representatives at the UN successfully lobbied for funding for the mission to be withdrawn.