Avoid South Sudan’s mistakes

WHILE the euphoria is high on Bougainville soon being an independent nation joining South Sudan as the 196th or 198th newest member of the United Nations or so, sadly not all, share that ecstasy.
Everything was mishandled right from the beginning by the PNG government when the disputes started, right to addressing the crises and to the peace process and the referendum.
The South Sudan’s case is an interesting point of reference.
Straight after its independence in 2011 South Sudan plunged into a civil war with no end in sight in the disputes over controlling natural resources coupled with ethnic tension and payback for disloyalty and siding with the Sudan government in the earlier conflicts, putting the country is in a far worse state than it was under Sudan.
It started with a referendum to determine whether South Sudan should become an independent country and separate from Sudan.
About 98.83 per cent of the population voted for independence.
There are two inherent facts can potentially repeat South Sudan’s case in the South Pacific.
Firstly, Bougainville is made up of various factions who took different roles during the conflict.
The first two are the most widely known, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and its infamous leader late Francis Ona and another rebel group emerged in an attempt to cap the growing chaos: the Bougainville Resistance Force (BRF).
Soon armed rebel groups were fighting amongst themselves as the conflict morphed into hundreds of localised conflicts.
According to Sean Lee a consultant chronicling The Burnham I and II Dialogues observed that;
Two layers to the conflict emerged:
l a secessionist struggle between the BRA and PNG; and,
l a violent contest between two rival Bougainville groups, BRA and BRF. The BRF increasingly drew its logistical support and supply of arms from the PNGDF.
Secondly, Bougainville will still need the infrastructure backbone to pick itself up and drive its economy.
Bougainville like PNG is still reeling from the mistakes of a lazy coloniser who failed to better prepare its colony for both political and economic independence.
Retrospectively, the PNG government failed to take control of Panguna mine’s operation after independence and to seriously take heed of the landowner’s plight.
It failed amicably address the issues over compensation payments and the environmental impact of the mine with Bougainville Copper Ltd – operated mainly by mining giant the Rio Tinto Group.
No one saw the likely security implications and threats coming until the disputes escalated out of proportion.
And again no one is seeing the political and socio-economic implications on the decision to allow Bougainville to secede from PNG.
Now, this experience earnestly prompts PNG to re-look or if there is none develop its internal security arrangements and align its foreign policy towards fulfilling the country’s best interest.

David Lepi