Tough pathway for Bougainville

The National Letters

A REFERENDUM on independence took place in Bougainville in November and December 2019.
The referendum was agreed upon in August 2001 as a result of the Bougainville Peace Agreement.
In December 2019 The Guardian reported that the “region votes overwhelmingly for independence from Papua New Guinea”.
According to BBC, of Bougainville’s 300,000 inhabitants, 206,731 enrolled to vote of which 176,928 voted for independence and 3,043 for greater autonomy.
Former Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern was the chairman of the Bougainville Referendum Commission.
Support for independence was anticipated and comes as no suprise. The decision on independence is however non-binding.
Bougainville Affairs Minister Sir Puka Temu asked voters in Bougainville to “allow the rest of Papua New Guinea sufficient time to absorb this result”.
New horizons open up for Bougainville, possibly as an independent nation, observing that standalone Bougainville will barely survive.
James Tanis, former President of Bougainville’s Autonomous Government and strategic advisor on Bougainville Peace Agreement implementation may have answers to the what’s next clause.
Albert Punghau, Bougainville’s minister of peace agreement implementation may also have figured out a way forward.
Gianluca Rampolla is the United Nations resident coordinator in PNG at the time of the referendum in 2019.
Rudie Filon is the deputy head of the delegation of the European Union in Port Moresby and as such should be nominated by Josep Borrell Fontelles acting head in Bougainville with immediate effect.
In December 2019 National Pubic Radio prints the piece “Trying To Form The World’s Newest Country, Bougainville Has A Road Ahead”.
Bougainville will have to negotiate with the Papua New Guinean parliament the terms of its independence, a process that may take years.
According to PNG’s National Research Institute, Bougainville’s per capita is about a third of Papua New Guinea’s and the island relies heavily on subsidies from the central administration.
John Momis was President of the Autonomous Region during the referendum.
This manuscript explains how every independence of a small region from a larger nation this century has led the separating new country to economic fiasco or stagnation: Timor Leste from Indonesia, Kosovo from Serbia and South Sudan from Sudan.
In October 2018 Australia’s Lowy Institute reviews “Bougainville’s referendum and beyond” exploring possible scenarios after independence.
Lowy Institute wonders about the economic viability of an independent Bougainville: A critical question is whether Bougainville has the necessary resources – human and material – to become an independent, economically viable nation.
Among the pressing challenges are those of educating and mobilising a ‘lost generation’ of younger people disenfranchised by the war while forging national unity and bringing integrity to Bougainville’s political system.
Lowy Institute concluded that “economically, Bougainville’s prospects for self-reliance are very unclear”.
Oil-rich South Sudan has proven to be an absolute governance disaster in the aftermath of its independence from Sudan.
Post-Gaddafi Libya – courtesy of Nicolas Sarkozy – remains in 2020 in dire straits because of a fraticide clash between clans.
Reopening the Panguna gold mine may in fact provide with the necessary funding to take off a new state, requiring also massive foreign direct investment only a stable sovereign nation can attract.
Other sources of income remain however insignificant for nation-building purposes.
There is a tempting wishful-thinking process that traps independence-seeking politicians in resource-rich, small developing nations: that after independence, resources will yield the dividend necessary for take-off.
This wishful thinking becomes in fact a biased self-fulfilling prophecy that is born to decease, immediately after independence.
Extraction of mineral resources require exceptional politics and governance, of the kind Norway and Chile have provided.
In the absence of exceptional governance the resource curse precipitates nation-building into free fall.
President Momis must step down and become non-executive chairman in an independent Bougainville.
He must embrace a new kind of governance, robust, tough and durable as a diamond.
An independent Bougainville has three basic options if it is to survive peacefully and prosperously:

  • TO join a two-republic federation with Papua New Guinea;
  • TO join a two-republic federation with Solomon Islands;
  • OR to remain independent and join Fiction State Pacifica.

I have launched the Bougainville Presidential Team under the leadership of a young, seasoned and talented chairwoman.
Papua New Guinea’s strategy must respect at all times whatever Bougainville may choose to do, and must pay attention to a unification with West Papua Province.
There is a very specific formula to reopen Panguna and make its operation peaceful and sustainable.

Presidential Team