Treat referendum ratification urgently

THE Bougainville crisis has its beginnings way back in 1962 with the Hahalis Welfare Society uprising on Buka Island when that organisation refused to pay the head tax to the Australian administration.
The colonial put the uprising down by force but the people told a visiting United Nations delegation they wanted to sever ties with Australia and, by extension, Papua New Guinea.
These sentiments have never quietened down to this day.
A unilateral declaration of independence was done on Sept 1, 1975 and again in 1990.
They lapsed for lack of recognition.
Self-determination again showed its face when all the members of Bougainville staged a walkout of Parliament in June 1976, protesting the exclusion of section 10 of the Constitution from the final document.
Section 10, which contained the provision for the Organic Law on Provincial Governments in the country, was reinserted in October of the same in the first amendment to the National Constitution to keep Bougainville from seceding and, thereby, keeping the fragile collection of tribes together.
That this was a crucial mistake came to pass in the four intervening decades to now.
The provincial and local government system has been a dismal failure for PNG, necessitating four separate attempts to amend and reform the system. Each change has never solved the lack of delivery realised in the preceding one and each succeeding one creating its own set of problems inherent.
But that is a separate story.
The Bougainville separatist struggle has shown its face in peace or conflict in every decade since Independence.
In 1981, the Bougainville Copper Agreement came up for review. The BCL Agreement, signed in 1974, was to be reviewed every seven years.
The company and the National Government paid the agreement no heed. Fr (now Mr) John Momis, as Regional Member for Bougainville, was incensed. He called the company the BCL pig in his 1982 national elections campaign and pledged to kill it if he and his National Alliance party should win the elections.
Momis won the elections but the killing was delayed a full term of Parliament to 1987 and when it happened. Momis did not wield the killing club directly.
That was the occasion when the BCL Agreement fell due a second time (in 1987) and nothing happened again.
In December 1987, Francis Ona and a band of young activists broke into the BCL armoury at Panguna and made off with a large cache of explosives. With this, they fell power pylons and ignited the Bougainville uprising.
After 15 years of massive killings and intolerable sufferings, the Bougainville Peace Accord was signed in Arawa on August 30, 2001.
The accord set preconditions and deadlines which, for the most part, have repeatedly been disrespected by the PNG party.
The Bougainville referendum to have the people decide the political future was set for 2015. It was delayed by a full four years to 2019.
When it did happen, the voting was conducted peacefully, the turnout was excellent and the result was staggering: 97 per cent for independence to 3 per cent against.
By a curious operation of the Bougainville law, an addendum to the National Constitution, all such issues were non-binding and the referendum vote was to be ratified by the PNG National Parliament. The Peace Accord highlights this.
Five years after the accord, the referendum vote awaits ratification.
The Bougainville people have again been patient and again they have not been accorded the respect that the PNG Government has itself has caused to be written in law.
The Marape Government can be called the ratification government because it is under its watch that the process awaits actioning.
Shadow Minister for Bougainville Affairs Sir Puka Temu is right to urge Prime Minister James Marape to convene to push the issue with more urgency.
The Bougainville Affairs Minister and the Prime Minister need to come out clearly on when they will ratify the referendum results in Parliament.
There is another, perhaps far more urgent reason why Parliament must conclude this sad episode.
As it procrastinates, other provinces are pushing for greater autonomous powers, similar to those enjoyed by the ABG.
It will not be long before New Ireland, East and West New Britain, Morobeans and Central walk down that path.
Unless managed right and soon, this might – in view of the pervading mess in the country – spell disaster for a country of mixed and misplaced loyalties.

• The National’s Online Poll this week, also poses a similar question, allowing our PNG people to air their thoughts.