Village restores peace: Eledo

 Hundreds of people braved rain on Wednesday to witness and participate in a high profile reconciliation ceremony at Sirovai village in Central Bougainville. 

The ceremony was facilitated by Bougainville Peace Building Programme together with Seventh Day Adventist Church and funded by the member for Central Bougainville and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Jimmy Miringtoro.

In the elaborate ritual ceremony the perpetrators and the families of victims were brought together finally some 20 years after the deaths.

 The victims were from Wisai in the Konnou Constituency of Buin district.

 Their families from the Wisai communities of Orava, Paghwi, Leulo and Oria travelled to Sirovai in Southern Central Bougainville to take part in the reconciliation ceremony.

The reconciliation ceremony was over the death of Joel Naisy, Nehemiah Potoura and two brothers Tunu Kawai and Sila Kawai in the earlier part of the Bougainville crisis after security forces withdrew from Bougainville when their bid to stop the BRA was unsuccessful in 1990.

The ceremony began with prayers and a sermon on reconciliation by SDA President of Bougainville Union Mission Pastor Kepsy Eledo who said that reconciliation was a plan of God. 

For the main part of ceremony the perpetrators were asked to enter the ceremony area from the northern side and the victims from the south. 

The perpetrators then asked member’s of the victims’ families if they were willing to reconcile with them.

 Kiason Potoura, a son of one of the victims stepped up and on behalf of the victims’ families and replied, “yes we are willing to reconcile with you and forget about the past and move on with our lives.”

After this the ceremony proceeded on the next stages which were breaking of spears and bows and arrows and chewing of betel nut by participants to show that they were at peace. 

Perpetrators said sorry for what they had done and asked for forgiveness from the victim’s family members. 

They said that they never found the opportunity to reconcile all these years and were thankful to those who had help them organise this event. 

The victims’ family members accepted this and said that they had been waiting this reconciliation for quite some time and were happy the opportunity had arrived for them to put their past behind them.

 The ceremony ended with a ritual burying of stone which symbolised lasting peace and that things that made their hearts heavy like the stone were now buried and victims’ families and the perpetrators would now live together as one people in peace and harmony.

Richard Potoura, son of one of the victims the late Nehemiah Potoura, gave an emotion speech describing the reconciliation as unprecedented and historic.

“We didn’t understand why it happened to us but now we can put all that away and move on,” Potoura said.

Among the important guests and dignitaries who witnessed this landmark reconciliation ceremony were Member for Central Bougainville and Minister for Communications and Information Technology Jimmy Miringtoro, ABG Minister for Police, Willie Masiu, Bougainville Peace Building Programme District Coordinator  Chris Bao, and a representative from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).