Webster sees Bougainville vote as a challenge

Academic and former director of the National Research Institute Dr Thomas Webster, says that carrying out awareness on referendum on Bougainville is a challenge due to a lack of communication infrastructure.
“We can make awareness to the Autonomous Bougainville Government and key Bougainvillean leaders at government-to-government level but we cannot make the similar awareness to the communities throughout Bougainville,” Webster said.
“So the challenges are how to extend to the communities. We hope the media and the ABG catch the information that we are providing through seminars and disseminate this information in simple language to the communities.”
Meanwhile, Italian academic Martina Trettel said that the referendum date of June 19, 2019 was right for Bougainvilleans to acquire enough information to vote.
“So it is not too early and not too late. The only thing that I can say is that before arriving at that date, they need to really understand what it does mean to either vote for independence or remain in the same autonomous status.”
Trettel, who is a senior researcher at the Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano, Italy, said Bougainvilleans could learn from the autonomous government status of the Cook Islands, Puerto Rico and others before voting in the referendum.