STRICTLY 4 THE ISLANDS: THE PANGUNA DILLEMA

Weekly Pacific Politics with Otis Whinney 

THE PANGUNA DILLEMA

The newest country in the world could be dropping very soon, thanks to some major progress in the independence process for the island of Bougainville. The island nation waged a war of secession against Papua New Guinea after the sabotage of a massive copper mine on the island led to a harsh response from the PNG Defence Force. The mine in question is the Panguna mine, which was a huge money maker for PNG and one they were not keen to see lost to the soon-to-be independent people of Bougainville. In a somewhat ironic turn of events, the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) has committed to the reopening of the mine as a means to generate the necessary revenue for independence. For many, the reopening of the mine signals the early steps into nationhood for the country as they build a financial base for their country, but for some this act betrays the very thing Bougainville was built on. The mine was incredibly disruptive for a number of reasons, including massive land acquisitions that were not fairly compensated for their original owners, leading to the outbreak of war in the late 80s that lasted until the late 90s. While many are keen to leave that in the past, it seems some have made it clear that not all of Bougainville wants Panguna back up and running.

On 13 September, it is reported that several armed men entered the Panguna site and set fire to several pieces of large machinery. The President of the ABG, Ishmael Toroama, quickly condemned the attacks, stating that those who carried out the attacks “do not have the best interests of our government or our people at heart. This type of behaviour has no place in Bougainville and will not be tolerated.” Guava Chief Linus Miri, whose brother Francis Ona founded the Bougainville Revolutionary Army in the heat of the war, also publicly condemned the attacks alongside other relevant chiefs and landowners around Panguna; “My heartfelt apologies to Lloyds, you have invested so much, and our own people have done this. Shame on us. As a chief, I must defend my land, but what has happened has caused me great pain. Today I step down and give my full support to the government. No more games, let us move on and make things happen for Bougainville.”

Lloyds Metals & Energies Limited was the company chosen by Toroama to lead the reopening of the mine. This choice has played a large part in the skepticism both in Bougainville and abroad concerning Panguna, with a report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) casting doubt on the decision making process. The OCCRP report claims Toroama bypassed the standard decision making process and selected Lloyds after a series of conversations with the managing director, Balasubramanian Prabhakaran. Prabhakaran is stated to have offered to have Toroama’s wife undergo an emergency kidney transplant in India at no cost, and after this offer was accepted Lloyds was chosen. This was despite pushback from Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), who advised Toroama that Lloyds was far less experienced in the field than other large firms who had shown interests, namely the Chinese entity CMOC.

Fears of the return of violence in Bougainville have dominated discussions around the reopening of Panguna, but Bougainville’s path to independence is reliant on reaching a level of economic self-sufficiency that would be hard to reach via other means. PNG’s Minister for International Trade and Investment, Richard Maru, made it clear that he “repeatedly advised the management of Lloyds Metals & Energy against investing in Panguna, knowing it was highly volatile due to numerous factions and the environment was not conducive for investment.” He also stated that many of the land disputes that ignited the conflict decades ago were never properly addressed, which contributed to the risk in investment. If we are to believe the OCCRP report, then Toroama’s alleged bypassing of the decision-making process may have complicated this already controversial investment ten-fold, leading to even more uncertainty on Bougainville’s future.

There’s another project in our region that is sparking conversation around how the Pacific exercises its sovereignty. The Cook Islands is receiving NZD $101 million from the governments of New Zealand and the United States to fund a major upgrade for a port on the island of Tongavera. The US Ambassador to the Cook Islands (and billionaire republican mega-donor) Jared Novelly spoke to RNZ Pacific regarding this development, which the US will provide the majority of the funding for, stating that the project is “not a military base.” He is, however, keen to leave that door open for further developments in that area should there be enough appetite amongst the relevant authorities in the Cook Islands. Our good mate Winston Peters described the deal as a “hugely significant development,” while Cook Island’s Prime Minister Mark Brown called it a “lifeline for Tongavera,” but some are raising concerns about the real intentions behind the USA and NZ’s decision to fund the project.

Novelly has repeatedly denied that the port will become a US military base, but has made it clear that having a friendly port in the area would be very beneficial for those combatting illegal fishing and the illicit drug trade in the region; “The Pacific is so vast and to be able to police it from bad actors requires certain assets, and those assets need to be able to resupply, and that's something that a port can do in a way that maybe it's lacking right now.” The Cook Islands has also been in talks with the USA on opening up their seabed for mineral extraction, a top-priority for the Trump administration in their ongoing resource-dominance-competition with China. Novelly, who is also the US ambassador for New Zealand, pledged in March that he will “work tirelessly to advance President Trump and Senator [Marco] Rubio’s foreign policies,” and as the USA continues a military build up in their Pacific territories, the work people like Novelly and US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau are doing will be unable to escape this wider context. 

When speaking to Pacific Mornings, New Zealand legal academic Al Gillespie argued that civilian infrastructure such as this can very easily become dual-use if further foreign investment becomes necessary; “In theory, you want to keep them separate. But in reality, they often get merged because the countries need the money for the development and they’ll often turn a blind eye to its other purpose.” Gillespie sees this as an extension of the never-ending contest for dominance in the Pacific, with the USA and China being the primary combatants in the present day. China had also shown interest in developing the port in the past, and during the last Pacific Islands Forum stated they fully supported the exploration of the Cook Islands seabed for critical minerals. If Novelly and the like are as committed to Trump’s foreign policy vision as they claim to be, further Chinese investment in this area is the last thing they would like to see happen.

Gillespie went on to say that “the goal, as I've always argued, is that we should be trying to demilitarize and make the Pacific neutral. It's in no one's benefit that it ends up being pieces on a chessboard.” How this port will end up contributing to the Cook Islands’ involvement in this international game remains to be seen, but Bougainville has shown us the possible consequences for politicians and corporations making decisions without the people, or the environment, in mind.