18.07.1996

Class divide

Independence struggle

At the end of June the seven-year war of independence in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea took a new turn. PNG troops invaded the neighbouring Solomons to search out rebel soldiers of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. They claim the Solomons government is harbouring revolutionary soldiers. The New Zealand government has offered to mediate.

Class struggle is the background to this conflict created by imperialism, which imperialism itself cannot solve. It is necessary to fight for an international workers’ solution.

If the Solomons are involved, it puts in question the claim that the Bougainville conflict is a civil war inside PNG. There is strong sympathy in the Solomons for the rebels. The BRA have an office in Honiara, capital of the Solomons.

Geographically, Bougainville is part of an archipelago, the northernmost island in the Solomons chain. The culture, language and physical characteristics of Bougainvillians are closer to Solomon Islanders than either Papuans or New Guineans. Suggestions that Bougainville be made part of the Solomons have re-surfaced during this latest skirmish.

But the Bougainvillians want independence. They do not ask imperialists to allocate them another ‘protector’. Their close relationship to the Solomons is a support for their primary aim - self-determination.

The attachment of Bougainville to PNG was an outcome of European imperialism in the Pacific. Germany colonised PNG and Bougainville, while Britain colonised the Solomons. This arbitrary carve-up cut through historic connections between Bougainville and the Solomons in pre-European times.

After the defeat of Germany in World War I, the League of Nations gave New Guinea, including Bougainville, to Australia to administer, while Britain kept the Solomons. (New Zealand got trusteeship of Western Samoa at the same time.) This has meant that the fate of Bougainville continues to be tied to the machinations of imperialism, now to mini-imperialist Australia.

After the next world war, political independence was on the agenda. Australia granted PNG independence in 1975. But Bougainville demonstrated its unwillingness to be tied in to PNG, declaring itself independent 15 days before the mainland. This act of self-determination could not be tolerated. The prime minister of PNG, Michael Somare, claimed this independence was at risk from the exploitation of the Australian company that ran the big copper mine in Bougainville, Conzinc Rio-tinto Australia (CRA). Bougainvillians submitted to Somare when he claimed he was rescuing them from CRA.

Bougainville came to regret its compliance, as Somare showed himself to be on the side of transnational capital, CRA and the Australian government.

The CRA and Australian government have worked in collusion. Initially CRA established itself in Bougainville with the support of the Australian colonial police in a paramilitary operation to subdue the local people. The copper mine at Pangua made an enormous hole in the middle of Bougainville. CRA made billions from it. They gave generous donations to the Australian Labour Party election campaigns. Australian PM Goff Whitlam, in granting independence to PNG, was not about to make life precarious for CRA. His lackey, Somare, protected them. Somare’s independent PNG was still economically dependent on Australian capital. Big Australian companies like Burns Phillip ran the local economy.

The CRA copper mine was a particularly massive earner of foreign exchange for PNG, an essential part of the new PNG state. Somare misled Bourgainvillians into believing that he was protecting them from CRA, when it was CRA he was protecting.

He and his mates operated as a comprador elite, working to serve imperialism, ensuring CRA and other companies ran unrestricted plunder for Australian capital in PNG. In return Somare’s clique made personal fortunes while the local economy flagged. Even the World Bank noted this ‘excess spending’ into the pockets of the bureaucratic elite was endemic in a corrupt administration.

Although Somare brought in the troops to quell striking miners at Pangua, jailing 800 workers just before PNG independence, it was troubles at the mine after independence that triggered the strongest reaction.

Locals demanded compensation for the damage to the environment that the ‘big hole’ CRA mine was causing. CRA has expropriated land by force. Waste from the mine polluted rivers and destroyed fishing. It polluted the land the locals depend on for their livelihood.

After 24 years of fruitlessly pursuing legal channels for compensation, locals began a guerrilla campaign of sabotage against the mine. PNG reacted with an armed blitz. Despite official Australian non-involvement, PNG forces were engineered by Australia. They continue to be backed by Australian military hardware and personnel. Australian helicopters and mortar shells have not defeated Bougainvillians.

The mine closed in 1989, followed by a declaration of independence from the BRA. Although the Bougainville revolt has erupted over mining, its real purpose is secession. The Revolutionary Army wants to end CRA’s exploitation. Bougainvillians want to reclaim their traditional lifestyle, and end the connection to PNG.

The BRA is the military wing of the Panguan people - small farmers who are fighting against the loss or damage of their land by CRA. They support traditional Melanesian ‘socialism’ based on land tenure. They do not see the exploitation of mineworkers as their reason for struggle. They reject working class struggle. They do not want to be part of the working class. They are not revolutionaries against capitalism.

Their support in New Zealand comes from church groups who recognise the justice of their fight for human rights. But, as their fight involves a challenge to a transnational company, they are confronting imperialism, the spread of capitalism internationally. We know that it is impossible for oppressed nations to free themselves from imperialism short of a socialist revolution. That is why it is important for workers to support their fight. Only the organised working class can defeat the capitalist system that nurtures companies like CRA.

We can do this by campaigning in our unions to put bans on CRA and the other companies ripping off Bougainville. We can mobilise workers’ aid for their military struggle, and we can oppose the New Zealand government deploying its armed forces in Bourgainville, as back-up forces for the Australian military, or posing as ‘peace-brokers’. Only through our support for their right to self-determination can the Bougainville freedom fighters be won to the struggle for international working class revolution.

J Villa