Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 09:40:11 +1100
From: bjlin1-AT-student.monash.edu.au (Bruce Lindsay)
Subject: Re: mercinaries - near battle


>[I have summarized a rather long e-mail on this situation in Papau New
>Guinea against the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. E-mail me directly
>red-AT-iww.org if you want the long version. --Chris]

Hi Chris,

I'd be interested in the email on PNG. I believe these reports from the
Bougainville Freedom Movement here in Australia are regularly distributed
on Leftlink here in Victoria. There was also some interesting reports in a
main daily here in Melbourne (The Age) from a film-maker who was covertly
in Bougainville and talked to BRA people. His conclusion was that even with
the mercenaries the government cannot militarily win the war. But also said
that some definitive resolution can only be made with a clear military
victory for one side or the other. The question of a political processes on
the war seem to be rather less prominent that, say, in Chiapas, but still
any guerrilla war has politics at its core. As with most colonial-derived
states, the PNG government seems to be very concerned to isolate and
contain the struggle there and not let it "circulate" throughout the
region, especially as there are very comparable struggles (over land,
mining, multinational control, etc) in other parts of PNG (and even Oceania
and northern Australia for that matter).

Cheers,

Bruce Lindsay.




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