Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 13:06:01 -0800
Subject: Re: Bougainville, Strategy and violence


Bruce Lindsay wrote:
> on Bougainville and PNG - the political and ideological
> struggle of the BRA (Bougainville Revolutionary Army) is far less developed
> than that of the EZLN but nonetheless (even with Australian military
> assistance [to PNGDF], etc) the BRA seems to be achieving the upper hand thanks to
> both political and military crises within the PNG regime, capturing better
> weapons, etc.

Are these comparable? I'd love to think so. Delegates to the next Zaps'
Intergalactic pow-wow from Arawa perhaps?! It is plausible, yet...?.

But I also have some worries about romancing the BRA - not that I am
saying Bruce does so here - but the sort of romancing of Zapatismo that
people on this list know is also present in the B'ville case. Remember
that 'La Journada' suggested that the Zapatista's chose January 1st 1994
as the date for the uprising because in their 'cargo system' it
represented the time of changing authority - rather than anything about
critique of neoliberalism etc, and, I am informed reliably, there is no
such 'cargo system' in Las Canadas (thanks X. Solano).

Similarly Bougainville has been subject of many romantic reports and
cargo-cultism - including those filed by Sean Dorney.

Related to this point, can I insert something I've written elsewhere,
regarding the hiring of mercenaries by Julius Chan and co:

Something is wrong with International Solidarity if we that think the
mercenaries issue is about mercenaries, not about Australian Government
being upset that PNG is recruiting arms (six helicopters and a bunch of
advisors) from a third force. Why would Foreign Minister Downer threaten
to reduce aid if it wasn't because PNG had tried to shop elsewhere? ie.
if you don't buy exclusively with us, we will withdraw the aid package.

This seems to be confirmed by press reports today (Tuesday, March 11,
1997 - CRAIG SKEHAN) that 'Australia appears willing to increase [yep,
increase] military assistance to Papua New Guinea to try to head off the
planned use of mercenaries against secessionist rebels on Bougainville
[as] ... the option was acknowledged yesterday by the Prime Minister, Mr
Howard, following weekend talks in Sydney with his PNG counterpart, Sir
Julius Chan'

While the increased attention that the 'mercenaries' issue has raised
has to be welcomed, I wonder if it will mean Max Watts' usually
excellent articles will now get into The Australian (see his article
linking Sandline's Lt Colonel Spicer with the McBride killing in
Belfast). Howard is mercenary, as was Keating and before him Hawke.
Generally, I think there are sometimes serious problems with
International supporters who get upset now at mercenaries, when it was
only a 'small' issue before for so many.

Finally, some comments cobbled from elsewhere on the character of the
Bougainville Revolutionary Army in the context of international support
and 'circulation':

Representations of Bougainville rely upon all-too-easy ethnicisms and
exoticisms on all sides. Indigenous-essentialism has been critiqued
within social anthropology and transnational cultural studies, yet the
operation of such tropes continues regardless. Within anthropology,
Melanesianists are not immune from such reifications, yet at least they
have the benefit saying nothing of consequence. More dangerous perhaps
are those political commentators who reach for the sensational aspects
of the story from the newswire services. Parliamentary politicos
themselves utilize stereotypes and simplifications both through
ignorance and in ways calculated to disable political positions. And,
most convoluted of all, thjose on the side of goodness also contribute -
such as International solidarity groups romance of the guerilla and
indigenous in ways that feed reification and ignore practical realities.
In these circumstances, it is inevitable that local groups fall into
similar reifications either merely through weight of repetition of the
stereotypes, or because the figures of romance and exotica permit
communication with and gain supporters amongst those that operate within
an indigenous-essentialism. There are perhaps three levels at which
these reifications have important political ramifications: a) where
Government forces wish to characterize the BRA as terrorists and rebels
so as to justify counter-insurgency measures, b) where racist
conservative critics of the BRA would characterize them as savages,
and c) where international supporters would romanticize jungle based
indigenous struggle. These three levels, although there are others, are
perhaps the most important ways in which capitalist culture - in
Government propaganda, through mainstream media outlets and even in the
alternative solidarity networks - responds to and tries to disable or
co-opt threats to its hegemony. Cute ethnics and crazed terrorists are
acceptable or can be controlled - organized and militant politicos with
good arguments and guns are more difficult to deal with. 

John
Manchester




********************************************
John Hutnyk
John.Hutnyk-AT-man.ac.uk
http://les.man.ac.uk/~msrdsjh/index.htm
mail: Dept Social Anthropology
University of Manchester
M13 9PL, UK
tel: +44 (0)161 248 8967


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