Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 11:54:00 +1100
Subject: Re: Bougainville, Strategy and violence


>
>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).

No I didn't mean to romanticize the BRA or the EZLn for that matter. My
point was that I think there is a different balance of forces in each of
these struggles, and I'm taking this assumption from reports in mainstream
press as well as elsewhere. It would seem to me that the military balance
on Bougainville is playing something of a more decisive role because of a
series of defeats by the PNG military, and the EZLN (which I am informed is
a real military force, well armed and well trained) has pressed the
political weakness of the Mexican state and the relatively highly developed
"circulation" of their struggle to other social sectors. I am not saying
that the military and political dimensions of these struggles are in any
way mutually exclusive. I don;t know enough about the Bougainville struggle
or the detailed machinations of the PNG government and the relations of the
Australian and PNG states. But, agreeing that both government's militaries,
paramilitary gangs on Bougainville, and the respective regimes are
"mercenary", the real points about the hiring of commandos (and the mock
outrage of the Australian government) include the *privitization* of
military force and its contribution to the militarization of the situation.
I agree that the real issue has nothing to do with hiring private armies
but with the prospect for further militarization and the movements of a PNG
government that seems to be getting a bit more desparate. To what extent
will "mercenaries" prove significant to propping up the military power of
the PNG government? It is also worth remembering that the network of
companies operating the mercenaries directly control significant mining
operations, etc, in Africa (as a result of deals with various states) and
thus operates as a conglomerate, indicating the possibility of capital
operating as a "state within a state."

>
>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.

As above. And also the PNG government seems to be playing on
anti-Australian sentiment in PNG.

>
>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.


Bruce.




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