Date: Sat, 8 Mar 1997 08:48:37 -0500
Subject: M-G: Bougainville Update - 8/3/97 Part 1


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>Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 19:48:47 +1000
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>From: Sasha Baer <sashab-AT-magna.com.au>
>Subject: Bougainville Update - 8/3/97 Part 1
>
>More details on Papua New Guinea payment to mercenaries
>======================================================>
>Radio Australia, Thursday 6 March, 1997 (6:11pm AEDT)
>-----------------------------------------------------
>
>Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, has disclosed that
>20-million of the 24-million dollars outlayed for the engagement of military
>advisors will be used to buy equipment.
>
>Releasing figures for the first time since the controversy over foreign
>mercenaries surfaced, Sir Julius again insisted that the Sandline personnel
>were non-combatant.
>
>Sir Julius says the foreign forces have been engaged to train the P-N-G
>Defence Force for the long term.
>
>Meanwhile, a delegation led by Defence Force commander, Jerry Singirok, has
>returned from a military procurement trip to Singapore.
>
>The delegation discussed the purchase of weapons and ammunition,
>helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and the training of pilots and ground crew.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Australian  government to check on Bougainville share trading
>============================================================>
>Radio Australia, Friday 7 March, 1997 (11:22am AEDT)
>----------------------------------------------------
>
>Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has asked for details of an
>inquiry into heavy trading in Bougainville Copper shares.
>
>Graeme Dobell reports that the sudden demand for the Bougainville shares on
>the Australian Stock Exchange happened before news of Papua New Guinea's use
>of mercenary troops:
>
>The Stock Exchange has asked brokers about a huge jump in purchases of
>Bougainville shares over three days in February...when a total of one
>million shares were traded.... compared to a previous daily average of about
>ten thousand shares. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has told the Exchange
>he's interested in any findings about who was buying the shares. Such
>information is likely to be of diplomatic rather than legal use because
>purchases of shares from Papua New Guinea, based on advance knowledge of the
>foreign mercenaries, would not be classed as insider trading. The law only
>covers secret information held by the listed company.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Court challenge on "hired soldiers' 
>==================================>
>Sydney Morning Herald, Friday, March 7, 1997
>--------------------------------------------
>
>By LUCY PALMER in Port Moresby
>
>A Legal challenge to the Papua New Guinea Government's hiring of mercenaries
>to solve the Bougainville crisis has started in the National Court, and will
>be heard next Wednesday as a "matter of national importance".
>
>The suit, brought by a Port Moresby lawyer, Mr Rimbink Pato, also seeks to
>restrain the Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, and the Minister for Finance,
>Mr Chris Haiveta, from using further public money to pay Sandline
>International, the "military consultants" at the centre of the controversy.
>
>Mr Pato told the Herald he would attempt to subpoena Sir Julius, Mr Haiveta,
>bank officials and officials from the Department of Finance.
>
>"It's a matter of national importance," Mr Pato said. "Countries like
>Australia have not just said they disapprove; they feel very strongly about
>it and they will do their best to stop us. We are headed for international
>disgrace and financial disaster."
>
>Sir Julius has dismissed the threat of legal action by Mr Pato, an intending
>candidate in the June national elections, as "political hot air".
>
>"I do not see why we should entertain this," he told The National newspaper.
>"We would never want to break the Constitution. I mean, that's the last
>thing I would want to do."
>
>Sir Julius also claimed that 28 million kina ($25.4 million) of the Sandline
>International contract (worth 33 million kina), would be used to buy
>military equipment, but did not detail what this would include.
>
>In his submission, Mr Pato said the appropriation of public money without
>the approval of Parliament was in breach of the Constitution and in
>violation of proper bureaucratic procedures.
>
>The submission also accuses the Government of conspiring to raise
>unauthorised forces and acting against Bougainvilleans in breach of their
>rights and freedoms.
>
>Mr Pato also said there was evidence that Mr Haiveta, who is also Deputy
>Prime Minister, had acted illegally and improperly in ordering the transfer
>of money from last year's Oregen float into a dormant government account. In
>a "top secret" letter to the Secretary for Finance, Mr James Loko, dated
>January 23, Mr Haiveta instructed that money be transfered "in order for the
>Government to implement its plans relating to Bougainville".
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>"When the foreign soldiers come, more will die" 
>==============================================>
>Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, March 8, 1997
>----------------------------------------------
>
>By CRAIG SKEHAN, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
>
>Tears fill the eyes of Francis Baubake as he lies badly wounded in hospital
>describing how a mortar smashed through the roof of his village church on
>Bougainville, killing his wife and two of his daughters.
>
>His baby, Marina, was injured, but survived.
>
>Now Mr Baubake, 34, is afraid that a planned mercenary-backed PNG Defence
>Force assault against secessionist rebels on the island will kill and injure
>many more non-combatants.
>
>"When the foreign soldiers come, more children will die," he said.
>
>The Solomon Islands, where he has been treated for four months, is bracing
>for a wave of refugees as well as wounded. Thousands of Bougainvilleans have
>shifted to the independent nation during the past nine years of conflict and
>many others have moved back and forth.
>
>Dozens are now in the Solomon Islands Central Hospital in the capital,
>Honiara, to be treated for either wounds or illness.
>
>Mr Baubake's family was one of several attending early morning mass in the
>southern Bougainville village of Malabita on November 28 when mortars fired
>by the PNG Defence Force hit the group.
>
>His wife, and two daughters aged 4 and 14, were among 10 people killed.
>Marina, now 18 months old, is living with an aunt, Maria Baubake, on the
>outskirts of Honiara.
>
>There are fears that the planned PNG onslaught will drive more refugees to
>the Solomon Islands, which has close ties with Bougainville.
>
>"Once they get to the Solomon Islands, I think we will accommodate them,"
>said Mr Abraham Baeanisa, director of the Solomon Islands Development Trust.
>
>He added: "If the mercenaries are coming in with sophisticated weapons, what
>chance do people who don't have that kind of weaponry and training have?
>
>"We have seen people's terrible wounds. Especially when you see kids - torn,
>wounded like that. What can kids be doing to an enemy in a war when they do
>not even know the meaning of an enemy?"
>
>The Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, Mr Solomon Mamaloni, describes
>the use of mercenaries as cowardly and has encouraged regional countries to
>take a united stand against it.
>
>Medical authorities in Honiara believe they could not cope with a big influx
>of wounded given the large number of seriously injured Bougainvilleans
>already being treated.
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Making a deal on Bougainville
>============================>
>Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, March 8, 1997
>----------------------------------------------
>
>As the Papua New Guinea Government was planning a new drive against the
>rebels on Bougainville, CRAIG SKEHAN heard first-hand accounts from people
>still recovering from earlier attacks. 
>
>"I KNOW where a lot of bodies are buried," said an elderly Chinese merchant
>who had been forced by escalating violence to leave Bougainville.
>
>"When it's over, a United Nations team should go to the island to obtain
>evidence for war crimes trials. People are keeping records to help when the
>day comes."
>
>The merchant is from the once peaceful island of Bouganville. Today he is a
>refugee, forced to flee his home by the mounting violence. 
>
>The merchant named a spot on the island near the coast where dozens of young
>men, allegedly Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) rebels and their
>sympathisers, were shot and disposed of in shallow graves over a number of
>years.
>
>The Papua New Guinea Government is now pledging to crush the rebel
>leadership with the help of mercenaries from southern Africa, and there are
>fears among the 130,000 civilians on Bougainville that there will soon be
>more massacres.
>
>In recent months, according to Amnesty International, it is the PNG Defence
>Force that has been responsible for some of the worst human-rights
>violations - including cold-blooded shootings of women and children.
>
>But some members of the BRA have also killed civilians and executed PNG
>soldiers in a "take-no-prisoners" approach to this guerilla war.
>
>In the past few months, refugees from the war, many victims of violence,
>have been ferried to the nearby Solomon Islands capital, Honiara, where a
>modest wooden hospital on the harbour is stretched to overflowing.
>
>Victims of a mortar attack on a church last November and a pre-dawn raid on
>a village - in both cases by PNG soldiers and anti-secessionist militia -
>lie on rickety beds hoping for an afternoon breeze. They constitute a stark
>reminder of the depths that human rights abuses can reach and the danger of
>increased civilian casualties as the PNG Government prepares to launch a big
>offensive against the BRA.
>
>A young man named Simon Siin was shot through the cheek during a pre-dawn
>December raid on his south Bougainville village of Mukakuru. "They came and
>shot boys and girls and old men and old women in their beds and they shot
>more when they ran away," he said this week. Because his tongue was partly
>blown away by a heavy-calibre bullet, he makes a sucking noise when he
>talks. But he talks well enough to give evidence against the PNG soldiers
>and resistance militia who callously took the lives of up to 16 of his
>fellow villagers.
>
>LAST week, the Australian Government warned PNG that the use of mercenaries
>was unacceptable and threatened to axe a $12million bilateral military
>co-operation program. However, PNG's Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan - who
>goes to the polls in June after having promised before the last election to
>solve the Bougainville crisis - has resolutely resisted international pressure.
>
>But a dangerous regional precedent has been created by his plan to use the
>British-based company, Sandline International, to provide training,
>sophisticated military technology and on-the-ground tactical support for
>commando-style raids against the BRA leadership.
>
>The PNG Government believes that if hardline BRA leaders were eliminated,
>there would be scope to negotiate with so-called "moderates" to open the
>controversial giant copper mine on the island for higher royalties,
>infrastructure development and a level of autonomous decision-making short
>of independence. But while fears of heightened violence could turn some
>locals away from the independence push, the anti-Government sentiment of
>others will be deepened by the use of foreigners.
>
>There are also fears in Australia that other leaders in the South Pacific
>could see mercenaries as a means to obtain power - or illegally hold onto
>it. In a cafe in Honiara, a BRA soldier - who arrived from Bougainville this
>week - spoke to the Herald on condition of anonymity. "We will fight to the
>end," he said. "The mercenaries might be professionals, but Bougainville is
>not Africa."
>
>The well-educated young man is under the command of the most powerful - and
>brutal - of the BRA military leaders: a man who uses only the name Ishmael.
>
>Before the conflict erupted in 1988, Ishmael worked as a truck driver at the
>copper mine at Panguna.
>
>For the past fortnight, he has been honing tactics to fight what Sir Julius
>has said will be an operation to capture or kill him and other hardline BRA
>leaders.
>
>While the PNG Government has said that the mercenaries would be used to
>train a specially selected group of about 150 PNG soldiers at Wewak in the
>north-west of the country, intelligence sources have confirmed that some
>Sandline International mercenaries have been on Bougainville, carrying out
>reconnaissance operations.
>
>Media reports on the number of Sandline personnel to be used have ranged
>from about 40 to 190, but PNG intelligence sources have indicated that the
>total will be about 80.
>
>On the rebels' side, the BRA man in Honiara admitted that successful raids
>against PNG Defence Force posts last year resulted in the capture of large
>quantities of weapons and equipment - including machine-guns, mortar tubes,
>assault rifles and portable radios.
>
>In addition, large quantities of Japanese and Allied equipment and weapons
>buried on Bougainville in the wake of World War II battles on the island
>have been reconditioned.
>
>The BRA said this included cannon which would be used to shoot down any
>helicopters supporting PNG and mercenary troops trying to retake, or hold,
>the rugged Panguna mine site.
>
>Intelligence sources, however, said that Sandline International - linked to
>the controversial company, Executive Outcomes - has brought into PNG a far
>more sophisticated arsenal than is available to the rebels.
>
>As well as photographic aerial surveillance and radio direction-finding gear
>to pinpoint BRA positions, Sandline has imported special night vision
>telescopic sights for sniper rifles to be used to assassinate rebel leaders.
>
>The tactic is partly based on a widely held belief that BRA soldiers are
>afraid of fighting at night.
>
>The BRA maintains that it has not been reluctant to tackle the PNG Defence
>Force in the dark, but concedes that it will seek to limit night-time
>encounters with mercenary-backed forces because of the technological
>disadvantage.
>
>The PNG Defence Force has taken to using mortar fire in an attempt to
>control movement by boat across the border between Bougainville and the
>Solomon Islands.
>
>BRA members have often been able to move freely into the Solomon Islands for
>rest, recreation and resupply, but now recognise that this will become
>increasingly difficult in the weeks ahead.
>
>The best estimate presently available is that military attackson BRA
>positions will intensify within the next month.
>
>In an effort to minimise negative political fallout from using foreigners to
>kill Bougainvilleans - who are PNG citizens - the PNG Government will be
>careful to avoid using the mercenaries directly in combat.
>
>By providing improved weaponry, including military attack helicopters,
>Sandline will probably tip the balance more in the Government's favour. 
>
>However, even if the mine site is reclaimed, it is doubtful that it could be
>held indefinitely against a determined campaign. And mercenaries don't stay
>around forever, even if they have been paid about $51million for their 
services.
>
>When the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, visited PNG 17 days
>ago, he used the excuse of seeing Russian aircraft on the tarmac in Port
>Moresby to raise with the PNG Government "rumours" that foreign mercenaries
>were to be hired.
>
>In fact, Downer already had a great deal of information about the planned
>



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