Date: Thu, 5 Jun 1997 00:11:35 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #65 (Bougainville!)


COCKROACH! #65 (Bougainville!)

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1. Bougainville!

2. Albania: Revolution or Ignorance?
-------------------------------------------------------

BOUGAINVILLE SUDDENLY IN THE NEWS 

ByMax Watts > > > > tel/fax 02 9 818 2343 > > > > 

The war against Bougainville, fought by the Australian establishment
 and its PNG "allies", started in November 1988, when some of the 
landowners  of central Bougainville dispossessed by the huge PANGUNA BCL  
copper-gold mine became stroppy and closed the mine.  Timidly in
March 1996, and with a rush since the 22 February 1997,  the
Australian media have reversed their past policy.  Now Bougainville
has become News.  Wounded Bougainvillian children can be pictured on
the front page of  the Sydney Morning Herald.  Mary Louise
O'Callaghan can reveal dangerous Mercenary Intervention.  Few yet
asks:  Why now ?  Were there not wounded Bougainville  children,
victims of Australian gunship helicopters, sickened by an  Australian
supported medical blockade, in Solomon Hospitals for the  past 5, 6,
7 years ?  Are not Australian mercenaries - covered legally by a
declaration  issued by the then Labor Attorney General Lionel Bowen
on 20.7.1989 -  flying combat missions, gunship and bombing Iroquois
helicopters,  since 1989 ?  = = = = = = =  BCL was and is 53%
owned by CRA (Conzinc Riotinto Australia),  then a subsidiary partner
of, now amalgamated with RTZ (Rio Tinto  Zinc) as RTZ-CRA.   The
world's biggest mining multinational will  shortly change its name to
simply:  RIO TINTO.  The Bougainvillian  landowner had protested
peacefully for 20 years against  any mining at all, against the
damage inflicted on the environment by the mine  and against their
insufficient compensation.  Only approximately one thousandth
(around $ 3 Million)  of the 3 Billion Dollars/Kina cumulative
profits since  the Panguna mine's opening in 1972) had gone to the
local landowners,  and even this was mostly given to the "old big
men" rathen than the  women who had actually lost their gardens.   

In November 1988 a group of young landowners led by ex mine 
surveyor Francis Ona  stole some of the mine's explosives and 
blew up a few of the electricity pylons connecting the mine 
in the central mountains with the coastal power plant a Loloho. 

 This stopped production at PANGUNA, the Bougainville Copper Ltd BCL
 mine, at first temporarily in November 1988, then definitely on 15
 May 1989.
 
 Instead of, as Francis Ona and his comrades had hoped, bringing CRA
 to the bargaining table with more serious offers of compensation and
 environmental damage control, the company, the Australian Labor
 government and some of the elite politicians in Port Moresby went
 all out to "eliminate" the Bougainvillian "terrorists,
 secessionists, rebels.", 
 
 They brought in first the PNG Riot Police, then, in March 1989, the
 PNG army, rather sarcastically named "Defence Force".
 
 Burning villages and killing many local people, the attempted 
 repression soon brought the environmental and financial claims of
 the Panguna landowners together with the longstanding demand for
 Bougainvillian independence, smouldering but not extinguished since
 the first, partly successful attempt at separation from Port Moresby
 on 1. September 1975.
 
 Bougainville, geographically and ethnically a part of the Solomon
 Islands, had been allocated to then German New Guinea in 1899 by a
 deal between Great Britain and Imperial Germany. It had become an
 Australian Mandate after the 1914-1918 war, when Australian Forces
 captured German New Guinea.  
 
 The inhabitants were - of course - not consulted, either in 1899 nor
 in 1914.
 
 The quite bloody repression of 1989 started a war which has now 
 lasted more than 8 years and, apart from East Timor's independence
 struggle,  has become the longest ongoing war in the Pacific and
 perhaps in the entire world.

 Multiple attempts at negotiation have always failed.
 
 The war crimes committed by the PNG military, 
 trained, supplied and assisted by the Australian government,
 have been described in multiple reports by Amnesty International,
 but - for many years - hardly noticed by the average Australian. 
 
 Why ?  What has prevented the Australian establishment 
 and its allies amongst the PNG elite from even discussing
 the basic demands of the Bougainvillian Revolutionary movement ?
 
 Why have the fundamental problems of the war been so consistently
 obfuscated ?

 And why has there been, so long, almost no knowledge amongst the 
 Australian people of the crimes committed - in their name and with
 their active assistance - in Bougainville ?>  
 
 A major, and often successful, aim of the blockade which 
 Australia and PNG have clamped around Bougainville since April
 1990 had long  been to keep the news of the war from the public.
 
 When - often due to really heroic efforts of Australians such as
 Sam Voron, Rosemarie and Kirrallee Gillespie, Jason Cornelius,
 Wayne Coles-Janess and others - news of the Bougainvillian
 struggle has leaked out, the Australian establishment media have
 long done their best to suppress what news were available.   And -
 to totally obfuscate the reasons for the continuing war.

 Which, fundamentally, are quite simple:
 
1/   Self determination for the Bougainvillians, which would almost 
 certainly lead to independence.

But this - the demand for self-determination, independence, 
would not be a major  reason for the Australian establishment 
continuing the war.  
Their declared reason, that allowing the Bougainvillians to decide
their  own fate could not be permitted, for it could lead to a chain
 reaction which would fragment Papua New Guinea, makes little sense.
 Only Bougainville is ethnically and geographically part of the 
Solomon Islands;  the other 4 island provinces of PNG have no past 
history of independence movements and no strivings for more than >
provincial autonomy. 

2/   But a second reason, which is never
mentioned in the media,  is that the success of the BOUGAINVILLE
people in totally closing the Panguna mine and KEEPING IT CLOSED for
eight years  has already become a most dangerous  EXAMPLE for all
the third world's people, for those billions  who are locked in
conflicts with the transnational neo-imperialist  mining multis.    
 The BOUGAINVILLE conflict is unique, for here a small, very
black,  people, 170,000, on a 9,000 square kilometer island, have 
successfully closed one of the world's largest copper-gold mines, >
PANGUNA, belonging - according to capitalist law - not to the people
 who live "on it", but to the world's biggest mining corporation, >
RTZ-CRA, soon to be re-named RIO TINTO. 

 The East Timorese,
or West Papuans, fighting - in the last analysis, - against BHP oil
drilling in the Timor Gap or Freeport McMoran digging  up Erzberg -
are no less heroic than the Bougainvillians.  But they  have, so
far, been defeated.  The drilling in ther Timor Gap, the mining in
West Papua, continues.   As it does almost everywhere, where
indigenous people have tried to  defend their land, their
lifestyle, their very lives.  But in Bougainville the Panguna
mine has been closed since 15 May  1989;  not a gram of copper or
gold has been "exploited" there.  No "s", no Surplus Value for the
Owners of 20 Billion Dollars Capital of Rio Tinto - has been realised
from the land, the labor, of Bougainville. Here there is no question
of a bigger share, of "more", for the Bougainvillians, the "natives". 
 Here the demand has been, and has been successfully enforced, OF:

 no surplus value for capital, none at all.

 If, or rather when, a victorious peace comes to Bougainville this
 "secret" will become very difficult to hide, to obfuscate.   
It could become a most dangerous lesson if learned by others in the
third world, by other peoples who do not want their land dug up and
converted into surplus value for the world's capitalists. 
 
Already Bougainvillians, such a Moses Havini, Ambassador of the
unrecognised, almost unmentionable, Bougainville Interim Government 
 (BIG) to Australia, have traveled to the Philippines and  spoken
to indigenous people in Mindenao, shown the people there the results
of  the strip mining planned for their country by the Australian
Western  Mining Corporation.  Shown pictures of Panguna, learning
of the  Bougainvillians'successful struggle to keep it closed - 
the Mindenauans immediately stiffened their resistance to WMC's 
blandishments.  After hearing about Bougainville, they > > refused to
sign the proposed contracts.  (NEED TO GET MORE DETAILS OF THIS
FROM MOSES HAVINI)  Aborigines in Australia are vilified when
they "delay" proposed  mining projects.  A telling remark, by a
CRA/Comalco executive:  "We cannot afford another Bougainville in
Queensland" shows a deep fear  only partly hidden: 

 "What do we do with people who say: 
 'We don't want more money.  We don't want your mine on our land,
 under any conditions!"
 
 Shoot them ?  Have them shot ?  As in East Timor, or West Papua ?

But what if they - successfully - as in Bougainville - shoot back?

This Bougainvillian lesson must NOT be allowed to spread !

This lesson must not be learned, not be taught.

 And so the war continues.

 The last attempt at negotiations, in Cairns, December 1995,
 was again aborted by Chan, the PNG elite, when their army fired on
 the returning BIG delegation on 3.1.96, massacred villagers in
 Simba village on 25.1.96, burned the office of the BIG in Honiara
 on 1.2.96.
 
 The BRA responded with a limited offensive, which carried the war
 to the North of Bougainville, even into long "pacified" (i.e. PNG
 army occupied) Buka.
 
 On 22.3.96 Chan re-declared intensive war, told the "BRA
 criminals" that "their darkest hour" had now come.  Buying $ 10
 millions worth of new military equipment, 120 mms mortars to
 destroy villages, he sent the PNG army, with its Australian
 helicopter pilots, into another "final offensive", High Speed 2. 
 But this time the BRA fought the invasions of central Bougainville
 not only, as before, in their mountains, but also, and for the
 first time successfully, on the coastal plains, at Aropa.
 
 By 15.7.96 the last PNG attempt to destroy the BIG and the BRA in
 Central Bougainville had collapsed.
 
 On 12.9.96 a combined offensive, by the Southern Command of the
 BRA and parts of the officially pro-PNG "Resistance" who had
 changed sides overran the PNG base at Kangu Beach;  many weapons
 were captured and 5 prisoners taken.   
 
 On 12.10.96 PNG soldiers and some hard-core "Resistance" elements
 assassinated Theodore Miriung, who had been appointed by Chan to
 lead his "tame" Bougainville Transitional Government, BTG, an
 attempt to divert Bougainvillians from the Bougainville Interim
 Government, fighting for self-determination and against the mining
 corporation. Miriung, hoping for a negotiated peace, was
 considered dangerous to the hawks in the army, in Port Moresby and
 even in Canberra.
  the PNG soldiers have also, though slowly, learned that they 
 cannot win, and what they are dying for. 

Since then many of the Australian armed, paid for, "Resistance" 
groups have gone over to the BRA.   Far better armed than in the past,
BRAs can now prevent the PNG "DF" from attacking villages, destroying
the food gardens, herding the population into concentration camps
dubbed "Care Centers".

A new infrastructure, medical units, schools, housing, food 
production, is being built up in the Bougainville Interim Government
controlled areas.

The BRA can recruit at will, limited only by the availability of
weapons.

Ishmael Toroama, Field Commander of the BRA, to the author:
"With luck and the grace of God, we shall win the war in 1997". 
 -------------------------------
THE SORCERERS APPRENTICE.

FOR EIGHT YEARS CANBERRA TOLD THE PNG GOVERNMENT IN PORT MORESBY
to recapture Bougainville, reopen Panguna.  
By early 1996 they realised that this would not work, the BRA, 
despite having been "almost destroyed" by Gareth Evans on many 
occasions, could not be militarily defeated.  

To save what could be saved, Canberra now pushed for "negotiations",
which would still save the essential and above all prevent an open
admission of a Bougainville victory.> >

Faced with this prospect, Australia's sorcerers apprentice "Sir"
Julius Chan has chosen to flee forwards.

Instead of negotiating on the fundamental principles, 
self-determination and the right to keep PANGUNA  closed if  the local
population and their Interim Government so wishes, he chose to
intensify the war.  

 Australian politicians, media moguls, were not only upset, but 
almost terrified  to "learn"  - they pretend only belatedly  on
22.2.97  - - that the PNG elite, led by millionaire "Sir" Julius Chan,
 have used money raised on the Australian Stock Exchanges, and
money from the Aus $ 142 millions transferred this fiscal year
directly from the Australian taxpayer to the PNG general budget - to
hire  the mercenary killers of Executive Outcomes - Sandlines
International,  to "eliminate the hardliners" on Bougainville.   
That is, the  Bougainville Interim Government, the BRA leaders. 
 This elimination, so millionaire Prime Minister Chan,  would
allow "peace' to come to Bougainville, allow 'the recovery'  of the
Panguna mine.  To recover it from those Bougainvillians who  live
there, who do not want Panguna to re-open under any conditions. 
That in the last analysis the Australian tax payer is  to pay
for this "operation"must be kept from these  Australians -  who are
constantly told there are no funds for their hospitals, 
universities, environment or ABC.  But Australian, International,
Capital fears unpredictabel reactions - and not only on Bougainville.

There the news that the South African/British  
Mercenaries "are coming" has produced not only fear, not only 
loathing, but a fierce determination to continue the fight for 
independence.  All possibilites at a negotiated settlement have been
put on hold, as long as the "mercenary murderers" are awaited.

And elsewhere, all thru the Pacific, and particularly in PNG itself,
 the news have mobilised opinion not only against 
the "Chan Elite" ready to hire foreign murderers against "our own
citizens", but also against the mining multinationals.

However much CRA, Rio Tinto, other mining multis protest their
"innocence", the use of mercenary murderers here risks to
endanger, not save, their investments.
 As Bougainville Interim Government leader Francis Ona says:  
"You cannot win.  If your mercenary murderers  kill us, all will
remember, and hate you.  If you fail, we all will know we can beat
you, and, as we have been doing for eight years, win."
-------------------------------------------------------
Albania: Revolution or Ignorance?

Vladimir is healthily, but unnecessarily, sceptical:

>Some comrades on this list  have been too quick to announce
>a revolution in Albania and to offer the rebels a correct political
>line and meticulously tailored slogans. Yet, there is no indication
>whatsoever that what we have in Albania is an anti-capitalist
>revolution or has any chance to become such. I found the proclamations,
>"analyses," and slogans on Albania that have been coming from European
>trotskyist organizations an example of wishful thinking, to put it mildly.
>What is immediately obvious from reading the reports by LCMRCI and the
>IEB of Social Appeal is that they do not have any independent sources
>of information in Albania and no political connection with the insurgency
>whatsoever. Yet the LCMRCI calls the Albanian insurgents
>
> "For a revolution based in workers council and militias!"
>
>This is a very serious slogan. The revolution based on and led by workers
>councils is the highest form of revolution imaginable, and one can add, the
>one that so far exists only in our imagination.  Yet the LCMRCI admits that
>even if the rebels move radically to the left they will most certainly put
>at their helm some of the former stalinist leaders. But if this is so, the
>above slogan is nothing but pure rhetoric and dangerous nonsense. Unless we
>think, of course, that our slogans do not have to relate to concrete social-
>political situation. And the situation in Albania shows no sign of a socialist
>revolution, let alone a revolution led by workers councils.  Not only both
>reports fail to produce any evidence that such councils exist in Albania, but
>LCMRCI tacitly acknowledges that *so far* the rebellion remains within strictly
>bourgeois demands.


I think Vladimir is confusing what the people are doing with what they are
saying.

The fact that what they are saying is neither Bolshevik nor Marxist is
hardly surprising given the history of world working class leadership since
the mid-1920s, especially in the degenerated and deformed workers' states
(made worse by the capitulation of the Pabloite leadership of the 4th
International to the Stalinists in the 1950s).

This makes it imperative to struggle for the consciousness of the people
now in revolt in Albania.

Vladimir underestimates *what they're actually doing*. In response to the
most vicious and blatant capitalist rip-off imaginable, a whole region of a
European country has thrown off the state's oppressive machinery and armed
itself to the last five-year-old.

This is *unprecedented* since the disarmament of the Greeks after World War
II! Perhaps the only parallel in Europe -- and this needs checking -- is
the power of the armed people in Yugoslavia at the end of the war.

Not even in Romania when the people went for Ceauscescu's jugular was there
this degree of total armed control out of the hands of the state machinery.
Think of it!

In the face of the usual Stalinist class-collaborationist, conciliationist
policies, the rebels are saying NO. And this is without an organized
revolutionary leadership.

The prospects for development depend on how soon an organized leadership
develops and in which direction it develops. The chances for fatal mistakes
are great -- this is the genuine basis for Vlad's scepticism.

However, it is absolutely necessary to see this revolutionary situation for
what it is and point out steps that need to be taken to move events in the
right direction. That's what I think we've been doing in our discussions of
the processes at work and of the appropriate slogans.

State power is up for grabs in Southern (and potentially in all) Albania.
Those in power can't hold on to it, those under them refuse to have them on
their backs any longer. Or to make it "official":

        ... it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and
        rule in the old way.

        ... It is only when the *"lower classes" do not want* to live in
the old
        way...

        ... and the "upper classes" *cannot carry on in the old way* ...

        that the revolution can triumph.


The other preconditions for success are what me and Bob and Dave have been
banging on about on these lists for so long. A Bolshevik-Leninist party and
class-independent, revolutionary, internationalist policies. Building such
a party is our real political work.

As for the slogans, they are banners trying to unite the mood of the people
with what is necessary for the development of a socialist revolution. Just
take another look.

* No disarmament -- for a universal people's militia!

This puts the question of power in the centre. Do we give up our guns? Yes
or No? We say No.


* No compromise with Berisha and the capitalist regime!

Isn't this self-evident and in tune with the mood of the people? What it
does is turn the attention of the rebels to the sell-out policies of the
Stalinists who are actually working *for* a compromise with the regime.


* For a revolutionary government based on worker, militia and community
  councils!

This is necessary to underpin slogans one and two. It is the alternative to
a government that will disarm and betray the people who are in revolt and
at present have the arms to assert their will. Remember Chile under
Allende, where enormous progress in organization and social consciousness
was smashed because of a political leadership that went directly against
these first three demands.


* Renationalize all the privatized companies without compensation!

On the basis of the previous demands, this is a natural consequence and in
fact the only way in which the power gained in a revolutionary situation
can be consolidated.


* Open the books! Workers control of industry and the economy! Compensation for
  the victims of the Pyramid swindle!

This is based on the preconditions for running nationalized industries in a
democratic way, and ties back into the reasons for the current revolt in
Albania.


* For a voluntary socialist federation of the Balkan nations!

And this is the line needed to preserve the gains of the Albanian uprising
in the face of imperialist intervention.


This is a good line and it's in tune with the current state of popular
challenge to bourgeois state power in Albania. The chances of this kind of
platform being put forward by any powerful group of rebels are slim, given
the lack of a revolutionary party. But this doesn't make the demands wrong
or even wrong-headed. What it does is underline the need for building such
a party in many countries, so that the fight for revolutionary mass
policies has a better chance each time a situation like that in Albania
arises.

Finally, this development shows how utterly mistaken all the sceptics have
been in their predictions of social passivity and their jeremiads about the
incredible stability of bourgeois control. It is their responsibility more
than any others, that so little time and energy has been spent preparing
the mass political base for being able to intervene when *inevitable*
crises of this kind arise.

I hope Vladimir sees the necessity for the preparation of party-building
more clearly now, too. The empiricism of his response lands him in the same
boat as the sceptics, and that's no good for him or the revolution.

This, Vladimir, is not wishful thinking we've been dishing out. It's
hammering out a political line. It would be wishful thinking if we had
illusions in the victory of a socialist Bolshevik revolution in Albania
when so many of the preconditions are absent. We don't. But we can see a
revolutionary situation when it arises, and don't hesitate to take a
position on it that we think could lead it in the right direction.

Cheers,
Hugh
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