Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 23:34:20 -0700
From: Sasha Baer <sashab-AT-magna.com.au>
Subject: Bougainville Update - 16/7/96


Title -- Somare: We're being cheated
Date -- 15 July 1996
Byline -- Neville Togarewa
Origin -- Niuswire
Source -- Post-Courier (PNG), 15 July 1996
Copyright -- Post-Courier
Status -- Abridged
-----------------
SOMARE: WE'RE BEING CHEATED

By Neville Togarewa

The PNG national government has released only a fifth of the funds it has
promised the provinces for the 1996 fiscal year, East Sepik Governor Sir
Michael Somare told the National Governors Forum in Port Moresby on Friday.

He said inadequate funding and lack of proper planning had created "chaos and
confusion" in all 19 provinces and the National Capital District.

Sir Michael said governors had the right to take the national government to
court because their funds were guaranteed by the constitution under the new
Organic law on Provincial and Local Governments which Parliament passed last
year.

He said the reforms were now almost a year old but the problems with
implementation were insurmountable, varying from legal to administrative to
"the all-important financial problem".

He said all provinces had had their budgetary allocations cut, illegally, by 25
per cent.

And even then the government had paid only 20 per cent of the monies to which
the provinces were entitled this year.

"We are now halfway through 1996," Sir Michael said. "We do not trust that the
national government will give us the remaining 80 per cent for use during the
remainder of 1996."

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Title -- Security forces 'regret' attack
Date -- 15 July 1996
Byline -- Timothy Masiu
Origin -- Niuswire
Source --The National/Post-Courier (PNG), 15 July 1996
Copyright -- The National/Post-Courier
Status -- Abridged
-----------------
SECURITY FORCES 'REGRET' ATTACK

By Timothy Masiu

KOKOPO: The PNG security forces on Bougainville have apologised for the killing
of an entire family of four at Kurai village, about seven kilometres from the
former international airport of Aropa last Tuesday.

A highly placed security forces source on Bougainville said last weekend that
they have yet to confirm the deaths themselves but if the report was true it
was most regrettable.

"If it's true then we are sorry. It would be most regrettable for such a thing
to happen. We are however yet to confirm this report ourselves," the source
said.

The source, however, stressed that civilians in the particular areas were given
enough warning to move into the care centres in the government-controlled areas
for their own safety and security.

Meanwhile, the Post-Courier reported today Solomon Islands assistant police
commissioner Michael Wheatley has rejected PNG Defence Force and government
claims that Solomons military personnel fired on a PNG patrol boat.

In fact, he says in a letter to PNGDF commander Brigadier-General Jerry
Singirok, the patrol boat Tarangau was the aggressor in the incident complained
of, and had fired on a Solomon Islands Field Force position.

In a two-page report based on Wheatley's letter, Neville Togarewa reported on
the latest round in the war of words building up between PNG and the Solomons
in connection with the "spillover effects" of the Bougainville crisis.

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Sydney Morning Herald, Page 11, July 16, 1996
============================================
PNG attack halted, say rebels
-----------------------------

SYDNEY: A Papua New Guinea military offensive on Bougainville Island has
been abandoned after the death of three soldiers and the sinking of a
Government boat, a spokesman for the rebels said.

The international representative of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army
(BRA), Mr Moses Havini, said in Sydney that an estimated 250 troops withdrew
>from the Aropa Airport area yesterday morning.

He said the PNG Defence Force had suffered heavy casualties in recent days
during its Operation High Speed II, including three dead and three wounded
in the past 24 hours. There had been some BRA casualties.

Mr Havini said in a statement issued later that the BRA had also sunk a
PNGDF boat.

A PNGDF spokesman in the Port Moresby office of the defence force's
commander, Brigadier-General Jerry Singirok, last night declined to confirm
or deny the withdrawel.

Australian Associated Press

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Contact Details:
===============
Vikki John (BFM)     +61-2-558-2730   email: V.john-AT-uts.edu.au
Moses Havini (BIG)   +61-2-804-7602
Max Watts            +61-2-818-2343   email: MWATTS-AT-fisher.biz.usyd.edu.au
(Journalist specialising in Bougainville, East Timor and West Papua issues)

Bougainville Freedom Movement
P.O. Box 134, Erskineville, NSW 2043, Australia

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Regards Sasha

Sasha Baer
International Amateur Radio Network
Bougainville Freedom Movement
Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol
Work:      +61-2-200-1516
Voicemail: +61-2-513-5614
sashab-AT-magna.com.au
http://www.magna.com.au/~sashab/



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