Bougainville Interim Govt Release 11/7/97 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: VIKKI@lexsun.law.uts.edu.au Thu Nov 6 22:20:53 1997 BOUGAINVILLE INTERIM GOVERNMENT MEDIA RELEASE No.327 Thursday 6 November, 1997 The Bougainville Interim Government was closely monitoring Australia's new defence relationship with the Government of Papua New Guinea; as recently announced by the Minister for Defence Mr McLachlan in Adelaide on Thursday, 6 November 1997. "A lot of trust and confidence building needs to be nurtured between the people of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia. From 1989 onwards under the former Labor Government's thrust was to equip the PNG Defence Force with every available military arsenal including Iroquois helicopters to crush the Bougainville people. Under these circumstances thousands of civilians were killed, destruction of thousands of villages and properties and committing of gross human rights violations on Bougainvilleans." "We are hoping that a greater part of this new defence program will be to teach the Papua New Guinea military amongst other things the respect for law and fundamental human rights not only for the people of Bougainville but also of its own citizens." We also welcome the more positive stand that the current Liberal Coalition Government has undertaken towards a resolution to the Bougainville issue. This is especially in its stand not to be "prescriptive" and with "no blueprint" from Australia as to the political future of Bougainville." "The "possibly long-term commitment to support peace on Bougainville", as the Minister said would be much preferred to the re-equipping of the PNG Military for further prosecution of the war on Bougainville by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force." "For this reason it would be very important even at this early stage for the Australian Government to clarify and clearly spell out what its future role would be towards the resolution of the conflict on Bougainville." Written by: Moses Havini, International Representative, Bougainville Interim Government 6/11/97 (Refer also to the media release from the Minister of Defence 6/11/97 titled : Australia Recasts Defence Relationship with Papua New Guinea) The National (PNG) Newspaper - 7 November, 1997 Defence ties stronger, says McLachlan ADELAIDE: Australia had recast its defence relationship with Papua New Guinea following the Bougainville crisis earlier this year, Defence Minister Ian McLachlan said yesterday. Opening a national conference for the Society of Military Engineering, Mr McLachlan said Australia would help PNG strengthen the basics of a military force - discipline, morale, training and respect for the law - after signing a joint statement two weeks ago. He said it was regrettable that the bilateral relations had gone through a difficult patch early this year when Australia protested against the use of mercenaries on Bougainville, which he maintained was a mistake by the PNG government. But he said defence relations were on a much sounder footing now. "For the first time since the Bougainville crisis began, there is now some realistic prospect that a stable peace can be brought to the island," Mr McLachlan said. "Many points of detail are still to be worked out, but there appears to be a willingness on the part of those involved to address these concerns. "However, only Australia through the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has the resources, personnel and equipment to make a large, possibly long-term commitment to support peace on Bougainville." Mr McLachlan said some money for the re-building exercises to be carried out by the ADF would come from the government's defence cooperation budget, saying spending from that budget would go up by some millions of dollars following the agreement with PNG. "There's no doubt in my mind if we're going to deliver some of these results for them that we will contract to do ... it will cost us more than currently we're planning but there is some flexibility in that budget," he said. Mr McLachlan would not be drawn on the detail of Australia's separate A$100 million (K107 million) contribution to the reconstruction of Bougainville, but said he was encouraged by the constructive approach taken by the Skate government. The Australian military is also involved in the drought relief operations taking place in PNG. Mr McLachlan said a security strategy was being formed to avoid incidents similar to one on Tuesday in which villagers in a remote PNG village rushed at an army Black Hawk helicopter, some waving sticks and machetes, as it tried to deliver rice. - AAP ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytpac-11.07.97-09:31:34-27434