Bougainville

F.R. Stockwell was a British officer of the old school, the grandfather of a friend of mine who writes historical crime novels. Stockwell had a wonderful maxim about political meetings: Decide before you have a meeting whether it is meant to achieve anything substantive. If it isn’t, hold it in

Campaigns for presidential and parliamentary elections are underway in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. A three-week poll commences in mid-August with results expected by mid-September. No matter who will be the president or members of the 39-seat House of Representatives, a daunting task

Bougainville’s president John Momis has long been a towering figure in local politics. President for two consecutive terms since 2010, he was a leading instigator of the archipelago’s early secessionist movement in the 1970s while still a Catholic priest, then an important facilitator during the

Piled into the back of an overcrowded ute – appropriately named the “Highway Slave”, although formally known as a Public Motor Vehicle – we made the nine-hour expedition across bumpy, unsealed roads and through rivers without bridges to the district of Siwai to act as observers in

For two weeks from this Saturday, Bougainvilleans will exercise their right to say whether their autonomous archipelago on the eastern edge of Papua New Guinea should become an independent country. This long-awaited referendum was at the heart of the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement, which marked

The referendum to take Bougainville a step closer to full independence finally looks set to start on 23 November, after the issuing of the writs late last month. Voters will have a fortnight to reach the polling places, which will close on 7 December. The Referendum Commission, chaired by former

On 23 November this year, Bougainvilleans will vote in a referendum to decide whether they wish to stay part of Papua New Guinea or become an independent nation. It is perhaps the high point of a 20-year peace process that in turn followed a gruelling, 10-year battle for independence waged between

The ABC Managing Editor Asia Pacific, Kellie Mayo, has subsequently disputed aspects of this article; read her response here. Bougainville – the autonomous region of Papua New Guinea which suffered a brutal 10-year civil conflict in the 1990s – was due to have a referendum in June to

There is disquiet among many for how post-conflict Bougainville society will evolve over the next generation if impunity reigns for the wartime horrors. Over the next few months, the spotlight in our immediate region will turn to Bougainville and its referendum on independence from Papua New