Blow for Papua New Guinea as Enclave Votes 98% for Independence
Bougainville Votes for Independence in Blow to Papua New Guinea
(Bloomberg) -- Bougainville moved a step closer to becoming an independent nation on Wednesday after results from a referendum showed an overwhelming majority want the province to cut its ties with Papua New Guinea.
More than 176,000 of the 181,000 voters who participated in the two-week referendum that concluded Dec. 6 supported independence, with about 3,000 choosing greater autonomy under Papua New Guinea, the Bougainville Referendum Commission said.
Before the result was announced by the chair of the Bougainville Referendum Commission, former Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern, the atmosphere inside the hall in the town of Buka was tense and quiet. After he revealed 98% of voters backed independence, the crowd of more than 1,000 people exploded with cheers and applause.
The result will bolster independence advocates who live on the small group of islands in the South Pacific and encourage mining interests that want to reopen the massive Panguna copper resource, while dashing hopes within the PNG government that the poll would see support of the status quo through voters opting for greater autonomy. Still, it doesn’t guarantee the advent of a new nation as any split needs to be approved by an act of parliament in the PNG capital Port Moresby.
“It’s a big day for Bougainvilleans and the referendum has gone better than anyone’s expectations,” Gordon Peake, a visitor at the Australian National University who’s studied Papua New Guinea for 15 years, said in a WhatsApp message from the venue in Buka.
At the junction of the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and halfway between Brisbane and the U.S. military base on Guam, Bougainville has a strategic interest as well as being a potential source of contracts for mining and construction companies. With fewer people than Pittsburgh, an estimated per-capita GDP of about $1,100 and an economy reliant on money from the central government, Western diplomats are concerned that should it become independent it may be susceptible to China’s increasing influence in the region.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape will be nervous the result will embolden independence claims in some of the nation’s other provinces, which would undermine the government’s efforts to unify a country that has more than 800 languages and was constructed from a colonial carve-up less than 50 years ago.
Bougainville’s massive copper deposit has been the country’s blessing and curse. The Panguna mine was the focal point of a 10-year civil war and has been shut since 1989, shortly after the conflict started, tainted by its bloody past and fettered by a tangle of environmental and ownership issues. But it remains central to what will happen to the islands.
The old Panguna mine has an estimated 5.3 million metric tons of copper and 19.3 million ounces of gold, according to former operator Bougainville Copper Ltd. That would make the reserves worth about $60 billion at today’s prices.
With the result of the referendum now known, representatives from the national and regional governments are expected to hold consultations that could result in draft legislation for Bougainville to secede. Whether a majority of PNG’s 111 lawmakers would vote to support that bill is unknown, leading some observers to be nervous that long delays to the independence push could renew conflict.
“In many ways the referendum is the easy part,” the Australian National University’s Peake said. “The vote is non-binding and the peace agreement says the parties must now consult on the result, with PNG having final decision. This phase likely to be long and involved.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Canberra at jscott14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Tony Jordan
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