"Do they want them to Die" - "Yes", says
Missionary.
By Janine Roberts -
>
NEW GUINEA TROOPS RAID THE SOLOMEN
ISLANDS.
An alert - on the 16th April 1996 we heard
that Papua New Guinean armed forces had raided a village on the
Solomen Islands. the Solomen government have dispatched a hight
powered team to investigate. It was known that supplies were run from
the Solomen Islands to their besieged sister people on Bougainville.
The unknown war continued. I was myself then helping organise some
international support for the Bouganvillians from the World Council
of Churses
By 2000 peace negotiations were underway.
Fighting had stopped. Efforts were being made to negotiate a
recognition of their independence. This account now serves as a
partial record of what they have suffered
The following is from the transcript of a
radio interview with the Rev. Don Alley on 7 August 1995.
The Rev. Don Alley was brought up on Bougainville. When he
wanted to return in 1995 with a consignment of desperately needed
medicines there was a difficulty. The island was (and still is )
under a military seige imposed by the Papua New Guinea Government.
Initially Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan of Papua New
Guinea gave him permission to take the medicines in. But Alley says
"There are a lot of lies being told. We were told by Sir Julius that
there was no blockade, that medical aid can go pouring in now."
Alley got the medicines in, received a large ceremonial
welcome from the beseiged. But then had problems when he returned to
the government held territory. "We were arrested within half an
hour... threatened with long term imprisonment. This was an order
that they said came from .... Sir Julius Chan himself. Whether or not
he wrote the fax, we saw it. We demanded and got a copy of it...."
"We were surrounded by machine guns on the yacht... they were Papua
New Guinea soldiers in uniform."
Then Alley was told by a pilot "and this was verified by
the military, they had been searching for us for three day with
orders to sink us." This was because "they thought we had carried a
lawyer across from Australia. (Rosemarie Gillespie, a barrister who
represents the beseiged community and who is currently (April 1996)
giving evidence to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in
Geneva, Switzerland, on behalf to the Bougainville people.)
Alley said they finally realised that the Papua New Guinea
government "wanted to teach the world a lesson - do not try to get
medicines into Bouganinville." I have seen proof "that Australia
recommended that a way of getting the copper mine open (a giant
polluting mine owned by RTZ of the UK via its subsidiary CRA in
Australia - a mine shut down by the local independence movement) was
to deny medicines to a nation until they came to their knees. I found
by trying to carry my medicines in that not only was there a
blockade, but they really did not want medicines to get into
Bougainville."
When asked by the open interviewer if the Government
wanted them "to die", Alley replied: "Yes. They actually want them so
brought down that they will stop fighting and open the mines." 
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