Bougainville’s President Ishmael Toroama
Photo: NBC Bougainville – Maus Blong Sankamap
Bougainville’s government has accused Papua New Guinea’s leaders of breaching a landmark agreement between the two parties, following the national parliament’s latest move on Bougainville’s vote for independence.
The PNG parliament last week adopted a sessional order to facilitate how MPs will deliberate on whether to ratify the result of Bougainville’s 2019 non-binding referendum in which 97.7 eprcent of people voted for independence from PNG.
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) President Ishmael Toroama said the national parliament’s decision to adopt a draft sessional order on the referendum result, without the required consent of the Speaker of the Bougainville House of Representatives, amounted to a “breach of the Melanesian Agreement”.
The agreement, signed between PNG and Bougainville at the Burnham military camp in New Zealand last year, committed both governments to collaboration, constitutional integrity, and mutual understanding in navigating the Bougainvile peace process of which the referendum was a core component.
But Toroama said the latest move by the parliament “runs contrary to principles of respect, good faith and partnership in the Bougainville Peace Agreement” .
“I am disappointed in certain parts of the Prime Minister’s statements, the order of the debate and the unilateral position on the negotiated majority threshold,” Toroama said in a statement.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Threshold issue
Last week, PNG’s parliament voted to adopt the sessional order, which included setting a three-quarters majority threshold for ratifying the referendum result, rather than the usual two-thirds majority required for constitutional changes.
At the time, PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape responded to questions over the threshold and related issues, saying that both PNG and Bougainville had agreed to the absolute majority threshold as part of a sessional order.
He said PNG would continue to adhere to the commitments it has made on Bougainville in finding an acceptable way forward on this difficult decision.
Marape also said further consultations between the two parties would take place next month on how to proceed to parliament making a decision on the result, with the prime minister having previously indicated a final vote by MPs by late August.
Call for UN support
Toroama has also thrown a new factor into the mix, noting that the Melanesian Agreement called for international monitoring with UN support.
“I now call on the facilitator appointed to support development of the Melanesian Framework to activate that commitment to international monitoring and convene a meeting of international partners, representatives of the international community and the international witnesses to the signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement, to address the breach by the National Government of its commitments under the Melanesian Agreement and to ensure that the process and principles agreed at Burnham are honoured.”
PNG’s government is yet to respond to this call for UN involvement.
Meanwhile, Toroama repeated his warning to Bougainvilleans that their “resolve would be tested by events in the National Parliament”, urging Bougainvilleans to “remain calm, united, and respectful”.
