Bougainville Province
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The island and province Bougainville is part of Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Solomon Islands group. Its capital is Arawa.
Bougainville, the adjacent island of Buka, and assorted outlying islands including the Carterets are sometimes known as North Solomons. Together they make up the Papua New Guinean province of that name. The population is 175,160 (2000 census).
The island is ecologically and geographically, although not politically, part of the Solomon Islands. Buka, Bougainville, and most of the Solomons are part of the Solomon Islands rain forests ecoregion.
Contents |
[edit] History
- Main article: History of Bougainville
The island was named after the French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville (whose name has also been lent to the creeping tropical flowering vines of the bougainvillea family). In 1885 it came under German administration as part of German New Guinea. Australia occupied it in 1914 and, as a League of Nations mandatory power, administered it from 1918 until the Japanese invaded in 1942 and then again from 1945 until PNG independence as a United Nations mandatory power.
The island was occupied by Australian, American and Japanese forces in World War II. It was an important base for the USAAF, RAAF and RNZAF. On March 8, 1944 during World War II, American forces were attacked by Japanese troops on Hill 700 on this island. The battle lasted five days, ending with a Japanese retreat.
The island is rich in copper and gold. A large mine was established at Panguna in the early 1970s by Bougainville Copper Limited, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto.
Disputes over the environmental impact, financial benefits, and social change brought by the mine renewed a secessionist movement that had been dormant since the 1970s. It developed into a civil conflict that lasted nearly a decade and claimed up to 20,000 lives.[Ref required]
The conflict ended in 1997, after negotiations brokered by New Zealand. A Peace Agreement finalised in 2000 provided for the establishment of an Autonomous Bougainville Government, and a referendum in the future on whether the island should become politically independent.
Elections for the first Autonomous Government were held in May and June of 2005. On June 15, 2005, Joseph Kabui, was elected President.
On July 25, 2005 rebel leader Francis Ona died after a short illness. A former surveyor with Bougainville Copper Limited, Ona was a key figure in the secessionist conflict and had refused to formally join the island's peace process.
[edit] See Also
Noah Musingku - businessman, warlord and Bougainville separatist leader.
[edit] Further reading
- Douglas Oliver, Bougainville: A Personal History (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1973)
- Douglas Oliver, Black Islanders: A Personal Perspective of Bougainville, 1937-1991 (Melbourne: Hyland House, 1991) [Repeats text from 1973 and updates with summaries of Papua New Guinea press reports on the Bougainville Crisis]
- Paul Quodling, Bougainville: The Mine And The People
- Regan, Anthony and Griffin, Helga (eds.). 2005. Bougainville Before the Crisis. Canberra: Pandanus Books.
[edit] External links
- UN Map #4089 — United Nations map of the vicinity of Bougainville Island, PDF format
- Conciliation Resources - Bougainville Project
- The Bougainville Conflict
- The Coconut Revolution, a documentary film about the Bougainville Revolutionary Army.
|
|
 |
|---|---|
| Central | Eastern Highlands | East New Britain | East Sepik | Enga | Gulf | Madang | Manus | Milne Bay | Morobe | New Ireland | North Solomons (Bougainville) | Oro (Northern) | Sandaun (West Sepik) | Simbu (Chimbu) | Southern Highlands | Western | Western Highlands | West New Britain | National Capital District | |
