Bougainville government postpones independence referendum

A meeting today in Port Moresby between the Papua New Guinea national government and the Autonomous Bougainville Government resolved to defer the referendum to 12 October.

The Bougainville Referendum Commission had requested the referendum be postponed due to a lack of funding for preparations for the plebiscite and incomplete voter registration.

Under the terms of the 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement, the referendum must be held by June 2020.

The conflict was largely about how profits from a giant copper mine, Panguna, should be shared, and it forced resources giant Rio Tinto to abandon the mine.

At the time, the mine was the largest source of export revenue for Papua New Guinea and comprised about 7 percent of global copper production.

“The referendum on Bougainville’s long-term political future will be held on 17 October 2019,” PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill and Bougainville President John Momis said in a joint statement.

Three years ago the two leaders had set June 15 as voting day, but that was an “impossible” deadline because voter registration was underfunded and behind schedule, Bertie Ahern told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Thursday.

Ahern leads the Referendum Commission overseeing the vote.

The conflict between Bougainville’s rebel guerrilla army and Papua New Guinea forces left as many as 20,000 dead over the following decade, the worst conflict in the Oceania region since the Second World War.

The outcome of the referendum, which analysts expect to support independence, is then subject to ratification by PNG’s parliament. O’Neill and Momis have agreed to meet again in August to discuss arrangements should it succeed.