Part 1: Overview and analysis of key issues
© MURALEE THUMMARUKUDY, UNEP
Case study 5: Women’s roles in the peace process in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea
Women in Bougainville, PNG, spearheaded peace talks to end the bloody civil conflict that erupted over environmental contamination and the lack of equitable benefit-sharing from the Panguna copper mine From 1988 to 1999, the province of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea (PNG), was center stage for one of the bloodiest conflicts in the South Pacific since the end of World War II.106 While a range of underlying drivers can be linked to the conflict, disputes over the distribution of costs and benefits from a large-scale mining project were central to the eruption of violence in the region. Revenues from the Panguna Mine, the world’s largest open-pit copper and gold mine at the time, comprised the single largest source of income for the central government of PNG and brought enormous profits to Rio Tinto, the BritishAustralian company that owned it.107 Not all benefited from the Panguna Mine, however, as its operations caused significant social and environmental damage to local communities.108 Concerns from surrounding communities, including encroachment on their land, environmental degradation from mining operations and demands for sharing economic revenues and jobs stemming from the mine, were initially disregarded by both the government of PNG and Rio Tinto, until violent attacks brought operations to a halt on 15 May 1989. The conflict quickly escalated, and the government deployed the military in an effort to quell uprisings led by a guerrilla force formed by the members of local clans known as the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA). Fighting between BRA and the government continued for nearly a decade, with both sides accused of egregious human rights abuses. A ceasefire agreement in 1997 established Bougainville’s political autonomy, but the Panguna mine remained closed. The widespread displacement stemming from the mining operations and violence from the enduring conflict had particularly severe impacts on women. In Bougainvillean society, kinship and land inheritance are passed on through female family members, and the loss of their land struck at the heart of their matrilineal identities and livelihoods.109 Although they were largely sidelined from political engagement in the public sphere, including in the formal peace process, women spearheaded peace talks at both the local and national levels from the early stages of the crisis, providing support in the margins of official meetings and through discrete lobbying efforts. Their unique position in the family enabled them to facilitate dialogue between warring factions and in some cases, to engage directly in negotiations with local BRA units. Women’s groups also developed clandestine humanitarian networks that distributed food and emergency assistance in both government and BRA-controlled areas, despite severe restrictions on movement,110 and brought international attention to the crisis by engaging with influential figures in Australia and New Zealand, as well as in global fora. During the signing of the Lincoln Agreement, which concretized further peace measures, some 50 Bougainvillean women attended the negotiations and drew up an adjoining statement, calling for greater inclusion in the peace process that read: “We, the women, hold custodial rights of our land by clan inheritance. We insist that women leaders must be party to all stages of the political process in determining the future of Bougainville.”111 Following the final peace agreement negotiations in 2001, a number of women’s organizations held a summit aimed at consolidating and building upon existing women’s networks and informing all women of the agreement outcomes to ensure meaningful participation in the reconstruction process. Today, although female representation in the political sphere remains low, women continue to seek space for their voices to raise concerns about the potential impacts on their land and communities in the resurgent discussions on resuming mining operations.112
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