8 Jul 2011

Bougainville's Panguna workshop lays out strategy before any mining

6:36 pm on 8 July 2011

A workshop involving communities around Panguna in Papua New Guinea's Bougainville has concluded there'll be no green light for more mining until there's been reconciliation and development in the villages around the mine.

A week long workshop, orchestrated by the mining minister in the autonomous Bougainville Government, Michael Oni, aimed to resolve outstanding issues ahead of a possible mine re-opening.

A former cabinet minister, Madeleine Toroansi, who's from near Panguna, says they've developed a strategy and have called for the ABG to create a timetable for it.

"The first is the unification of the factions in Panguna itself and the next phase will involve the mediation team for structural reforms, for an administration structure that will work in Panguna to make sure the message of this workshop goes down, so the message of peace and the process of peace is understood by the people of Panguna."