Aust soldiers clear Bougainville WW2 bombs

Transcript

The vice president of the autonomous Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville says an Australian-led military operation has removed over 1,200 bombs leftover from the second world war in its first week in Torokina.

But he says some locals are sceptical about Australia's motives for being on the island as a result of its involvement in the Bougainville conflict of the 1990s.

Patrick Nisira says the multinational operation has done great work removing the ordnance that has hampered the lives of locals around the former allied base, but whether it returns will be not be decided until after the independence referendum.

PATRICK NSIRA: Out of the 95 sites identified in the scoping, 50 sites have been dealt with at the moment and from the 50 sites that the operational team has ???? with, 1200 bombs have been disposed so far. The bombs range from 250 pound bombs to 2000 pound bombs. These are the type of bombs that are being disposed of at the moment in Torokina.

JAMIE TAHANA: And this is just in Torokina alone, that's a lot of bombs isn't it?

PN: Yeah, lots of, lots of bomb there you know during the world war II the allied forces were in Torokina and when they left the area some 70 years ago, they left behind those relics in Torokina, Bougainville.

JT: Kay, and so they've been there for seventy years, what danger have they been?

PN: Yes, for the past seventy years the people in Torokina have been somewhat missing in their own land due to the poisonous of the UEXO's on on their area. But for the last seventy years I think when people were doing there gardening, when people went out for hunting and even when people went out for fishing, they often times became victim to those where they actually put down those bombs. At times when people do their gardening, while they were burning their rubbish the bombs exploded and and maimed people. So people have been living with this, with the danger of UEXO's for the last 70 years.

JT: You have said, on the question of this force returning to remove more ordinance that's around Bougainville, you've said that you'll leave it until after the referendum. Why is that?

PN: That is an important question the multi-national team is not going to clean up everything, they are actually concentrating on villages, churches, school grounds, they want to make those areas safer, to be safer for the communities to move around and live their life free without bombs. But there are a lot more bombs there in the remote jungles and I said that they will be dealt with by the future governments, hopefully after the period of the referendum. Because if we continue to allow the Australians to be here there are some quarters in the Bougainville committee especially former combatants and die hard independence supporters who say their continued presence, of the Australian military personnel's and including the multi-national team might influence the outcome of the referendum.

JT: What suspicions do the former combatants have in this operation? How do they think the Australians and other nations being on Bougainville removing this ordinance, that was posing a danger to communities, how do they think that could influence the outcome of the upcoming referendum?

PN: I think its the coming out of the background of 15 years of civil war here on Bougainville and I think former combatants still have those suspicions. Because the Australian government in particular assisted the PNGDF with Iroquios Helicopters and also supplied arms and ammunitions to the PNG Defence Force to fight rebel forces on Bougainville now called the, known as the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. So I mean its, only due to the fact that Australia assisted the PNG Defence Force in various ways during the conflict, its still fresh in the minds of the people. So there presence here, there is suspicion that they are here to, to advance the idea of United Papua New Guinea.