Woman MP says Bougainville is starting to thrive

Transcript

South Bougainville's women's MP, Isabel Peta, believes her region is starting to thrive as it becomes more integrated into the rest of the Papua New Guinea autonomous region.

Long after the civil war ended in 1997 strife and violence rendered much of South Bougainville a no-go area.

But Ms Peta told Don Wiseman that this has changed.

ISABEL PETA: North and Central Bougainville were able to develop themselves move on with their activities, normal daily routine. and for us on South we are slowly getting there and I must say thank you to the New Zealand government the Police the New Zealand Police that are in Buin are based in Buin they are doing a lot of work. Working with the community. Our community policing is now very strong in South Bougainville and it is really helping the youth in that region to get up and do something good within the communities.

DON WISEMAN: All of those little factions that are down there are they being reigned in now and are they starting to behave themselves?

IP: The factions I must say they are no threat to elections because the previous election that we just had there was nothing that disturbed the elections in South Bougainville it was very successful. And the government ABG is now moving into these factions talking to them and we are also at our level going and talking to these factions to try to come to a common understanding. So that we can all be prepared for our referendum come 2019.

DW: Do you think that the people of South Bougainville are committed to wider Bougainville?

IP: We are very committed and I must say this with a lot of development now coming in South Bougainville in Buin alone, we have just launched the Tourism which shows that Law and order in the Southern part of Bougainville is now being addressed. We have the court system already there the magistrate is there in Buin doing everything to make sure our people come to normal and we all now focus ourselves on referendum.

DW: In terms of Business developments, what is down there?

IP: The people of South Bougainville and not only South Bougainville other parts of Bougainville also that are developing the town we have got a lot of businesses up and running. Before the crisis or before the unrest that we went through we had only three shops in Buin town. Now you see a lot of buildings so many businessmen their houses, building their shops there.

DW: And it has historically been a very strong farming area hasn't it? Is that returning?

IP: I am one of those that is really focused on economic empowerment for the people. And I have been working with the cocoa farmers and I must tell you that on Bougainville it is the South Bougainville that now has the highest production of cocoa on Bougainville because Tinputz is down with cocoa pod borer. We are getting ready to host the chocolate festival which will be held in Buin town.

DW: Tell us a little bit about that?

IP: We will be having our four chocolatiers that will be tasting the chocolate that were collected from different parts of Bougainville.