Transcript
JAMES TANIS: Our role is facilitation. We facilitate negotiations to make sure the two governments arrange agendas. Our references is that a just process for determining the questions must involve the people, so what we have done is we have established 33 constituency committees in each constituency in Bougainville, so that the people have direct input into the questions and the second thing is that those questions asked must answer the original question over which Bougainville fought. There is no point in trying to ask the question that has not been the question of the conflict because the referendum agreement, in the Peace Agreement, the first intention was that the referendum will end the contested question over the political question of Bougainville - whether Bougainville will be independent or will remain with Papua New Guinea. And that is the question that the two governments must answer because there is no point in answering a question, creating a question, that never existed in the beginning. If we do not answer the original question then, in my view, as a peace builder, then we have missed the point in making a permanent end to the Bougainville conflict.
DON WISEMAN: The New Zealand Foreign Minister was over there last month and he promised help. What is the nature of the help you would like from New Zealand?
JT: Let me say this Don. It was an important question because it was New Zealand that intervened and gave this process the start and I think this is a question that New Zealand needs to think seriously because New Zealand started with us in the process and it is very important, as a neighbour, that we complete the process together. We started together, lets complete it together and in terms of the nature of assistance we would request, yes of course funding, but where there is no funding, we need expertise to [provide] assistance to the Electoral Commission and there will be a lot of technical areas the Commission will need. So in terms of technical assistance - expertise.
And the third component that New Zealand can assist us is to provide observers during the conduct of the referendum. And going back a little bit to the question of experts, if New Zealand could give us something like an Electoral Commissioner, because this is an electoral process. Another important aspect where New Zealand can already make an early start is - because New Zealand's interest on Bougainville has been more community oriented, is to strengthen the community governments because if the community governments are strengthened, my personal view is that it will make the job of common roll, producing a common roll, producing a registry, much more important. And this is an important aspect because if you look at the origins of the conflict this conflict started from the villages and it is in the villages. And it is in the villages we must make an impact, final impact by giving them the activity by ensuring that everybody as much as we can is registered and they do participate in the whole referendum preparations. So that is whichever way the cookie crumbles, at the end of the day there must be a sense of ownership by the people of Bougainville.
DW: All these issues and you and I have talked about them before, the almost absence of an economy on Bougainville, at this point, the guns issue and the continuing little flare ups that happen such as these Me'ekamui people who arrived in Buka a few weeks ago in a threatening manner, armed - clearly there are issues that need to be got on top of. To what extent is this the responsibility of the commission?
JT: The commission will be a neutral body that will be primarily responsible for administering the electoral process, the election process. The responsibility of the weapons disposal, responsibility of unification and strengthening relationships between different Bougainville groups, stakeholder groups and interest groups, and the question of fiscal self-reliance to make sure we continue to work on strengthening Bougainville institutions and revenue raising capacity, is the work of the two governments. And my department has a primary role in taking a lead in weapons disposal, unification and facilitating political dialogue. So the commission is sealed from the political processes and we are paying careful attention and giving it much focus to assist the commission. So that we keep the commission nice and clean on the side. And at the end of the referendum, again my department will become important because then the two governments must be positioned, to receive the outcomes of the referendum process and the post referendum period under the peace agreement there is a clause for consultations which means the two governments will consult on the outcomes of the referendum and it is a good arrangement because the two governments do not then use the conduct, the outcome, of the referendum as something that they can dump on each other's face but continue to engage in a consultative process before it goes to ratification. So I am as a department head confident that we will at least narrow the gaps on these issues that you have just mentioned. I agree there are issues on the ground but as I said Bougainville came out of a nasty conflict and if we have come this far to make this progress, I don't think those issues that we are yet to attend to will be that difficult. Yes they may be difficult but the main focus is that there are some of us who are committed to ensuring that continues, as much as possible, to clean the environment so that the process of referendum has high levels of integrity and that there is a peaceful outcome and, more importantly, my department is more focused to ensuring we have a sustainable post referendum period.
