BY BOB AIKEN AND DOUG COOPER
As we go to press: Mass protests on March 26 forced PNG prime minister Chan to temporarily step aside pending an inquiry on the mercenary deal.

SYDNEY, Australia - The antigovernment mutiny by the Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) that began March 17 has sparked the sharpest governmental crisis in Papua New Guinea since its independence in 1975. Two days of protests and riots ensued March 19-20 in the capital city of Port Moresby, which spread to the provincial capitals of Lae, Mount Hagen, and Goroka, and resumed in Port Moresby, March 22.

The Australian government reacted to the crisis in its most prized former colony with stepped-up imperial bullying - announcing preparations for the use of Australian troops to "protect" or "evacuate" some 12,000 Australians in PNG, and increasing "peace" rhetoric regarding Bougainville, an island where there has been a nine-year war for independence from PNG.

Meanwhile, the Australian ABC radio news reported late March 22 that PNG Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan had reportedly requested Canberra send Australian troops to intervene. Peti Lafanama, national general secretary of Melanesian Solidarity, which has been centrally involved in the anti-Chan protests in Port Moresby, condemned the prospect. He called intervention a "grave mistake" and pledged, "We the people will join our soldiers in defending our sovereignty," in an immediate letter to the Australian High Commission in Port Moresby.

Underlying the crisis is the failure of successive PNG governments to defeat the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), despite the backing of Canberra. The BRA has led the nine-year guerrilla war for Bougainville independence that shut the giant Australian-owned Panguna copper and gold mine in 1988.

In January, facing military defeat on Bougainville, the PNG government contracted mercenaries from Sandline International to prepare a new offensive alongside the PNGDF.

In face of the mutiny, Chan "suspended" the mercenary operation March 20 "for two weeks." Events continued to outpace his attempts to save his government's skin, however, as mutinous troops escorted most of the mercenaries to the airport, where they were expelled March 21.

A crowd of up to 6,000 gathered all day March 20 at the Murray Barracks in Port Moresby. Carrying banners reading "Mercenaries out of PNG," "Bougainville today, PNG next," and "People's Coup, enough is enough," protesters were blocked from marching on Parliament House by the police, a paramilitary force larger than the PNGDF that has remained loyal to Chan.

Widespread fraternization between protesters and soldiers has occurred, with enlisted men also addressing crowds.

Police fired tear gas and ammunition at the crowd and into the Murray Barracks on the evening of March 20, wounding at least five soldiers and scores of protesters. PNGDF officers who are part of the mutiny drew sidearms to block soldiers from arming themselves to return fire.

General Singirok acts
With mercenaries already in the country training PNGDF units with his initial active approval, PNGDF commander-in- chief Brigadier-Gen. Jerry Singirok announced March 17 that he had "decided to call off joint operations with Sandline and demand that the prime minister, his deputy and the defense minister resign within 48 hours and make way for a commission of inquiry."

Over 4,000 soldiers and officers - almost all of the PNGDF - signed a petition demanding Singirok's reinstatement shortly after Chan sacked him later that day.

The mercenary operation would "inevitably result in people not only on Bougainville but throughout PNG turning against the Government and the Defence Force if more innocent civilians are lost," Singirok said, adding, "there is no military solution to the Bougainville conflict."

Opposition to paying Sandline some $US36 million - including a reported $A127,500 ($A1=US$0.78) to each mercenary for three months' duty - was also one of the factors in the revolt. Singirok made further allegations that Chan, a multimillionaire, was using the situation to further line his own pockets.

Earlier this year some 200 PNG soldiers refused to return to active duty on Bougainville following Christmas leave, part of ongoing discontent over pay and conditions in the army, as well as battlefield defeats on Bougainville since March 1996.

The protests were also fueled by the deepening social crisis - the infant mortality rate in PNG rose between 1980 and 1994 from 72 to 83 per 1,000 live births - and popular anger at the austerity program being imposed by the World Bank and other imperialist creditors as a condition for loans to the government.

"I am acting on behalf of all Papua New Guineans," Singirok stated March 17. "When the country's health clinics, roads, hospitals, schools and airports were all collapsing, how can we justify the recruiting of a mercenary group that just walks away with all that money?" If the government does not resign, he said, "I will plead to Papua New Guineans to join hands to force them to resign."

While Singirok "accepted" his sacking and the appointment of his replacement -even intervening to prevent soldiers from blocking both moves - he continued to command the loyalty of his troops and remained in the commander's residence at Murray Barracks.

On March 21, Singirok renewed his demands that Chan resign - this time by March 25, before Parliament sits again -and that a caretaker government be appointed until the elections, already set for June. This instability has created the greatest threat to the direct interests of Australian imperialism since it fought in World War II to regain New Guinea from its Japanese imperialist rival.

Canberra has played a central role throughout the Bougainville war, supporting both military and "negotiated" efforts to block the independence struggle. However, the deal with Sandline and moves to use the mercenaries in combat on Bougainville, in particular, sparked a public rift between Chan and Canberra.

Australian imperialism
The superrich families that rule Australia have $A4 billion directly invested in PNG - in gold and copper mining as well as oil and gas fields in particular.

The March 18 Australian Financial Review editorialized, "Thousands of Australians still live in PNG and their welfare -along with their business interests - should figure preeminently in Canberra's thinking. Even before yesterday's events, law and order in PNG was fraying at the edges. Australia's close involvement in the PNG economy gives it a direct interest in ensuring that the rule of law ... is maintained."

A company of 130 soldiers from the First Royal Australian Regiment in Townsville was quickly put "on heightened alert," with a full battalion also on standby. Townsville is 750 miles from Port Moresby.

Australian Liberal Party prime minister John Howard sent a team of three envoys led by Philip Flood, head of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, who met with Chan in Port Moresby, March 20. In exchange for increased military aid, they reiterated three demands on the PNG government that Howard made in a March 9 meeting with Chan in Sydney: no use of mercenaries on Bougainville, no new military offensive, and a commitment to resume the peace process.

Earlier, in the first hours of the mutiny on March 17, a spokesman for Howard explained, "It is this sort of destabilization that we feared the introduction of such mercenaries into PNG and the region might cause."

Howard told Parliament in Canberra March 18 that the Australian government "deplored the attempts by Singirok to defy the authority of the duly elected Government of Papua New Guinea" and, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, "gave his blessing" to Chan's move to sack Singirok as " `understandable and justifiable.' "

At the same time, Howard said that PNG would face "serious consequences" if Chan didn't reverse his decision on use of the mercenaries. Kim Beazley, leader of the Labor opposition in the Australian government, agreed with Howard and called for "turning up the Bunsen burner" on Chan. PNG receives $A320 million in annual "development aid" from Canberra.

Calls for "peacekeeping" intervention in Bougainville have also been made. A March 20 Australian editorial advised, "Australia should offer Port Moresby its diplomatic resources to explore avenues for peacemaking efforts through the UN and the South Pacific Forum. But we should acknowledge that any pacification of Bougainville requires military activity to secure, hold and expand areas of Government control."

According to Moses Havini, the Sydney-based international representative of the pro-independence Bougainville Interim Government, the BRA would "view very suspiciously" any additional military equipment or training by Australia for the PNGDF.

"The war on Bougainville is already lost and PNG should accept that," BRA leader Francis Ona said from Bougainville, March 18. "The only solution is for the total withdrawal of the PNG forces ... and for some kind of mechanism so that Bougainvilleans can decide for themselves [their] political future."  
 
 
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