TANIS: BOUGAINVILLE WANTS A PEACEFUL REFERENDUM OUTCOME
Secretary for Department of Peace Agreement Implementation, Mr James Tanis, says his Department wants Bougainville to take a different referendum road to avoid the conflict experience in other countries.
“There are many lessons to learn from independence referendums held around the world,” Mr Tanis said.
“South Sudan, Timor Leste, the UK, and last year, Catalonia, Spain, have all gone through referendums and encountered problems afterwards that we wish to avoid.”
Mr Tanis made the comments opening a whole of government workshop that brought together departments of Community Government, Peace Agreement Implementation, Community Development, Police, Parliament and the Directorate of Media and Communication to discuss referendum preparations.
“We would like to see the referendum not only conducted in a safe and peaceful way, but for peace to continue after the result of the referendum is known – the result must be accepted and respected by all,” Mr Tanis said.
Mr Tanis said the Bougainville Peace Agreement, with its promise of referendum, marked the end of conflict in Bougainville.
“The Peace Agreement ended the war, the next step is to support people with service delivery – that’s what will make a difference to people’s lives. Strong health, education and infrastructure services.”
“At the end of the day we need strong, healthy people to assist in implementing our destiny.”
“We want to be different: Timor Leste ended conflict with a referendum only to create a new conflict. South Sudan won independence, but then went to war with each other, Catalonia declared independence, but was internationally rejected, and now UK voted for Brexit but is still arguing how this is to be done.”
“Our strategy, the trident strategy, is preparing ourselves through weapons disposal, good governance and unification, preparing the national government with peaceful dialogue, and engaging with the international community to support the process.
Mr Tanis said the workshop was a strong signal that all arms of government and civil society must mobilise to prepare communities.
“We cannot just make announcements; we need to follow our words down to the community with action.”
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