Background

From 1973-1975, I was a regimental officer serving in the 2^nd Battalion Pacific Islands Regiment (2PIR) based in Wewak, and subsequently June-December 1975 as Adjutant of the PNG Joint Services College located at Lae. This was a special time in my Army career. The opportunity to command a platoon and lead PNG soldiers on patrols in various parts of PNG was an amazing and rewarding experience. It was only natural that in 1988-89, I watched the unfolding drama on Bougainville with deep sadness and significant concern that PNGDF and Royal PNG Constabulary (RPNGC) officers with whom I had served were involved in the conflict. It seemed to me that the rebels, known as the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA), were having success in destabilising operations at the Panguna mine site and the PNG security forces were often reacting in an uncoordinated and unprofessional manner resulting in combatant and civilian casualties.

As the insurgency developed in 1989, the RPNGC Mobile Squads were reinforced by the PNGDF. At the time I was a Major and senior instructor on the Tactics Wing at the Land Warfare Centre (LWC) at Canungra in the Gold Coast hinterland. I had no direct information as to what was occurring other than through open-source media reports, but due to my past service in PNG I was often asked what and why the rebellion was occurring. I had to admit that I knew little about Bougainville as all my patrols as a Platoon Commander had been either on or near the PNG/West Irian Border or in the central Highlands. Of course, some of my soldiers were from Bougainville and Buka and they had always impressed me with their comparative level of education and their pride in their identity and culture. Little did I realise that, over the next 6 to 7 years, I would get to know the Bougainville political/military situation better than most Australians. I quickly came to realise how certain landowners on Bougainville were disaffected with the Government in Port Moresby and, importantly, the reasons for their grievances.

By late 1989, production at the Rio Tinto copper mine had ceased, power pylons had been destroyed and the expatriate and non-Bougainville employees of Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) had begun to evacuate the island.

Christmas 1989 Upheaval

Like most Australians, I celebrated Christmas with my family (on the Gold Coast where we resided) and was preparing to watch the customary Boxing Day cricket test in Melbourne on TV. At about 1000hrs I received a phone call from the Military Secretary’s Office in Canberra. The caller’s first words were, “When was the last time you spoke Pidgin and how good is it Garry?” I had no idea what he was talking about and told him I had not spoken regular conversational Pidgin since late 1975. With no further explanation, I was told I was required in Canberra that day for a briefing by the staff of the Chief of Defence Force (CDF), General Peter Gration. I could not be provided with additional information over the phone and was advised that a vehicle would take me to Coolangatta Airport in 2 hours. I was to tell my wife that I would probably be absent for 3-4 months. The discussion with my wife was rather awkward as I had virtually no answers to her (or my) questions, and I was leaving two young children behind.

Canberra Briefings

On arrival in Canberra, I was joined by Major John Robbs (now deceased) from Land Command Plans Branch in Sydney – we had not met before. We received briefings from Army Operations, International Policy Division and the Defence Intelligence Organisation. We were not provided with any written directive, but the tasks before us as best as I can recall were:

• Garry
  • Deploy to Bougainville immediately and take over reporting responsibilities from Lieutenant Colonel Mike Dennis, the Deputy Head of Australian Defence Staff (DHADS) who had returned to Port Moresby after an extended deployment.
  • Coordinate with and assist BCL executives with their evacuation of employees.
  • Establish contact with the PNGDF Joint Force Commander and PNGDF Deputy Commander, Colonel Leo Nuia.
  • Monitor and report on RPNGC and PNGDF operations.
  • Advise the Australian Government on the potential need for the evacuation of Australian and other proscribed nationals.
  • Report to Mr Allan Taylor (Head of Mission) and undertake tasks as directed by him.

• John
  • Deploy to Port Moresby.
  • Assist HADS in the review/rewrite of the existing evacuation plan for the High Commission staff in Port Moresby. (All Post evacuation plans are reviewed on a regular basis.)
  • Be prepared to relieve me in place on Bougainville as required.
  • Assist with developing an Australian assisted evacuation concept for Bougainville, should the situation arise.

The timeframe was open ended, and many details were either not addressed or the information was lacking. After several days in Canberra, I understood the following:

• We were to travel in uniform by C130 to Port Moresby.
• Weapons were not to be taken.
• We would be briefed in Port Moresby by the HOM, Head of the Defence Staff and High Commission consular staff.
• I would deploy for the first month to Bougainville and a DFAT communicator already on the island, who had assisted Mike Dennis when he was on the island, would provide a rear link to Port Moresby as other communications were down.

Deployment

The briefing in Port Moresby added little to what we had been told in Canberra although it became quite clear that the situation on Bougainville was very unstable and the Australian Government was keen to re-establish a presence and reporting and coordinating capability on Bougainville especially in Arawa, the provincial capital.

I felt like a VIP when I departed from Jacksons Airport in Port Moresby in the first days of 1990. Other than the technical and cabin crew there was only one other passenger on the Air Niugini flight to Aropa, in central Bougainville. (No further commercial flights were being conducted into Aropa.) The other passenger was a delightful Bougainvillean doctor who was returning home to help his people. I heard shortly after that he had been killed by the BRA; so sad given he was only wanting to reduce the suffering of his people. As we flew over the west coast of Bougainville, I could see a massive fan of silt extending at least 10km seaward. No wonder the Nasioi people in the Panguna mine area were so unhappy seeing the obvious contamination of the Jaba River system and the dead jungle along the riverbanks.

As we approached Aropa about 25km south of Arawa the captain called me to the cockpit and asked which approach he should make as there were mortars being fired from a position just north of the airfield. I was in no doubt a southern approach was the better option, noting we could not locate the impact area from the cockpit! He also advised he would be doing an “op stop” on the runway – he was ex RAAF; the front door would be disarmed, and we would then disembark; and he would “pull full power and get the hell out of there”. Our luggage was in the aisle, so that we wouldn’t impact on the aircraft’s rapid departure to the south away from the mortars.

The last I saw of my passenger colleague was him running towards a blue utility near the burned-out airport buildings. I headed for a Suzuki Vitara which had been prepositioned by the last functional rental car agency on the island and drove north towards Kieta and Arawa along a narrow and spectacular winding coastal road. Twice I was flagged down by vehicles heading south advising that either they had been shot at or armed rebels had been seen in the area. The trip was not fun and a long way from the cushy drive each day from my home at Runaway Bay on the Gold Coast to Canungra. I’m not sure the little Suzuki had ever been driven harder.

Part 2 : Settling In