Source: Special Bougainville Correspondent 

Nikanna Kaansi

Over the four years of operation Panguna Land Owner Association have used up an undisclosed sum numbering in the millions. Awareness, consultations, forums and parties were all funded by Bougainville Copper Limited’s Belkol funds. The special agreement made was debts created by Panguna Landowners Associations will be repaid using the promised Belkol funds.

According to one of the Special Mine Lease Area association’s technical advisor, there is no hope in the upcoming Belkol payment. People should not have high expectations because all the funding sources running the associations is from BCL itself.

High rates of allowances paid to the associations have exhausted the funds. As said in meeting Belkol dues in March 2015 and celebrations will be held in all areas. However, payments will not be done as it has already been exhausted by minority.

The Bougainville people are now expected to save the minority by observing the Belkol ceremony. The landowner association are put at the desperate position by the company BCL. It was the company said to be the devil they knew well.

Bougainville Copper Limited has used Bougainvilleans to sell Bougainville people. Now they are asked to observe the day with comes with nothing but dignitaries from the company and the Australian Government’s Foreign Affairs Office.

The associations’ security in Central and South Bougainville depend entirely on how the people they represent will turn up. These associations have capitalized so much on the people who have suffered the war on Bougainville. Selling out of Bougainville to the people who we chased out of the island depends on the people.

Sadly Bougainville People are waiting to celebrate the receipt of Belkol funds exhausted by the people who said to represent their people on the negotiation table. The payments done to the people was in a form of cheap freezer goods of chicken and sausages eaten by the people in the consultations organized by the association.

The current situation on Bougainville shows how cheap Bougainville has been portrayed by none other than the representatives of the Landowner Associations and their puppet counterparts in ABG. Sadly, they are not honest enough to tell their people about this.