Gorethy Kenneth
BUKA, PNG (PNG Post-Courier/Pacific Media Watch): Bougainville does not have a proper database of guns and ammunitions that have not been disposed during the United Nations Observer Mission on Bougainville (UNOMB) disarmament program, it has been revealed.
Even the Autonomous Bougainville Government does not have a proper record of serious civil matters that have occurred during and after the war.
These civil matters include:
* The definite number of deaths during and after the Bougainville crisis;
* Burial sites;
* Widows and abandoned mothers;
* Conflict disrupted families;
* Young girl victims of incest and rape; and
* Missing people.
A non-government organisation, the Asia Pacific Civil and Human Rights Watch, is interested in assisting PNG and Bougainville work with correlating agencies within the ABG, the PNG government, possibly the United Nations and the NGOs to try and collect all this information and form a database for record keeping.
Head of the group, Venilla Nakzibwe, told the Post-Courier they wanted to help Bougainville because many times most of the NGOs in Bougainville and the ABG could not detail all information about these issues.
“Although we respect the laws of Bougainville, and PNG for that matter, we want to come in and help if we are allowed in,” she said.
“We will make our interest known to the ABG and the correlating agencies, but we don’t want to be seen as pushing because we know there are already tough and hardworking NGOs operating in Bougainville and we want to work with them on these issues.”
The ABG yesterday said there were records with certain NGOs and the ABG offices responsible but admitted there were no proper records of these issues despite so much funding allocated for these programs.
Pacific Media Watch
