says Akoitai
By FRANCIS GABRIEL
LASTING and total peace on Bougainville will only come about if the autonomous region was made gun-free, former member for Central Bougainville Sam Akoitai said. He said weapons disposal was one of the three pillars of the Bougainville peace agreement, which in recent times had "collected cobwebs". Mr Akoitai said the other two were autonomy, which had already been implemented and enforced, and referendum – a way for the people of Bougainville to decide their future – "after and when the region becomes gun-free". According to Mr Akoitai, who was speaking on the future of Bougainville on FM100 Talk-back Show on Tuesday, the reasons why the programme was not moving forward were because: l Elected leaders never took it seriously because of changes taking place; lThere were no cohesive dialogue between the Bougainville MPs and the Autonomous Bougainville Government leaders; and lMost of the players in the negotiation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement were sidelined. Mr Akoitai urged that those sidelined leaders be re-engaged to mediate peace reconciliations and implement the weapons disposal programme "because they understood and know the spirit of the agreement". Though Mr Akoitai admitted that there were guns still being carried around in public on Bougainville, the onus was on the people to make the region gun-free. "If changes had put us off course then, we need to re-strategise and bring all factions to understand the peace agreement and its aim – total peace," he said. "Time for negotiation is done, now is the time for implementation. "It's true, implementation is the hardest part of the agreement but it is the only way towards that referendum." |