Joint Supervisory Body meeting pushed back to Wednesday

The Autonomous Bougainville Government says it wants to achieve its wish for independence through the Ratification Process outlined in the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution, but warns, it might detour using other avenues, if the National Government continues to be, what it says, ‘mischievous’ on its part in dealing with the Bougainville Independence agenda.

Attorney General and Justice and Independence Mission Implementation Minister, Ezekiel Masatt, sounded this warning, as President Ishmael Toroama and the ABG delegation left the region on Thursday [02.05], for the Joint Supervisory Body, or JSB meeting with the National Government in Port Moresby.

The meeting scheduled for Monday the 6th and Tuesday the 7th has now been pushed back to Wednesday.

Mr Masatt says there have been events which have happened where Bougainville has not had the benefit of being consulted by the National Government, defeating the purpose of the Peace Agreement and the Constitution which repeatedly urges consultation between the two governments on a wide range of issues.

He says one example is the appointment of Police Assistant Commissioner, Anthony Wagambie Junior, to the Bougainville Police Service, and more recently is the calling of the current JSB meeting, which the Minister says, was called by the National Government without consulting with the ABG.

The Minister says while the ABG will be participating, it wants to see the two parties set into motion the resolution from the last JSB, for the parties to agree to call in a moderator to try resolve the impasse over how results from the 2019 Referendum will be tabled and ratified by the National Parliament.

This is the only issue where both sides continue to hold extreme conflicting views, with no middle ground.

Apart from the ratification issue, the ABG also wants the National Government not to rush tabling of the Referendum result, until officials from both sides put together a joint consultations report, outlining outcomes of three separate consultations the two governments have had after the Referendum.

Ezekiel Masatt says the ABG will be suspicious if the National Government wants to move on with tabling the Referendum results without having the joint consultations report accompany it.

The ABG also wants a bi-partisan committee, comprising National and Bougainville members, quickly set up to conduct awareness on the Bougainville issue and independence agenda on all the 118 MP’s in the National Parliament, so they are well informed on what they will be voting on during ratification.

Ezekiel Masatt labelled recent actions by the National Government as ‘unilateral’ without consulting the other side, saying these might rekindle suspicion and mistrust.

He’s reiterated that while the ABG is content with following the Bougainville Peace Agreement and the Constitution, it might be forced to pursue other legal means to achieve what the people of Bougainville have voted for.