Bougainville Set to Become the Newest Nation of the World

Bougainville, the South Pacific archipelago overwhelmingly voted to become an independent country, out of the Papua New Guinea recently thus Bougainville become the world’s latest territory to become a nation. 

Buka town on Buka Island is going to be the capital of the region, and it is going to house the government headquarters. The population of the area is around 300,000 people, who live in the territory, mostly in villages outside Buka town and the two other main towns namely Arawa and Buin, both of the towns are on Bougainville island. 

A 2011 census recorded the population of the area as 249,358 and more than 200,000 voters are registered and are eligible to cast ballots in the referendum. Chief election officer Mauricio Claudio has confirmed recently that there is a significant increase in the electoral rolls.

The natives of Bougainville are known as Bougainvilleans. They mostly consist of Melanesian. The local spoken language is Tok Pisin, which is a Papua New Guinean pidgin English, though there are nearly 19 distinct indigenous languages.

Bougainville Island has been named after a French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who sailed alongside the east coast in 1768.

In the 19th century, Bougainville was a German colony. During World War II, it was used by Japan as a military base and after it was administered by Australia until Papua New Guinea gained independence in the year 1975.

In the year 1969, a giant copper mine Panguna, was discovered by Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), which is a subsidiary of resources giant Rio Tinto.

In 1989 amidst tensions over who will share the profit from mine, forced Rio Tinto to abandon its operation in 1989 when the civil war started to escalate. At that time, the mine had been Papua New Guinea’s largest source of export revenue, comprising about 7% of the global copper production.

In the civil war between Bougainville’s rebel guerrilla, army and Papua New Guinea forces more than 20,000 people were killed. The civil war ended in the year 1998. The civil war is regarded as the worst conflict in the Oceania region since World War Two.

As Bougainville has become an independent nation, now the question it is going to fund itself, as now it has relied on the support from Papua New Guinea.

Meanwhile, Bougainville Vice President Raymond Masono has said he is going to revive a plan to overhaul the region’s mining laws after the independence referendum.