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- <text id=89TT2704>
- <title>
- Oct. 16, 1989: World Notes:Papua New Guinea
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Oct. 16, 1989 The Ivory Trail
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 47
- World Notes
- PAPUA NEW GUINEA
- Blood and Copper
- </hdr><body>
- <p> For nearly five months a bloody sabotage campaign by rebel
- landowners on the island of Bougainville has idled one of the
- world's largest copper mines and terrorized the town of Panguna
- and its environs. The rebels are seeking higher royalties from
- the mine's joint owners, an Australian company and the
- government of Papua New Guinea, an island nation in the
- southwest Pacific.
- </p>
- <p> The spiral of bloodletting, which began in November,
- escalated last week, when landowners raided a mining camp,
- killing four people and setting houses ablaze. An angry mob from
- the settlement retaliated by slaughtering a Bougainvillean woman
- and her baby and torching her home. So far 39 have died in the
- dispute.
- </p>
- <p> The violence could worsen since the rebel gang, headed by
- former mine surveyor Francis Ona, has grown increasingly
- radical in its aims. In April the group called for the secession
- of the North Solomons province, of which Bougainville forms the
- major part. Meanwhile, the economy of P.N.G., which draws 20%
- of its domestic revenues from the mine, is hemorrhaging. The
- government is offering a $200,000 reward for Ona and seven
- others, dead or alive.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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