Bougainville's relationship with Papua New Guinea has been uneasy from the outset, writes Scott Waide. Photo: BenarNews / Stefan Armbruster
Analysis - Papua New Guinea's hesitation over Bougainville is not simply political delay or bureaucratic caution. It is rooted in something deeper: anxiety about identity, cohesion, and the survival of a post-colonial state that was never culturally uniform to begin with.
PNG was assembled at independence in 1975 from hundreds of distinct linguistic and cultural groups. Its unity has always been negotiated, not natural.
Bougainville, with its distinct history, geography, and political consciousness, has consistently tested that fragile national bargain. As the country edges closer to a decision on Bougainville's future, the question confronting Port Moresby is no longer theoretical. It is about consequences - and whether the state can survive a choice it has long tried to defer.
A State built on compromise, not consent
Bougainville's relationship with Papua New Guinea has been uneasy from the outset. Its people share stronger cultural and geographic ties with the Solomon Islands than with much of mainland PNG - a reality ignored by colonial administrators and later inherited by a newly independent state more concerned with viability than consent.
Bougainville attempted to secede even before PNG itself became independent. That early declaration was dismissed, but the message endured: unity was not universally accepted. The subsequent civil war, driven by grievances over land, resource extraction, and political marginalisation, confirmed that the national project remained unfinished.
The 2001 Bougainville Peace Agreement ended the conflict and promised a political pathway grounded in autonomy, reconciliation, and a future referendum. That promise was honoured in 2019 when Bougainvilleans voted overwhelmingly - 97.7 per cent - in favour of independence. Yet the result was left non-binding, subject to ratification by the PNG Parliament. That caveat has now become the centre of national paralysis.
The PNG government agreed to a Bougainville request for a moderator to be brought in to solve an impasse over the tabling of the region's independence referendum. Photo: 123RF / RNZ Pacific
Why Port Moresby struggles to let go
For the national government, Bougainville is not just another region. It is the place where PNG's deepest contradictions are exposed.
Economically, Bougainville once underpinned the national budget through the Panguna mine. At its peak, Panguna generated nearly half of Papua New Guinea's total export earnings and around 17 percent of national government revenue, effectively underwriting the young state's finances in the years surrounding independence.
The wealth extracted from the island helped stabilise the new nation, while Bougainville itself absorbed the environmental destruction and social dislocation. Letting Bougainville go would force PNG to confront an uncomfortable truth: that its early stability was built on large-scale extraction carried out without the consent - or the lasting benefit - of the people most affected.
Politically, the fear runs deeper still. Papua New Guinea is one of the most diverse countries on earth. Leaders in Port Moresby worry that Bougainville's independence would set a precedent - emboldening other resource-rich or politically disaffected regions to demand the same. In this thinking, Bougainville is not an exception; it is the first domino.
This fear has shaped the state's cautious posture, transforming a democratic outcome into a constitutional minefield and framing delay as responsibility rather than avoidance.
Sandline crisis: Why a coup would have been destructive
Papua New Guinea has already confronted the limits of its own political cohesion. In 1997, PNG Defence Force commander Jerry Singirok initiated Operation Rausim Kwik as an intervention to prevent foreign involvement in the Bougainville conflict.
He publicly called on the Prime Minister at the time to step aside, yet he consistently rejected the idea of a coup.
Singirok understood that a Fiji-style military takeover would not unite Papua New Guinea.
The country was - and remains - too fragmented politically, regionally, and institutionally. Any attempt at a central takeover would fracture the state from within, splitting institutions, provoking provincial resistance, and accelerating the breakdown of an already fragile union.
The Sandline crisis did not reveal Bougainville's weakness; it exposed the limits of the state itself.
That lesson continues to shape the present. It explains why no serious political actor now speaks of imposed solutions or shortcuts. The memory of 1997 remains a warning about how quickly unity can unravel.
PNG Prime Minister James Marape and Bougainville President Ishmael Toroama at the Joint Supervisory Body meeting in Port Moresby this week. Photo: Autonomous Bougainville Government
Unity as survival
At the most recent Joint Supervisory Body meeting in Port Moresby on 3 December 3, Prime Minister James Marape acknowledged both the inevitability and the sensitivity of what lies ahead.
"We are in the final leg in which the referendum result will go to Parliament. To the people of Bougainville, fear not. To the rest of the country, let us embrace this process - it cannot be avoided."
Marape's words capture the government's dilemma. The outcome is recognised. The process is unavoidable. Yet the language remains carefully calibrated - signalling movement without committing to finality.
From Bougainville's perspective, patience is wearing thin. President Ishmael Toroama used the same meeting to remind both governments that the peace architecture itself is now at risk.
"The JSB is the very table where the two parties can continue to have peaceful dialogue on Bougainville's independence. Any attempt to dilute or weaken the constitutional role of the JSB will prove fatal on many fronts."
Toroama's warning reflects a widely held belief in Bougainville that prolonged delay risks undermining the peace process that ended the war - and that legitimacy now rests on outcomes, not process alone.
Bougainville's referendum was not an act of rebellion; it was an expression of political maturity, writes Waide. Photo: Jeremy Miller / Bougainville Referendum Commission
What could follow Bougainville's exit
The fear in Port Moresby is that Bougainville's independence could fragment national unity. But the greater danger may lie in refusing to resolve the issue at all.
Unity sustained through delay, legal ambiguity, or political avoidance is brittle. PNG's cohesion has always depended on negotiation, compromise, and respect for difference. Bougainville's referendum was not an act of rebellion; it was an expression of political maturity forged through conflict and reconciliation.
If Bougainville exits without ratification, the state risks a unilateral declaration that would destabilise regional diplomacy and reopen old wounds. If it exits through a negotiated process, PNG faces a different challenge: redefining national unity not as permanent possession, but as democratic principle.
The Bougainville question is no longer just about one island. It is a test of whether Papua New Guinea can reconcile its founding compromises with the values it claims to uphold.
