book and media reviews 313 the chapter on air transport sees some Bougainville: Before the Conflict, basis for hope through a discussion edited by Anthony J Regan and that embraces the impact of the Pacific Helga M Griffin. Canberra: Panda- Islands Air Services Agreement, the nus Books and the Research School entry of low-cost carriers, moves to of Pacific and Asian Studies, The privatization, and questions of needed Australian National University, 2005. infrastructure development. isbn 1-74076-138-3; xl + 566 pages, Finally of note is Philip Powell’s tables, figures, maps, photographs, skeptical contribution (“Too Young to historical chronology, glossary, notes, Marry”), asserting that a Pacific eco- bibliography, index. Cloth, a$85.00. nomic and political community, as envisioned by Australia and other Events in Bougainville would chal- regionalists, might achieve integration lenge even the Queen in Lewis in form but not in substance. Required Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass in the first instance are stronger states, (1873), who sometimes believed as endowed with national legitimacy, many as six impossible things before and no longer beholden to the levels breakfast. In 2004 the arch-secession- of external subsidy and assistance ist Francis Ona, ignoring seven years currently in place. An imposition of of peacemaking and the election of relatively advanced regional institu- an Autonomous Bougainville Gov- tions on Pacific economies that have ernment within , no more than partially evolved had himself crowned king of an “would generate inefficient complex- independent Bougainville. His ally ity and impede the region’s ability to , another fantasist break its underdevelopment bottle- and creator of fraudulent pyramid neck” (237). Powell’s advice to for- schemes, conducted the rites and eign donors keen to further Oceania’s became Prince David. But when Ona regional integration is to look first to died, he received a state funeral from a reformulation of national aggrega- the state he did not recognize, subsi- tions—decentralizing and federalizing dized (the ultimate insult?) by Aus- powers, weakening the dominance of tralian aid. corrupt capital city elites, and forcing Early in 2006, veterans of the states to cooperate with indigenous Bougainville Revolutionary Army institutions. The Pacific Islands Forum and their once implacable enemies (Dave Peebles take note) should avoid in the Resistance united to denounce association with Australian assertive- Musingku’s dishonest fund-raising. ness keen to hurry shared governance The Autonomous Bougainville Gov- in the Islands Pacific. ernment demanded that the Papua roderic alley New Guinea Defense Force arrest Noah and disband and deport his Victoria University of Wellington Fijian soldiers. Meanwhile, the Bou- gainvillean minister for mines in the *** Papua New Guinea government offered to negotiate with multinational companies to resume copper mining at 314 the contemporary pacific • 19:1 (2007)

Panguna or elsewhere. Evidently belief that Bougainvilleans differ from anyone who understood Bougainville other Papua New Guineans, culturally politics was misinformed. and ethnically as well as geographi- Happily, this fine volume has been cally. Bougainville: Before the Conflict published just in time for those who addresses the question: “Was Bougain- accept that we need to reexamine ville somehow inherently different in most of the assumptions that inform the combination of its mini-cultures? discussions of Bougainville matters. Or was it just another slice of Mela- The conflict in question took its nesia, a microcosm that reflected the present shape with the development ethnic diversity of Papua New Guinea of copper mine, the main and the wider region?” (xxviii) source of Papua New Guinea’s domes- This handsome volume was pro- tic revenue and an essential element duced by Pandanus, the leading pub- of the country’s independence. But lisher of Papua New Guinea studies. landowners resented the environmen- It is helpfully illustrated. The editors tal damage, the flow of benefits to and contributors have lavished affec- Papua New Guinea, and the influx of tion as well as care on the project; young, single “redskins” to operate although they ultimately (and inevi- the mine. tably) fail to answer the headline Panguna provided focus for Bou- questions, readers will treasure their gainvilleans’ sense of separateness. exhaustive and many-sided investiga- Deft footwork by national politicians tions. The book’s twenty-eight chap- averted secession, but landowners’ ters cover natural and social sciences, grievances festered until 1988 when colonial and postcolonial history, and Ona’s militants sabotaged the mine. many participant accounts, mainly by As violence escalated, so did the Bougainvilleans. claims of the Bougainville Revolution- It is impossible to summarize the ary Army (bra). An inchoate civil richness of these studies, memoirs, war, an economic embargo, and and vignettes. ’s reflec- guerilla warfare wrecked the cash tions (“Nagovisi villages”) are unusu- economy and social services. The ally eloquent but typical of the analyt- PNG Defence Force, the Bougainville ical and emotional power of these Revolutionary Army, and the (anti- contributions. He left the university to bra) Resistance Movement all frac- join the Bougainville Revolutionary tured. The national government Army, fought to the end, engaged in lurched between economic and politi- peace negotiations, and served as a cal crises, but the insurgents failed to minister in Bougainville’s postwar win diplomatic recognition. After government. He parted company with eight destructive years, a New Zea- Francis Ona when Ona boycotted the land–mediated truce initiated the peace process. Tanis reviews the pre- rebuilding of peace. It has taken war circumstances of Nagovisi and another eight years of patient negotia- the land disputes that led to Ona’s tion to rebuild a provincial govern- supremacy—and his tragic descent ment and restore civil government. into mysticism and irrelevance. The case for secession rests on the This is not a run-of-the-mill mono- book and media reviews 315 graph. Like many other perceptive The reason was simple: Wéa was a writers, Tanis raises more questions radical, uncompromising, and an than anyone could possibly answer. avowed Anglophile who had studied He asks about the nature of Papua in Fiji. Tjibaou was, in comparison, a New Guinea’s stake in Bougainville; somewhat mysterious figure, prone to he ponders Australia’s interests in compromise and with a limited profi- Panguna; and he wonders what ciency in English. He navigated in a unseen forces—global and regional— universe that was unequivocally contributed to the destruction of the Oceanian, but was also grounded in environment and years of civil war in the larger realm of the world’s colo- Bougainville. And he concludes with nized peoples, and characterized by a the most radical of all questions: marked attachment to certain aspects “After gaining political independence of French and European civilizations. from colonial masters, do all third Unlike the vast majority of Pacific world nations enjoy only brief periods leaders of his generation, Tjibaou left of real independence? Must they all an enormous legacy of interviews and then experience civil wars and revolu- speeches, as well as several important tions and go bankrupt and join the writings. He also deeply marked those queue awaiting solutions from else- that crossed his path, for he had where?” (472) charisma, vision, and a remarkable donald denoon command of the spoken word. A The Australian biography by the Le Monde journalist National University Alain Rollat was published shortly after his death (Tjibaou le Kanak, *** 1989), while the French anthropolo- Ce souffle venu des ancêtres . . . gists Alban Bensa and Éric Witter- L’œuvre politique de Jean-Marie Tji- sheim produced a collection of his baou (1936–1989), by Hamid Mokad- speeches, writings, and interviews a dem. Nouméa: Expressions – Province decade ago (Jean-Marie Tjibaou, La Nord, 2005. isbn 2-9519371-2-1; 411 Présence Kanak, 1996). Otherwise, pages, appendixes, written in French, until very recently, there has been lit- bibliography, index. cfp3900. tle apart from a scattering of articles. The tide is, however, turning. An When Jean-Marie Tjibaou was assas- English translation of La Présence sinated on Ouvéa in May 1989, shock Kanak was published a few months waves swept across the Pacific. His ago in Australia (Jean-Marie Tjibaou, face figured on the front covers of the Kanaky, 2005), while at virtually the following month’s issue of both same time, this substantial study of Pacific Islands Monthly and Islands Tjibaou’s political thought and actions Business, while seven months later appeared in New Caledonia. Pacific Islands Monthly declared him Ce souffle venu des ancêtres is, “Man of the Decade.” Yet, ironically, without a doubt, an important book. many Anglophone Oceanian intellec- It is also, at first sight, a somewhat tuals spontaneously wept over the disconcerting one for Oceanian schol- death of his assassin, Djubelly Wéa. ars nurtured principally on the writ-