[Source: Benar News - People waiting to vote in Bougainville’s capital Buka during the referendum on independence]

The Pacific’s peak diplomatic bodies have signaled they are ready to engage with Papua New Guinea’s Autonomous Government of Bougainville as mediation begins on the delayed ratification of its successful 2019 independence referendum.

PNG and Bougainville’s leaders met in the capital Port Moresby this week with a moderator to start negotiations on the implementation of the U.N.-supervised Bougainville Peace Agreement and referendum.

Ahead of the talks, ABG’s President Ishmael Toroama moved to sideline a key sticking point over PNG parliamentary ratification of the vote, with the announcement last week that Bougainville would unilaterally declare independence on Sept. 1, 2027.

The region’s two leading intergovernmental organizations – Pacific Islands Forum and Melanesian Spearhead Group – have traditionally deferred to member state PNG on discussion of Bougainville independence, as an internal matter.

But as a declaration of nationhood becomes increasingly likely and near, there has been a subtle shift.

“It’s their (PNG’s) prerogative but if this matter were raised, even by Bougainville themselves, we can start discussion on that,” PIF secretary-general Baron Waqa told a press briefing at its headquarters in Fiji on Monday.

“Whatever happens, I think the issue would have to be decided by our leaders later this year,” he said of the annual PIF meeting to be held in Solomon Islands in September.

The last time the Pacific’s leaders included discussion of Bougainville in their official communique was in 2004 to mark the disarmament of the island under the peace deal.

Waqa said Bougainville had made no formal approach to PIF – a grouping of 18 Pacific states and territories – but it was closely monitoring developments on what could eventually lead to the creation of a new member state.

In 2024, Toroama told BenarNews he would be seeking observer status at the subregional MSG – grouping PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS – as Bougainville’s first diplomatic foray.

No application has been made yet but MSG acting director general Ilan Kiloe told BenarNews they were also keeping a close watch.

“Our rules and regulations require that we engage through PNG and we will take our cue from them,” Kiloe said, adding while the MSG respects the sovereignty of its members, “if requested, we will provide assistance” to Bougainville.

“The purpose and reason the MSG was established initially was to advance the collective interests of the Melanesian countries, in particular, to assist those yet to attain independence,” he said.

“And to provide support towards their aim of becoming independent countries.”

The 2001 peace agreement ended more than a decade of bloody conflict known as the Bougainville crisis, that resulted in the deaths of up to 15,000 people, and laid out a roadmap for disarmament and the referendum in 2019.

Under the agreement, PNG retains responsibility for foreign affairs but allows for the ABG to engage externally for trade and with “regional organizations.”

Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.