ISCI is a cross-disciplinary research centre working to further our understanding of state crime: organisational deviance violating human rights

Video: The Coconut Revolution (2001)

In November 1988, radical activists associated with the Panguna Landowners Association initiated a campaign of industrial sabotage in an effort to close down a copper and gold mine in Papua New Guineas North Solomons Province. In response, the Papua New Guinean state ordered a series of punitive police raids during March and April 1989. As conditions on the island deteriorated the Bougainville Revolutionary Army was formed in order to prosecute a campaign for independence. Facing a serious threat both to the nations sovereignty and international reputation, the Papua New Guinean state initiated a wide-ranging counterinsurgency campaign. Villagers in the mine area were forcefully displaced and detained, while young men were extra-judicially killed in an effort to intimidate rebel supporters. Following a failed counterinsurgency offensive in January 1990, the state placed a military blockade around the North Solomons Province, denying civilians access to essential goods and services. The Coconut Revolution attempts to examine life behind the blockade. The wide-ranging effects of the governments military campaign are sympathetically documented, as are local attempts to develop a skeletal infrastructure. Additionally, The Coconut Revolution also provides a window into the Bougainville Revolutionary Armys inner sanctums. See the video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1192286025577999101#.

[google -1192286025577999101]

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