Buka airport ... the Mosquito urban camp is nearby. Photo: PMC

Pacific.Scoop
By Gorethey Kenneth in Buka

Today we bring you a report from the back of the Buka airport and – to be precise – the Mosquito urban camp where a lot of people regarded as “illegal squatters” live.

But this piece will also detail how they are influential and contribute to the development and human resource of Bougainville.

This is just one part of the settlement areas on Buka Island.

The Buka airport camp or dump site settlement accommodates a lot of families from Siwai, Nagovis in south Bougainville, those from the Tsitalato and Halia constituencies in north Bougainville and a growing number of Nissan, Carterets and Mortlock islanders not to mention the ever increasing number of people from Southern Highlands who have either married into the region or moved to be with their extended families and made this place their home.

Or they simply found themselves new homes because the place is good to do business.

Apolonia Anugu is from Nissan, but she is married to Augustine, a Siwai man and they live at the Buka Airport dump side camp.

They moved there in 2002 and have been there since with an extended family.

Rented house
Another family, Jude and Clare Posara, also from Siwai, live in a rented house at that camp like every other person living there.

Jude Posara is a security guard with a recognised organisation in Buka town.

Many other families like that of Christine Ukulu from Nagovis have also made their home in that part of the world and are living with families that are working or running small businesses.

But the most interesting is the Highlands camp, still at the back of the Buka airport where numbers are growing each day.

Johnny Yomo, from Southern Highlands is married to Nancy from Wakunai. Johnny has been in that place since 2000 and since then has attracted a lot of his relatives, friends and wantoks who now live at their base camp.

All these people are either renting semi-permanent houses built by those that legally made agreements with the landowners for about K100 a month, K50 a month or give K10 or K20 every time a landowner visits to collect money – or many have their own houses built.

But these people are no ordinary people, they sell newspapers, they are involved in scrap metal sales and sell vegetables.

Security guards
Some of these are the ones supplying food and vegetables to the main business houses in Buka town.

Most work as security guards everywhere in town, they are cleaners (or janitors) drivers, and some women work in shops, schools and business houses while many stay at home with other youths spending the day either drinking, gardening or just lazing around listening to music.

Yesterday Buka police said these people moved in with good intentions and motives but as time passed, things went wrong halfway and problems started arising.

North Bougainville police commander Cletus Tsien when interviewed yesterday raised several concerns that the influx of people was a burden to them.

“The rate of stealing is high in urban Buka, the rate of break, enter and stealing is also high.

The urban settlements are beginning to affect the crime system and that is why it is now becoming a problem to us,” he said.

In Kokopau town it is different. By 4.06pm people desert the place and go to their homes.

But in Buka town, it is not the same.

Crime rate
After 4 and up to 8pm, people are still walking around town and these are people from the settlements.

The increase in the crime rate has raised eyebrows as the urban drift contributes to the crime situation and its problems .

Buka Urban Council manager Brenda Tohiana has a different story. She blames the landowners for the influx of people rather than the people themselves.

She says the land under scrutiny is mostly customary land and the government does not have an influence over this.

“It’s a little bit harder now because all these people you are talking about are not really illegally occupying these bits of land, this is because it is customary land and rather than we talk about repatriating them, maybe we should start with the landowners,” Tohiana said.

She said recently they held a forum on the issue of settlers in Buka town and they found out that most of the land these people live on is customarily owned.

Gorethy Kenneth is a Post-Courier journalist based in Buka, Bougainville, and is a University of Papua New Guinea graduate.