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Much of the material in this song, including the quotes, comes from a series of interviews conducted by three independent journalists who, at considerable risk to their own lives, ran the military blockade and visited Bougainville Island in 1994 with the intention of finding out what was really happening. They found that - contrary to offical reports - grass-roots support for the rebel Bougainville Revolutionary Army was very high, and the movement was showing no signs of faltering. They also found that most weapons and ammunition being used against the BRA was of Australian origin. The were pursued by the Papua New Guinea military police, but escaped to the Solomon Islands and from there made their way back to Australia. No mainstream media outlet would publish anything they wrote on the subject.

lyrics

Bougainville
© Penelope Swales 
1998


'69 was the year that I was born
It was also the year that a company called Rio Tinto Zinc
Opened up a copper mine
On a little tropical island paradise, yeah
Not far from Australian shores
By the time I was twenty years of age
A billion tons of waste
Had poured into the Jaba River
All thirty-five kilometres of its length
>From spring to delta poisoned dead.

The islanders tried
For many years they complained
They lobbied and they campaigned
But their words fell on deaf ears
Many of them died working in the mine
The risk to find that they still couldn't earn enough
To feed their families
The labourer's wives with hungry mouths to feed
Had to sell their bodies on the streets
To workers from overseas
Who were paid twice what the local men received
And all food, clothing, medicine, everything
All owned by the company

And they cried
"Land is our life, it is our only life
It is food, it is sustenance
Land is our life, it is our social life
It is marriage it is status
It is security, it is politics
In fact, it is our only world
Land is our life, and if you take our land
You're cutting out the very heart of our existence"

Bruno said "I worked for the mine
The company denied they were the cause of any of the damage
But our fruit trees no longer bore fruit
Their leaves were killed by acid rain
There are no fish in the river
The damage they did will be here forever
We workers went on strike,
But still our words weren't heeded
So something more was needed
So in the end, a few of us
In the middle of the night
With the company's own explosives
Yes, forced the mine to close
and when the riot squads arrived we were singing

Land is our life..............etc"

Marcelline said
"The PNG, they can never win our hearts
They killed my brother
We cannot accept it, we cannot forget our loved ones
They have killed us in cold murder
We never had anything like this before
The only place I saw anything similar
Was on that Television of yours.......Ahhh---"

The troops poured in
Armed and funded by the Australian government
Yeah, they reigned fire on unarmed villagers
Raped and pillaged, yes
Long before Spicer, long before Sandline
Sticks and stones, and arrows and bows
Were all the islanders had when they started
But ten years later on, with home-made guns
And vehicles run on coconut oil, yeah
They're still there singin'

"Land is our life..........."etc

So you see, we must agree
'Cause we have so much in common
More than humanity, more than regional ah----

Because land is our life, it is our only life
It is food, it is sustenance
Land is our life, it is our social life
It part of marriage and it's certainly part of status
It is security, it is politics
In fact, this is our only world
Land is our life, and if we destroy that land
We're cutting out the very heart of our existence"

Ah-ha...........

credits

from Justifying your Longings to the Doctor, released January 7, 1998
Penelope Swales - vocals guitar, stomp box

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Penelope Swales Boolarra, Australia

Penelope Swales has been articulating the human condition with passion and humour for 30+ years. She sings about politics, love, friendship, the unbreakable bond between us and dogs and the impact of the Internet on society. She won the 2019 Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice Award with “Cambridge Analytica”. “The Ides of March in Christchurch" was short-listed for the same award in 2020. ... more

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