Papua New Guinea bans Australians from travelling to Bougainville
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Version 0 of 1. Papua New Guinea has announced a ban on Australians travelling to Bougainville, after Canberra said it plans to build a diplomatic mission on the island. PNG’s foreign minister, Rimbink Pato, says he issued the notice after last week’s announcement by Australia that it will establish a diplomatic mission in Bougainville’s capital, Buka. “I have instructed the chief migration officer to impose the ban with immediate effect and to notify all PNG overseas missions and posts and domestic carriers of the ban,” Pato said in a statement on Monday. Diplomats and foreign government officials who want to go to the autonomous region of Bougainville must seek clearance from PNG’s department of foreign affairs before travelling to the region. Pato said Australians already residing in Bougainville on work and permanent resident visas would not be affected, but the ban would apply to all other Australian passport holders who intend to visit on tourist, business and other short-term entry visas. A spokesperson for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Dfat) said last week that the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, had discussed her proposal to open a secondary post in PNG with that government during her visit in December 2014. Last week, both Pato and the PNG prime minister, Peter O’Neill, expressed a mix of outrage and surprise at the announcement of the mission. O’Neill, on a visit to Sydney, said there had been no consultation and nothing had been agreed, while Pato said the plan was “mischievous” and “outrageous”. The autonomous region of Bougainville is slowly grinding towards an independence vote due in the next five years. PNG is the largest recipient of Australian aid after the federal budget, receiving $477.4m, and is home to an Australian-run asylum seeker detention centre on Manus Island. Dfat has been contacted for fresh comment. |