On the island of Bougainville, where a copper mine once helped ignite a war that killed one in ten of its people, history is pressing forward again — this time through flames. Saboteurs torched heavy machinery at the Panguna mine site over the weekend, but President Ishmael Toroama has declared the government will not be turned back, framing the mine's revival as inseparable from the region's dream of independence. The tension is ancient and unresolved: a land rich in resources, a people still carrying the wounds of how those resources were once taken from them, and a leadership betting that t
Bougainville leader vows Panguna mine reopening despite sabotage
The 1989-1998 civil war over the mine's operations killed approximately 20,000 people, roughly 10 percent of Bougainville's population at that time.