Francis Ona Dies – Bougainville pays tribute

[***aCe***]

The untimely death of Mr Francis Ona which came as a shock for many is perhaps another sad chapter for Bougainville and its people. It is seemingly striking that he died some weeks after Bougainville witness the historical election of its new autonomous government.

Francis Ona died on Sunday at around 1pm at his Guava village after a short illness. Reports from Bougainville later confirmed that Ona died after contracting Malaria and Typhoid. Ona who died at the age of 52 is survived by his wife Magdalene and four children.

The Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) believes that Francis Ona as a leader had a lot to do with the granting of Autonomy to Bougainville and the eventual referendum in 10 - 15 years time. Unfortunately he will not live to witness that.

The Bougainville Administration believes that self determination, freedom of oppression from multimillion companies like BCL, CRA and RTZ, the fight for our environment were at the heart of the late Francis Ona beliefs even though there are mixed feelings amongst many Bougainvilleans.

ABG recognise that the fight towards self determination for Bougainville and the stage where Bougainville is now, could not have been reached without his leadership that time.

Thus he deserves the respect from all Bougainvilleans regardless of any differences of opinions. ABG believes strongly that the untimely death of our leader can be used as an opportunity to strengthen greater dialogue with people in the NGZ to bring better understanding towards achieving common objective that we all suffered loss of lives. ABG and MHR's are hoping for understanding from the NGZ area to release the body so that a state funeral can be accorded to such a fearless leader.

The people of Bougainville joined hands together in offering sincere condolences to the wife, children, and family of the late Francis Ona.

His contribution is one that cannot be denied thus all Bougainvilleans are called to pay their respect to one of Bougainville's sons who stood against all odds and
hold hands today for peace on Bougainville.

Word from the ABG Administration this morning is that the body of late
Francis Ona's has not been released from Guava Village yet. Negotiations are
still underway to persuade the relatives from NGZ to have the body flown to
Buka so that a postmortem or autopsy can be done to medically establish the
cause of his death. ABG parliament had an extraordinary meeting yesterday
regarding the death of the late Francis Ona. It was unanimously passed that
there will be a 'one week national mourning' period in Bougainville. ABG
agreed to accord the highest possible state funeral for him if the body is
released from Guava in the hills of Panguna.

In Bougainville custom there is period of mourning when a chief is death. In accordance with that, ABG parliament has declared a week of mourning until the end of the funeral. All flags in Buka and all over Bougainville districts are at half mast.

ABG Administrations confirmed this morning that a coffin brought in from
Port Moresby by ABG was delivered by helicopter yesterday. That is part of
the ABG commitment in honor of his death. As a sign of recognition and
respect ABG is fully prepared for a state funeral if the body is released
out of NGZ area at all and the President has allocated K60,000.00 for that
purpose.

Ends//