Glint of Peace Blossoms in Tropical Bougainville

Guerrillas opened fire from all sides at a truck crammed with refugees and soldiers speeding along a jungle highway on Bougainville island.

They killed 17, including a 6-year-old girl and her mother, and wounded 26. A soldier bled to death as the rebels fled and his comrades radioed for help.

The ambush in March was typical of a civil war that has taken 500 lives in five years on the lush tropical island 600 miles northeast of Port Moresby. Finally, both sides are realizing neither can win and are moving toward peace talks.

“The possibility of a military solution being imposed . . . is nil,” said Stephen Loosely, an Australian lawmaker who led a fact-finding delegation to Bougainville. “Secession cannot be won through military means.”

Fighting began in 1989 after a long dispute between traditional landowners and an Australian company that ran a copper mine, then the world’s largest, near the town of Panguna.

The national economy has survived because of new mineral projects elsewhere, but Bougainville’s future looks bleak if the war continues.

Foreign aid agencies estimate that thousands of civilians, many of them children and old people, have died of malnutrition and disease.

A government blockade intended to stop smuggled arms also has reduced shipments of food and medicine. About 50,000 residents have fled their homes to government-run camps, known euphemistically as “care centers.” Dozens of villages and the provincial capital, Arawa, are in ruins.

Prime Minister Paias Wingti acknowledges serious lapses of discipline by the military, but says claims of human rights abuses are exaggerated by “ignorant international do-gooders.” He insists that most Bougainvilleans support the government and are being terrorized by the rebels.

Peace talks have failed twice, but there are optimistic signs this time.

“We will continue to search for various peaceful ways to quickly resolve this crisis,” said Wingti, who has previously demanded unconditional surrender.

The rebels also are sounding conciliatory.

“Somewhere . . . there’s a shared middle ground,” spokesman Mike Forster told the Sydney Morning Herald.