The Bougainville Consultative Committee for Missing persons (BCCM) has been told to operate with open doors to allow for outside input.
Acting Director of the Department of Referendum and former vice-president, James Tanis, told the workshop last Wednesday: “I would like to see this committee focus and be creative and more importantly, operate with open doors.
“We have to work together with other stakeholders. I would really discourage this committee from going on a fact finding mission, trying to establish what happened when and where. This can arouse some past anger.
“It is true the deputy chairman is a former Defence Force soldier but I don’t see him as a government representative, I see him as a Bougainvillean. What I would like to see from this committee after two workshops already is a positive outcome and results,” Tanis said.
“First of all, a proposal must be put out to review the ABG policy on missing persons and at the same time, an officer from the National Coordination Office of Bougainville Affairs (NCOBA) has to be a member of the committee. Also, an active member of the PNGDF must be in the committee; everyone must be involved.”
Tanis also encouraged the committee to work hard, saying that the mission is possible and doable.
“We will do it, nothing is and will be impossible if we all focus on the objective we are all looking at and are aiming to achieve.”
(PNGDF soldiers in a recent funeral of the late Captain Martin Taririn. The BCCM has now been tasked to involve an active officer of the PNGDF to be part of the committee.)