Early interventions Peter Sohia (2002) Peter Sohia traces how negotiations on Bougainville’s relationship to the PNG government developed from 1980s to the mid-1990s. Talks reflected the dynamics of the violence itself, in particular the degeneration of violence around personal and community issues, the violence of the PNG Defence Forces, the withdrawal of government administrators and services, and the appearance of the Bougainville ‘resistance’ forces opposed to independence. The increasingly inter-Bougainville nature of the violence was tackled in talks aimed at establishing peace between the communities in Bougainville, such as the Arawa Peace Conference and the establishment of the Bougainville Transitional Government. Sohia argues that, despite the collapse of all of these efforts and repeated returns to greater violence, they form part of an important cumulative process towards peace.
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