The Remarkable Sir Alexis Holyweek Sarei
Patrick Nomos: 5/8/2020
(Photo Credit: The late Sir Alexis Sarei (left), Gagan Village, Buka, 1998 by Jan Gammage - courtesy of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau).
Recently released correspondence between Sir John Kerr, Australia's Governor-General from 1974 to 1977 and the then private secretary of Queen Elizabeth II, Martin Charteris, includes a letter dated 4/9/1975 concerning issues relating to Bougainville. A paragraph of this letter describes a press conference held at Arawa, Bougainville on 31/8/1975 where Dr Alexis Sarei and Mr Leo Hannett, "....declared that there is a Republic of North Solomons with Dr Sarei as the leader of the Government. He is stated to be Chairman of the Republic".
Dr Sarei held the position of President of the (unrecognised) Republic of the North Solomons from 1/9/1975 to 9/8/1976, his tenure ending when a settlement, the "Bougainville Agreement", was reached between Bougainville, and the Territory of Papua and New Guinea on the basis of increased decentralisation. Bougainville was renamed "North Solomons Province" with increased self-governance powers. Later that year Dr Sarei was elected as the first Premier of the North Solomons Province, serving in that role for a full term until 1980 when he was replaced by Leo Hannett.
Dr Sarei's appointment as PNG's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK) was announced on 14/9/1980. While serving as High Commissioner in London from 1980 to 1983, Dr Sarei was befriended by the late Honourable 'Akau'ola (Inoke Fotu Faletau), a Tongan noble who was Tonga's High Commissioner to the UK. The two Pacific diplomats often took exercise walks together on Hampstead Heath.
In 1984 Dr Sarei was re-elected as Premier of the North Solomons Province, a post which he held until 1987. He was declared a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1987 New Year's Honours List for services to diplomacy, and public and community affairs. He had previously been awarded the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1981 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to provincial government.
In 1991, following his brief detention and release by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army, Sir Alexis, and his wife Lady Claire and family moved to California, USA where they lived in Lady Claire's family home for the duration of the Bougainville Crisis. As a prominent figure in Bougainville affairs, his advisers considered it too dangerous for him to reside in Bougainville during this turbulent period. While maintaining remote contact with the unfolding security situation in Bougainville, he helped support his family by doing odd jobs, including a stint as a security guard in a local bank.
In 2000, Sir Alexis and several other prominent Bougainvilleans initiated a class action in the USA courts against the British and Welsh mining giant Rio Tinto PLC and Australian corporation Rio Tinto Limited, the parent company of Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL), to address BCL's human rights abuses in Bougainville during the Crisis. Employing the "Alien Tort Claims Act 28 U.S.C.", this class action became something of a test case to see whether USA courts could assume extra-territorial jurisdiction over multinational corporations accused of gross human rights abuses overseas. The class action centred factually on allegations that Rio Tinto, through BCL, provided significant logistic support to the PNG Defence Force (PNGDF), which enabled PNGDF soldiers to commit gross human rights abuses during the Crisis. However, the class action didn't reach the stage where questions of fact could be determined because the case was struck out in 2013 on jurisdictional grounds.
Upon their return from the USA to Bougainville in 2005, Sir Alexis and Lady Claire resumed residence at their home in Notukou Hamlet, Gagan Village, Buka Island where Sir Alexis devoted his energies to the re-introduction of a chiefly government system called Hanatei Soing. Based on clan membership in the Solos-speaking region of Buka Island, Hanatei Soing provides a means by which social issues, including clan-land distribution, can be discussed and resolved within clans. Sir Alexis oversaw the erection of clan meeting houses in many Solos villages and provided guidance in the day-to-day operations of the Hanatei Soing. At that time he said of the Hanatei Soing that the best he could do for the Solos people was to give them back something that belonged to their fore-fathers.
In 2010 Sir Alexis was elected member for Peit Constituency in the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG), a position which enabled him to promote the Hanatei Soing at a time when resistance to his ideas was growing among his political opponents. Following Lady Claire's death in the USA in April, 2011, Sir Alexis' deteriorating health contributed to him missing three consecutive sittings of parliament, allowing his political opponents to successfully lobby the ABG to hold a by-election in Peit Constituency to replace him.
Although sidelined from mainstream politics, Sir Alexis continued to receive a steady stream of visitors at Notukou seeking advice on political and social issues. The rejection of the Rio Tinto class action in 2013 must have been hard for him to bear, but he retained a positive outlook, even as his health continued to decline. Sir Alexis was admitted to the Buka General Hospital in early September 2014 and remained there until his death on 22/9/2014, at the age of 80.
Among any regrets Sir Alexis may have had towards the end of his remarkable life, uppermost must have been the lack of a clear political successor. With polling in the ABG elections scheduled to start on 12/8/2020, the credentials of the current crop of candidates for Peit Constituency look uniformly uninspiring. Sadly, the Solos people are likely to wait a long time before someone of Sir Alexis Holyweek Sarei's character and intellect emerges to lead them into Bougainville's post-referendum future.