‘Cut the umbilical cord’: Bougainville’s bid to break away from Papua New Guinea faces reckoning

People queue to vote in Bougainville’s capital Buka during the 2019 independence referendum. Photograph: Ness Kerton/AFP/Getty Images

For decades, the distant island of Bougainville has fought for secession from Papua New Guinea, for a future as an independent nation of its own.

This week, that long-running aspiration faces further challenge, with PNG’s parliament slated to debate the ratification of Bougainville’s 2019 UN-sanctioned referendum, in which nearly 98% of Bougainvilleans voted for independence.