by Patrick Howley FMS (2002), Federation Press, London.

Bro Pat Howley is a member of the Marist Brothers’ teaching order and since 1965 has lived in Papua New Guinea. In 1990 he reached 65 and retired from his formal teaching career. However, he did not stop teaching. He began developing peace mediation courses for use in the settlement communities of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.

He subsequently helped establish what was ultimately christened the PEACE Foundation Melanesia (PEACE) , an NGO dedicated to justice and peacebuilding at the grass roots level. As the civil war in Bougainville came to an end, PEACE was invited to conduct mediation and restorative justice training. Howley has recounted his experience in Bougainville in his book Breaking Spears & Mending Hearts.

Part One gives the historical background of the crisis. In the latter half of the 20th century two events occurred which would change the lives of the people of these nineteen different language groups for decades to come. First, Bougainville became a part of a newly independent Papua New Guinea, and second, the massive mining projects of Conzinc Rio Tinto (CRA) and Bougainville Copper Ltd (BCL) set off a series of events culminating in civil war and the raskol terrorizing of the crisis years of the 1990s.

Part Two examines the forces of mediation, reconciliation and peace that emerged in the aftermath of the civil war. The crisis years had damaged the older authority structures of village life; the leadership needed retraining in negotiation and mediation. As well as the traditional village elders, PEACE targeted the natural leaders in organizations of youth, women, church workers and magistrates.
Within the decade, it had built up a largely voluntary staff of some 13 district trainers, as well as over 170 trainers who would have great success in mediating such diverse cases as adultery, regulation of the making and drinking of home brew, fights in hamlets, domestic violence and even in stopping the execution of a man.

In a chapter dedicated to community development projects, Howley relates how the PEACE mediators grasped through experience that even there it was necessary maintain neutrality so that the community decided on and took control of the project. It was then, and only then, that development projects worked.

Finally, part two concludes with an overview of other NGOs and church movements that contributed to the peace process. Howley gives credit to the important role women played in the initiative, leadership, and success of all such endeavors.
The third, final, and shortest section of the book is the most theoretical, speculative and, to my thinking, most interesting as well. Howley grapples with the question of how to combine in the most beneficial way the traditional with the western structures of law and justice.

The author perceives, in other words, an emerging paradigm of restorative justice in Bougainville that must be accompanied by integrated programs of training and education in the schools, the villages and amongst leaders. Moreover, he sees little need to bring in more trainers from overseas. The trainers are there already; the process must merely grow.

Daniel J. Stollenwerk

August 2007

Note: This review is condensed from one written by Daniel J. Stollenwerk that appeared in the November 2004 issue of Contemporary PNG Studies: DWU Research Journal published by Divine Word University in Madang, PNG. Stollenwerk’s full review is attached.