Papua New Guinea, Australia and the Sandline Crisis: The Inside Story
In 1997 the government of Papua New Guinea secretly hired foreign mercenaries in a desperate attempt to wipe out a rebellion on the island of Bougainville. In a daring scoop that won her a Gold Walkley Award, 'The Australian's' Mary Louise O'Callaghan exposed the planned covert operation and set the stage for the greatest political and military crisis in PNG since its independence in 1975.
Now, drawing on her vast experience as a foreign correspondent in the South Pacific, O'Callaghan tells the real story behind PNG's mercenary crisis. Exhaustively researched and compellingly told, this dramatic narrative takes us from the streets of Port Moresby to the bloody jungles of Bougainville; from secret meetings in Hong Kong, London and Cairns to inside the cabinet rooms of Port Moresby and Canberra as the Howard government struggles to react to a crisis it hadn't seen coming.
'Enemies Within' is a fascinating moral tale of late-twentieth century international politics, involving multi-nationals, the collapse of colonialism and the phenomenon of entrepreneurial mercenaries in third-world countries.
