World

For nearly five months a bloody sabotage campaign by rebel landowners on the island of Bougainville has idled one of the world's largest copper mines and terrorized the town of Panguna and its environs. The rebels are seeking higher royalties from the mine's joint owners, an Australian company and the government of Papua New Guinea, an island nation in the southwest Pacific.

The spiral of bloodletting, which began in November, escalated last week, when landowners raided a mining camp, killing four people and setting houses ablaze. An angry mob from the settlement retaliated by slaughtering a Bougainvillean woman and her baby and torching her home. So far 39 have died in the dispute.

The violence could worsen since the rebel gang, headed by former mine surveyor Francis Ona, has grown increasingly radical in its aims. In April the group called for the secession of the North Solomons province, of which Bougainville forms the major part. Meanwhile, the economy of P.N.G., which draws 20% of its domestic revenues from the mine, is hemorrhaging. The government is offering a $200,000 reward for Ona and seven others, dead or alive.