leaders, such as Kabui. Several other village militias, which together became known as the resistance and were armed by the PNG defence forces, forced the BRA out of their areas. Papua New Guinea's policy towards Bougainville hardened after the defeat of the incumbent government at the 1992 elections. New Prime Minister Paias Wingti took a considerably more hardline stance. He angered residents of the Solomon Islands after a bloody raid on one island that was alleged to be supporting the Bougainvilleans. In alliance with the resistance, the Papuan army succeeded in retaking Arawa, the provincial capital, in January 1993. Papuan Foreign Minister Sir Julius Chan attempted to recruit a peacekeeping force from the nations of the Pacific, but Wingti quashed the idea. He subsequently ordered the army to retake the Panguna mine, and was initially successful. However, his government was short-lived. In August 1994 he was replaced as Prime Minister by Chan. Chan announced his intention to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. He met with Kauona in the Solomon Islands and arranged for a peace conference to be held in Arawa that October, with security provided by an Australia-led South Pacific Peacekeeping Force. However, the BIG leaders boycotted the conference, claiming that their safety could not be guaranteed. In their absence, Chan's government entered into negotiations with a group of chiefs from the Nasioi clan, headed by Theodore Miriung, a former lawyer for the Panguna Landowners Association. This resulted in the establishment of a Bougainville Transitional Government in April 1995, with its capital in Buka. Miriung was named Prime Minister of the new government, but he frequently clashed with Chan by criticising abuses committed by Papuan soldiers. By 1996, Chan was beginning to get frustrated at the lack of progress. In January, following a round of negotiations in Cairns, Australia, between the BRA, BTG and the PNG government, a PNG defence force patrol boat fired upon Kabui and the other delegates when they returned to Bougainville. The next month, the home of the BIG's representative in the Solomon Islands, Martin Mirori, was firebombed. Chan decided to abandon attempts at peace, and on 21 March 1996, he gave the go-ahead for an invasion of Bougainville, under new commander of the PNG defence forces, Jerry Singirok. Sandline and ceasefire After five resolutions in the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, a report by the Special Rapporteur on Summary Executions and