Death of a self-proclaimed king: what next for Bougainville's Twin Kingdoms?

Bougainville's strangest saga has reached its end. David Peii II — the self-styled ruler of the unrecognised Twin Kingdoms of Papaala and Meekamui — died in Tannu City on 12 October after several weeks of illness, and was buried in a ceremony on 17 November. He was born Noah Musingku, and his story is one of the more bizarre chapters in the Pacific.

Musingku first made his name in the late 1990s through U-Vistract, an investment scheme promising extraordinary returns. It drew substantial money before collapsing amid allegations it was a Ponzi scheme. Facing trouble with the law in Papua New Guinea, he fled to Bougainville and found shelter among supporters of Francis Ona, a Bougainville Revolutionary Army leader who had declared himself King of Meekamui. After Ona died in 2005, Musingku crowned himself King David Peii II and merged the two kingdoms, ruling from a base at Tonu with his own administration, financial network and armed security detail.

No government ever recognised the Kingdom. Papua New Guinea considers it fraudulent, and the Bougainville regional government is equally hostile — tolerated, many suspect, mainly because of concerns about heavily armed mercenaries backing it. Still, the King remained a genuinely divisive local figure: the travel company Young Pioneer Tours, which has run tours into the Twin Kingdoms, describes meeting him four times, being questioned at PNG immigration over a TikTok filmed with him, and even opening a local bank account just to secure an audience.

What happens now is anyone's guess. The childless King left no clear successor, and his Kingdom's own announcement admits the "vacuum" is too big for anyone to fill. There's also the open question of thousands of U-Vistract investors across Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Australia and beyond, who now have even less certainty about their money.

For travellers, though, there's a hopeful angle. Bougainville voted overwhelmingly for independence from Papua New Guinea in a 2019 referendum, and the King's long standoff with Port Moresby was one of the complications in that process. With him gone, commentators suggest there may be room for amnesty and reintegration — potentially smoothing the path for what could become the world's newest nation. Whether niche operators keep running tours to the Twin Kingdoms' territory remains to be seen, but Bougainville itself — jungle-clad, barely touristed and rich in WWII history — remains one of the Pacific's most intriguing off-the-map trips.