Blame and apology for ‘chaos’

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The Papua New Guinea Works Minister Francis Awesa says the country risks disintegrating into small fragmented ethnic groupings controlled by illegally armed warlords.

The minister was speaking after the violent death of a student on the Lae campus of the University of Technology.

He said citizens should rise to protect the Constitution and its provisions that promote and guarantee national unity.

The Post-Courier reports Awesa reiterating an earlier call that state agencies and institutions must do their utmost to protect and uphold the laws.

He cited the Unitech administration and police for not taking proactive action such as putting officers on to the campus to protect lives and property.

Awesa says this led to the tense situation deteriorating resulting in the death of a young student from his electorate.

He said since both the Unitech administration and the Lae police hierarchy failed to respond appropriately he has repeated his call for them to be replaced.

Unitech vice-chancellor Albert Schram has responded by apologising that the approach taken to quell the chaos of June 25-26 was not successful.

On the evening of June 25 to the early morning hours of June 26, a student factions’ dispute resulted in the alleged murder of Graham Romanong, a first-year student from Southern Highlands Province, and four buildings belonging to the University set alight.

Doctor Schram reiterated that the management did everything possible to prevent the chaos and took all measures to assure safety of all staff.

“If we were not successful and we are sorry for this,” Dr Schram said.

He said the death and burning down of the buildings at the Unitech were not inevitable. But he said even with perfect security measures in place a small group was intent on death and destruction.

Dr Schram maintained that the management had been firm when they had to be firm and as soon as the campus police and security guards could not control the situation, police were asked to be fully deployed on campus.

He said what happened was a night of horrors but a team effort resulted in the setting up of an operation centre which had worked 24/7 to control the situation.

“During the night our priorities were to rescue the students trapped in their dorm rooms who did not know what was going on, disperse the mob, keep the warring groups separate, organise the evacuation, and inform parents and sponsor about the situation on campus.”

He said that instead at least 40 million kina (US$12.5 million) would be needed to rebuild the burnt down infrastructures.

- PNC sources