Highlands town ‘a battlefield’

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – Violence and lawlessness are surging again in Papua New Guinea’s Hela province.

Hela communities have been reeling from last month’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 125 people in the region, while around 270,000 people are estimated to be in urgent need of aid.

With thousands of communities displaced and in need of basic supplies, many people have converged in Tari, the capital of the province.

Several days ago a local ward councillor was shot dead in plain daylight in front of a large crowd in the town.

The same day, according to local media, a young woman was gang raped by armed men who had set-up a roadblock along the Highlands Highway outside Tari.

The acting provincial police commander Thomas Levongo said the violence, especially local fighting between different tribes, was an ongoing problem.

Following on from heightened violence in the province since late 2016, including through last year’s general elections, there was a build-up of firearms in Hela.

Levongo said there was now renewed lawlessness, such as people trespassing on Tari’s airport runway which has only just become operational again after being disrupted by the quake.

“So many people – and the police, we are short of manpower,” he explained.

“The people always overcome us. They want to do what they want to do, they do it. So we try to stop them but they’re not listening.”

Levongo said that while people remained traumatised by the quake and its many aftershocks, things were slowly returning to normal.

But normal business in PNG’s Highlands often entailed roadblocks manned by armed men conducting searches or demanding money.

However, the main road link from Mt Hagen to Tari was now operational again, Air Niugini had resumed flights to Hela as well, and Tari’s hospital was operating as normal.

“Things are coming slowly to normal. Only there are people who are still causing problems and killing people at any hour in Tari area.”

He said the current Western Highlands police commander, Martin Lakari, was due to take up office in Hela and would bring reinforcements in personnel and resources.

Lakari had been quoted in local media this week saying Tari was a “battle field” where there was no respect for law and order.

- RNZI