Chancellor says protest has turned into mob rule

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The administrators of Papua New Guinea’s biggest university say mob violence and student unrest has forced them to abandon the academic year.

The University of Papua New Guinea’s (UPNG) council has decided to terminate all teaching activities for the remainder of the year, after a student boycott of classes led to violence.

Chancellor Nicholas Mann told students the organisers of the protest had broken the law.

“The rule of law has been replaced by mob rule, intimidation, harassment and violence,” he said.

“The learning environment has been turned into a tribal war zone with painted faces, war cries and knife-wielding persons.”

The student boycott was initially in protest of PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s handling of corruption allegations.

The unrest escalated when eight students were wounded on June 8 when police fired their guns into a group that was trying to march out of the university grounds to parliament.

Two weeks later, students burned cars and then a university building, although it is not clear whether those events were related to the student protest.

There has also been violence at PNG’s two other state Universities, the University of Technology in Lae, where a student was killed, and the University of Goroka.

The University of Papua New Guinea is the country’s largest and will next year have to accommodate new first-year students and as well as those catching up on what he should have completed this year.

The University Council also announced it was suspending the constitution of the Student Representative Council (SRC), which organised the boycott.

Chancellor Mann said that meant the SRC would cease to have any legal standing for the remainder of the year.

“If the constitution is suspended, the organisation that derives its power from it, the thing doesn’t exist, that’s all,” he said.

“Illegal activities led by the SRC since the second of May 2016 has created a threatening environment leading to the traumatisation of students and staff.”

He added that the members of the SRC and students that are found to have broken laws at the university during the students’ uprising will be “dealt with by the police”.

“You cannot break the law and get away with it. This is not a banana republic,’’ he said. “We are not running a banana university here.”

The majority of UPNG’s 5000 students have already left the campus, but those remaining are expected to go back to their home provinces in the next few days.

Many said they were upset by the decision, even though they expected it.

Political science student Christopher Yowat said he was unhappy with the university administration’s handling of the boycott, but he understood why they abandoned the academic year.

“The administration hasn’t been contributing enough to solve this issue so personally I feel very affected,” he said.

“This current situation has also not been very safe for students to be in campus and to continue studying too.”

Radio New Zealand’s correspondent in Port Moresby, Rose Amos, said the university told the students they would have to be gone by Saturday.

“They were given this week, until the weekend, to vacate the campus and probably go back to their respective provinces.”

Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said told the Post-Courier from China that the cancellation of the academic year at UPNG was regrettable.

O’Neill said that he understood that it was not an easy decision given the eight weeks lost for the academic year.

Unrest at UPNG is not without precedent. In 1991, the university was shut due to students unrest and also in 2001 where campus violence involved lives being lost. - PNC sources