Mobile police unit burns 200 homes in reprisal

PAPUA NEW GUINEA – The situation remains tense after two people were killed in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands region after an ambush on a government minister and a local MP travelling in convoy in Hela province last week.

Last Tuesday the Komo Margarima MP, Francis Potape, who is also Hela Governor, was travelling through Komo with Higher Education Minister Francis Marus, when their convoy was stopped by a blockade of armed men.

The MPs’ vehicle was forced to turn back but a man in another of the convoy’s vehicles was killed.

He was forced out of the vehicle and shot at point blank range by the men at the blockade.

The MPs got away unhurt but another man died in a subsequent shootout, according to the Hela provincial police commander Michael Welly.

“One other innocent guy, who happened to be in the convoy and was driving the vehicle, they shot him and he just drove off into the drain and obviously died,” he said.

“In the process of retreat, our policemen exchanged fire with the clansmen, and one of our guys got shot on the shoulder and on the eyebrow. He’s recovering now in the hospital.”

Marus, who was touring provincial higher education institutions with the governor, said that their convoy was held up for some time at the blockade.

“After almost half and hour of talking and persuasion by the governor, the warring people allowed us to turn our vehicle and drive back,” Marus explained.

It was then, as they turned around and drove off from the blockade, that the shootings happened after a man with the MPs was recognised as a enemy of the tribe manning the blockade.

Some reports from Tari suggested four people died in the incident, but the police commander said that figure related to another recent tribal conflict elsewhere in Hela.

Last Tuesday’s violence in Komo was the latest in a string of tribal clashes this year in Hela, the hub of PNG’s landmark LNG gas project.

Meanwhile, the police mobile unit has been accused of launching a reprisal in their pursuit of the perpetrators after the deadly attack.

A local Red Cross field worker, Isaac Pulupe, said the tribal warriors who conducted the ambush were from Ligame.

“The next morning, LNG security police, hired by ExxonMobil – because one of the policemen that was injured was LNG security police – so they came up and they went for a raid, burning all properties,” he said.

“They went extreme, and even innocent people’s properties were burnt, not the warriors’ place only.”

Pulupe said almost 200 houses in Ligame were burnt or destroyed along with much of the village’s property and livestock.

However Police Commander Welly played down this suggestion, explaining that the police mobile squad was asked to go to Ligame to search for the suspects.

“Obviously they went and everybody hid them, so obviously one or two houses were put up in flames, yeah.”

One of the two MPs caught up in the ambush, Francis Marus, has defended the conduct of the police during the incident.

“The police acted professionally even with all the illegal high powered firearms pointing at us,” he said.

The ambush and shootout have come amid an apparent overall worsening of tribal conflicts in Hela, which is a worry for local authorities as next year’s general elections approach.

The situation remains tense with the suspects still at large.

- RNZI