Ost Weekend
p. 27 · Read in the full issue
[?]Ir Has A
Papua-New Guinea’s Pacific
ands Regiment lost most of its
>ry one lost weekend in De mber.
ONG regarded as a disciplined regiment of well-trained, spick and-span native troops that ild be called on in an emergency, regiment made a sudden about n to involve itself in vicious riot with native civilians. ’he next day, members of the iment again became a howling b and took charge of a court m where some of their fellow Dps were being dealt with for the vious day’s rioting. They over tied a table, hurled a bottle, mg their belts and threw iches. ort Moresby had seen nothing it before, and fearful that it :ht see something like it again, quickly passed a resolution rough the Town Advisory Coun demanding the regiment be got of town permanently, eople from all over the Terri r added their condemnation. ;ry, bristling criticism was aimed everybody on hand. The troops e “mutinous, arrogant, rabble”, r Australian officers were “weak, rperienced”, the Administration ■ “to be condemned”, the police “stood by and done nothing”. ajor-General T. Daly, GOC shern Command, who was quoted Brisbane as saying the troops rioted in court because the court being held in “their beloved se of learning, or education i,” was quickly shot down for ing “hypocritical nonsense, an It to the intelligence of terri ins.” le rioting was supposed to have ted after a PIR soldier had in ;d two Kerema women, a few before. In retaliation, other ;mas attacked PIR men, who in rn retaliated by arriving at Koki cets by the truckload and start si free-for-all. i Sunday, December 15, 200 PIR went out looking for Keremas, aging property before more than of them accepted orders and med to barracks. But another fused, and another, wilder, brawl ed with Keremas and PIR using js and makeshift weapons be they were broken up. total of 20 natives and a Euro were hurt in thb brawls.
Ireds of natives, Kerema and were arrested. ere were some, although not 7, who had earlier been ready
■ to pass off the trouble as “just a brawl” between native factions, but when the troops took charge of the court room, and refused to obey their officers, general condemnation was swift.
Quite rightly, the court episode was regarded as a different matter The PIR obviously needed, and clearly would get, a big shake-up even though it was true that one company of the regiment did not have even one of its men involved in the sorry business.