Alder Cases?

PO Alder Acquitted

Could Haste In

Ng Mean More

Alder Cases?

From a Port Moresby Correspondent New Guinea Patrol Officer Otto Kenneth Alder in April was acquitted of a charge of having unlawfully burned native houses. Previously, the P-NG Crown Law Department had dropped a charge against him of un lawfully wounding a native. The Alder case caused considerable public comment in Papua-New Guinea (“ PIM”, April, p. 21.) T'HE house burning incidents took A place last year, when PO Alder was on patrol in uncontrolled Ku kukuku country south-east of Wone ara and was attacked by hostile natives.

He told the P-NG Supreme Court, sitting at Kainantu in April, that he was 22 at the time, and had not been told officially by the Department of Native Affairs how he should treat wild natives, how he should pacify them if they fought or how he should act if he or his patrol were attacked.

Native Police Constable Gorabe, who was with the patrol, said that while the patrol was restricted to a ndgetop footpath, scores of hostile natives began firing arrows from hill side vantage points.

Gorabe said that he had made many patrols with Australian officers and sometimes the officers had burned native houses as a reprisal after at tack by natives. He had come to re gard it as standard practice.

PO Alder’s explanation was that he had burned the houses because he thought they might contain weapons that could be turned against his patrol.

In acquitting him, Mr. Justice Mann said that Alder’s reputation had not been tarnished by the proceed ings. But he criticised him for not entering in his monthly patrol report the fact that he had burned the huts.

After the case concluded, Mr.

Alder returned to Australia to con tinue the leave that was interrupted last December when police began in vestigations and recalled him to New Guinea.

Some wild talk that filled the air when the Alder case first received prominence a month or two ago has meanwhile subsided.

Patrol officers, men in their early twenties and those most likely to be affected by the outcome of the

(Continued on p. 139)

s findings were the most voci -5 when the circumstances first headlines. ne patrol officers averred that if with situations similar to that anting Alder they would back rather than jeopardise their rs by taking action which might in censure by Administration, ire seasoned officers in the field, sympathetic, maintain that such ions can usually be handled discretion and wisdom, e such senior officer, recalling wn experiences, told of working lously for three years to bring a in a restricted area under con only to have his entire work ed while he was on leave by the is of a young patrol officer, ere are a number of precedents e Alder case and some officers, ly censured for their actions, fallen by the wayside. Others [ill gaining in strength. One such, experiencing similar trouble in , is now a District Officer. It tie who quickly came to the res by starting a £5OO fund for r’s defence, and an amount in is of £9OO was almost spon iusly contributed, donors being

ly Native Affairs personnel.

Ik that Alder’s career will be ly affected now he is acquitted Dt be anything but supposition, is it likely, as has been sug d, that the initiative of young irs in the field will be adversely ;d. iefings to patrol officers and ;s indicate the profound respon ty that is theirs. Though courage, tive and resourcefulness need to be called upon, the A’s and if conduct when faced with resis ; are firmly laid down, ic question paramount in the r case remains unanswered and is the Administration’s own con ce in regard to its “hurry-up” ramme. could be that an insistence on ig all areas of the Territory un control by a certain date is the m why young men are sent into tions which they are too inex mced to handle.