lawlessness

Behind the lawlessness

From Percy Chatterton,

in Port Moresby Dominating the scene as Papua New Guinea enters its year of destiny, by the end of which it expects to be self-governing, is the rising tide of lawlessness in the Highlands, drama tically culminating on Christmas Eve in the killing of two senior local officers of the Public Service at Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands, fol lowing a road accident in which a child had been knocked down and killed. The men were Dr Luke Rovin, the District Medical Officer, and Mr Peter Moini, the associate Super

intendent of Schools in the district.

Let’s begin by getting the record straight. What happened at Goroka could have happened anywhere in Papua New Guinea where there are roads carrying vehicular traffic, and coastal and island people have no justification for adopting a holier than-thou attitude over it. Mob violence following traffic accidents is endemic in places like Port Moresby, Lae and Rabaul, and it has probably been the prompter action of the police rather than the lesser violence of the mob that has prevented some of these incidents from having the same fatal outcome as that at Goroka.

But Goroka’s Christmas Eve tragedy follows a long series of events which has given the Highlands the reputation of being the most lawless part of Papua New Guinea. Does it deserve that reputation, and how has the situation come about?

I think that the answer to the first question must be a qualified “yes”, qualified because it must be remem bered that the Highlands area is the most thickly populated part of the country. Because of this, any dis turbances which occur there involve more people, become more spectac ular, and consequently attract more attention from the news media, than similar disturbances, involving much smaller numbers of people, which take place on the coast or in the islands.

The answer to the second question is more difficult. Highlands apologists make much of the fact that the people of the Highlands have had a much shorter time in which to travel from the stone age to the 20th century than those in any other part of the country, and are still, so to speak, maladjusted to the new way of life.

This is true, and it may explain,

and to some extent excuse, the pre valence of mini-wars over land and of pay-back killings. But it neither explains nor excuses the exploits of Highlands highwaymen in robbing trucks travelling from coast to high lands, nor does it explain or excuse the breaking and entering of stores or the snatching of handbags and cash boxes. This is just plain thuggery in any language.

A United Party official has claimed that the cause of all this lawlessness is the transfer of authority from expatriates to indigenes. This shot is unusually off target even for United Party markmanship.

For while it is true that the laws are made by a predominantly indigenous House of Assembly, theii enforcement is in the hands of the Division of District Administration, the police and the courts, and in all these services nearly all the senior positions are still occupied by ex patriates.

The Superintendent of Police in the Western Highlands is none other than that doughty old-timer Mike Thomas. All four Highlands districts have expatriates as district commis sioners. And all the judges, and most if not all of the magistrates, who adjudicate in cases other than those of very minor law-breaking in the Highlands, are expatriates.

Moreover, as Minister for the Interior John Guise has tartly pointed out, the control of the police is still in the hands of the Australian Govern ment and not, as Dr Guise would doubtless like it to be. a responsibility of his portfolio.

What is true, and not unimportant, is that Mr Somare’s government has inherited the pre-1972 Administration dominated government’s policy of a kid-glove approach to the main tenance of law and order in the Highlands, in contrast to the tough line approach it had previously taken in Bougainville and the Gazelle Peninsula. It may well be that Mr Somare’s government will have to take another look at that policy.

I myself look back with wry amusement to the furore over the Public Order Bill of 1970. With the backing of Highlands members eager to see the hated Mataugans cop it. that bill was bulldozed through.

With what result? Months passed before the ordinance was brought into force. And since that time only a few of its minor provisions have been utilised; its major provisions, including the most controversial ones, have never been invoked, though current lawlessness in the Highlands exceeds anything that ever happened

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(From page 4)

in the Gazelle Peninsula or in Bougainville.

In the meantime, what are the immediate fruits of Highlands law lessness in general and the Christmas Eve killings in particular?

First, the grinding to a halt of the Highlands Famine Relief Appeal. It can hardly be a matter for surprise if, when coastal or islands people hear of lorry-loads of food bound for the famine areas being raided by highwaymen in the non-famine parts of the Highlands through which they have to pass, or of tribal warriors in the famine areas trampling under foot newly planted sweet-potato gardens which they have turned into a battleground, they should say, “What the heck!”

Second, the demand for a manda tory death sentence for wilful murder, rejected by the last House of As sembly, will almost certainly be renewed in this one, with a greatly increased chance of acceptance.

Already there have been demands from all over the country, and parti cularly of course from Bougainville, for the hanging, and even the public hanging, of murderers, and especially of pay-back killers.

Third, the Goroka killings have almost certainly give a trenmendous fillip to the secessionist movement in Bougainville.