ONE of our columnists remarked recently that while all eyes were on the situation in Mt Hagen, there were other hot spots such as the West New Britain capital that deserved equal attention.
Tuesday’s outburst of violence in Kimbe was a dramatic affirmation of that belief.
Kimbe was brought to a standstill by rival groups fighting it out, prompted by an alleged savage attack against two Talaseans a week ago today.
It is the increasing level of these clashes between tribal and clan groups throughout the country that is a source of concern to this newspaper and we imagine, to thinking Papua New Guineans everywhere.
There are too many of these passionate eruptions taking place and there appears to be too little being done to contain them.
Lives are being lost, property losses mount and family life is threatened in many places throughout our nation.
We have read and seen examples of community violence in other countries and been able to gauge how deeply these clashes divide communities.
Most recently Kenya has provided a startling example of a nation that has been savaged by violence triggered by elections, but clearly far more deep-seated and long-standing in origin.
In clashes such as those in Kenya, all pretence of control is abandoned.
People are literally left to do what they can to survive the violence. It is civil war bordering on the brink of genocide.
Over the years, much has been made of PNG’s supposed good fortune in having a remarkably diverse range of tribes.
The theory propounded has maintained that no ethnic group is likely to gain the upper hand in any confrontation.
That may have been so and it may continue to be so.
But uncontrollable outbursts such as those that have occurred over many months in Mt Hagen, matched by violent clashes in other provinces, suggests that the potential for large-scale fighting is increasing rapidly.
And it is becoming obvious that many of these battles stem from a lack of strong control in provinces and districts.
By strong control we do not mean that our people lose their rights guaranteed to them by our Constitution.
That kind of situation is typical of states of emergency, where normal rights and freedoms are suspended; no country can continue in that manner for an extended period of time without irreparable damage to the fabric of the State.
But we have a relatively large and expensive Parliament made up of freely elected Members.
No rational person expects individual Members to be able to single-handedly control violence within an electorate or a province.
But Members are not supposed to work in isolation.
Governments are supposed to devise policies and programmes that address and remedy common problems throughout the nation.
We see very little of that kind of leadership being displayed at the moment.
On the contrary, we see groups of people motivated by little more than greed, demanding outrageous recompense for a range of occurrences encompassing everything from natural disasters to development projects.
A landslide on a mountain highway is seen simply as a source of profit by people, who make little effort to generate benefits from the land, which they guard with such passion.
That any administration should regard demands of that kind as in any way tenable can only be seen as weakness and an unwillingness to rule with justice but with strength.
The result is a widespread and growing contempt for the precepts and the demonstrated actions of government.
Once the majority ceases to accept the validity of a country’s government, conflicts and clashes are bound to multiply.
Justifiably, people believe that they can dictate as they please to governments and to the instrumentalities of government.
They can demand exactly what they want and they can expect to receive it – no matter how much those demands lie outside the parameters of any sane administration.
The result is a fatal fracturing of society and the ultimate collapse of the national unit.
The great majority of our people do not want PNG to descend into that destructive whirlpool – but they are looking for a government that can demonstrate appropriate strength when challenged.
That is the nation’s greatest current need.