NEW Guinea Islands divisional commander Francis Tokura has ordered the West New Britain (WNB) police commander to arrest the “ringleaders” involved in the ethnic clash between people from Talasea and Kimbe settlement.
The trouble began after a councillor and a student from the Talasea area were allegedly attacked and robbed by some youths from Section 10 settlement last Thursday night as they were returning from a shop.
The Talasea people, in retaliation, went on rampage, destroying properties on Tuesday between 2 and 3pm.
Mr Tokura said the mobile squad team from Kokopo were deployed to Kimbe early yesterday morning to contain the situation.
Ringleaders from both parties would be rounded up and dealt with.
He said the mobile squad team would be in the province for two-three weeks to help the provincail police commander (PPC) chief Insp Richard Mulo to monitor the situation.
“I will assess the PPC’s report, and if it is serious, I will have to fly over to personally assess the situation,” Mr Tokura said.
Insp Mulo has expressed great concern that the villagers from Bakove and Talasea had taken the law into their own hands when they should have let police deal with it.
“Leaders from the Talasea area went against my advice, and encouraged their youths to go on rampage at the Section 10 settlement right after they presented their petition to the Deputy Governor Tony Puana, Kimbe town mayor Leo Kalasi and police,” he said.
The petition presented by the Talasea people contained four demands:
l The arrest of suspects from the Section 10 settlement (Insp Mulo has confirmed that seven are already in police custody);
l Settlers at the Section 10 to reimburse the amount of money that was stolen from the two Talasea men who were later stabbed by the settlers. (Insp Mulo said the settlers had reimbursed more than what they had stolen);
l A compensation to Talasea people amounting to K10,000 from the settlers at Section 10;and
l Voluntary leaving of the province by Section 10 settlers.
Insp Mulo said he had received information that the two men, who were attacked by the settlers from Section 10 last Thursday, were looking for beer at black markets at the settlement when they were attacked. They did this at a time when WNB was going through a liquor ban period,” Insp Mulo said.
Meanwhile, lord mayor for Kimbe town Leo Kalasi called for peace in Kimbe following yesterday’s riot.
In an interview with The National, he said this ethnic problem had been there for the last 20-30 years and past leaders had failed to enact laws that would have allowed settlers to abide by them when ethnic clashes broke out.
Mr Kalasi said with the boom in oil palm, more people were migrating to the province, bringing in more problems, and the only way to solve this was to identify trouble-makers and let the law deal with them.