| Sports |
by Frank Senge Kolma
To arm or not to arm a dilemma
THERE is a raging dilemma facing a
good friend of mine. It is not the first time he has been
presented with this dilemma and I know it will not be the last
time.
It is something you have to face as a male, a Papua New Guinean
and especially as a highlander.
Guns, that’s his dilemma. His people have been begging him for a
while now to buy guns for them and the pressure has increased
again.
“It is a seasonal thing,” he told me recently. “They ask when they
need it. Now they need it.”
My friend, whom I shall not name, works in Port Moresby and, like
me, is about to run for elections.
His people have been telling him that they need the guns to defend
him during the elections.
The easy intellectual answer is easy. Tell the people guns are
bad.
Tell them to get rid of both the idea and whatever other weapons
they possess. That is the easy part.
The practical aspect is ever so much more difficult.
See, I have a similar history of being asked for guns for a long
time. My tribe has been under siege from tribes on every front.
For a time – indeed, much of the 1980s and 1990s – this pressure
was absent.
The reason was simple. Rumours went out when I made a couple of
chopper trips into the village that a supply of decent
factory-made guns and ammunition had been transported via the
chopper to my people.
Despite the small population size of our tribe, bigger tribes
around us did nothing to anger or intimidate us fearing nasty
reprisals using our presumed cache of weapons.
We took advantage of this unintended bluff and did nothing to
dissuade the fear others had of our tribe.
But such secrets will get out as they always do in places where
there are differences within the tribe itself and where marriages
bring in strange in-laws, including those who wish us evil.
And so the suspicion started that we did not have any weapons.
The aggression started, albeit very slowly against the tribe.
Disagreements at gambling escalated into fist fights and insults
against the tribe.
When the tribe did not exact swift and lethal defence of its
honour and good name, even more insidious infringes occurred,
including raids into our tribal areas on missions to steal
domestic animals or intimate our women folk.
When nothing happened almost every dispute with my people ended up
in fights which would escalate into full tribal disputes.
Demands for compensation were swift, excessive and backed up by
threats of violence and periods of intimidation.
The secret was out. We had no weapons. We were a small tribe.
We were defenceless and at the mercy of our larger neighbours who
had both the numerical strength and the fire power in guns.
We paid the compensation demanded and tried hard to control the
activities of our menfolk so that they did not incur the wrath of
our neighbours. This was not bound to work.
So the demands came to me.
“Just one gun,” the elders said. “One which we can fire to warn
our neighbouring tribes that we have guns to defend ourselves.
“It will be a defensive weapon, not an offensive one,” they seemed
to be saying to me.
How my mind reeled at the simple logic and truth of this argument.
After all, the world’s superpowers operate on the very principle
of deterrence through having the striking ability equal to or more
powerful than the opponent and by letting the other know of such
capacity.
Yet, there is another aspect to this which stopped me.
Having the capability also involves responsibility and discipline
and in the case of our tribal societies, you can never completely
be in charge of the actions of individual members who might go off
and create trouble.
While you cannot control the individual actions of one person,
tribal custom dictates that you can never escape the consequences
of that action.
The consequences for the action of the one becomes the collective
burden of the whole tribe.
And so you might give one person in a tribe who might be
responsible and disciplined but in reality you are arming the
entire tribe.
One member is going to go off shooting at the mouth or will start
up trouble knowing his tribe is capable of defending his actions
if it came to armed conflict.
And so I resisted against appeals that tore at my heart strings.
The consequences were dreadful. My people paid in cash, in kind,
in a couple of women and in blood, sweat and tears.
Our gardens were raided, a couple of women were raped and two
young women were abducted.
Eventually, the people got wise and sold pigs and bought a couple
of home-made guns. They asked me, not for guns, but for money to
pay bride price and compensation and whatever else.
I gave whenever in little amounts that I could afford – with a
guilty conscience sometimes because I believed I knew where the
money might be spent.
The tribe is at reasonable peace now but that, I suspect is only a
lull before the storm. The storm brewing is the 2007 elections.
Differences always flare up and those differences these days
increasingly tends to get nasty because of the lack of government
presence in remote locations such as at home.
Lack of income earning opportunities in these areas provide for
aggression and the resulting exorbitant compensation claims.
These claims have now become a kind of business opportunity and
people will use any number of excuses to quickly set these claims.
The above, I am afraid, is a rather personal perspective of the
national dilemma of guns facing the country.
I use my own situation to highlight the fact that the case for
ownership of guns, both individually and collectively is very
strong indeed.
How do you reduce demand as the Gun Control Committee recommended
when you can not increase my personal security against gun totting
marauding gangsters?
How do you design and promote awareness of the costs and impacts
of gun use when you very well know what the costs and impacts are
upon a community that is not protected by state sanctioned guns or
by its own guns?
How do you reduce the effects of guns on gender when you very well
know how the lack of guns put ourselves and our womenfolk at the
mercy of those who carry guns illegally?
We cannot reduce availability of guns in the country until we
first stop the leakage of weapons and ammunition from official
sources or hold those who lose guns to account.
Control of guns in this country will only take effect when we show
communities and State sanctioned law enforcement is visible and
able.
It will happen when people decide that there are better
alternatives to earning cash and improving their lives through
improved infrastructure and cash earning opportunities at the
rural areas as well as the urban areas.
Guns will disappear when there is increased police presence in the
community and the criminals are on the run.
Presently, criminals live and interact with the communities.
Police, on the other hand, live in barracks in far off towns and
district stations.
So my friend’s and my dilemma remain until and unless a holistic
approach is taken and it bears fruit.
Only then can PNG achieve peace and harmony.
When that is achieved, guns will no longer be visible, even if
they remain in the community.
 
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