Compensation payments bringing peace to highlands

Highlands

COMPENSATION payment is now becoming a normal way of solving tribal conflicts in the highlands.
On Friday, two clans of the Keken tribe in Baiyer, Western Highlands, performed a compensation-payment ceremony after the death on July 16 of a young man from the Kinjo clan who was killed by the Mokoyole people.
The Keken Mokoyole clan paid K80,000 in cash, 110 pigs, two cassowaries, two cows, three cuscus and four goats to the Keken Kinjo clan.
Trouble started when a coffee machine was stolen by a young man from Kunga tribe in Baiyer. The thief took the coffee machine to the village of the Mokoyole where his uncles lived.
The owner of the coffee machine was told where the suspect was living and he got his relatives together and attacked.
Members of the Mokoyole clan fought back and the young man was killed.
Baiyer local level government president Paraka Nii, who is a former Western Highlands deputy governor, said that it was the first time that he had seen his clan involved in a fight like that.
He said the coffee machine that started the fighting cost K300 at the hardware shop.
“This compensation is to end the conflict between the two clans,” he said.
“In future I want to call on our young men to have respect for the law and follow the footsteps of their fathers.
“I thanked the two clans for making peace and it must be followed by others who are engaged in such conflicts.”
Nii said the payment of compensation was the way to resolve tribal conflicts and bring peace to the communities.