Tribal leaders want peace maintained

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By ELIAS LARI
LEADERS from a well-known tribal fighting zone in Southern Highlands have decided to give peace a chance but they are still demanding compensation for an accidental death.
They have for the first time decided to do away fighting following the death of a young man in a road accident. Instead of retaliating, the dead man’s tribe called for peace but want K800,000 and 300 pigs as compensation because the driver of the vehicle that crashed into a tree, causing the death  of the man, was from the rival clan. The vehicle had run off the road.
Leaders from the Hunpiol clan in Kuware village in the Nipa district opted for compensation and peace over revenge against the Oparep and the Kandatelwe clans.
This came after Jim Hulum, 23 and a motor mechanic from the Hunipol clan, was killed in a car accident at Kagul in Imbonggu three weeks ago.
Hulum was in the company of a group of young men who had travelled from Nipa to Mt Hagen when the vehicle crashed into a huge tree.
Others escaped unhurt while Hulum suffered  multiple internal injuries.
The accident took place on Nov 10 and he died last Tuesday while in hospital.
The driver of the vehicle was from the Oparep clan and it was hired by a public servant from the Kandatelwe clan.
Following his death, the road from Nipa into Hela was blocked off by the relatives of Hulum.
Police in Nipa moved into the area to negotiate for the road to be reopened and helped in the peace process.
Leaders from Kuware decided not to take the law into their own hands.
They demanded a compensation of  K800,000 and 300 pigs.
Peace mediation chairman Malken Wak Kimbil said that all they wanted was compensation.