Blame it on O’Neill and Somare

NO. Sir Michael Somare cannot blame Peter O’Neill for the scare Port Moresby woke up to yesterday at the Murray and Taurama defence force barracks.
And, no, O’Neill cannot blame Sir Michael for the same.
Both are to be blamed.
Both sowed the seeds for just such an event when each claimed legitimacy to the position of prime minister after the Supreme Court decision of Dec 12 and the actions of parliament immediately prior to and subsequent to the decision.
Both let those seeds grow from mere confusion to dissension and bitter animosity between the groups supporting each side by refusing to budge from their entrenched positions.
They allowed pride to stand in the way of dialogue, consensus and compromise – an essential, time-worn ingredient to problem-solving in Melanesia.
Indeed, what happened at Murray Barracks is just a repetition of what happened between Sir Michael’s choice of a police commissioner in Fred Yakasa and O’Neill’s choice in Toami Kulunga; in Sir Michael’s choice of a finance secretary in Gabriel Yerr and O’Neill’s choice in Steven Gibson; Sir Michael’s choice of a first legislative counsel in maintaining Hudson Ramatlap and O’Neill’s choice in Ramatlap’s deputy Vela Konivaro.
The list can go as
long as the entire civil service and, when that is done, the public sector will be divided neatly into
two opposing rows.
That is not mere conjecture.
That is the real possibility as the impasse stretches now into its sixth week.
And, now, it is Sir Michael’s choice of a defence force commander in retired army colonel Yaura Sasa versus O’Neill’s choice of Sir Michael’s previous choice – Francis Agwi.
The police and defence force heads tussles have tended to attract more attention because they involved uniformed and armed personnel.
That is the only difference.
And, it will not end here.
The seed of confusion sown has already germinated into dissension and its roots are spreading ever wider and deeper.
Papua New Guineans might give the outward impression that they do not care, that the politics does not affect them. But they do care and politics affect them deeply.
And left to fetter through lack of decisive and collaborative action by the two sides, the gap will grow wider and the impasse will develop into fully-fletched animosity and violence.
The way forward has been repeatedly told to the Somare and O’Neill factions by so many from churches to concerned individuals.
The impasse can only be broken if the two sides will talk, if each side can give way a little in order to accommodate the other.
A marriage of the sort anticipated cannot
be legislated.
It has to be a political solution, through negotiation, consensus and compromise.
The reality is that it will be short-lived anyway – until the next general election which begins in three months.
Many will find it sexy to describe yesterday’s friction at Murray Barracks as a coup, but seriously it wasn’t.
The prerequisites for a coup were not there yesterday and, thank goodness for that, because the consequences of one are dire as our copy editor, Fijian Gabriel Singh, describes in his article below.
Singh, a journalist of some 32 years standing, gives Papua New Guineans an unfettered gaze below into the horrors of coups as he lived them and it is not something he or others would wish on Papua New Guinea.
Even mutiny is a hard word to attribute to yesterday’s act which stemmed from a genuine believe by Sasa that he is the legitimate commander, having been appointed by Sir Michael Somare.
The only catch here is that there is a process to all appointments including approval by the head of state and publication in the national gazette.
This did not happen in Sasa’s case.
Coup and mutiny and other treasonable acts will follow, however, if our political heads do not find it in themselves to come together, if not for themselves then for the good of the nation, to resolve this impasse.
That is the way forward, the only peaceful way forward.