Bulolo villagers want Sepiks out

BULOLO locals said they are not going to back down on their demands for the Sepiks to leave Bulolo, and they will not accept any other option.
“We stand firmly by our demands we set out in our petition to the authorities last month and we will not change our minds,” Bulolo leaders said yesterday.
They responded to a news report on Tuesday in which Sepiks at the care centres wanted the government to buy a piece of land in Bulolo for them to resettle on.
Chairman of the Bulolo district stretim sindaun committee, Jack Isaac with Mauri Mitta of Watut and Raoai Meki of Garaina said the Sepik’s existence in Bulolo would no longer be entertained.
They said if the authorities had difficulties finding transport to repatriate the Sepiks, then they would organise it for them.
The leaders said Bulolo locals were the church and the government and they had already spoken.
They were referring to the provincial law and order committee’s meeting planned for Timini village,  this weekend, with Lutheran church congregational leaders in the district to find solutions to the problem.
They said the locals had encountered many problems with the Sepiks for many years and there seemed to be no end in sight.
Mitta said he and five of his Watut spokesman in the committee had disassociated themselves from the committee last week to protest the authorities’ inconsistency in addressing the Bulolo crisis.
Meki, on the other hand, said for the government to buy a piece of land for Sepiks to resettle on, was out of the question.
“We will not accept that,” he said.
He said: “If the Sepiks wanted to live peacefully and continue their many years of settlement here, they should have respected us and live like everybody else in Bulolo.”
The leaders said they did not know of the proposed meeting in Timini village but were planning for a separate meeting in Mumeng on July 22. 
They are calling on Governor Luther Wenge and Bulolo MP Sam Basil to attend the meeting and clarify their stand on the issue.