Compensation causes burden: UN

By TREVOR WAHUNE
Compensation seems inconvenient for solving conflicts, says United Nations migrations, emergencies and disaster management coordinator Wonesai Sithole.
Sithole told representatives from tribal conflict areas of Bulolo in Morobe and Kandep in Enga during a conflict resolution workshop on Wednesday in Port Moresby that when perpetrators compensated their victims, it created a win-loss situation. Sithole said although each region was different in terms of dealing with conflicts, they at least had a common ground in facilitating and resolving issues, and compensation was no exception.
He said by now people should be finding ways to promote peaceful solutions that were based on win-win situations rather than win-loss situations which has been the norm in PNG.
Sithole said if people observed compensation closely, they would see a picture of a victim seeing himself as the winner and a perpetrator seeing himself as a loser.
“We should try to find a way to make the victim and the perpetrator both win in the whole context of a conflict where the approach is to make sure we build a foundation for future peace in the community.
“The problem with the win-loss situation is the other group would be waiting for you to do something so that they can trigger another conflict and then you compensate them as well. When the practice of compensation develops, it actually affects peace in the community, and then those conflicts would pass from one generation to the other because they are not fully resolved. So there are approaches available that we should find and develop lasting peace in our communities,” Sithole said.
He said people alternatively used violence as an option where they failed to find a common ground in terms of their conflicts.
“Many people have been advocating about issues of guns and all other weapons.
“But the approach that we are to use is not about guns. It is not a gun that makes one person kill another, because even without a gun, people could still kill other people.
“So the concept is to identify the root causes that affect communities in terms of conflict then address them at root level, rather than trying to address the conflict after its effects.”