Make all engagements top secret

THE mobilisation of police personnel deployed at Wapenamanda as reported by the media, and accompanied by photographs, is not right.
The publicity gave tribal groups information about the police contingency plan.
If these tribes are armed with modern weapons and other technologies to kill each other, police should not expose a lot in the media about what they intend to do. It should be a surprise.
Police personnel in Enga should not be engaged in the planning and even the engagement in Wapenamanda.
It is common knowledge that the weapons and ammunition used by the tribes are police-issued. How they got hold of the weaponry is something for the authorities to look into.
The same principle should also apply to members of the PNG Defence Force and Correctional Services already on the ground on general duties.
Any deployment to conflict zones must involve the use of special police or army units, or a combined force, lifted from an operational base outside of the conflict zone.
Like anywhere else in the world, betrayals can occur when a member of an operational unit is a local from the conflicting zone or is affiliated to the threat through marriage, traditional, political or business ties or being just good friends.
Such connections can do a lot to deter, threaten or prevent any security operation from being successful.
Special operation units must comprise members who are “aliens” going into the conflicting zone, including their commander.
The State of PNG wants security forces to penetrate the fighting zones, disarm all who are fighting, confiscate all their weapons and have them brought before the courts to be prosecuted for their crimes.
In such a situation, obviously, the call-out will be to that special unit within the PNG Defence Force.
Orders for such operations, even in handling civil unrests and social disorders, must always be considered “top secret” and “matters of national security” and not to be divulged to any operational personnel and the media until the unit is deployed.
The outcomes can then be shared with all and sundry.
Tribal fights in Wapenamanda have advanced, hence the killing of the 50-odd armed men.
The world is watching, PNG, so let’s do it right to save our nation.

Andy Brum
Angenmol-Minj