Mediation maintains peace for groups in conflict

By PETER ESOP WARI
MEDIATION by leaders and police in Hela last Thursday brought two parties together who resolved their differences and promised to keep peace in their communities.
The conflict was between people from Dauli and Wabia, both in the Komo-Margarima district, Hulia LLG, over a vehicle belonging to the Hela United church.
The church planned to host a national women and bishops’ conference, launch a nursing college and a book called “Community Good”.
The church decided to buy a vehicle and lease it to the PNG LNG project site at Komo to raise funds for the events.
Tari police station commander Peter Buka said the vehicle was held up by some men from Wabia and during the fight with the driver from Dauli, some of them were  injured.
He said the men from Wabia took the vehicle to their village and kept it there for eight weeks. They dug a deep drain to prevent the vehicle from being taken out.
“The men from Wabia wanted compensation from the church as some of their men were hospitalised and  the United church wanted the men to be arrested for holding onto a church property vehicle and disturbing the daily business operations,” Buka said.
He added that the issue was complicated and after several attempts, he looked for other alternatives to resolve the problem.
“Such issues like this ignite into big problems but the station commander did a wonderful job to take both parties to the Tari police station and have the problem solved peacefully,” Hela United church bishop Wai Tege said.
He said as a head of the church, he wanted to take the matter to the law but the PSC had some very brilliant ideas to convince both parties to come to a compromise and restored peace.
The men from Wabia came to an understanding that the vehicle belonged to the church which was not a profit making organisation and agreed not to ask compensation while the church agreed not to charge them for hindering their normal business operations for eight weeks.
The vehicle was successfully retrieved without any parts missing and the keys were handed over to the PSC who gave it the Bishop.
James Angobe, Wabia community leader who took the lead to help police and negotiated peace said Hulia LLG was the home of the PNG LNG project, Governor Anderson Agiru, institutions like Dauli Teachers College and Tari Secondary school and they wanted peace to prevail.
“I highly commend the good work done by the police and want more of such peaceful mediation to be done in the future,” he said.