Stop mindless payback violence

 LAE City has become the country’s centre for ethnic violence.

Hardly a week goes by without news reports about fights between groups of people from different provinces as well as local Morobeans.

The latest ethnic clash was between settlers from Southern Highlands and Madang last week, which resulted in some injuries, a dozen homes razed and properties and food gardens destroyed.

About 500 Southern High­landers are now homeless after the fight with the Simbais of Madang, who were helped by their Chimbu and Sepik allies.

The renewed ethnic conflict in Lae followed last year’s violent clashes among groups which left several people dead and homes destroyed in notorious settlements around the city.

How much longer will Lae and its law-abiding residents tolerate such killings, brutalities and destruction of property? 

Is payback killing a feature of our Melanesian culture that should be condoned and allowed to prevail in this day and age?

The Criminal Code is quite explicit about such law­less behaviour and clearly stipulates that an act of revenge that leads to the death of an innocent person or persons is an offence that carries severe penalties, including the death penalty.

Despite the legal ramifications, ethnic and tribal groups continue to take the law into their hands through payback killings and destruction of property. 

The recent ethnic clashes in Lae city are a glaring example of the age-old payback tendencies and acts of revenge that are allowed to persist in the country’s industry hub. 

Lae metropolitan police commander Supt Iven Lakatani has repeatedly warned trouble-makers, especially in settlements, to stop taking the law into their hands. 

Interestingly, the police-people ratio in Lae is one policeman to 1500 civilians, which is a huge strain on police resources in our second largest city.

As the country’s industrial hub, Lae needs to improve its image as a centre for industry, business and commerce. It must be a place in which residents and visitors can move about without fear of crime and violence.

Lae was previously infested by petty criminals and hoodlums who turned the city streets into a living hell for law-abiding residents and visitors.

The situation turned from bad to worse and forced the local Morobeans to intervene to help the police rid the streets of these undesirables, who had drifted into the city from mostly the Highlands provinces.

Nonetheless, ethnic violence has continued unabated and will go from bad to worse if there is no concerted effort by the relevant government authorities to stamp it out.

An eviction exercise was carried out last year to remove illegal settlers. 

It was spearheaded by Governor Kelly Naru and the Morobe administration and was a first step in controlling the growth of settlements in the city.

The removal of illegal settlers may help to minimise ethnic violence in the city as  these unwanted people are kept out of the city boundaries. 

It remains to be seen whether this quick-fix solution will work in the long term as urban drift has a tendency to rebound.

The capital city of Port Moresby has had its fair share of ethnic violence, and like Lae, will continue to face this problem until the payback mentality is eradicated from these irrational and lawless minds. While the police should be commended for enforcing the law on payback killings and other acts of revenge, the onus should not be squarely placed on their shoulders. 

Other concerned groups or stakeholders should take a greater interest in this issue and play their part in changing the people’s attitudes and behaviour. 

In particular, Christian church organisations in this country seem to have ignored these ethnic conflicts. 

While members of ethnic groups in Lae have been fighting and killing each other right under the noses of major churches, we hardly hear a word from these men and women of God.

It would be even better if the churches practice what they preach by doing more to change the people’s mindset on payback killings and other serious crimes.