VC: Political stability lost in seven months

By ABIGAIL APINA
THE political stability Papua New Guinea enjoyed as a growing and prospering nation since Independence has evaporated in the past seven months, an academic said.
The University of Natural Resources and Environment Vice-Chancellor Prof Philip Siaguru said the hope of the people had been shattered.
He said the leadership needed at the political level of this nation appeared to have become “a leadership of revenge, dominance and control”.
“This nation’s freedom of conducting business openly and fairly has been compromised at the highest political level,” he said.
Siaguru said the immunity and self-defence enjoyed by citizens who did not have the means to buy private armies and protection had been taken away from them in broad daylight.
“Our freedom and liberty is being taken from us in broad daylight and many in the know have fallen silent and PNG, as a nation is saying our Constitution is being tested,” he said.
Siaguru said the Constitution had been “manipulated, prostituted and destroyed”.
He said nations which had fallen under one party rule had lost their open and fair democracies and still struggling to get back on their feet spiritually, economically and politically.
“Are we at war?
“Why are we testing the sacred fabric that causes us to allow wars to be fought on our soils so that we too can enjoy a sense of freedom and dignified liberty?” he said.