KILL THE GUN CULTURE IN PNG

OP/ED

Students at two schools in the Highlands will now go without their teachers because they were killed in a tribal fight at Minj in the Western Highlands. In that fight, Police tell us that guns were used.
On the same day, three villagers from Kandep walked into our office in Mt Hagen and told us that some 300 firearms are in the hands of communities who are engaged in a conflict. They revealed that over 75 men have been killed in the conflict that has raged for a number of years.

The breakdown of law and order, the proliferation of violence now increasingly blamed on guns, and the inability of the Police or the courts to exercise authority because of various reasons, are more obvious features in PNG today.

According to Police, there is overwhelming evidence to show that major crimes over the last 15 years or more have been exacerbated by the use of illegal guns. Tribal fighting, robbery, break and enter and murder involve the use of guns. We can therefore assume that without guns, these crimes would go down.
In 2005, the Government announced the National Strategy on Gun and Violence. Under the initiative, the PNG Guns Control Committee was formed and former PNG Defence Force commander Jerry Singirok was appointed Chairman. The Singirok Committee travelled the length and breadth of this nation, carried out wide consultation and came up with a report.

That report recommended 244 ways of dealing with the gun problem in the country but it was left in the shelves at Waigani until June 2009 when it was tabled in Parliament.
The recommendations were solutions and strategies tabled for Government to take to deal with the gun culture in our country. The NEC, in a meeting soon after the report came out, approved 30 of the recommendations and tasked the Minister for Internal Security to take charge of their implementation.

The report and the NEC decision, we assume, have been left to gather dust since 2005. And while we wait for the government to take action, the widespread build up of illegal guns within our communities is slowly destroying this nation, for our people are living in fear of each other, this gun culture is a serious threat to our election process and this is seen at every national election, especially in the Highlands, this culture is a direct threat to investments in this country. We can talk about development, the multibillion kina LNG project and any other resource projects but when we have hundreds and hundreds of people arming themselves out there, we are facing a serious problem here.

Members of Parliament, business leaders, church leaders and members of the law and justice sector have expressed those concerns at different times and at different forums about this culture. This newspaper has on many occasions, spoken out against the guns culture and even led a campaign against guns in PNG. The voices are loud and clear.

Today tribal fighting continues to rage in the highlands and taking lives of people, all in the guise of settling disputes, thus undermining the power of the police and the courts. Today law abiding citizens are continuously subjected to fear and harm at the hands of criminals who take power from the guns they weld. Today homes are barricaded with spike fences, razor wires and roofing iron sheets to keep the gun welding members in our community out.

How long can we keep on living this way? How can we break free from this tyranny affecting PNG? Someone, please set us free.

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