From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Mon Feb 24 2003 - 19:48:10 MST
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6038056%255E27
03,00.html
Ethnic killings hit PNG
By Mary-Louise O'Callaghan, South Pacific correspondent
25feb03
SEVEN people are dead and more than 20 houses have been destroyed in Port
Moresby during weekend clashes between rival Papua New Guinea ethnic groups.
The deaths are the latest in a series of violent incidents to have beset the
capital since the country's economic downturn sharpened ethnic tensions.
PNG has more than 700 different language groups, with many still practising
tribal warfare and the tradition of "payback" or revenge killings.
At least three of the men killed at the weekend were chopped to death in one
of the town's more notorious outskirt squatter settlements, Nine Mile,
populated by people from the Central Province Goilala language group.
The incident occurred when relatives of a Southern Highlands businessman,
who was killed after a dispute with people from Goilala the previous
evening, allegedly rampaged through the settlement, slashing the three men
and pulling down housing and shelters.
Port Moresby police chief Geoffrey Vaki said he wanted "instigators and
escalators" of ethnic clashes to be dealt with harshly.
"I will not tolerate ethnic trouble here," he said.
"Not a weekend goes by without some sort of tribal clashes. It makes the
call for repatriation of people to their home (provinces) more credible," he
said in a reference to calls by PNG politicians for the repatriation of all
settlement dwellers from the capital.
[etc]
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