Preacherman
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From the Telegraph, London (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/03/ixworld.html):
Tribal rows used to be settled by bow and arrow, now it's an M-16
By Nick Squires in Mount Hagen
(Filed: 03/09/2005)
A thousand tribal warriors, bodies glistening with pig fat, faces daubed with black and red ochre, swarmed on to a muddy arena in headdresses and grass kilts.
They were armed with lethal-looking axes and spears. Tucked into their belts were daggers made from the bone of the cassowary, a giant tropical bird related to the emu.
A tribal warrior from Papua New Guinea
Beating drums and chanting war songs, the warriors, some with pig tusks through their noses, were the highlight of the Mount Hagen Show, a tribal gathering held annually in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
The show is one of the world's most exotic anthropological displays, but in recent years there has been a bloody resurgence in real life tribal fighting, fuelled by political intrigue, a breakdown of law and order and the arrival of automatic weapons.
"They used to settle disputes with bows and arrows, now it's with assault rifles," said Philip Alpers, a New Zealand academic who last month addressed the country's first national gun summit.
"There's been a massive increase in lethality."
Papua New Guinea is a former British colony which passed to Australian control in 1906. It is an uneasy confederation of more than 800 tribes.
Clan warfare has raged for millennia, but the introduction of powerful automatic weapons has made the age old system of "payback" far more deadly and made parts of the highlands utterly lawless.
Feuds can last months, even years, in a country in which allegiance to "wantok", literally "one talk", the pidgin English term for a person's language group or tribe, is paramount.
Late last year the government, fast losing its grip, invited Australia to send in 140 police officers as part of a £400 million aid package to cope with crime, corruption and tribal warfare.
But Canberra withdrew the force after a judge ruled that they did not have immunity from prosecution.
The Australians did not fulfil their deployment to Mount Hagen, the largest town in the highlands.
Matthew Gispa, 28, is just one man who might be relieved they didn't. He proudly recalls the moment he pulled the trigger of his
M-16 and killed one of his tribal enemies during a recent clash in Aviamp, 25 miles outside Mount Hagen.
"He had a gun too, so if I hadn't shot him he would have shot me," he said, a razor-sharp machete in his hand. He now fears retribution from the opposing clan. "They will come back. And they will try to kill me."
As with most tribal disputes, the fight started after a disagreement over land, but the issue has been intensified by the country's rapidly growing population. Gispa says he is known to police but has not even been questioned about the murder, let alone charged. Many police officers are corrupt, while even the honest ones are hamstrung by a lack of resources.
"We don't even have enough diesel to go out on patrol," said one sergeant, gnawing on a stick of sugar cane. "We don't have enough vehicles, firearms or radios. Many times we just have to let them fight it out."
Many weapons used by tribal fighters are bought or stolen from the police and the army. Of the 10,000 or so small arms supplied to the two forces in the past 20 years, only a quarter can still be accounted for.
Tribes are now using self-loading rifles and hand grenades. "Traditionally, when people were fighting with bows and arrows, they would stop after one or two people were wounded," said Nick de Groot, a Dutch missionary and director of the Melanesian Institute.
"But now you have 15 or 20 people dead in two days."
According to Mr Alpers, politicians are "deeply implicated" in the gun trade, providing their own clans with high-powered weapons. Elections are seen as an opportunity to seize political influence at gunpoint.
It is hard to establish the total number of people killed because much of the fighting goes on in remote valleys, cut off from the outside world. Local hospitals believe 90 per cent of deaths go unreported.
In one of the larger documented battles around 120 people were killed in a fight between two rival tribes near the flash point town of Mendi.
"It's become an arms race," said Robert Bruce, a British anthropologist who has witnessed several tribal battles since settling in Mount Hagen 15 years ago. "When I first came here there were maybe a few shotguns being used, but recently I've heard the sound of rocket-propelled grenades."
Tribal rows used to be settled by bow and arrow, now it's an M-16
By Nick Squires in Mount Hagen
(Filed: 03/09/2005)
A thousand tribal warriors, bodies glistening with pig fat, faces daubed with black and red ochre, swarmed on to a muddy arena in headdresses and grass kilts.
They were armed with lethal-looking axes and spears. Tucked into their belts were daggers made from the bone of the cassowary, a giant tropical bird related to the emu.
A tribal warrior from Papua New Guinea
Beating drums and chanting war songs, the warriors, some with pig tusks through their noses, were the highlight of the Mount Hagen Show, a tribal gathering held annually in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
The show is one of the world's most exotic anthropological displays, but in recent years there has been a bloody resurgence in real life tribal fighting, fuelled by political intrigue, a breakdown of law and order and the arrival of automatic weapons.
"They used to settle disputes with bows and arrows, now it's with assault rifles," said Philip Alpers, a New Zealand academic who last month addressed the country's first national gun summit.
"There's been a massive increase in lethality."
Papua New Guinea is a former British colony which passed to Australian control in 1906. It is an uneasy confederation of more than 800 tribes.
Clan warfare has raged for millennia, but the introduction of powerful automatic weapons has made the age old system of "payback" far more deadly and made parts of the highlands utterly lawless.
Feuds can last months, even years, in a country in which allegiance to "wantok", literally "one talk", the pidgin English term for a person's language group or tribe, is paramount.
Late last year the government, fast losing its grip, invited Australia to send in 140 police officers as part of a £400 million aid package to cope with crime, corruption and tribal warfare.
But Canberra withdrew the force after a judge ruled that they did not have immunity from prosecution.
The Australians did not fulfil their deployment to Mount Hagen, the largest town in the highlands.
Matthew Gispa, 28, is just one man who might be relieved they didn't. He proudly recalls the moment he pulled the trigger of his
M-16 and killed one of his tribal enemies during a recent clash in Aviamp, 25 miles outside Mount Hagen.
"He had a gun too, so if I hadn't shot him he would have shot me," he said, a razor-sharp machete in his hand. He now fears retribution from the opposing clan. "They will come back. And they will try to kill me."
As with most tribal disputes, the fight started after a disagreement over land, but the issue has been intensified by the country's rapidly growing population. Gispa says he is known to police but has not even been questioned about the murder, let alone charged. Many police officers are corrupt, while even the honest ones are hamstrung by a lack of resources.
"We don't even have enough diesel to go out on patrol," said one sergeant, gnawing on a stick of sugar cane. "We don't have enough vehicles, firearms or radios. Many times we just have to let them fight it out."
Many weapons used by tribal fighters are bought or stolen from the police and the army. Of the 10,000 or so small arms supplied to the two forces in the past 20 years, only a quarter can still be accounted for.
Tribes are now using self-loading rifles and hand grenades. "Traditionally, when people were fighting with bows and arrows, they would stop after one or two people were wounded," said Nick de Groot, a Dutch missionary and director of the Melanesian Institute.
"But now you have 15 or 20 people dead in two days."
According to Mr Alpers, politicians are "deeply implicated" in the gun trade, providing their own clans with high-powered weapons. Elections are seen as an opportunity to seize political influence at gunpoint.
It is hard to establish the total number of people killed because much of the fighting goes on in remote valleys, cut off from the outside world. Local hospitals believe 90 per cent of deaths go unreported.
In one of the larger documented battles around 120 people were killed in a fight between two rival tribes near the flash point town of Mendi.
"It's become an arms race," said Robert Bruce, a British anthropologist who has witnessed several tribal battles since settling in Mount Hagen 15 years ago. "When I first came here there were maybe a few shotguns being used, but recently I've heard the sound of rocket-propelled grenades."
