The senior police officer on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville says he is opposed to re-arming the island's police.
There have been calls for police to be armed because of a lengthy road block by armed rebels in south Bougainville and a violent attack on an aid worker last month.
But Assistant Police Commissioner, Joe Bemu, who is in charge of the Australian, New Zealand and Bougainville police on the island, says it would undermine all the work since the end of the crisis.
"We should be more concentrating on our friends helping us in our comunity policing concept. I do not want to jeopardise the kind of aid projects coming into the province by way of the gun because if we are armed, the other side will be armed too, so anything can happen."
Meanwhile Assistant Commissioner Bemu says special constables might be employed to man a road block run by a rebel Mekamui faction, while the rebels concerns are looked into.
