PNG police and military promise to clean up their act

Transcript

The police and the military in Papua New Guinea have both promised to clean up their act after yet another violent run-in between the two forces which left a soldier dead.

Such clashes occur regularly when tension between the two forces ignites, and restoring discipline to the disciplined forces will require a lot of effort, as Jamie Tahana reports.

In the latest clash, one soldier was killed and two others injured after police fired upon them during a high speed chase through the capital Port Moresby.  A police spokesperson, Dominic Kakas, says the next day, several soldiers then attacked police officers in a retaliatory attack at a nearby petrol station.

DOMINIC KAKAS:  Two of the officers who actually look after the bowser and refuel the police vehicles were affected by the soldiers. One of them ran away while the other was actually mobbed and badly beaten up by the defence force soldiers.

Violent clashes between police and soldiers aren't rare in PNG, and several similar incidents have been reported this year alone.  Early in November, two police officers were seriously injured when a group of soldiers stormed a central police station, apparently after a drunken soldier was injured while resisting arrest.  And last December, three soldiers were injured in a day-long shootout on the streets of Boroko after a run-in outside a nightclub.  The director of the Institute of National Affairs, Paul Barker, says tension between the two forces goes back decades.

PAUL PARKER:  As far as I recall it goes back to the beginning of the 1980s, maybe beyond. There were significant clashes around 1980/81 and big standoffs. At the time, they almost behaved as if they were two opposing forces from opposing countries rather than disciplined services.

A former defence force commander, Major General Jerry Singirok, says the constant clashes are pathetic and uncalled for, reflecting a breakdown of discipline in both forces.  He says the breakdown has worsened in the past decade due to government cuts and poor administrative decisions.

JERRY SINGIROK:  It's really a quagmire of administrative issues. For example, they decided to reduce the basic training from six months to three months. So somewhere along the line they need to start from the basics to address issues that affect issues of morale, issues of administration before they can completely take control of the situation.

The police and military hierarchy have met to try and resolve differences, agreeing to work  to stop future confrontations.  Dominic Kakas concedes there is a problem with police command and control that the commissioner, Gari Baki, is trying to resolve.

DOMINIC KAKAS:  He has made it very, very clear that any such actions from the junior officers he will hold the immediate supervisors responsible, basically it's a command and control issue. The other thing also we are looking at -- and that's the long term thing -- is we're looking at the recruitment process. We're also looking at the training up at the college and also the mentoring process.

But Paul Barker says the dislike the two forces have of each other runs deep and the ingrained rivalry will not be solved overnight.  He says it will need a lot of commitment from both sides and the government.

PAUL BARKER:  This certainly needs to be going back to some of the basics. It's the quality of the service, and the quality of the training, and then the quality of the conditions under which they are employed, whether you mange to maintain the services as disciplined...

No arrests have so far been made for last week's clashes, but both sides have promised full investigations and to punish those found to have broken the law.