Smuggled weapons evading PNG police

Transcript

As illegal weapons flow into Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands province, police there say it's unlikely they'll retrieve firearms used in two recent, deadly attacks.

Last week, three men were killed in Mendi as part of an ongoing tribal dispute over land.

In January, another man was shot dead in Nipa also due to a land dispute.

The Southern Highlands chief superintendent, Sibron Papoto, says the attack in Mendi breached a peace agreement signed in December between two factions of the same tribe.

He told Ben Robinson the shootings followed a burial on the disputed land.

SIBRON PAPOTO: And then they went about rebuilding houses, because in the previous fight that place was deserted they burnt all the houses, destroyed all food gardens. So while they were busy doing that the enemy attacked them. One of the gunmen took them by surprise he shot them at point blank. He shot one in the head and the other two in the chest. One of the victims was 20-years-old and the other two were middle aged around 40 to 55 and they all died instantly. The gun was a very high powered gun. This is kind of an abuse, it is not on a battlefield where it used to be with bows and arrows or firearms. In this particular case it is a surprise shooting and police will get down to the bottom of it, we will hopefully arrest those perpetrators and whoever also is at the back of financing because these people are ordinary villagers they cannot afford to buy those high powered guns or for that matter any other ammunition. I do not have any evidence to substantiate my claim that somebody, a businessman or some other educated people are supporting it. But you know the way I see, obviously some people who are well off are really supporting this kind of thing.

BEN ROBINSON: It would seem then that the issue in this region is about weapons and the proliferation thereof. This has been an ongoing issue. Can you tell me how police efforts are going to confront this problem?

SP: I cannot deny the fact that there is so much build up of weapons not only here in the province but especially up in the Highlands and they all depend on the weapons as their strength. It is really hard, it is very difficult to retain any kind of weapons or ammunitions. That is exactly what I see up here because I have been operating for the last 10 years in the Southern Highlands alone and over the years that I have been here as a commander we have not been able to retrieve any single firearm as well. From the reports that we get here there is so much weapons build up in the province but actually even if we do arrest the suspect we will get them but the weapon will definitely be hidden away it will never be retrieved.

BR: So were do you think firearms in your region could be coming from; are they coming up from the coastal regions, are they coming across the border?

SP: Across the border, from Western Province over to Gulf into Southern Highlands there is so many people and you can't smuggle weapons through the main highway. They don't because there is constant road blocks around so they have to walk bush tracks and that is where it's inaccessible where police are not able to cordon those places.