A troubled week

Kompiam Hospital
On Tuesday evening two 4x4s drove into the compound outside my house. An Australian family, two student medics and various other staff from Kompiam hospital had evacuated the hospital and sought safety in Hagen after a dispute with a former employee had escalated to threats with a loaded gun and an axe. Faced with such threats of violence they had no option but to protect themselves and get out.


How long it will be before its safe to return is anybody's guess but it could be months. Meanwhile the hospital has no medical staff at all.

 Steven's armed escort
Next door to the Handicraft Group workshop is a small technology business run by a lovely PNG national called Steven. He normally arrives at work on his own driving a flat bed 4x4. On Monday this week when he arrived there were six hefty guys sitting in the back of his truck. I made some joke about him running a bus service and he told me that the guys in the back were his bodyguards - his wontoks - and they were armed. Trouble had broken out between Steven's clan and another local tribe and things were very dangerous. People had already been shot on both sides. These disputes are not resolved with bows and arrows any more - the protaganists all have automatic weapons. It wasn't safe for him to drive from his village on his own so his wontoks were there to take care of him


A fatal trip to the liklik haus
One of my colleagues was a few hours late in to work on Tuesday. He explained that he had been consoling a neighbour who's son had been shot dead the night before. Another inter clan dispute that was being resolved in the traditional way - no recourse to authority - they sort it out themselves with guns. The boy had gone to the toilet (liklik haus) outside his house late at night and the enemy clan were lying in wait. They shot him dead.


All these are true stories and they all happened in the first two days of this week. It illustrates clearly how, despite a superficial veneer of calm and order, there is, very close to the surface , an extremely violent tradition. It has been the Highlands way for centuries. It is not going to change quickly. In many parts of the Highlands there is no police service, no government office, no communication and no judicial process. Its not surprising that people resolve problems in their own way.