Can PNG Police Win Back The Public's Respect?
A police commander in Papua New Guinea's National Capital District is concerned that the public no longer respects the police.
Assistant Commissioner Benjamin Turi points to nine cases of resisting and assaulting police officers that appeared before the Boroko District Court this past week alone.
The Post-Courier reported him saying that when he joined the police force, such disrespect was unheard of: "Respect was given and it showed in the way the public responded when a police officer issued a command."
He said now that the person in a blue uniform is not safe is a sad day for the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary and for the country.
In PNG, assaulting a police officer is a serious offence under the Summary Offences Act 1977 and carries a hefty fine.
Our correspondent in PNG Scott Waide has been looking at police deaths dating back to 2017.
(This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
SCOTT WAIDE: I compiled a few figures about three months ago, just trying to understand how bad it was, and I counted at least 24 police officers who had been killed in the line of duty, and these are people who have either been shot, stabbed or just killed in various different ways, plane crashes and all that, but just attacks on police officers.
A lot of those attacks have been in the Highlands. There are others as well, in Alotau, West New Britain, East New Britain, attacked in the line of duty whilst performing an arrest or just driving through locations that are dangerous.
So yes, it is a big problem. Families of police officers have come out and stated, off the record of course, that their husbands, their wives, are not adequately protected while they're out in the field.
A lot of police officers, policemen that I've spoken to, have expressed that a lot of times, when they go into trouble spots, they are ill equipped, like they don't have the body armour or the helmets that are needed. So there is a big problem.
DON WISEMAN: I guess one of the big problems as well, the numbers [of police] not big enough are they?
SW: One of the big concerns is that the officers who are being deployed are just overworked, and they're stressed. For example, Governor Alan Bird was talking about a mobile squad unit from Wewak that has been on permanent deployment in the Highlands for months and months. That means they're away from their families for several months, you know, upwards of half a year, and there's really no rest and recreation for them to regenerate and go back on duty. The numbers are too small to deal with a country like Papua New Guinea.
DW: Now an assistant commissioner in the National Capital District, has pointed out that in the past week there have been nine cases of resisting and assaulting police just in the Boroko District Court alone. Benjamin Turi is saying in the past, well, when he began as a policeman, such incidents were very, very rare, and he wonders why people seem to have lost their respect for police.
SW: There are several contributing factors, and one of them has been police attitudes towards the public, and police brutality towards the public. That has also been a contributing factor, and the general loss of trust over time, that's also another major contributing factor.
The public has in many places, lost respect for police. There are also good commanders out there who have tried to restore order, restore the respect for police.
The situation in Lae, especially where I live, is vastly different from other places, where you have a lot of respect for police, and it took a long time to get there. Took at least a decade to get there.
DW: What happened in Lae to get there?
SW: Well, firstly, there was a reorganisation of the Police Public Relations, going out and talking to communities, getting community involvement. There's a law and order committee set up for Lae and there's an active Whatsapp group that they use where police officers are available, and the numbers of policemen who have committed offences and [whose actions] have been reported have been acted on by their commanders.
It's restored that trust in in the public. So that needs to happen, in my opinion, that needs to happen in every other town and city as well. But it's a slow, slow process. I mean, if Lae took 10 years, then it will take just about the same time in other places as well.
DW: Well, a critical issue, of course, for Papua New Guinea is election time, and it's been a pretty bad time for police. Hasn't it going back over the last several elections. So the new election coming up in two years time, one would be hoping that things are going to be a lot better. Are there any signs that the government is putting greater resources toward police to improve things.
SW: There are efforts being put in by the government. There's new vehicles being bought, additional manpower being trained, the middle management of the police being up skilled and new people recruited.
But the numbers are just too small to deal with the population.
Like Papua New Guinea talking about the elections, there's a large number of guns in the Highlands. And generally, if you talk to members of the disciplinary forces - the PNG Defence Force, the police - they will tell you that when they go into the villages, they're largely outnumbered and outgunned by tribesmen who are very heavily armed during elections.
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You've also got some of the other trades; the drugs trade and some of the other trades, but it's this melding of power, money, even the sorcery accusation related violence. It's a new form of power, intimidating people and making yourself powerful and everyone being compliant with you. So we've got to break those systems, and that requires cooperation. DW: Under the Terrorism Act, that's the lethal force allowance? PB: Yeah, that means you can go out and shoot anyone who happens to be inconvenient to you, and obviously that can open the Pandora's box. You can shoot political enemies, people who are critics, journalists, anyone else and it's certainly not what PNG needs. DW: What you're talking about here, it's something of a revolution that would take a huge amount to achieve, wouldn't it? Do you think there is the wherewithal within the country to do it, to achieve it? 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But all across the board, if you look at the statistics just lately, which have been put together in the latest economic and social reports from the ADB, from the World Bank and others, you'll see absolutely atrocious social indicators. You see the economy growing slowly. You're seeing education capacity not growing. You get a lot of these functions, high malnutrition, low job creation, and so on and so forth. We've got to address those together with the impacts of that, which is growing frustration and conflict developing in the urban areas where people have re-migrated. The development partners, some of them, are aware of this, and they're throwing their hands a little bit in the air and saying, 'what do we do'? And academics are sort of doing that as well, and saying, 'Hey, look, you know, the only way is cooperation, working with those who are willing and able to provide leadership and think outside the box'.
