The case of the "payment" of a young woman in compensation over the death of a man in a poice shoot-out in Papua New Guinea has raised national interest and has renewed calls by human rights groups for the speedy establishment of a National Human Rights Commission. Yet women's non-government organisations and other groups have been reluctant to make an issue of this human "sale"
By DAVID ROBIE in Port Moresby
Miriam Willingal, an 18-year-old woman from a remote village in the Minj area in Papua New Guinea's rugged Highlands, is torn between her tribe's ancient past and her
personal future. Her father, Koidam Dam Willingal, 45, was shot dead by Western Highlands police during a pre-dawn raid on their village, Tumbo, on 12 April 1996.
The authorities claim Koidam was a bodyguard for police renegade Robert Mond, who was being sought over alleged armed hold-ups against police, stealing firearms, rape and other crimes. Mond was also killed in the shoot-out.
Now, Miriam Willingal has been offered by her small tribe,
without her consent, to the Konumbuka clan as compensation for her father's death.
Her uncles from her maternal grandmother's tribe, the dominant Konumbuka, demanded that they be paid two young women, pigs and K20,000 for her father's death. She was offered in settlement by relatives on her father's side, along with 24 pigs.
Willingal is upset that her own tribespeople have stamped a ''no value'' sign on her. ''I'm not prepared to marry,'' she admitted in a local newspaper, the Murdoch-owned Post-Courier. ''My aim is to complete my commercial
training courses and get a job.''
Willingal's guardian, local deputy school principal Sam Imine in Goroka, said the tribesmen demanded two women or they would ''get their own'' -- an implied threat to abduct and rape women in the village.
He said the practice of including women in compensation deals had been abandoned since the arrival of missionaries in the Highlands in the 1930s.
The case has raised national interest and has renewed calls by human rights groups for the speedy establishment of a National Human Rights Commission. Yet, astonishingly, women's non-government organisations and other groups have been reluctant to make an issue of this human "sale" -- many have been fighting among themselves over whether the Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan, should resign over his ham-fisted recent attempt to gag expatriate businessmen who have condemned the systematic corruption afflicting the nation.
Legal sources say even Chief Justice Arnold Amet has asked his staff to investigate the compensation deal.
Representatives of the Individual and Community Rights Advocacy Forum Inc have meanwhile said they will try to prevent the transaction from taking place, saying it does not respect the individual rights of the young woman.
Human rights activists say that cases such as this are among many to be addressed when a National Human Rights Commission is finally established, probably later this year. Of particular concern as well are the scores of alleged atrocities that have taken place on the Papua New Guinea island of Bougainville where the Bougainville Revolutionary Army has been waging a guerrilla war against the Port Moresbynational government for seven years.
Since violence first broke out in 1988, more than 6,000 people have died, including many children and women (most from the genocidal blockade imposed on the island by the PNG government with barely a whimper from the international community). Few documented cases have even been dealth with by the authorities, let alone anybody being prosecuted.
I remember reporting on the aftermath of the so-called St Valentine's Day massacre in February 1991 when Australian-donated helicopters were used to dump bodies at sea. The PNG government ordered an inquiry, yet to date nobody has been brought to book. Even the sacking of Colonel Leo Nuia at the time in punishment meant little -- he is now back in the higher echelons of the military.
Ill-treatment by government security forces has not been limited to Bougainville. The patterns of human rights violations and abuse of authority have been evident in other parts of the country for several years. According to Amnesty International: "Members of police riot squads (Mobile Squads) have been singled out for abusive behaviour, but regular duty officers, prison warders and members of the PNG Defence Force engaged in controlling civil unrest have also been accused of the ill-treatment and in some cases unlawful killing of civilians."
One night in a Gerehu bar I listened to horrendous tales by a police senior sergeant of how he had summarily executed several criminals -- he had a penchant for dispatching rapists and hiding their bodies. When he discovered by chance that I was a journalist, his interest in me took a rather nasty turn. I abruptly left that notiorious pub.
Activists also say that refugees fleeing conflict on the western portion of New Guinea island -- West Papua (Iran Jaya), where the OPM (Free Papua Movement) guerrilla movement is waging a battle to make the province independent from Indonesia -- are treated harshly by the PNG authorities.
Human rights campaigners also want the Port Moresby government to abolish the death penalty and to investigate allegations of abuses of power by the police force. Although the death penalty was effectively abandoned in PNG some years ago, it was reintroduced with the Criminal Code Act 1991. The revised law provides the death sentence for treason, piracy with assault, willful murder and attempted piracy with violence.
Since then a young Northern province man, Charles Ombusu, was convicted in February 1995 by the National Court of wilful murder and rape, and was sentenced to death. He had shot dead the father of his rape victim in a ghastly case.
However, in a successful appeal, the Supreme Court quashed that decision in April 1996 on the grounds of procedural irregularities. The court has yet to rule whether Ombusu should be discharged or tried again by the National Court on separate charges of willful murder and rape.
The last person to be publicly executed in Papua New Guinea was in 1938 when a man was hanged for murder under the Australian colonial administration. Since then there has been one non-public execution in 1954 when a prisoner was hanged for killing another inmate.
The re-introduction of the death penalty was one of two moves recently taken by the government in response to a rising crime rate in the country.
The PNG government in 1991 also enacted a controversial
International Security Act (ISA) -- later ruled by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional -- which gave the police sweeping powers of arrest. The ISA was seen by critics as a fundamental assault on constitutional rights with government empowering its security forces with draconian powers to proscribe certain organisations regarded as a threat to national security.
Landowner groups seeking compensation against project development companies, non-government organisations (NGOs) campaigning on environmental or civil rights issues, opposition political groups and even news media were seen as potential targets of the law.
Since the law was deemed unconstitutional in a Supreme Court ruling, the government has come under renewed pressure from human rights activists to respect the basic rights as provided under the constitution.
In response, the government earlier this year set up a human rights desk within the Department of the Attorney-General as a step towards establishing the National Human Rights Commission.
Announcing the decision, Prime Minister Julius Chan acknowledged that despite ''excellent'' constitutional provisions, little action had been taken since independence in 1975, to enforce alleged breaches of rights and freedoms.
Activists however lament that since Chan announced the formation of a National Human Rights Commission last December, it has not moved quickly enough to have such a body in place by now.
It would for example, they say, have been able to arbitrate and take preventive measures in the Miriam Willingal case. As the situation stands now, the girl remains in hiding ever wary of her wantoks seeking to claim their compensation booty.
Copyright © 1996 David Robie and Asia-Pacific Network
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