Rock concerts and packing heat - PNG-style

Well I usually do my best to try to allay my family’s, friends’ and loved one’s fears – being stuck back home as they are – with tales of cute kids and amazing food, but you just can’t go past a good gun-toting story!

A couple of Friday nights ago, a friend came over to my hotel for a visit. We were sitting having a quiet chat in my living room when the noise began. It started as a low rumble in the distance, coming from across the back fence, then it quickly turned into hundreds of angry voices yelling in unison, married with the sound of a continuous hail of massive rocks raining down on nearby buildings. In typical PNG fashion (we must be locals by now!) we raced outside to see what the commotion was about. Three neighbours and two hotel security guards soon joined us. Now, the funny thing about PNG is although people never seem to rush, word somehow manages to get around like lightning. While we were pondering the reason for the ruckus, which had seemingly only just erupted, one of the hotel security guards who sauntered up to peer over the razor wire with us had somehow already spoken with the guys on the front gate, who had determined that what was going on several hundred metres away was a tribal fight.


Darling razor wire view from my back door...

Tribal fights are a strange highlands phenomenon. Decades ago, and even more recently, tribes would fight with bows, arrows and spears – generally over land, women or pig ownership issues (the three great ‘commodities’ before coffee production was introduced) – but nowadays they generally fight with guns. And it often seems to happen on a Friday night. Something as simple as a throw-away insult delivered to the member of another tribe could spark a situation that would make the Cronulla riots look like a playground scuffle. Well at this particular “rock concert” the hail was soon replaced by what seemed to be gunfire. Needless to say – in true PNG fashion – none of us moved from our posts by the fence. It was only later when the mobile security guards arrived to escort my friend home – seemingly in tears! – that we discovered the noise had actually been tear gas canon. Apparently when the security companies had driven in to protect their clients’ shopfront premises, the police had arrived at the other end of the fight zone and fired tear gas to control the crowds. Unfortunately our poor Protect boys were in the thick of it. Now that the unrest was over, they wiped their eyes and offered to drive us through ‘ground zero’ on the way to our destination. Well, never have I driven over so many rocks on a sealed road.

Later that night a remaining few scuffles could be heard in the distance. And just as I was ready to drift off to sleep, the sound of gunfire – real this time – could be heard across the razor wire.

They say, in the Highlands, as an onlooker you could stand in the middle of a tribal fight and the warring parties would work around you. But then they also say most guns aren’t loaded because ammunition is so expensive. Don’t know that I’d like to test either of those theories…