Australia, and other interested international parties, running grave risk of misunderstanding cultural sensitivities in Papua New Guinea when dealing with rebellious combat by some troops in Port Moresby. About 100 low- ranking soldiers have seized weapons at the Murray Barracks near Port Moresby as part of a protest against proposed reforms of the Papua Guinea Defence Force. The reforms include a recommendations by the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group halves the force from about 4000 members to about 1900. Rank and file soldiers are upset. They presumably felt that only radical action could prevent such a drastic cut in the PNG Defence Force. Their action was fuelled by false rumours that Australian forces would be sent in to take control of the army headquarters.
Australia, understandably, has reacted with some alarm. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has warned that any threat to the democratically elected government of PNG would be met with strong international sanctions which he said would not be in the interests of the rebels.
The international response has been predicated on an assumption that the PNG Defence Force runs under a standard model. Not so. A typical army runs under a unified command of cascading authority from the top-down, combined with signals up from the troops through their non-commissioned officers to the highest levels about the aspirations and concerns of those at the bottom of the chain of command. This model does not fit easily with Melanesian culture. In PNG, tribal allegiance can be stronger than military structure. The “”big man” in cultural terms may not be the officer or commander. Moreover, the “wantok” system imposes cultural allegiances which are stronger than military or constitutional ones.
In this context, it is nonsense to treat “”the army” as a monolithic entity with a single purpose which might threaten democratic government. Within the PNG Defence Force there are many cross currents of objectives. In this instance some are just concerned about their jobs. Others have seized the opportunity for political gain. The latter, some quite high up, have thought it expedient to allow the situation to run a little while to undermine the political position of the Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta. In a general climate of resentment against Australia and the Australian Defence Force for their failure (justified from our point of view) to help during Bougainville and Sandline, it would be easy to fuel rumours about Australian intervention and unfounded assertions that the Prime Minister is acting as a puppet of Australia. It seems as if some mischievous elements in that the PNG Defence Force are doing precisely that.
It puts Australia in a very difficult position. The more Australia supports of the democratically elected government the more it can fuel those rumours.
The events of the past week have been an unfortunate setback for Morauta. They have been a setback also for investor and wider public confidence in PNG. The Australian Government was correct to back Morauta, but it must act with the great deal of care and tact. Certainly, it must act with more tact than the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group which made its recommendations without consultation with the lower ranks of the army. The IMF-style prescriptions of cutting public expenditure, even Defence expenditure, can be self defeating if the prospective gains are far outweighed by the losses engendered by the instability that results from the proposed public-sector cuts.
Morauta has been wise enough to make a pledge that the cuts will not go ahead. Even so, the next few weeks will be critical in PNG. If things go badly, Australia will inevitably have to pick up the tab. That is why it would be better for Australia to help fund a Defence Force with a few excess members than for Australia and PNG to be faced with a higher economic and human cost of imposing culturally insensitive for reform.