Foreign troops pour into PNG for APEC summit

About 4000 military personnel, half of them foreign, will work with hundreds of Police to patrol Port Moresby.

A multinational force of warships, fighter jets and elite counterterrorism soldiers has been deployed in Papua New Guinea (PNG) to protect world leaders attending a major summit in its crime-plagued capital this week. About 4000 military personnel, half of them foreign, will work with hundreds of Police to patrol Port Moresby for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum starting on Saturday.

Attendees are set to include China’s President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and US Vice President Mike Pence, who is not even expected to sleep in the city, but will stay overnight in Australia.

Up to 15,000 delegates are expected at the summit. Due to a shortage of hotel accommodations, many of them will bunk down on three cruise liners docked at the port, presenting additional security complications.

Feared street gangs known as “raskols” have made car jackings common and the country has among the highest rates of rape and domestic violence in the world.

To ensure delegates are safe, the government has enlisted military help from Australia, the United States and New Zealand. Vessels from Australia, New Zealand, and the US will guard the capital’s shores, and all three countries have provided special forces. Working alongside them in an operation that has taken more than a year to plan will be about 2000 PNG troops. A headline in the Post-Courier newspaper last week proclaimed an “APEC Invasion”, although Joint Security Task Force (JSTF) chief Commissioner Gari Baki told Port Moresby residents the foreign troops were nothing to worry about.

“I would like to reassure the community that they should not be alarmed,” he said, noting the international force was “here at our request”.

The government has passed laws allowing international security personnel to use lethal force if necessary to deal with an “imminent threat” during the summit. Former PNG defence force chief, Jerry Singirok, has raised concerns the move impinges on the country’s sovereignty.