New Guinea’s deadly riots shine light on private security industry

AFPTV images of the aftermath showed once-bustling shops reduced to scorched piles of rubble and mangled steel

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — Deadly riots in Papua New Guinea have laid bare the impoverished nation’s growing reliance on private security firms in place of police, local business owners and regional analysts told AFP.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape came to power promising to transform the often-volatile former British colony into the “richest black Christian nation” on Earth.

This push for prosperity will in large part hinge on the ability to shed the Pacific island nation’s dangerous reputation — and to persuade foreign investors it is a safe place to do business.

With its stretched police force frequently mired in scandal, Papua New Guinea’s swelling ranks of private security operators are increasingly tasked with keeping the peace.

On 11 January, as angry crowds tore through the capital Port Moresby, torching parked cars, ransacking grocery stores and setting fire to buildings, security company owner Jemimah Pundari said she had small teams of private guards protecting neighborhood shops.

For a few tense hours, private security personnel were effectively in charge of safeguarding parts of the city, Pundari said.

“There were hundreds of people. We were severely outnumbered with the police not being on the road,” she told AFP.

“They were very brave in protecting those areas.”

AFPTV images of the aftermath showed once-bustling shops reduced to scorched piles of rubble and mangled steel.

At least 25 people died as the violence spread to other parts of the country, police told AFP, while dozens of citizens were shot, burned or wounded with machetes.

Port Moresby remains under a state of emergency, and many on the ground now simply refer to the widespread unrest as “Black Wednesday.”

DARRELL TOLL/AFPTV/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE VIDEO footage taken shows people walking past debris in front of buildings damaged during riots in Port Moresby. Papua New Guinea’s prime minister declared a 14-day state of emergency in the capital, after 15 people were killed in riots as crowds looted and burned shops.