Foreign troops pour into PNG capital for APEC meet
PORT MORESBY (AFP) – Papua New Guine (PNG) a has deployed a multi-national force of warships, fighter jets and elite counter-terrorism troops to protect world leaders attending a major summit in its crime-plagued capital this week.
About 4,000 military personnel, around half of them foreign, will work with hundreds of police to patrol Port Moresby for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum from Saturday, which will attract representatives from 21 nations.
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 stay overnight in Australia.
Up to 15,000 delegates are expected at the summit. Due to a shortage of hotel accommodation, many of them will bunk down on three cruise liners docked at the port, presenting additional security complications.
Although the threat posed by terrorism in PNG is considered minimal, the Melanesian country's reputation for lawlessness and violent crime precedes it.
About half the capital's 300,000 people live in squatter settlements, and it was ranked fourth-last in this year's Economist Intelligence Unit list of the world's most livable cities.
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.
Canberra is bankrolling much of the security operation.
It has sent a 1,500-strong Australian Defense Force (ADF) contingent, along with RAAF F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters, surveillance aircraft and a helicopter carrier moored in Port Moresby harbor.
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 2,000 Papua New Guinea 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."
Many have questioned why vast sums are being spent on APEC – including 40 Maserati cars worth more than $150,000 each – when provincial hospitals are struggling with chronic shortages of medical supplies.