SEVEN women were packed raped on Sunday in the troubled Nebilyer district of Western Highlands Province. The women, from both the waring Ulga-Ukupk-Kuwar and Kulga tribes, were pulled off from PMV buses at different locations and were gang raped for hours.
Two women from the Ulga-Ukupka tribe who were travelling to Mt Hagen were taken at a road block near the Togoba road junction, dragged into the bushes and pack raped, allegedly by a large number of gun-wielding Palga tribesmen.
Ulga-Ukupka warriors, upon hearing of the ordeal their women were going through, responded by setting up another roadblock further down the Waipip road junction and grabbed five women from the enemy tribes and gang raped them. One of the women was the mother of a seven-month-old baby.
Concerned women and members from a church group dragged the baby to safety from the gun-wielding warriors.
Kuwar councillor Paul Wak said both ordeals involved large numbers of men and took hours.
He condemned the raping saying it was an act of animal for men to pack rape women. “Both sides are guilty of their acts. Fighting is a man’s thing. Women and children should be left alone,” Cr Wak said.
The tribal fight between the biggest tribes in the Nebilyer valley took almost three decades. Many lives and properties were damaged.
The fight with modern military assault rifles has escalated with the involvement of former ally tribes teaming up.
The Palga tribesmen are believed to have raped the two women in retaliation to the destruction of properties worth thousands of kina last week in a raid by the Ulga-Ukupka-Kuwar following the murder of a Pastor.
Cr Wak described yesterday’s call by Tambul Nebilyer MP Mark Anis and Provincial Governor Paias Wingti in media reports for peace as being “political and superficial.”
He said lack of leadership in the area has caused the tribal warfare to escalate out of hand.
“When the trouble started, the so called leaders never did anything. We don’t thing we got leaders at all at the provincial and national level representing us. This fight is a leadership problem,” Cr Wak said.
“We’ve got resources development projects in the interior who depend entirely on the highway and we should not disrupt their operations.”
Referring to the fight he said not even the national government would stop the fight.
“This fight will stop only if one tribe chases the other away, because this is a deeply rooted battle,” Cr Wak.
Other citizens and prominent leaders have also called on the National and Provincial government to intervene in the ongoing tribal warfare in the Nebilyer district.
Lord Mayor Lucas Mek said that the provincial members should by now have intervened and the tension should have ceased but because this has not happened the situation was getting out of hand.
Mr Mek claimed that the fighting was creeping into the boundaries of Hagen Central district and this would affect the business activities in the province.
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Re: Tribal Rape in western highlands!!! - not on!!
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December 6 2006, 9:56 AM
Please dont tell me this is going on. It is horrible!!!!! My heart just totally breaks for all them ladies. Please leave them out the fighting. The everyday uncertainty of whether or not their sons and husbands will be alive is pain enough to make a women go crazy. I'm so sad.
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Re: Tribal Rape in western highlands!!! - not on!!
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December 6 2006, 10:59 PM
Plis, why do our men have to make us look like pigs?? Like Vienn said, if you're going to fight leave the women and children out of it. They didn't ask for you to fight in the first place. Nobody needs to be put through that kind of pain. I used to think that the villages and bushes were the safest places to go and just live a peaceful life but I guess they're just as bad as living in the cities where it's crime infested.
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Tribal fights in PNG should be outlawed by an act of parliament.
Those who incite, participate or contribute directly or indirectly to tribal fights in PNG should be labelled as "terrorists" and stand trial!
If clear thinking highlanders want tribal fights to end then, we must DEMAND our respective member to introduce a bill to outlaw tribal fights. If we just keep shut and sit on our backsides and expect our MPs to do it for us, Im afraid we will wait till kingdom come.
In this day and age, tribal fights has no place and must end.
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yea, reckon..enforcement of tribal fighting will be a challenge though, their either have to bring in the army with the high powered guns around or send in the SAS from Aus to stop fights.
On the otherhand,if people themselves formulate the policy or law, i'm sure tribal fighting will stop.
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Yup, the important thing is the people themselves formulate the change. But just looking back at the story of the Greatest and Most charismatic leader who ever walked the Earth, Jesus, he was widely received and accepted everywhere but not his home. It may require another leader from another province to make the change necessary.
The principle and the lesson therefore is, all MPs should be concern of another fellow MPs electorate's progress, if segregation continues and the "that’s your problem mentally continues" its will soon become everyone’s problem.
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