PORT MORESBY: Riot police have been sent to a remote mountainous village in Papua New Guinea after a gun battle between police and members of a cult involved in human sacrifices, local media reported.
The National newspaper said several people were killed and many injured in the fighting last week in the Finschhafen area of Morobe province, 350 km north of the capital, Port Moresby.

Another bizarre, deadly incident in the South-West Pacific “arc of instability”. Nation-states in Melanesia, which have not had independence for long, and have never exercised complete sovereignty, are fragmenting in a variety of ways in response to the new pressures of globalization. In the case of Papua New Guinea, it is international travel which has brought the scourge of HIV/AIDS to the violent slums of Port Moresby and the tribes of the Highland valleys.

HIV/AIDS, witch hunts, guns and drugs

This Herald article describes how the rise of AIDS (worst in the Pacific) has led to a resurgence in “black magic” and witch hunts:

Age-old beliefs in black magic and evil curses are back with a vengeance in jungle-clad mountain valleys which were unknown to the outside world until the 1930s.

The revival is being fuelled by a spiralling Aids crisis and the collapse of health services, sapping villagers’ faith in Western medicine.

Barely educated villagers living in remote mountain valleys are blaming the increasing number of Aids deaths not on promiscuity or a lack of condom use but on malign spirits.

Alleged witches – mostly women, but some men and even children – have been subjected to horrific torture before being hanged or thrown off cliffs.

Effective enforcement of anti-sorcery laws were one of the benefits of Australian colonization:

When Papua and New Guinea were separate Australian colonies, colonial patrol officers known as “kiaps” and their native auxiliaries suppressed sorcery killings.

But since independence in 1975, the old ways have gradually undergone a gruesome renaissance along the spine of saw-toothed peaks which divides PNG in two.

Black globalization, including the spread of illegal guns and drugs, has inflamed the situation:

A surge in the illegal growing of marijuana in the emerald green valleys has contributed to black magic paranoia, experts say.

The recent acquisition of automatic weapons, replacing traditional bows and arrows, has also emboldened the groups of young men, who typically carry out the torture.

Groups of armed drugged-up young men roaming the countryside? That’s exactly the sort of thing that inspired the phrase “Africanization of the South Pacific.”

The rise of cults

Such an environment is conducive to the rise of cults, especially during times of upheaval and the clash of different cultures. For example, many cargo cults arose in PNG during the Second World War, as in other parts of Melanesia. In New Zealand in the 1860s, violent cults combining Christian and Maori beliefs developed, some involving a revival of cannibalism, and launched anti-colonial insurgencies. Guerrilla leader Te Kooti began the Ringatu church which survives today, unlike Titokowaru’s sect or the Pai Marire movement, nicknamed “Hau Hau” from the chant which was supposed to render adherents bulletproof (their comrades who died in droves just lacked faith, of course).

Islands Business describe another recent battle with a Papuan cargo cult, whose leader “Black Jesus” (pictured) was accused of rape, human sacrifice and polygamy. Police claimed to have been attacked by up to 1500 warriors in their mountain hideout after being sent to investigate a “holy war”.

The future: speculation about cults and resource war in Papua New Guinea

Essentially, this is what worries me about the rise and increasing violence of Papuan cults. They can mobilize thousands of armed men, and control territory that is almost impregnable.

With a political cause like anti-colonialism in 1860s New Zealand – perhaps anti-Australianism, or something that would mesh with environmentalism and anti-globalization – they could present a serious threat to the government. This could easily be combined with a Bougainville-style resource war, which could get a group international attention, the possibility of loot and extortion, and would place destabilizing demands on government forces, just as happened in Bougainville in the 1990s. PMC involvement and possible Chinese intervention (China owns nickel and copper mines in New Guinea, which have been accused of mistreating workers, just like the Panguna copper mine in Bougainville before the war) would exacerbate the situation.

Commodity prices are high, and there is increased interest in Papuan oil and gas reserves. Launching a war for resources could be a quick way to get money and power in parts of Papua New Guinea. Foreign investors should be making contingency plans. And it might just be a situation where Australia has to provide some colonial-style leadership.

Posted by Phil on Sunday, May 13th, 2007 at 12:14 am.