The National is running a piece called “Let Cops Stay Longer”:http://www.thenational.com.pg/050809/nation4.php, which quotes Pakiru Pundi as urging the government to extend the state of emergency in Porgera and that the house burnings reported last week were not serious. His concern appears to be that illegal miners and non-ethnic Porgerans are colonizing the valley.
Some of the National’s reporting seems a bit off — Pakiru is described as “paramount chief” of the Tieni (there are no ‘paramount chiefs’ in Porgera) and Yarik, his home area, is listed as an ‘illegal settlement’. But there is absolutely no doubt of the fundamental legitimacy of Pakiru Pundi as a Porgera landowner and his deep involvement with Porgera over decades adn decades of time. The overall the drift of the article is clear — the story of mine, government and army arrayed against and oppressing ‘indigenous’ Porgerans hides a more complex, and probably more accurate account of a variety of forces, including multiple landowner groups, trying to deal with the growth of population in the valley as a result of, among other things, Engan colonization.
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