For years I’ve been keeping bookmarks and links to news about Porgera for my own scholarly record. Because there is another surge in fighting again I thought it would be useful to write a short post summarizing what appears to be happening in the valley. I am in the US, and get most of my news from social media and chatting with friends online, so I am not a good source of accurate information. But hopefully I can collate some things to put together a fuller picture.
I first noticed this latest round of violence in Porgera on 10 September (all dates in US time) when social media posts started showing pictures of smoke rising above Suyan. Suyan is an area east of the government station which is home to a large fenced off campus with accommodations for mine workers called Suyan “Camp”. It was not clear if Suyan Camp or the Suyan area was on fire — if it was the camp then that would be very unusual. To the best of my knowledge (and to my surprise) most mining facilities appear to have been untouched during the years the mine was closed. I assume this was because people wanted the mine (and the revenue it brings) to return. They also didn’t want to risk angering the police and the mine as well. So if mine facilities are destroyed in this conflict, that would be a real mark of escalation.
On 11 Sep the UN Disaster Management team posted a report on fighting in Porgera (I read it on the 13th when it was posted to ASAONet). It was not much more detailed than social media postings and claimed there was fighting at Panandaka or ‘Panataka’ as they spelled it. The UN has a lot of room to improve their reports — I hope they will rise to the occasion. They claim “at least six” people died, and that “most sources report a total of ten fatalities”. It was good to have those figures.
On 13 September the Post-Courier, one of PNG’s two two newspapers, ran an article about fighting in Porgera “Porgera in state of Chaos”. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed by their coverage as well, which was not spell-checked and did not attribute any of their sources. They claimed 20 people were dead in Porgera (a number circulating on FaceBook) but did not attribute it this number to any news source. According to them seven bodies have “been identified and confirmed dead”. There is a lot of room for the Post to improve its reporting as well. Even just verifying posts on socials would be great.
On September 14th social media posts showed Upper Maipangi, above Porgera Station, on fire. There are also pictures circulating of dead bodies. I have no way to verify these, especially the dead bodies. These posts are very hard to look at. But the pictures of upper Porgera station burning do appear to be upper Porgera station.
In my discussions with people, one person described the situation as “civil war”. It appears that people from clans based in Laiagam (and perhaps Kandep) are fighting local Porgerans. There has long been tension between people born and raised in Porgera and migrants from Laiagam and Kandep (areas just east of Porgera). There is a complicated story to tell here about affinal politics and in-migration, but the tldr is that long-standing tensions appears to have broken out into fighting. Sakare is the clan whose name I’ve seen listed most often as the ‘outside’ clan fighting in Porgera. But I have no way to confirm that and I don’t know much about this group.
I’ve also seen images circulating on Social Media of a letter which appears to be from James McTiernan, the general manager of NPL written on 15 Sep. It states that the mine would suspend operations for the 16th, 17th, and 18th of September. It gives workers three days of leave without pay to sort themselves out. If workers stay on site they will be paid during this period. The document looks pretty legit to me.
There is also a document circulating dated 16 Sep entitled “EMERGENCY ORDERS FOR PORGERA” and signed by Samson Kua announcing a curfew in Porgera that will run from 5pm to 7am every day. It says that vehicles will be searched and weapons will be confiscated. It looks like a real document to me as well.
There is a very good article on this new SoE by Harry Pearl and Harlyne Joku at Benar News entitled “PNG authorizes lethal force to quell deadly violence near Porgera mine: Police declared a state of emergency after fighting between illegal miners and local landowners”. Joku’s reporting is consistently good.
NPL hasn’t posted any press releases about this on their website yet. A lot of media sites (like the Post and EmTV) have been focused on independence day celebrations. We’ll see if they turn to Porgera now that independence weekend is over. It is a depressing way to spend independence weekend. This violence in Porgera is terrible.
Alex Golub 