Pubdate: Sat, 09 Sep 2000 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Copyright: 2000 The Sydney Morning Herald Contact: GPO Box 3771, Sydney NSW 2001 Fax: +61-(0)2-9282 3492 Website: http://www.smh.com.au/ Forum: http://forums.fairfax.com.au/ Author: Paul Daley AUSTRALIANS IN P.N.G. GUNS-FOR-DRUGS DEALS An elaborate network of Australian and Asian criminals is smuggling thousands of automatic and semi-automatic weapons, some of which were hidden during Australia's 1996 gun amnesty, into the Papua New Guinea highlands in exchange for top quality marijuana. The weapons - which include M16s, AK47s, SLRs and automatic shotguns - are being used extensively in murderous tribal fights in and around the Western Highlands town of Mount Hagen, where police are fighting a losing battle against heavily armed criminal gangs and drug growers. PNG law enforcement bodies, Australian intelligence and defence sources, and regional diplomats have expressed concern to the Herald that increasingly large quantities of high quality marijuana, known as "PNG Gold", are being shipped out of ports - including Daru and possibly Lae - for northern Australia in return for guns. The guns are then taken by road to the highlands' rural centres - including Mount Hagen, Goroka and Kundiawa - where arms dealers sell them for up to $5,000 each or trade them for more marijuana. Some guns were flown directly into the highlands on un-charted flights, sources said. Thousands of weapons were also being smuggled directly across the PNG border from the Indonesian province of West Papua, sources said. Australians are thought to be involved in these operations, too. "This whole process has been observed for more than a year now, and there is mounting evidence that many of these weapons are coming from Australia and that Australians could also be involved in moving guns in from West Papua," a source said. "There are strong suggestions in Australia's [intelligence] agencies that some of the guns coming in are those which were not - but should have been - - handed in during the gun amnesty and buy-back." Mount Hagen Provincial Police Commander John Bonot said the smuggled firearms were replacing traditional weapons, such as bows and arrows, in tribal fights in the highlands. "Criminals are bringing them in from Australia and from Indonesia, from West Irian [West Papua]," he said. "The criminal networks involved are we believe very, very complicated and confiscating the weapons, getting inside the networks, is very, very dangerous for us. When the weapons are smuggled in they are very hard to detect." Mount Hagen magistrate Willie Bruno said most tribes in the highlands now kept a large number of weapons while criminal gangs also held hundreds of weapons. He estimated thousands of high-powered firearms had been smuggled into the highlands from a variety of countries, including Australia, and that the illegal trade had increased dramatically in recent years. "We believe that weapons come to to Daru and other places from Darwin and elsewhere in Australia, while marijuana goes back to Darwin and to parts of far North Queensland," he said. The PNG Prime Minister, Sir Mekere Morauta, said he was planning to legislate to eradicate the increasing number of illegal weapons from his country. "I'm afraid that if we don't do anything, the 2002 elections in Papua New Guinea will become very violent," he said. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart