By Gary Juffa*

Our simple folk ask for little - a road, a bridge perhaps, a school and a hospital. They fend for themselves as they have done for the last 50,000 years.

They toil without complaint and with much respect for the educated and those that lead. They complain only when they do not get the attention that they rightly deserve.

They are unaware of the substantial resources that are squandered in their name. They are oblivious to the devious scams and schemes that their leaders concoct to deprive them of what is rightfully theirs. Their children walk on deteriorated roads to a school with no desks, to visit a library with no books, to sit in a classroom with no teachers. Their womenfolk trudge to aid-posts with no medicines, no nurses and no doctor.

Meanwhile the government urges them to free up the last true possession they have, their land -for "development" purposes. Large international forces loom in the near future, prodding the government that no longer represents the people, to push them aside.

For "development" for "progress"....every week another child dies from dysentery in a remote district for lack of medical care. a mother is a victim of lawlessness and suffers the humiliation and trauma of rape as she struggles to survive in an increasingly lawless society. Youth, disillusioned and bitter turn to drugs and alcohol, walking as zombies throughout the deteriorated stations and districts that dot the rural areas of PNG. Ethnic tension and deteriorating law and order infect the ordinary folk with fear and anxiety.

This is where we are....PNG

* First published on the blog The Narorong Report