Enga is home to the controversial Porgera Gold Mine, operated as a joint-venture between Canadian company Barrick and China’s Zijin Mining Group.

It employs over 3,000 people and accounts for around 10 per cent of the island’s total export value. But it has also been dogged by allegations of rights abuses, environmental ruin and unfair profit distribution.

Reports indicate that more than 60 people may have been killed in the province, which remains deeply impoverished despite its rich mineral resources. The area is flooded with high-powered weapons and plagued by tribal vendettas, rampant sexual violence, and accusations of witchcraft that often escalate into lynchings.

“We are so close to Australia, our security is important to Australia … they can give us the manpower we want, to finally get the culture of policing right,” the governor of Enga province, Peter Ipatas, told the Papua New Guinea parliament on Wednesday in an admission that the state alone cannot provide security after Sunday’s massacre.

The violence comes as the fragile government of Prime Minister James Marape clings to power in the capital of Port Moresby after riots aimed at his administration erupted on January 10, driven in part by police officers and defence forces who walked off the job over a salary dispute.

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Despite that, Marape now faces a no-confidence vote as fuel shortages heighten public discontent. The shocking tribal bloodshed is adding to a sense of a country in crisis.

Details of the mass murder emerged across social media on Sunday, where pictures showing piles of bloodied corpses and graphic video of killings circulated, further heightening anger and tension.

But it is unclear who sparked the violence or why, officials say, although years of tit-for-tat killings have beset the large remote areas of three main provinces — Enga, Hela and the Southern Highlands.

Some experts say over 2,000 lives have been lost in the last 4–5 years alone as a culture of violence has become the bedrock of young male lives.

“Tribal fighting is our traditional judiciary process,” James Komengi, a human-rights activist in Hela province and a Huli tribal member, told This Week in Asia.

“Men believe in fighting to deliver justice against perpetrators. We believe our gods are watching and protect the innocent and punish the perpetrators. It’s ingrained in our culture.”

But he said the perpetrators are also victims of a wider culture of violence and a weak economy.

“The active and productive generation (of men and boys) grew up in a violent era. They are trauma patients,” he added.

“It’s a case of high-powered weapons in the hands of mentally affected men.”

Marape reacted to the riots by imposing a short state of emergency, which contained the violence. He also sacked a number of key bureaucrats, saying they were attempting to oust him.

Guns-for-hire

Defence forces are reinforcing officials in the resistive highlands, where gold, gas and oil feed multinational corporations yet average incomes languish at around US$460 a month and a shoot-to-kill warning is in effect.

“Any further attempt to cause trouble, it will be dealt with harshly,” Papua New Guinea Police Commissioner David Manning told local media on Tuesday.

“Any tribesman who raises a weapon will more than likely be shot by security forces … there is no sorrow for domestic terrorists who get killed,” he added.

Speculation over the cause and perpetrators of the violence has trickled out, with local media reporting warring tribes battled in Wapenamanda District after the Sikin clan and other guns-for-hire attempted to ambush Ambulyn clan members on their rivals’ land.

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But local police say the Ambulyn clan were waiting for them, cornered the attackers and slaughtered at least 49 of them.

“This is an ongoing tribal fight that has escalated and now includes tribes that were not involved in the initial conflict,” Gary Bustin, an American born in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea and founder of the Tribal Foundation NGO, told This Week in Asia.

“The guns are believed to be funded by businessmen and leaders who are associated with the tribes. Enga is known for tribal warfare. It’s a very big part of their culture, but was never this lethal,” adds Bustin.

A pathway through the violence is only possible within a wider framework that boosts the economy and opportunities, according to anthropologist Michael Main, who is a researcher at Australia National University and a consultant for the United States Institute for Peace.

“Send in combat troops and the troops just become an enemy clan. You have a localised civil war,” he said. “Treat this as a development issue and you have something to work with.”