Papua New Guinea (PNG) is to deploy foreign fighter jets and special forces to protect world leaders attending the APEC summit next month in the crime-plagued capital, Port Moresby, officials said.
The government is planning a massive security operation for the summit that opens on Nov. 17, which will attract representatives from 21 nations.
Attendees are to include Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and US Vice President Mike Pence, who is not even expected to sleep in the city, but stay overnight in Australia.
Due to a shortage of hotel accommodation, many of the 15,000 delegates are to bunk down on three cruise liners docked in the port, presenting the authorities with additional security complications.
Although the threat posed by terrorism in Papua New Guinea is considered minimal, the Melanesian nation’s reputation for lawlessness and violent crime precedes it.
To ensure delegates are safe from crime and potential terror attacks, the government has enlisted military help from Australia and the US to ensure the capital’s streets are safe.
“It’s a major undertaking, but it’s very, very important when it comes to promoting the country economy-wise,” Papua New Guinean Minister for APEC Justin Tkatchenko said. “We’ve never had leaders like this before ever come to this area. The whole world will be watching.”
More than a third of Papua New Guinea’s 8.5 million population lives below the poverty line, while tribal and political violence is a recurring problem, particularly in the Highlands region.
Notorious street gangs known as raskols have made carjackings common and the nation has among the highest rates of rape and domestic violence in the world.
About half the capital’s population live in squatter settlements.
“Tribal violence, street violence, gender-based violence — it’s just eating the fabric of our society,” National Capital District Governor Powes Parkop said.
The Economist Intelligence Unit this year ranked Port Moresby 136th out of 140 on its list of the world’s most livable cities.
Australia is bankrolling much of the security operation and has deployed about 1,500 military personnel, including special forces, to Port Moresby.
Australian F/A-18 Super Hornets and surveillance aircraft are set to patrol the skies over Port Moresby, with Canberra also sending warships to protect the cruise liners.
The US Coast Guard has been assigned to provide “inshore security” in the capital.
Tkatchenko told parliament “we are working with our partners so that we can deploy fighter jets in our skies, enhance maritime security and deliver joint special forces operations.”
The government has passed laws allowing international security personnel to use lethal force if necessary to deal with an “imminent threat” during the summit, a move former Papua New Guinean Defence Force commander Jerry Singirok said could impinge on the nation’s sovereignty.
Canberra-based military think tank the Australia Defence Association said that without such foreign security contributions, developing nations such as Papua New Guinea would never be able to host APEC summits.
“That wouldn’t be good from a strategic level or a political level,” Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said.
James believed the huge numbers of police and military in Port Moresby for the summit would keep crime to a minimum.
“There’ll be so many security personnel on the streets that it’s not going to be a problem,” he said.
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