By Busa
Jeremiah Wenogo
As I
penned this piece I am reminded of the many young men and women in Universities
throughout the country who have decided to risks their studies and their very
future to voice their concern on various issues of national importance. It
pains me to think that they are anxious, fearful and doubtful of the outcome as
each day goes by. Yet I hope they will
realize that their courage and determination to seek justice gives Papua New Guinea
hope for a better tomorrow. The least we the rest of the concerned and law
abiding citizens of this country could do is to stand up with the students as
they exercise their democratic and God given rights on behalf of the silent
majority. Yet it frustrates me to think that the nemesis they are confronting
is none other than our own government. I ask how did we come to this? How can
the problems of the entire nation come to rest on these young shoulders?
I hope
this piece is both an encouragement and words of advice to the students as they
embark on their fight for good governance and respect for the rule of law. I hope
and pray that for the sake of the students’ wellbeing the government responds
to their petition favourably.
Student
power is a term often synonymous with student unrest. In PNG UPNG has a
colourful history of student activism eversince its establishment. The same can
be said of UNITECH and other tertiary institutions which in their own right
have stood up one time or another on various issues of significant importance both
internally and externally. Unfortunately some of these protests have resulted
in the deaths of students. In recent memory the 2001 UPNG protests against Privatization stood
out in this regard. This is something that a democratic country like PNG should
avoid at all cost. I pray that we will not see a similar incident ever again in
the future or even now. Students like all right thinking and concern Papua New
Guineans and most importantly being the future leaders of this country, deserve
to be heard by our government. A failure to do that can provoke violent unrest
as is evident in the past. This is something that should be avoided at all cost
for it does not serve the interest of anyone. Yet one has to wonder what should
be foregone for the greater good; justice and truth or lies and deception?
Furthermore we should ask if we should remain silent when the nation is in
peril?
I
participated in a UPNG student movement back in 2005. Although it was a
dreadful experience at that time looking back I feel privilege to have been
part of a movement that was critical to the future of UPNG. I hope our efforts
have borne fruit with our current students and those who graduated after us. The
2005 UPNG student unrest was over the grading system used by UPNG to award academic
grades to students. It was deemed by the student body at that time that the
grading system was unfair as it allocated academic grades based on a quota
system. This meant that it unnecessarily downgraded a student’s academic grade
although his/her marks may indicate otherwise. Beside this the petition of the student at that time also called upon the UPNG Administration at that time to quickly address the diabolical state of key infrastructure critical to student learning such as dormitories, internet and the library. What started out as a petition
to the UPNG Administration turned out into a nasty
confrontation between the student body and the administration when the police
assaulted first year students in a night raid.
I can
still vividly recall that night while a resident at the Niumoro Dormitory in
2005 when the policemen armed with bullet proof vests and high powered guns
stormed into the four (4) first year dorms. Prior to that they threw T-Gas canisters
to flush out the students from the dorms. This was in retaliation of an attack
by the students on a fire truck that was sent in to put out a fire at the UPNG
Maintenance section where several other students detonated a self-made petrol
bomb. That night's experience was terrible. Students fled in all direction in
fear of their lives. Some jumped over the fence into the nearby Botanical
Garden (Nature park) to seek refuge while the rest were rounded up by the
police. This lot which I was part of underwent a rough interrogation exercise.
During the interrogation students were beaten and verbally assaulted. Most of
the students including myself had to run through a line of policemen while
being punched. We then had police officers pressing their boots against our
bear back while lying on the grass or bear soil. The beating continued into the
wee hours of the night. This is something that I personally do not want anyone
let alone the current UPNG students to go through just to be heard. We owe it to
them and the people of this country to resolve our matters in a civilized
manner. Our political leaders most of whom are UPNG graduates and once upon a
time student leaders themselves should put themselves in the students’ shoe and
come down and address their concern.
In 2007
when I was the President of the newly revived Economics Student Society we were
confronted with the issue of our degree program facing abolition. The UPNG
Administration at that time acting on the advise from a report that was done in
2007 on the reforms into the UPNG Re-structure recommended that the Economics
Degree Program be removed/abolished altogether. The Economics Student Body saw
this as an insult to our intelligence as well as the profession of Economics in
PNG. Furthermore, it meant that future Economics Graduates from UPNG were going
to be competing in a crowded job market. In pursing this agenda we made it our
business (learning from the experiences in 2005) to explore protest as the
option of last resort. Under pressure we went to work while I maintained an
open line of communication with the UPNG Vice Chancellor at that time,
Professor Ross Hynes. We argued in his office on couple of occasions on the
issue. He tried his best to convince me and I did likewise. Eventually we both
agreed that the Economics Student Body will do up a petition outlining our
points to be tabled before the UPNG Council and then the Senate for their
deliberation. Although our petition was knocked out on the technical grounds by
the UPNG Council we persisted with a revised petition and had it tabled before
the Senate with the assistance from Prof Hynes. Eventually we got the Senate to
rescind the decision to remove the degree program; a victory for the Economics students.
While the
2005 experience was traumatic compared to 2007 I realized that in both cases we
gained valuable experiences that shaped our lives and those that came after us.
Fortunately for both cases we eventually got what we wanted although in the
case of the 2005 unrest it came at the risks of our life. With the
proliferation of social media and internet to aid their course the current
batch of students are in a far more superior position than my lot and those
before us. I am hoping that the students utilise the wealth of information
available at their disposal to make the most informed decision as they take
this fight on.
Materials
of interest on the 2005 unrest
I am here to tell you about Students Unrest Essay
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