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Calls for answers two years on from UPNG shooting violence

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Protesters carry a fellow protester who was shot by police.
A man reportedly shot by police at a student rally in Port Moresby is carried by three others.(Twitter: @Mangiwantok)
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More than two years after police opened fire on student protesters at the University of Papua New Guinea, opposition MPs are calling for an inquiry to be completed and made public.

In June 2016, police in Port Moresby opened fire on university students protesting against the government, injuring at least 17 people.

The injured, one of whom had a gunshot wound to the head, were among a crowd of students trying to march to the national Parliament to continue a long-running protest against Prime Minister Peter O'Neill.

In the weeks after the violence, separate inquiries were promised by the Government, the Police and the Ombudsman Commission, but no reports have materialised.

All have been contacted by the ABC seeking official comment but none has responded so far.

The Shadow Justice and Police Minister, Kerenga Kua, said the fact that any inquiry was yet to report was no surprise to him.

"The Prime Minister has a habit of promising inquiries which never materialise," he said.

"Or if an inquiry does take place simply because there's pressure from the public, then over time as the inquiry runs for long, the temperature cools down and the people tend to move onto a new crisis and then the old investigation or inquiry is forgotten.

"And when the results are finally released to the Prime Minister, he doesn't table it."

Mr O'Neill later said the police had only fired warning shots and tear gas because students had thrown rocks at them.

At the time, rioting and looting had been reported in several parts of PNG, including in the PNG Highland cities of Goroka and Mt Hagen, and in Lae on the north coast.

Former Vice Chancellor of Unitech, Albert Schram, was dealing with similar anti-government protests on his campus in Lae at the time, and now he is leading the call for promised inquiries to deliver their findings.

"That shooting came at a very convenient moment we must remember because it was the last day of the Parliamentary hearings where the opposition was allowed to send in a motion of no confidence in the Government, " Dr Schram said.

"Somebody in the Government circles, and nobody knows who, must have given the orders that anything had to be done to prevent the students from doing their peaceful demonstration at Parliament."

Inquiries "not getting the attention they deserve"

Opposition MP and Oro Province Governor Gary Juffa was on his way to Parliament on June 8, 2016 when he heard on the radio that students had gathered to protest, and police were there to confront them.

"I managed to get there in time and talk to the students and the police," he told the ABC's Pacific Beat program.

"Gunshots had already been fired, students had already been shot and students were in the process of (being) about to retaliate."

Mr Juffa disputed the claim that the shooting was deliberate and politically-motivated, but like Mr Schram he lamented the delay in the investigations, which he puts down to the underresourcing of police.

"I don't think it was deliberate, I think it's just a policeman who lost control and fired a shot you know, I don't think... there was any real ideology or intention behind it," he said.

"That particular policeman ought to be charged and taken to task or dealt with or disciplined but nothing has happened.

"The police are under-resourced, they simply don't have the capacity and inquiries like this are not going to get the attention they deserve.

"But there should be an effort to progress this inquiry and reveal or expose the facts about what happened on that day and why the students were shot."

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Papua New Guinea, Pacific, Law, Crime and Justice, Education