BY MATT SIEGEL
New York Times
A MUTINY IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA by a group of soldiers loyal to the country’s ousted leader failed less than a day after the uprising began.
Prime Minister Peter O’Neill’s announcement late Thursday came amid escalating tensions between himself and his dismissed predecessor, Sir Michael Somare, with each of them claiming legitimacy.
Some 20 soldiers stormed the barracks of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in Port Moresby early Thursday, detained the military chief and demanded that Mr O’Neill bow to a Supreme Court ruling ordering the reinstatement of Sir Michael, the country’s first post-independence prime minister.
The apparent head of the failed putsch, a former defence attaché to Indonesia, Col Yaura Sasa, said that Sir Michael had chosen him to head the country’s military and charged him with restoring order — and his benefactor’s position as head of government.
But after a tense day that saw military checkpoints erected in the capital and accusations of treason levelled against the mutineers and even Sir Michael, Mr O’Neill said that his military chief had been freed and that the barracks were back in his government’s control.
“The government has now taken control,” the prime minister told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He added that “the commander is now released; he’s not under house arrest. And, as a result, the government has taken full control of the defence headquarters.”
The current crisis has its roots in August, when, several months after Sir Michael had gone to Singapore to receive medical treatment for a heart problem, Parliament voted overwhelmingly to replace him with Mr O’Neill.
When Sir Michael, whose reputation has been tarnished by accusations of corruption and heavy-handedness, then returned to the country in September, he fought for reinstatement, while Mr O’Neill’s government drafted legislation to retroactively authorise the ouster.
The crisis reached a boiling point last month, when the O’Neill government ignored a Supreme Court decision to reinstate Sir Michael, leading to the bizarre spectacle of two rival prime ministers, cabinets and police chiefs claiming legitimacy over the country.
A decision backing Mr O’Neill in December by the country’s governor general, who represents the head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, seemed to have extinguished the crisis.
But Sir Michael never accepted his ouster, and tensions flared anew on 18 January, when he crashed a session of Parliament wielding a copy of the court decision ordering his reinstatement.
A note released on Friday by Neil Ashdown, an Asia-Pacific analyst with the forecasting and market intelligence firm IHS Global Insight, said that the “inept” mutiny would ultimately harm the image of the country’s armed forces and could significantly ratchet up political tensions ahead of elections scheduled for later this year.
“The failed military mutiny in Papua New Guinea risks significantly escalating the political standoff in the country,” he wrote.
“The situation ended peacefully with the mutineers arrested. However, their ties to the Somare faction risk escalating the political standoff with the de facto government of Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.”
“In the short term there is the possibility of recriminations against military and political figures seen as linked to the failed mutiny,” he added.
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