Rank and file soldiers of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force rebelled on March 23, giving PNG Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta until noon on March 26 to repudiate a cabinet decision to sack more than half of all PNGDF personnel.
The soldiers also demanded that "representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and any unnecessary military personnel from Australia and New Zealand" should leave the country immediately.
The crisis unfolded after the PNG cabinet on March 8 approved proposals for defence force "reform" made by a Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, which included massive cuts to the number of PNGDF personnel.
Following rumours that Australian troops had landed in Port Moresby to oversee the implementation of the CEPG's "reforms", rank and file troops took action on March 14. They armed themselves with weapons from the Murray Barracks armoury and demanded that the government abandon the personnel cuts. Soldiers at the Taurama and Goldie River barracks also joined the protest.
Morauta backed down on March 19, but the troops have demanded confirmation in writing before they agree to hand in their weapons.
The ranks of the PNGDF correctly interpreted the proposed cut in numbers, from 4100 to 1900, as being part of the government's wider program of austerity and budget cuts. These policies are central to the "structural adjustment program" that has been imposed on PNG by the World Bank as a condition for loans worth US$90 million and by the Australian government as a condition for its approximately A$300 million annual aid.
Apart from fearing for their jobs, the soldiers, many of whom provide the only income for their extended families (when the government bothers to pay them), share the PNG people's growing resentment at the deprivations they are suffering in order to please the World Bank, IMF and Canberra.
Education and health services are being run down dramatically and key public assets — such as water, power, banks and telecommunications — are being privatised. The living standards of poor PNG workers, villagers and farmers are plummeting, even as Australian and other First World corporations are making millions from the exploitation of PNG's extensive natural resources.
"The IMF, the World Bank and Australia should leave PNG immediately because they have only manipulated the destiny of the nation", the soldiers' spokesperson Captain Stanley Benny said on March 23. "Their foreign ideas have completely destroyed the nation. The World Bank, the IMF and Australian influences — I repeat, Australian influences — have denuded the nation's vast resources under the guise of assistance."
Meanwhile, PNG politicians' corruption and hypocrisy show no bounds. In January, Morauta rescinded a Minimum Wages Board decision to award PNG's poorest workers a rise of 160% (to A$34 a week). Cabinet approved a rise of just 33% and claimed PNG could not afford the full increase. Soon after, it was leaked that the PNG's parliamentarians and constitutional office holders had been secretly awarded pay rises of up to 100%. Morauta's annual pay jumped from $47,000 a year to $94,000.
This is not lost on the soldiers. As one told reporters: "We see corruption everywhere. People say, 'I am going to nominate for parliament. In three or five years, I will be a millionaire'. All they do is put the people's money in their pockets and the grassroots get nothing."
The great fear in Canberra is that the militant soldiers will link up with students, the urban unemployed and other opponents of structural adjustment to threaten the interests of Australian big business. Australian companies have an estimated A$2.7 billion invested in PNG.
Members of the militant Melanesian Solidarity organisation are actively supporting the soldiers and their demands and on March 21, thousands of students marched through Port Moresby.
The Australian government has sent clear warnings that it is prepared to take military action to defend big business interests in PNG. On March 20, foreign minister Alexander Downer warned, "it would be enormously provocative, very dangerous and completely to the detriment of PNG if any soldiers were to take action which is unconstitutional".
According to the Brisbane Courier-Mail on March 21, Australian combat troops are ready to go to PNG to rescue thousands of expatriates "if law and order breaks down". Troops from a Townsville-based brigade are believed to be on alert and can move at 24 hours notice.
The Australian labour movement and the emerging anti-capitalist movement must immediately pledge to oppose any use of Australian troops — as well as any form of economic or diplomatic pressure — to force the PNG people to accept World Bank dictates. The demands of the PNG rank and file soldiers and their civilian supporters must be backed.