As Minister for Justice and Attorney General of Papua New Guinea, Bernard Narokobi advocated developing traditional forms of  law to replace the very complicated system handed down by the colonial power. His attempts to follow his ideal were frustrated because the written law always takes precedence over the custom law.  In 1989, he formed PEACE Foundation Melanesia to deal with this problem. 

PEACE, a non-governmental and non-church organization, designed a conflict resolution process, which combines the recent work in mediation/restorative justice with customary Melanesian ways.  This customary practice insists that all mediation must be available to the community and that the extended family must be liable for restitution and parole duties for the offender. Melanesian traditional practice uses three processes: 

• Consensus: the need to talk about the matter, provide all stake holders with a chance to express their views and come to a decision which provides some suitable benefits for all. One of the major complaints of the Bougainville chiefs was that the colonial government and the National government would not meet them in dialogue.

• Win-win mediation: the need to avoid shame and to save face in the sight of the community is essential to any Melanesian solution. The person who is a loser feels obliged to find some way of payback. Among some communities the man shamed beyond acceptance would secretly kill some person and so start a round of payback in the hope that his enemy would be one of those killed.

• Custom Law: Is the process, which concentrates on bringing a peaceful solution, which brings a ritual shame and punishment of the offender and reunites the community through a ceremony of forgiveness.

PEACE Foundation Melanesia’s work since 1994

PEACE developed its restorative justice process while training communities in Bougainville over the past eight years. Work began in Burka in 1994 with trainings extending to settlements in the National Capital District (NCD) in 1995. To date, the group has trained more that 8000 people in Bougainville and another 8000 in NCD.

Since 1999, PEACE has been working with Police training and Community Police by providing training to build bridges between the police and the communities. In 2002, it provided the police with training of trainers courses and gave them permission to use the manuals so in order to carry out their work more efficiently and cheaply. PEACE has also been asked to provide training and retraining for police in the Solomon Islands.

This year they have been creating Peace and Good Order Committees (PGOC) in other settlements with the main purpose of fighting against domestic violence. Presently, PEACE is running a pilot project for Mendi in the Southern Highlands. They were invited by the community to conduct training to reduce the tribal fighting which disrupted the recent elections and has left warring parties armed with guns threatening the government and the civil society to an extent that the district has ceased to function.  

The Training Programme

The basic training provided by PEACE is a two-week course called Community Justice (people skills and conflict resolution).  The people skills section provides training in self understanding, attitudes and values, male/female relations, listening skills, assertive communications and how to facilitate a meeting. This training provides essential skills for any one who is involved in working with a community. The second week of the course is negotiation, win-win mediation and restorative justice.

It is not a lecture course.  Trainers work with their participants using discussions, role-plays, reports, and feedback.  The programmes special features and strategies are:

• Training aimed at the leaders- Participants are mostly village leaders - village chiefs, church leaders, councilors, magistrates, village constables, women’s groups, youth groups, sports groups etc.

• A course runs for two weeks with five and a half hour days

• Classes of thirty are preferred as they give sufficient numbers for good discussion.

•  Participants develop ideas during discussion in small groups of six and then report back to the whole group.

• Although gender balance is preferred, usual attendance is usually 60/40 male/female balance. The presence of women in the courses provides them with the skills to take their place in meetings and articulate their position of various topics.

• All the people who complete the ten days (two weeks) of training are provided with a certificate.

At the end of two weeks the community has a group of thirty leaders, both men and women, skilled in relating and communicating clearly and honestly and form a group of competent win-win mediators. They have in place a Peace and Good Order Committee (PGOC), whose duty it is to oversee the village courts and mediation/restorative justice process.  A mediation team is made up of one man and one woman. Although not all the training participants will become mediators, the group will have a sufficient number who do.  

Impact in one community

Paul Maia, from the Saraga Squatter settlement in Port Moresby, attended a PEACE Foundation training course. In 1996, he started conducting mediation for his own ethnic group, the Goilalas, under his house with the skills that he learned.  His work grew in popularity with people from other ethnic groups coming to him for mediation rather than going to the village court.

With the increased workload, he set up a PGOC of 3 men and 2 women for his own people. Later at their request, Paul set up PGOCs for the other 24 different ethnic groups in the settlement.

The PGOC is now the unit for overseeing all conflicts in the settlement. Each PGOC’s  mandate is to

• consider all conflicts in the community

• handle conflicts with in its own ethnic group and for inter ethnic conflicts both PGOCs join together with another neutral PGOC.

• decide what action should be taken- none, police and district court, village court or mediation.

• Set the payment that each party must pay to the mediators.

• Supervise the mediation.

• Keep the records of the mediation.

• Follow up on the decisions made.

Since police rarely go into squatter settlements, the PGOC provides the community with a process to settle disputes. The police are only invited in when the PGOC calls for them. The community has in effect set up their own law and order process in a situation where the government was unable to do so. They accept that there is a law and will refer criminals to the police and the courts but there are also occasions when the PGOC has called for mediation in cases of rape and killing because they fear that the courts would not accept the evidence.

Saraga has become one of the most stable settlements in Port Moresby. They still have their troubles but they are growing in confidence to handle them.  

Contact PEACE Foundation Melanesia:

Phone (675) 321 3144  

Fax (675) 321 3645.  

Email peacefound@global.net.pg or phowley@datec.net.pg

Br. Pat Howley

November  2002