Transcript
LAWRENCE STEPHENS: It seemed to me to be peaceful and well organised. I actually wandered into the SRC office and was sitting there, chatting to one of the people when in walked a former president of the SRC and spoke to the current president and said 'one of the things you need to be very careful of is people trying to cause trouble to destroy what you are trying to do', and that I think is the fear we all have. That there would be elements who would like to cause trouble and this would be blamed on the student leaders.
JOHNNY BLADES: An emotive set of circumstances isn't it, because obviously some of the people who were in the students' firing line for their criticism were even discrediting the students as being children or misleading the hopes of their villages and families, so it all becomes very emotive, doesn't it? They were trying just to have a very frank discussion in public weren't they?
LS: It appeared from what I saw of the students, with my discussions with a couple of them, it appeared to be very sensible and very important stuff they were talking about and it really is shameful when people use this faulty logic and argue the reason that you are thinking this way is because you are young or because you are from a certain part of the country. It's just insulting and wrong and I suppose provocative for some people who simply get fed up with the reality that there are individuals who appear to have the highest levels of impunity, unimaginable levels of impunity, whereas a bunch of students asking for a bit of honesty have been suspended and even terminated.
JB: At times during the boycotts some of the government said 'why should the student population be held at ransom to just a few elements and what right do these elements have to demand the head of the government stand down?' Maybe they had a point. It takes some nerve, doesn't it, to sort of demand someone step down?
LS: Personally I felt that that was not the correct approach. I could see that what the students to do with all the money that has been stolen and the inactivity when it comes to investigating very criminal actions that have happened in Papua New Guinea. The particular focus on forcing the prime minister to step down does make sense when you look at other countries where people in the government, presidents and so on, are on occasions forced to step aside from their role whilst investigations take place. That was clearly not on the agenda for PNG. It would have been perhaps better if students had focussed on the huge issue which really has everybody worried which is why there is no activity in trying to find out why the money was stolen and where it's gone and discover why people aren't being held accountable for this. However the students took it as their right to insist that the prime minister move out of that office and present himself to the courts for further investigation. He disagreed. That created a confrontation and as a result we now see the students themselves suffering. That was our fear when it started.
JB: After the shooting in Waigani, the prime minister said there would be an inquiry, what would you like to see happen about what happened that day?
LS: What happened that day was despicable and wrong and an example of a huge issue that we face which is that some elements in the police force and in fact many elements in government had nil respect for the law and behave as they wish. In that particular case they nearly killed and most certainly seriously injured students and from the descriptions we have had, it was not accidental. It was a deliberate breach of the law. It's important that everybody see and hear what happened.
