Wednesday, 06 January 2010
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TRIADS IN PNG AND FIJI
TRIAD assassins have been arrested for the attempted murder of a leading businessman in Port Moresby, confirming the arrival of Chinese organised crime in PNG.
Two men, Gao Changjiang, 36, and Zhu Fu Xue, 38, from Fujian province in China, have been charged with shooting Papua New Guinea supermarket king Jason Tan as he drove into his Paga Hill home on Saturday.
Police said the men hid themselves, awaiting his approach, and fired five shots.
Mr Tan escaped with a bullet wound to his right arm, rang the police, and gave them a description of the getaway car, which was intercepted at a police roadblock.
The police found guns and ammunition in the car.
Assistant Police Commissioner Awan Sete said: "This latest incident confirms the existence of Asian triad operatives in Port Moresby. I call on every citizen living and working in the country to oppose such barbaric attacks by reporting such activities to police."
This attack came a month after PNG's top corruption fighter, Chief Ombudsman Chronox Manek, was left for dead after gunmen in two cars shot him in his own vehicle outside his Port Moresby home. Mr Manek survived but there has so far been no breakthrough in the case.
Mr Sete described the hiring of criminal assassins as an "ugly trend" in Port Moresby. Metropolitan police superintendent Fred Yakasa told The National newspaper that "it is a frightening situation. It is involving Asians against Asians, or Asians using Papua New Guineans to kill".
It could be linked, he said, to "business jealousy". Mr Tan, was brought up in Malaysia but has spent 30 years in PNG. On Saturday, only hours before the attack, he had opened the country's newest and grandest hypermarket, the J-Mart in Erima, near Port Moresby's airport, redeveloped following a fire caused by an electrical fault three years ago.
His eldest son, Justin, told the Post-Courier newspaper that Mr Tan had been targeted for some years by business rivals who had hired assassins.
Police in the Pacific islands region have expressed growing concern about incursions by organised crime, especially by triads, as the number of Chinese migrants swells rapidly -- and with growing evidence that many succeed in entering PNG and Fiji , especially, without the formally required official documentation.
This has triggered such resentment in PNG, where much lower-rung retailing and fast-food distribution has been de-localised by such migrants, that last May most of the country's urban centres were locked down due to anti-Asian riots. Widespread racist warnings on PNG internet sites about repeat riots on New Year's Eve were not realised, however.
Former PNG police minister Bire Kimisopa warned that "Chinese mafia" had bought bureaucrats "throughout the system" in PNG.
Last weekend's attempted assassination is already prompting renewed expressions of anxiety. But PNG and its neighbours appear to lack answers, or the political determination to implement them.
And PNG is now preparing to bring in thousands more guest workers from Asia in order to build two multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas plants.
The Australian per Rowan Callick 01-05-10
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