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| Teacher's Father, Albert Kuteve |
“I brought this child
up without any back ground, I don’t have a lot of money, I worked hard on my
land to pay for his University tuition,” says Albert Kuteve.
18th September 2014 seven days after Albert
Gibson was tortured and stabbed multiple times along the Okuk highway from
Kainantu to Lae and his people in Barola continued to mourn his death.
He was the son of a Pastor, who graduated at the University of
Goroka two years ago, the father of a six month year old girl and a husband to
a wife.
His family members still had the Barola Section
of the Okuk highlands highway closed to all travellers, the feeling on the
ground was of anger, sadness and revenge.
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| Men with bus knives |
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| Barola Community block highway road. |
They (Family members) came from all over Barola, food
garden were neglected for a week as people from hamlets camped at the hilltop
for answers.
The men armed with bush knives, their guns tucked away
behind them, ready and waiting for the slightest spark to ignite a flame of
rage.
The women were covered with soft maroon clay from the
hillside, they cried and wept softly.
“The men don’t feel how we feel, we feel the pain of child
birth and we lose the child through this inhuman way, he wasn’t an animal,” say
the women weeping.
“He was a good boy, he tried, always, to walk a straight
path. “
Barola Community leaders stood under the sun for six days,
trying to contain the anger of the people. The section of the Okuk highway is renowned through out the Highlands as a place for serial car jacking and
thieves who once terrorised travellers.
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| Burnt Highway Truck |
The family of the teacher has claimed several highway trucks
and another was torched on Saturday, when the news of the slain teacher reached home.
“The properties we have burnt, destroyed and claimed, we did
it, because we were frustrated and angry,” says Community Leader, Allan Mosa.
“We are hurt, he didn’t die a good death, and he died like
an animal.”
In the pain of losing a tribal leader, a son and a father
they say it will take many more years for the community to produce someone like
him.
The only thing stopping the thirst for retribution were the
calm words of the teachers father, who is a pastor, he didn’t want violence,
only that his son’s killers must be brought to justice.
The teacher’s father, Albert Kuteve, a pastor of the four
square church, spoke for the first time about his lose.
“I brought this child up without any back ground, I didn’t
have a lot of money, I worked hard on my land to pay for his University
tuition,” says Albert Snr.
“For my efforts to get my son educated, I was stripped off
my title as pastor for six years up until recently, when it was given back to
me, my son was with me in the church.”
“My son was all I had, now I have nothing.”
On that Thursday evening I talked to an old man who invested
so much time and effort into building his “living” insurance source.
The devastation of losing an asset that was groomed and
moulded under the rain and sun, through sweat in the open fields.
I will never forget the sounds of pain, the agonising
wailing of the Mother, Aunts and the Sisters of the late Albert Gibson.
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