Australian police mission to prop up former colony begins

They call themselves 'rascals', a word which conjures up good-natured pranksters or naughty schoolboys. But in the pidgin English of Papua New Guinea the word, which is spelt 'raskol', denotes something much more sinister.

Far from being loveable rogues, raskols are the armed thugs at the centre of PNG's crime epidemic. Notorious for robberies, rapes and armed hold-ups, they prey on locals and foreigners.

They are a product of the slums which dot the hills and valleys around the capital, Port Moresby, routinely listed by the Economist Intelligence Unit as the world's most dangerous capital city.

Expatriates live behind high walls and razor wire, more reminiscent of Johannesburg than the South Pacific. Newcomers are warned not to go out after dark, and to take care, even when walking around the centre of town in the middle of the day.

The raskols, armed with machetes, pistols and M-16 assault rifles, can strike at any time. In one widely reported incident last year, a nurse was injured in a car crash, only to be dragged away, still bleeding, and gang-raped by raskols. A van full of flight attendants on their way to the airport was also held up and the women raped.

Tackling the scourge of PNG's raskol gangs will be a key challenge faced by the 210 Australian police officers being deployed to the country as part of an emergency assistance package drawn up between Canberra and Port Moresby.