Inspector Gael Stockwell of the New Zealand police spent a year working in Bougainville on what is one of New Zealand's longest running aid programmes.
Since 1998 New Zealand has been providing a small team of police, sometimes as few as four, sometimes up to 11, who have been providing help as the autonomous Papua New Guinea region recovered from the turbulence of civil war.
The police have undertaken a number of roles on behalf of the Bougainville Police Service, or BPS, but a key one was training community constables, or what are known as CAPS, or Community Auxillary Police.
Inspector Stockwell told Don Wiseman this role has now changed.
A NZ police car seen on a Buka street ahead of an historical independence vote, in 2019 Photo: AFP
