Culture clash in the South Seas

By Nick Squires
BBC correspondent in Sydney

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The mysterious John Frum movement has existed peacefully on an island in the South Pacific for decades; but a violent feud has now broken out between its followers and a new Christian movement.

Sitting beneath a tattered Stars and Stripes flag hanging limply from a bamboo pole, Jack Yahlu recalls the bloody jungle battle which shattered the peace of this little known corner of the South Pacific.

"They wanted to kill us and we wanted to kill them," 27-year-old Yahlu told me. "We used slingshots, axes, bows and arrows. Many people were cut with knives."

The fight he is referring to happened last month on Tanna, an island of about 20,000 people in the archipelago of Vanuatu.
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More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3729715.stm