Sounds like the experience of a foreigner that didn’t bother with local customs and went against the grain in every way. I wouldn’t generalize from experiences like yours (and others like you).

I vouched for this comment, which got flagged dead. It’s got an accusatory tone, which is not great. But it also has accurate substance.

It’s true that westerners visiting nations like PNG for work are often cloistered behind elaborate security. This is in part because the organization has legal responsibility for sending those workers, and the deterrent security measures are way less expensive than the legal and PR headache of an incident. In addition, well-funded and highly organized foreign businesses attract local ire in ways that random individuals do not.

In any one of those countries at any given time there are also foreigners passing through on travel or less organized work (e.g. academia) who experience the country without that thick security layer… and are perfectly fine.