Several victims of Jeffrey Epstein are suing big banks for allowing Epstein to use his money for human trafficking and abuse. Then, a gas station owner has made headlines after hiring private security armed to the teeth as crime ravages Philadelphia. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. Transcript: *This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, […]
“The amendments establish clear legal process for the escalated use of up to (sic) lethal force, powers of search and seizure, and detention, for acts of domestic terrorism,” he said.
“It is high time that we call these criminals domestic terrorists, because that is what they are, and we need harsher measures to bring them to justice one way or another.”
PNG Police Commissioner David Manning . . . “It is high time that we call these criminals domestic terrorists.” Image: PNG police/RNZ Pacific
Manning, in a statement, went on to say domestic terrorism included the “deliberate use of violence against people and communities to murder, injure and intimidate, including kidnapping and ransoms, and the destruction of properties.
Includes hate crimes
“An accurate definition of domestic terrorism also includes hate crimes, including tribal fights and sorcery-related violence.”
Transparency International Papua New Guinea chair Peter Aitsi said he doubted the new law would be effective.
He said police already had lethal powers.
“I think in terms of changing the act to give them more power, I think they already have it,” he said.
“But I doubt whether it will have any significant improvement in terms of the response to this emerging problem we are having now, of hostage taking and ransom seeking.”
Aiitsi said that in the Highlands there was a proliferation of guns, and government authority had been overwhelmed by one or two individuals with the money and guns to maintain power.
“So in this type of environment you can see the police and authorities, so-called authorities, would be powerless, because it’s these individuals that control these large sections of these communities, that are now well armed, that are the power in these areas.”
PNG authorities “would be powerless, because it’s [some] individuals that control these large sections of these communities, that are now well armed”. Image: Koroi Hawkins/RNZ Pacific
Call For a different approach
Cathy Alex was one of a group kidnapped in February, along with a New Zealand-born Australian archaeologist and two others.
She said she had got some insight into the age and temperament of the kidnappers.
“Young boys, 16 and up, a few others,” she said.
“No Tok Pisin, no English. It’s a generation that’s been out there that has had no opportunities.
“What is happening in Bosavi is a glimpse, a dark glimpse, of where our country is heading to.”
She said there was a need for a focus on providing services to the rural areas as soon as possible.
Transparency International PNG’s Peter Aitsi . . . PNG has allowed its government system to be undermined by political elites with “our people really being pushed to the real margins of our development”. Image: Transparency International PNG/RNZ Pacific
Peter Aitsi said that over the past 20 years PNG had allowed its government system to be undermined with political elites taking control of sub-national services.
He said this had led to “our people really being pushed to the real margins of our development”.
Not engaged in society
“So as a result they are not engaged in the process of society building or even nationhood.”
Aitsi said this results in the lawless conduct.
“Their interest is to serve those who can put food on the table for them, and essentially what they see as people who care about their welfare, but they are just using them for their individual outcomes.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An Indonesian court hearing was held at Tipikor Court, Jakarta, last week when suspended Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe was arraigned before a panel of judges on allegations of bribery and gratification over the Papua provincial infrastructure project.
The panel of judges refused Enembe’s exception, or memorandum of objection, to the charges after finding sufficient evidence to reject the governor’s arguments.
However, given the governor’s ill health, the judges ruled to prioritise his health and grant his request to suspend proceedings until he is medically fit to stand trial.
The governor’s request to have his son’s Melbourne-based university student bank account unblocked to continue his studies was not granted, and his legal case is pending.
The following three points were determined by the judges last Monday week (24 June 2023):
1. Granted the access request of the defendant/the defendant’s legal advisory team;
2. Ordered the Public Prosecutor at the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to object to the detention of Lukas Enembe from 26 June to 9 July 2023; and
3. Ordered the Public Prosecutor at the commission to report on the progress of the defendant’s health to court.
Abandoned in Indonesia’s military hospital
Governor Lukas Enembe is now being held in Indonesia’s military hospital (Gatot Soebroto Army Hospital) in Jakarta.
The governor repeatedly informed the Indonesian authorities that he was in need of medical treatment and needed to be monitored in Singapore by his regular medical specialists. These requests, however, have been rejected to date.
Psychologically, his treatment in Singapore is completely different from that in Jakarta. The governor is constantly being monitored by KPK, treated by KPK’s appointed doctors in military-controlled hospitals.
It is highly unlikely that these environments are ideal for his recovery. The hospital where he is currently being held is named after a national hero of Indonesia, Gatot Soebroto.
The ailing accused Papua Governor Lukas Enembe in a wheelchair and handcuffed . . . his defence lawyers and family accuse Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency of ill treatment. Image: Odiyaiwuu.com
In 1819, the hospital was established as the main hospital for the Indonesian Army. The hospital also provides limited services for civilians. Papua’s governor, the head of the Papuan tribes, is now being held in this military hospital.
The governor’s family complains about the ongoing inhumane treatment.
The governor’s family admits that it was difficult for them to care for him while he was abandoned at Gatot Subroto Army Central Hospital, as determined by a panel of judges from the Jakarta Corruption Court (Tipikor).
Restrictions imposed
Governor Enembe’s family said the detention officers imposed restrictions on them.
Elius Enembe, the governor’s brother, and family spokesperson, said: “KPK Detention Centre regulations allow us to visit Mr Lukas only on Mondays. It was only for two hours.”
According to Elius, the family feels that two hours of treatment a week are not adequate and not optimal for treatment, reports Odiyaiwuu.com.
Governor Enembe is currently under the custody of the judicial system, not KPK. Thus it is the judge, and not the KPK, who has the authority to determine when and how long the family is allowed to visit Enembe.
“But why are we restricted by KPK detention officers now?” Elius said.
Even in the courtroom, the judge explained that Mr Lukas’ treatment at the hospital follows standard hospital operating procedures and not KPK detention procedures.
Moreover, the KPK prosecutor was present in the courtroom and was able to hear the judge’s statement that Lukas Enembe’s delivery followed hospital procedures, not those at the KPK detention facility.
Family objections
Because of this, Elius said, the family strongly objected to the restrictions placed by KPK detention officers on the days and hours of Enembe’s visit.
According to Elius, Lukas Enembe’s ongoing trial would undoubtedly be a unique legal cases both in Indonesia and internationally.
Lukas Enembe, who suffers from various serious health conditions, such as chronic kidney disease — stage 5, suffered four strokes, and has hepatitis, and is being abandoned at Gatot Soebroto Hospital. His physical condition is very poor, and his legs are swollen.
He is the only defendant who has appeared before the court barefoot and wearing training pants. As well as being the only defendant accompanied by a lawyer in the defendant’s seat, he was also the only defendant whose defence memorandum was not read by himself or by a lawyer.
Governor Lukas Enembe has difficulty speaking after suffering the strokes and needs to use the bathroom frequently.
“This will undoubtedly be a historical record in itself, a citizen of this country [with senior official roles] . . . ranging from the Deputy Regent of Puncak to the two-term Governor of Papua, and yet has been treated as a criminal,” said Enembe’s younger brother in Jakarta, reports Kompas.com.
KPK continues to issue new accusations and allegations, which are being widely reported by Indonesia’s national media.
Case takes new turn
The corruption case against Governor Lukas Enembe, however, took a new turn when allegations of misappropriation of the Papuan Regional Budget (APBD) funds emerged, according to Busnis.com.
The governor’s senior lawyer, Professor O C Kaligis, challenged KPK’s new allegations as “tendentious and misleading”, reports Innews.co.
KPK is now investigating a massive sport, cultural, and recreational complex built under Lukas Enembe’s administration and named the Lukas Enembe Stadium.
The governor has only been given until July 6 to get some treatment for his deteriorating health.
There is an element of brutality, savagery, and mercilessness in Jakarta’s treatment of this Papuan leader.
The once highly acclaimed Papuan tribal chief, governor, and leader not just of his people, but of Indonesians and Melanesian as well many people, is being locked up and tortured in Jakarta as if he is a “dangerous terrorist’.
As his family, Papuans, lawyers, and he himself have warned, if he dies the KPK would be responsible for his death.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic/activist who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Although they never fail to take us aback, French riots have followed the same distinct pattern ever since protests broke out in the eastern suburbs of Lyon in 1981, an episode known as the “summer of Minguettes”: a young person is killed or seriously injured by the police, triggering an outpouring of violence in the affected neighbourhood and nearby.
Sometimes, as in the case of the 2005 riots and of this past week’s, it is every rough neighbourhood that flares up.
Throughout the past 40 years in France, urban revolts have been dominated by the rage of young people who attack the symbols of order and the state: town halls, social centres, schools, and shops.
An institutional and political vacuum That rage is the kind that leads one to destroy one’s own neighbourhood, for all to see.
Residents condemn these acts, but can also understand the motivation. Elected representatives, associations, churches and mosques, social workers and teachers admit their powerlessness, revealing an institutional and political vacuum.
Of all the revolts, the summer of the Minguettes was the only one to pave the way to a social movement: the March for Equality and Against Racism in December 1983.
Numbering more than 100,000 people and prominently covered by the media, it was France’s first demonstration of its kind. Left-leaning newspaper Libération nicknamed it “La Marche des Beurs”, a colloquial term that refers to Europeans whose parents or grandparents are from the Maghreb.
In the demonstrations that followed, no similar movement appears to have emerged from the ashes.
At each riot, politicians are quick to play well-worn roles: the right denounces the violence and goes on to stigmatise neighbourhoods and police victims; the left denounces injustice and promises social policies in the neighbourhoods.
In 2005, then Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy sided with the police. France’s current President, Emmanuel Macron, has expressed compassion for the teenager killed by the police in Nanterre, but politicians and presidents are hardly heard in the neighbourhoods concerned.
We then wait for silence to set in until the next time the problems of the banlieues (French suburbs) and its police are rediscovered by society at large.
Lessons to be learned The recurrence of urban riots in France and their scenarios yield some relatively simple lessons.
First, the country’s urban policies miss their targets. Over the last 40 years, considerable efforts have been made to improve housing and facilities. Apartments are of better quality, there are social centres, schools, colleges and public transportation.
It would be wrong to say that these neighbourhoods have been abandoned.
On the other hand, the social and cultural diversity of disadvantaged suburbs has deteriorated. More often than not, the residents are poor or financially insecure, and are either descendants of immigrants or immigrants themselves.
Above all, when given the opportunity and the resources, those who can leave the banlieues soon do, only to be replaced by even poorer residents from further afield. Thus while the built environment is improving, the social environment is unravelling.
However reluctant people may be to talk about France’s disadvantaged neighbourhoods, the social process at work here is indeed one of ghettoisation – i.e., a growing divide between neighbourhoods and their environment, a self-containment reinforced from within. You go to the same school, the same social centre, you socialise with the same individuals, and you participate in the same more or less legal economy.
In spite of the cash and local representatives’ goodwill, people still feel excluded from society because of their origins, culture or religion. In spite of social policies and councillors’ work, the neighbourhoods have no institutional or political resources of their own.
Whereas the often communist-led “banlieues rouges” (“red suburbs”) benefited from the strong support of left-leaning political parties, trade unions and popular education movements, today’s banlieues hardly have any spokespeople. Social workers and teachers are full of goodwill, but many don’t live in the neighbourhoods where they work.
This disconnect works both ways, and the past days’ riots revealed that elected representatives and associations don’t have any hold on neighbourhoods where residents feel ignored and abandoned. Appeals for calm are going unheeded. The rift is not just social, it’s also political.
A constant face-off With this in mind, we are increasingly seeing young people face off with the police. The two groups function like “gangs”, complete with their own hatreds and territories.
In this landscape, the state is reduced to legal violence and young people to their actual or potential delinquency.
The police are judged to be “mechanically” racist on the grounds that any young person is a priori a suspect. Young people feel hatred for the police, fuelling further police racism and youth violence.
Older residents would like to see more police officers to uphold order, but also support their own children and the frustrations and anger they feel.
This “war” is usually played out at a low level. When a young person dies, however, everything explodes and it’s back to the drawing board until the next uprising, which will surprise us just as much as the previous ones.
But there is something new in this tragic repetition. The first element is the rise of the far right — and not just on that side of the political spectrum. Racist accounts of the uprisings are taking hold, one that speaks of “barbarians” and immigration, and there’s fear that this could lead to success at the ballot box.
The second is the political and intellectual paralysis of the political left. While it denounces injustice and sometimes supports the riots, it does not appear to have put forward any political solution other than police reform.
So long as the process of ghettoisation continues, as France’s young people and security forces face off time and time again, it is hard to see how the next police blunder and the riots that follow won’t be just around the corner.
A woman who was part of a group kidnapped in Papua New Guinea in February has spoken out after the kidnapping and reported rape of 17 schoolgirls in the same area of Southern Highlands earlier this month.
Cathy Alex, the New Zealand-born Australian academic Bryce Barker and two female researchers, were taken in the Mt Bosavi region and held for ransom.
They were all released when the Papua New Guinea government paid a ransom of US$28,000 to the kidnappers to secure their release.
Alex, who heads the Advancing Women’s Leaders’ Network, said that what the 17 abducted girls had gone through prompted her to speak out, after the country, she believed, had done nothing.
A local said family members of the girls negotiated with the captors and were eventually able to secure their release.
The villagers reportedly paid an undisclosed amount of cash and a few pigs as the ransom.
Alex said she and the other women in her group had feared they would be raped when they were kidnapped.
Professor Bryce Barker and an unnamed woman after being released by kidnappers in February. Image: PM James Marape/FB
‘My life preserved’
“My life was preserved even though there was a time where the three of us were pushed to go into the jungle so they could do this to us.
“We chose death over being raped. Maybe the men will not understand, but for a woman or a girl rape is far worse than death.”
Alex said they had had received a commitment that they would not be touched, so the revelations about what happened to the teenage girls was horrifying.
She said her experience gave her some insight into the age and temperament of the kidnappers.
“Young boys, 16 and up, a few others. No Tok Pisin, no English. It’s a generation that’s been out there that has had no opportunities. What is happening in Bosavi is a glimpse, a dark glimpse of where our country is heading to.”
The teenage girls from the most recent kidnapping are now safe and being cared for but they cannot return to their village because it is too dangerous.
Need for focus
Cathy Alex said there was a need for a focus on providing services to the rural areas as soon as possible.
She said people were resilient and could change, as long as the right leadership was provided.
Bosavi is one of the remotest areas in PNG, with no roads and few services
In what is described as a “significant relief”, seven Papua New Guinea teachers and their families were rescued from an attempted kidnapping in the remote Mt Bosavi region in Hela Province.
Hela Education Director Ronny Angu said the teachers and their families were rescued safely by the Hela Education Division from their attempted kidnappers.
He said the teachers are from the Wagalu primary school, the same primary school where 17 school girls were recently kidnapped, raped and held hostage for ransom.
Angu said the teachers and their families have escaped from an organised kidnapping and potential harm by criminals after a successful rescue operation, executed with the help of key stakeholders that demonstrated “unwavering commitment and collaboration”.
He said the “heroic efforts” from Hela police and Moro police, the Hela Provincial government and the Hela Education Division, ensured that the teachers and their families were successfully relocated to safety.
“Their dedication and selflessness significantly contributed to the success of the rescue mission,” he said.
“To commemorate the safe return of the teachers and their families and for God’s guidance and protection, the Hela Education Division organised a welcome party. It was a moment of immense joy and relief, where experiences and challenges were openly discussed, and tears were shared.
Support for healing
“Hela Education Division is committed to providing the necessary support to the staff members to help them settle back into their respective homes.
“We aim to provide an opportunity to the teachers to reconnect with their families and begin the process of healing from the traumatic experiences they endured.
“The success of the rescue mission is a powerful testament to the unwavering commitment of the education division to serve the community and provide quality education in Hela Province.
“The division expressed sincere gratitude to those who supported and made the rescue operation successful, especially the Hela police, Moro police, Hela Provincial government, and Hela Education Division,” Angu said.
“This successful rescue operation is a significant relief to Hela Province. The safe return of the teachers and their families after such a perilous experience cannot be more relieving news.
“We wish all of them a speedy recovery from their ordeal.”
Jeffrey Elapais a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
In his bestselling book of 1987, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy chronicles the rise of western power and its world dominance from 1500 to the present. He reports that the rise was not due to any particular event, nor even an unusual series of events. It was, in fact, neither foreseen nor even recognized until it was already well under way, although it may be accurately ascribed to multiple factors, which Kennedy discusses. The same may be said of the ongoing fall of western power.
Although the decline of the West is rapidly becoming more evident to informed observers of current events, the start of that decline is less easy to pinpoint, in part because it seemed less inevitable and more reversible until quite recently. Was the high point the Austro-Hungarian Empire? Victorian England? The U.S. Eisenhower administration? Some might date it from the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, marking the beginning of the truncated “New American Century.”
That “century” appears to be ending in the manner of so many other powers that fill the pages of Kennedy’s book – through imperial overreach, excessive military spending, lagging economic productivity and competitiveness, and failure to invest in the physical, technical and human resources necessary to remain a dominant power. In short, the West is flagging.
The signs for this are too evident to ignore. The industrial base of the West is withering. Post-WWII, the U.S. dominated because it was the only major industrial power to survive unscathed, and its investment in western Europe and Japan increased the wealth of all three. Over the last half of the 20th century, however, these economies began to shift much of their industry to countries with cheaper labor and more efficient production, such that by the 21st century much of their manufacturing capability had vanished, and they became mainly consumer societies.
2023 has become a watershed year for the power shift, due to dramatic western weaknesses exposed by the Ukraine war. The war revealed that a relatively modest economy (Russia) had the capability to outproduce the U.S. and all the NATO countries combined in war materiel. The U.S. “arsenal of democracy” and its European partners proved unable to provide more than a fraction of the weapons and ammunition that Russia’s factories produced. Ukrainian soldiers supplied by NATO countries found themselves vastly outnumbered in tanks, artillery, missiles, unmanned and manned aircraft, and even the latest hypersonic and electronic weapons that were arrayed against them in seemingly limitless supply. The U.S. and European NATO partners could only cobble together small numbers of incompatible weapons from their diminishing inventories, and make promises of future deliveries after months or years.
But the U.S. and its allies were not counting on physical weapons alone. They weaponized the U.S. dollar, through seizures of Russian accounts in U.S., European and other banks totaling more than $300 billion, and through application of economic sanctions, including expulsion of Russian banks from the SWIFT dollar trading system. This also backfired.
First, Russia retaliated by seizing U.S. and European assets within Russia, in equal or greater amounts. Second, they “pivoted east,” negotiating new trading partnerships with China, India and other countries. Third, they and their new partners, including other targets of U.S. sanctions, began to develop financial agreements to displace or reduce the use of SWIFT. Even countries that had heretofore not been threatened with asset seizure or economic sanctions, like Brazil, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia, joined these agreements, in order to expand their trading base, and as insurance against use of the USD for financial pressure or threats. The result was that the Russian economy proved astonishingly resilient – moreso even than many of the NATO countries. The Russian GDP fell by less than 2% in 2022 and is expected to rise by up to 2% in 2023, despite the war and sanctions. Russia has opted for a sustainable but inexorable war with less than 1/6 the casualties of Ukraine. Visitors report that it hardly feels like a country at war. The annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum attracted 17,000 participants from 130 countries and concluded 900 deals and contracts worth 3.9 trillion rubles ($46 billion).
The decline of Europe was further illustrated by the consequences of the US bombing of the Nordstream gas pipelines in September, 2022, and the sanctions on Russian natural gas and petroleum products imposed by NATO. Together, these ended the competitiveness of the European economies, which had hitherto thrived on accessibility to cheap Russian fuel. As predicted by Radek Sikorsky, MEP, this meant
… double-digit inflation, skyrocketing energy prices, and electricity shortage, … Germany will be deindustrialized, … German industries, scientists and engineers will move to the US, who will generously accept them.
And Europe will be set back a couple of decades. Already, most European countries — France, Italy, Spain etc. — have had zero growth in GDP-per-capita for more than a decade. Add in inflation, the standard of living will soon be down 30-40%.
In effect, the U.S. had defeated its NATO “partners” (mainly Germany) and cannibalized their industries for the sake of its own benefit, potentially short-lived.
But the United States believed that its mighty dollar could offset its faded industry and increasingly toothless military – that it could be printed in unlimited amounts without losing value, and could become its most powerful weapon. The history of this dollar began in 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that, in effect, the U.S. dollar would no longer be backed by gold, but rather by whatever the dollar could purchase in the U.S., i.e. by the U.S. economy itself. This became widely accepted because a) the U.S. was the world’s largest economy, b) the two great international regulatory financial institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, were also based on the dollar, and c) nearly all the world’s countries outside of the Soviet Union and other socialist societies used the dollar as the reserve currency for their own money. In addition, the world shed fixed exchange rates, with their troublesome periodic revaluations, for floating rates, which generally made the changes more gradual and more stable for the major currencies, and especially the dollar.
The effect of so many dollars circulating so widely was to invest most of the world in protecting its value. The more a country’s non-dollar currency became based on the dollar as its reserve currency, the more the incentive for that country to defend the dollar. Later, as the U.S. began to lose its industry, it came to depend on this value to maintain its economy. It marketed its debt to other countries and “persuaded” other countries to fund U.S. bases on their territories for the purpose of “mutual defense.” This is part of the reason the U.S. now has more than 800 military bases worldwide. Although the U.S. national debt is, at time of writing, more than $33 trillion, the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board seem to think that they can continue to unload it without limit onto other countries.
Decision makers in the U.S. seem to think that they have found the goose that lays the golden egg: when they need more money, they have only to borrow indefinitely and market their IOUs to buyers, many of whom don’t really have the option of saying no. Thus, for example, it used unlimited borrowing to fund without hesitation a very costly Ukraine war by more than $100 billion in 2022 alone, while denying basic services to its own citizens.
But borrowing is not the only way that the U.S. raises funds. Given the stability of the dollar, many countries store or invest them in the U.S. But when a country has a disagreement with the U.S., or chooses a leadership or policies not approved by the U.S., the U.S. is not above confiscating those funds. In 2011, this is what it did with $32 billion of Libyan funds, the largest but by no means the only such confiscation of another nation’s funds at that time. Since then, similar confiscations have occurred with Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Afghanistan and other nations. Eclipsing Libya, however, was the confiscation of Russia’s $300 billion by the U.S and its mostly NATO allies, an estimated $100 billion of it by the U.S. alone.
Recently, however, other countries are becoming wary of the U.S. and choosing other options that reduce their participation in what they view as a Mafia-style protection racket as well as their placement of assets in places where they could be confiscated in case of disagreement. As noted earlier, a growing number of countries are opting to either bypass the dollar-based SWIFT system, or to complement it with new agreements where goods are paid in another currency or with multiple currencies. Even Saudi Arabia has begun accepting payment in Chinese Yuan and paying Russia in rubles. In addition, China and other countries have decided to limit or reduce their USD exposure. So far, this has had no appreciable effect on the value of the USD. But if the dollar starts to become less desirable, it may become a questionable investment, in which case the U.S. risks losing its status as a world power – even a modest one. At that point, having demolished German and other European access to cheap fuel, the U.S. will join the rest of the west in its decline, leaving the rising economies of China, India, Brazil, Russia and other countries in Asia, Latin America and possibly Africa to displace them.
Is the Dollar overvalued? By the laws of supply and demand, one could argue that it is not. But it is a fair question when the supply is enormous and growing, and the demand is artificial and coerced. What will happen when the dollar’s near monopoly as an exchange medium ends? The dollar has not always been the preeminent tool for pricing international transactions. At the turn of the 20th century, the British pound sterling was literally the gold standard. But the British economy was fading, and the pound continued to fall against both gold and the USD. Now, although it is still a major currency, it is a mere shadow of its former self. If or when the many dollars worldwide come home to claim their true value, we may discover that they buy little more than castles of sand.
When world power has shifted elsewhere, the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, France and the entire West may come to depend for glory upon their historical and cultural treasures, like the ones of other bygone civilizations that western tourists once visited so widely.
Last Monday, suspended Papua Governor Lukas Enembe was indicted on gratification, bribery and corruption charges in Indonesia’s central Corruption Criminal Court in Jakarta.
Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) prosecutors accused and charged Governor Enembe of accepting bribes totalling Rp 45.8 billion (US$3 million) and gratuities worth Rp 1 billion (US$65,000).
Tomorrow the ailing former high official will know the judges’ rulings and responses to his requests.
Prosecutors argued that these funds came from private infrastructure development companies in West Papua.
As the Governor of Papua Province, Enembe, along with his subordinates Mikael Kambuaya and Gerius One Yoman, are accused of giving the bribe in order to obtain the companies used by Piton Enumbi and Rijatono Lakka for the 2013-2022 procurement project within the Papua Provincial government.
Enembe was charged under Article 12a and Article 12b of Law 31 of 1999 regarding the Eradication of Corrupt Criminal Acts, Kompas.com reports.
A barefooted Governor Enembe sat in the middle of the courtroom beside his lawyer Petrus Balapationa, looking directly at the panel of judges. Both of his defence attorneys and KPK prosecutors were seated on opposite sides of the courtroom.
‘Empty speeches, trickery’
During the 2.5 hour hearing, the governor shouted angrily at the KPK’s prosecutors, asking, “Woi (hey) — lying, where did I receive (Rp 45 billion)?” . . . “Not right, not right, empty speeches, you’re lying, empty speeches, trickery and lying, where did I get it?,” Lukas Enembe said during his indictment reading, reports Kompas.com.
The governor’s lawyer Petrus Balap read out statements of objections written by Enembe in response to the allegations and charges.
“I am being vilified, dehumanised, impoverished and made destitute,” said the governor in his statement to the judges and prosecutors, raising 32 objections to the indictment. He said:
“To all my Papuan people. I, the Governor, whom you have elected twice, I am the traditional chief, I have been vilified, dehumanised, demonised, mistreated and, I have been [made] destitute and impoverished.
“I, Lukas Enembe, never stole state money, never took bribes, yet the KPK provides false information and manipulates public opinion as if I were the most notorious criminal.
The suspended Governor of Papua, Lukas Enembe, enters Jakarta’s Corruption Criminal Court last Monday . . . He shouted out, “I am being vilified, dehumanised, [made] impoverished and destitute”. Image: Kompas.com
“I have been accused of being a gambler. Even if this were true, it is a general criminal offence, KPK does not have the authority to investigate gambling issues. Even the alleged bribe of one billion dollars in my indictment grew into a bribe of tens of billions of rupiah, resulting in the confiscation of all my savings.
“Not only was my money confiscated, but also the money of my wife and children. Even though I have emphasised in my BAP (minutes of the legal examination) that the one billion rupiah is my personal money and does not constitute bribes or gratuities.
“On my oath as a witness against defendant Rijatono Lakkadi in court on May 16, 2023, I explained the same statement.
“Once again, I dare to declare that the one billion rupiah is not the result of a bribe that Rijatono Lakka gave me at my request. I have never given Rijatono Lakka facilities, Rijatono Lakka’s wealth has come from his own work.
‘Cruel treatment’
“I have never interfered in the tender process of the procurement of goods and services, nor do I know the participants of the Electronic Tender since I created the E-Tender process to prevent the participation of KKN (Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism) in the tender process.
“Not only was I the target of the pensoliman (cruelty and inhumane treatment), but my wife and son were also called as witnesses for me, despite their refusal to cooperate which is protected by the constitution.”
The governor continued to protest against the KPK’s arrest of Dr Stefanus Roy Rening, one of his lawyers who had defended Enembe against the allegations and the attempt to arrest him September last year.
“It was also difficult for me to comprehend that my lawyer, Dr Stefanus Roy Rening, was made a suspect, obstructing the examination, despite the fact that he did not accompany the witnesses and stated that because of the statements made by Dr Stefanus Roy Rening who had defended me in public, which could affect the testimony of witnesses. He (Dr Roy) did not accompany the witnesses of my case.
“Is it possible for Dr Stefanus Roy Rening to influence witnesses when they are not accompanied by a lawyer and at the end of every witness BAP [statement] a sentence is included stating that the witness’ testimony is free from influence, and it is the witness’ own testimony without any influence from others?”
The governor concluded his statement of objections by stating:
“What I have explained and [with] the facts stated above, I have the right in this court to be treated fairly, not to be slandered, vilified, or impoverished, as I have been accused of gambling to the tens of hundreds of millions in Singapore, despite the fact that no one has ever given a statement about gambling, or that I was involved in the purchase of KKB weapons (arms for West Papuan freedom fighters) by a pilot arrested in the Philippines.”
Lawyers’ objection letter
An objection letter by the governor’s legal team was released last Thursday stating:
Lukas Enembe’s senior lawyer, OC Kaligis, expressed his objection to KPK officials’ attitude during the trial at the Jakarta District Court, Thursday (22 June 2023). Lukas Enembe’s legal counsel have only been able to consult with him for two hours a week since he has been detained.
Is it possible that legal counsel will only be given two hours of visitation time per week? Kaligis stated that the two-hour period was insufficient for discussing all the witnesses in the case file (184 witnesses) and the 1024 minutes of seizure according to Article 129 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
According to Kaligis, his defence counsel had the right to provide legal assistance, as per Article 56 of the Criminal Procedure Code, in order to determine whether there were any witnesses who directly gave bribes or gratuities to Lukas Enembe.
“The [details] in this case need to be explained carefully to Lukas Enembe, with adequate time. Two hours of consultation each week is definitely not enough,” said Kaligis.
Kaligis stated that on June 19, 2023, following the indictment, when legal counsel sought to meet with Lukas Enembe, the time given was very short, and a KPK official who claimed to be the Public Prosecutor closely monitored the meeting.
“Even though the legal counsel had requested that the seating be changed in the same area, the Public Prosecutor arrogantly still forbids, despite the fact that the panel of judges before the court had stated that we can meet Lukas Enembe after the hearing. Particularly now that the power of detention lies with the panel of judges and not with the KPK anymore,” said Kaligis.
Detention visits
His legal team requested that the panel of judges allow him to visit Lukas Enembe at the KPK detention centre every day before his trial.
“The legal counsel team filed an application with the panel of judges, as the extension of detention is now within the jurisdiction of the court and is no longer under the authority of the KPK. The KPK prohibited us from meeting Lukas Enembe in court, everything was done based on the KPK’s power and arrogance.
“Doesn’t that violate Article 56 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, granting a right to legal counsel to consult the law?” Kaligis said.
Governor Enembe’s ordeal has been characterised by numerous twists and turns as the KPK, doctors, the governor himself, and the defence legal team strive to find a resolution to these problems.
The situation is made worse by the fact that in Indonesia the lines between law enforcement agencies, KPK officials, medical doctors, and judges are blurred in a country notoriously known for corruption and impunity from top officials to local mayors.
Dealing with cases like Lukas Enembe is even worse — coming from Indonesia’s most contested territory — West Papua.
Legal system questioned
Indeed, this case undermines the whole foundation of the Indonesian legal system.
Judging whether Papua’s governor is guilty or not within Indonesia’s legal system — which regards Papuans as being “illegal” in managing Papuan affairs — is always going to be perceived with suspicion from the Papuan side. This is because the fundamental issue (West Papua’s sovereignty) underlying the West Papua-Indonesia conflict has never been resolved.
What has broken down between Papuans and Indonesia’s government for the past 60 years is trust.
Unfortunately, Governor Lukas and every Papuan considered to be breaking Indonesian laws, must face the Indonesian legal system. This in itself is so ironic and demoralising for Papuans, as every moral, ethical and legal framework Jakarta employs is viewed as fraught by Papuans within the West Papua sovereignty disputes in Indonesia.
Jakarta’s criminalisation of Papuans is like criminalising innocents and accusing them of breaking the law through the perpetrator’s legal system.
This is due to the fact that the Indonesian government has a long history of targeting Papuans for their political views and beliefs. This has led to an environment of fear and intimidation, where Papuans are often accused of crimes they did not commit and are treated harshly by the Indonesian legal system.
For more than 500 years, most indigenous people around the globe have been criminalised and exterminated since a series of Papal bulls (decrees) signed by European Catholic popes and Christian kings during the early period of European colonisation in the 1400s and 1500s.
Legal myths
They were legal myths for conquests, civilising mission — the myth of discovery, the myth of empty lands, and the myth of Terra Nullius.
It has been used to justify the exploitation of indigenous peoples, to strip them of their rights, and to deny them access to land and resources.
By criminalising the indigenous population, colonial authorities have maintained an unequal power dynamic and control over them. These colonial myths have had devastating consequences for the original inhabitants.
Today, Jakarta still propagates this myth in West Papua. Colonial myths have been made truer than truth, more real than reality, and unfortunately, indigenous leaders, such as Governor Lukas Enembe, have been swayed by them by their legal jargon, codes, numbers, symbols, grammar, and semantic power.
Currently there are three high profile Papuan leaders locked up in KPK’s prison cells — Papua Governor Lukas Enembe; the Regent of Mimika Regency, Eltinus Omaleng; and the Regent of Mamberamo Tengah Regency, Ricky Ham Pagawak. All are accused of corruption.
The status of the two regents remains unclear.
As for Governor Lukas Enembe, he requested that the judges take his deteriorating health seriously and that he receive medical assistance from specialists in Singapore, and not from KPK’s appointed general practitioners.
This is partially due to the breakdown of trust.
Further, the Governor has also requested that the block on the bank account of his son (a student based in Melbourne) be lifted in order for him to be able to continue his studies.
The judges are due to deliver their verdict tomorrow regarding the outcome of his requests and all charges against him.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic/activist who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Crime is going to be a big talking point in the 2024 elections, just like it was in the 2022 midterms. We already hear candidates like Ron DeSantis telling us that Democratic cities are overrun with crime. But a new report shows that cities in Florida – where DeSantis is King – are actually far […]
Most heads of giant corporations are drunk with their own power. These corporate CEOs push the envelope in ways that harm defenseless people. They believe they can get away with anything, and they do, with few exceptions. The few corporate crime prosecutions keep declining from Obama to Trump to Biden, due to a settlement-obsessed Department of Justice staffed by lawyers readying to join the lucrative major corporate crime defense firms.
Corporate law firms, which deserve far more scrutiny by the media, have over the decades built a wall of immunity and impunity around these giant firms and their self-enriching CEOs. These CEOs now make an average of $14,000 an hour, while employing workers who are lucky to make $20 an hour. Greedy CEOs have surpassed the lords of medieval feudalism in the disparity they impose on workers.
Corporate law firms find Congressional lawmakers receptive to their campaign contributions and services in drafting legislative loopholes. These law firms place business executives and their own law partners in high executive branch positions (See, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice by David Enrich, 2022).
Corporate law firms specialize in creating an edifice of secretive, anonymous corporate registries that attract a majority of big U.S. corporations to charter in Delaware. Companies register hundreds of shell companies (LLCs) for evasive purposes. Delaware law firms write the corporate law of Delaware for the rubber stamp state legislature. Ironically, these corporate capitalists disempower their own shareholders. Wall Street firms, credit card companies and tax escapees love Delaware. (See, What’s the Matter with Delaware?: How the First State Has Favored the Rich, Powerful, and Criminal – and How It Costs Us All by Hal Weitzman, 2022).
New outrages that swell the corporate crime wave are disclosed daily. Most exposés go nowhere, due to a lazy Congress (about ready again to take off most of the summer until after Labor Day) and to patsy regulators and meager, inadequate enforcement budgets funded by the corporate Congress.
One regular, no longer so patsy, is the tiny Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with an annual budget of $430 million. FTC Chair Lina Khan has just sued giant Amazon (annual sales of $524.89 billion) in the words of New York Times reporter, David McCabe “for illegally inducing consumers to sign up for its Prime services and then hindering them from canceling the subscription…”
The FTC charged that “Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent’ ‘… duped millions of consumers … [and with] manipulative, coercive or deceptive’ design tactics on its website.” Amazon’s lawyers, of course, deny everything.
On other matters, corporate lawyers are going berserk flexing their obstructive muscles. They sued the state of California for passing a law mildly protecting children from social media-produced harm. Susan Linn in her new book, “Who’s Raising the Kids? Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children” documents the abuses perpetrated by high predators.
Not to be outdone by their peers, corporate lawyers for the drug industry just filed a frivolous lawsuit against the U.S. Government that was finally authorized by Congress to allow ripped-off Medicare officials to negotiate drug prices with the overcharging Big Pharma. (The VA and the Pentagon already have the power to negotiate with the drug companies.) Presumably, having U.S. taxpayers continue to pay by far the highest drug prices in the world through Medicare—charged by subsidy-coddled U.S. drug companies—suits the “pay or die” Big Pharma CEOs.
Moreover, U.S. drug companies are happy to offshore to China the production of antibiotics. Our country produces virtually no antibiotics – a national security peril I wrote about to President Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, that received no response to date. (See: Letter to President Joe Biden – June 2, 2023).
ProPublica has exposed the giant Cigna health insurance company for rejecting millions of patients’ claims through its hired doctors who instantly deny coverage “on medical grounds” without opening the patient file.” This report, based on corporate documents and interviews with former Cigna physicians, has not led to any prosecutions either by state or federal officials. This is an egregious example of CEOs pushing the envelope and getting away with it.
A New York Times investigation by Sarah Kliff et al. revealed that a wealthy nonprofit hospital network – Allina Health – in the Midwest has been denying regular health care for patients who have unpaid medical bills. They have cut off patients, “including children and those with chronic illnesses like diabetics and depression.” Canadians, with their universal Medicare system, are stunned when they learn that many hospitals in the U.S. aggressively sue indebted patients, garnish their wages and seize their tax refunds. This is worse than debtors’ prisons where those incarcerated might receive health care.
Anyone who thinks corporate crimes are committed by just a few bad apples in the barrel can read my book Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win (2011). Getting Steamed is an enraging compilation of documented corporate crime and criminogenic behavior – resulting in the loss of life, injuries and money from consumers and workers. One of the best public corporate crime databases is Violation Tracker, a project of Good Jobs First. Violation Tracker has over half a million entries that include civil and criminal actions against corporate wrongdoing. In addition, visit the Corporate Crime Reporter website to see highlights of crime in the suites each week.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department, which after decades of declining to have a comprehensive public corporate crime database, finally launched a modest database.
Why don’t the American people rise up and tell their legislators and law enforcers that they will no longer accept the terrible corporate harm inflicted on them daily? This harm includes dangerous products (Opioids), detrimental services (medical negligence leading to 5000 deaths per week, according to a John Hopkins School of Medicine peer-reviewed report), toxic pollution, workplace casualties, endless cheating of consumers ($350 billion in health industry billing fraud a year) and other intolerable abuses. (See Malcolm Sparrow’s website).
Most corporate crooks are above the law. They think that collectively “We the People” are a nation of sheep – unable and unwilling to take their demands, often supported by large majorities, to Congress and get some strong law and order legislation enacted. Polls show huge majorities (left/right) want jail time and restitution from wealthy corporate outlaws.
Public Citizen, which lobbies against corporate crime, wants to hear from you (visit, ). PC’s president Robert Weissman, together with former PC president Joan Claybrook, have a new book coming out next month. It’s called “The Corporate Sabotage of America’s Future: And What We Can Do About It.” Read it and generate a rumble all the way to your congressional senators and representatives who are about to head home as Congress goes into recess for most of the summer.
Citizens mobilized against corporate abuses in the Nineteen Sixties and Seventies. It can happen again now when the corporate overlords in the context of demonstrated crises – climate, pandemics and powerful unregulated technologies – are acting far worse than they have in recent times.
The awakened power of dedicated, informed people cannot be overcome.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Ralph Nader.
Papua New Guinea police will be able to use lethal force to deal with crimes that come under “domestic terrorism” through the amendments to the Criminal Code Act.
Police Commissioner David Manning said this as the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC) continue to work for stronger law enforcement powers to fight against domestic terrorists causing havoc in some parts of the country, such as in the mountainous Bosavi region.
Commissioner Manning said that the kidnappings and held-for-ransom cases were part of “domestic terrorism”.
“The amendments establish clear legal process for the escalated use of up to lethal force, powers of search and seizure, and detention for acts of domestic terrorism.
“It is high time that we call these criminals as domestic terrorists, because that is what they are and we need harsher measures to bring them to justice one way or another,” he said.
“Domestic terrorism includes the deliberate use of violence against people and communities to murder, injure and intimidate, including kidnapping and ransom, and the destruction of properties.
“An accurate definition of domestic terrorism also includes hate crimes, including tribal fight and sorcery and related violence.”
New crime trend
A new crime trend has emerged in PNG with kidnappings and held-for-ransom cases happening over the last six years with more than six kidnappings and ransom demands occurring since 2014.
However, it took the kidnapping of the New Zealand-born Australian professor and the demand for ransom this year to bring to light several years of continued kidnappings and demand for ransoms on expatriates and locals working at logging camps and elsewhere in Western province and the Highlands region.
Localised kidnappings have also continued with successful returns of victims particularly children.
Other domestic terrorism crimes include:
Organised crimes;
Weapons smuggling;
Illegal drug production and distribution; and
People trafficking.
“The RPNGC, through the Minister for Internal Security, is putting forward amendments to the Criminal Code Act that will strengthen police capacity to search, investigate, intercept and prosecute people and groups involved in domestic terrorism,” Manning said.
Commissioner Manning said the way criminals operated had changed, particularly in the use of information and communications technologies, and police powers needed to be strengthened.
“The amendments will enable more effective lawful communications interception of channels and electronic devices used by domestic terrorists,” he said.
Criminal internet use
“Many of our laws do not take sufficient account of the way criminals, including domestic terrorists, use the internet and phone systems in carrying out violent crimes, and this is a key area for reform.”
Commissioner Manning said the new amendments would build on previous related legislation, and go even further to tip the balance of justice and public safety away from the criminals.
“Amendments have been made to the Criminal Code, such as in 2022 by the government to strengthen laws against so-called glassman or glassmeri [people with the power to accuse women and men of witchcraft and sorcery] and the vile crimes they commit — especially against women, children and the elderly.
“The amendments will further improve law and order co-operation and collaboration with international partners through training, equipment, technical advice and the use of new technologies and resources.
“Having interoperability with domestic and international partners requires the proper and recognised definition of a domestic terrorist and acts of domestic terrorism, as will be clear in the amendments.”
According to information put together by the PNG Post-Courier since 2014 there have been a string of kidnappings that have occurred with a report of K300,000 (NZ$140,000) paid for the return of six expatriates held by armed men allegedly from the Southern Highlands.
The latest kidnapping saw 17 girls, two of whom were married, taken by armed men in the Bosavi LLG, also in Southern Highlands. They were later released with about K3000 (NZ$1400) paid and several pigs offered to the kidnappers.
Police have remained quiet with Post-Courier understanding that investigations continue to be carried out in the latest kidnapping incident and the case of the abducted professor and local researchers.
Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
America’s Lawyer E58: Voices are growing louder calling for the Democratic Party to have a REAL primary for the 2024 nomination, but the Party is scared as the non-Biden candidates start to gain momentum. The drug company Merck is suing the federal government so that they can continue to price gouge consumers with their over-priced […]
This “invitation only” conference hosted by Baylor Law School was held at the St. Regis in Aspen, Colorado. In attendance nearly 50 judges, over 80 lawyers, 13 corporate GCs and 5 Special Masters along with 7 academicians. America’s Lawyer Mike Papantonio spoke on many different topics including: · The Manual for Complex Litigation addresses the obligations of transferee […]
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
We’re not dealing with a government that exists to serve its people, protect their liberties and ensure their happiness.
Rather, we are the unfortunate victims of the diabolical machinations of a make-works program carried out on an epic scale whose only purpose is to keep the powers-that-be permanently (and profitably) employed.
Case in point: the FBI.
The government’s henchmen have become the embodiment of how power, once acquired, can be so easily corrupted and abused. Indeed, far from being tough on crime, FBI agents are also among the nation’s most notorious lawbreakers.
Whether the FBI is planting undercover agents in churches, synagogues and mosques; issuing fake emergency letters to gain access to Americans’ phone records; using intimidation tactics to silence Americans who are critical of the government, or persuading impressionable individuals to plot acts of terror and then entrapping them, the overall impression of the nation’s secret police force is that of a well-dressed thug, flexing its muscles and doing the boss’ dirty work.
Clearly, this is not a government agency that appears to understand, let alone respect, the limits of the Constitution.
Indeed, this same government agency has a pattern and practice of entrapment that involves targeting vulnerable individuals, feeding them with the propaganda, know-how and weapons intended to turn them into terrorists, and then arresting them as part of an elaborately orchestrated counterterrorism sting.
Basically, it works like this: in order to justify their crime-fighting superpowers, the FBI manufactures criminals by targeting vulnerable individuals and feeding them anti-government propaganda; then, undercover agents and informants equip the targeted individuals with the training and resources to challenge what they’ve been indoctrinated into believing is government corruption; and finally, the FBI arrests the targeted individuals for engaging in anti-government, terrorist activities.
This is what passes for the government’s perverse idea of being tough on crime.
For example, undercover FBI agents pretending to be associated with ISIS have been accused of seeking out online and befriending a 16-year-old with brain development issues, persuading him to secretly send them small cash donations in the form of gift cards, and then the moment Mateo Ventura, turned 18, arresting him for providing financial support to an Islamic terrorist group.
If convicted, the teenager could spend up to 10 years in prison.
Yet as The Interceptexplains, “the only ‘terrorist’ he is accused of ever being in contact with was an undercover FBI agent who befriended him online as a 16-year-old… This law enforcement tactic has been criticized by national security researchers who have scrutinized the FBI’s role in manufacturing terrorism cases using vulnerable people who would have been unable to commit crimes without prolonged government assistance and encouragement… the Ventura case may indicate that authorities are still open to conjuring terrorists where none existed.”
In another incident, the FBI used an undercover agent/informant to seek out and groom an impressionable young man, cultivating his friendship, gaining his sympathy, stoking his outrage over injustices perpetrated by the U.S. government, then enlisting his help to blow up the Herald Square subway station. Despite the fact that Shahawar Matin Siraj ultimately refused to plant a bomb at the train station, he was arrested for conspiring to do so at the urging of his FBI informant and used to bolster the government’s track record in foiling terrorist plots. Of course, no mention was made of the part the government played in fabricating the plot, recruiting a would-be bomber, and setting him up to take the fall.
These are Machiavellian tactics with far-reaching consequences for every segment of the population, no matter what one’s political leanings, but it is especially dangerous for anyone whose views could in any way be characterized as anti-government.
As Rozina Ali writes for the New York Times Magazine, “The government’s approach to counterterrorism erodes constitutional protections for everyone, by blurring the lines between speech and action and by broadening the scope of who is classified as a threat.”
For instance, it was reported that the FBI had been secretly carrying out an entrapment scheme in which it used a front company, ANOM, to sell purportedly hack-proof phones to organized crime syndicates and then used those phones to spy on them as they planned illegal drug shipments, plotted robberies and put out contracts for killings using those boobytrapped phones.
All told, the FBI intercepted 27 million messages over the course of 18 months.
What this means is that the FBI was also illegally spying on individuals using those encrypted phones who may not have been involved in any criminal activity whatsoever.
Even reading a newspaper article is now enough to get you flagged for surveillance by the FBI. The agency served a subpoena on USA Today / Gannett to provide the internet addresses and mobile phone information for everyone who read a news story online on a particular day and time about the deadly shooting of FBI agents.
This is the danger of allowing the government to carry out widespread surveillance, sting and entrapment operations using dubious tactics that sidestep the rule of law: “we the people” become suspects and potential criminals, while government agents, empowered to fight crime using all means at their disposal, become indistinguishable from the corrupt forces they seek to vanquish.
To go after terrorists, they become terrorists.
To go after drug smugglers, they become drug smugglers.
To go after thieves, they become thieves.
For instance, when the FBI raided a California business that was suspected of letting drug dealers anonymously stash guns, drugs and cash in its private vaults, agents seized the contents of all the safety deposit boxes and filed forfeiture motions to keep the contents, which include millions of dollars’ worth of valuables owned by individuals not accused of any crime whatsoever.
It’s hard to say whether we’re dealing with a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves), a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens), or if we’ve gone straight to an idiocracy.
This certainly isn’t a constitutional democracy, however.
Some days, it feels like the FBI is running its own crime syndicate complete with mob rule and mafia-style justice.
In addition to creating certain crimes in order to then “solve” them, the FBI also gives certain informants permission to break the law, “including everything from buying and selling illegal drugs to bribing government officials and plotting robberies,” in exchange for their cooperation on other fronts.
USA Today estimates that agents have authorized criminals to engage in as many as 15 crimes a day (5600 crimes a year). Some of these informants are getting paid astronomical sums: one particularly unsavory fellow, later arrested for attempting to run over a police officer, was actually paid $85,000 for his help laying the trap for an entrapment scheme.
In a stunning development reported by the Washington Post, a probe into misconduct by an FBI agent resulted in the release of at least a dozen convicted drug dealers from prison.
In addition to procedural misconduct, trespassing, enabling criminal activity, and damaging private property, the FBI’s laundry list of crimes against the American people includes surveillance, disinformation, blackmail, entrapment, intimidation tactics, and harassment.
For example, the Associated Press lodged a complaint with the Dept. of Justice after learning that FBI agents created a fake AP news story and emailed it, along with a clickable link, to a bomb threat suspect in order to implant tracking technology onto his computer and identify his location. Lambasting the agency, AP attorney Karen Kaiser railed, “The FBI may have intended this false story as a trap for only one person. However, the individual could easily have reposted this story to social networks, distributing to thousands of people, under our name, what was essentially a piece of government disinformation.”
Then again, to those familiar with COINTELPRO, an FBI program created to “disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize” groups and individuals the government considers politically objectionable, it should come as no surprise that the agency has mastered the art of government disinformation.
The FBI has been particularly criticized in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks for targeting vulnerable individuals and not only luring them into fake terror plots but actually equipping them with the organization, money, weapons and motivation to carry out the plots—entrapment—and then jailing them for their so-called terrorist plotting. This is what the FBI characterizes as “forward leaning—preventative—prosecutions.”
The FBI has also repeatedly sought to expand its invasive hacking powers to allow agents to hack into any computer, anywhere in the world.
Suffice it to say that when and if a true history of the FBI is ever written, it will not only track the rise of the American police state but it will also chart the decline of freedom in America: how a nation that once abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions has steadily devolved into a police state where justice is one-sided, a corporate elite runs the show, representative government is a mockery, police are extensions of the military, surveillance is rampant, privacy is extinct, and the law is little more than a tool for the government to browbeat the people into compliance.
This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls.
The powers-that-be are not acting in our best interests.
Almost every tyranny being perpetrated by the U.S. government against the citizenry—purportedly to keep us safe and the nation secure—has come about as a result of some threat manufactured in one way or another by our own government.
Think about it.
Cyberwarfare. Terrorism. Bio-chemical attacks. The nuclear arms race. Surveillance. The drug wars. Domestic extremism. The COVID-19 pandemic.
In almost every instance, the U.S. government (often spearheaded by the FBI) has in its typical Machiavellian fashion sown the seeds of terror domestically and internationally in order to expand its own totalitarian powers.
Consider that this very same government has taken every bit of technology sold to us as being in our best interests—GPS devices, surveillance, nonlethal weapons, etc.—and used it against us, to track, control and trap us.
Are you getting the picture yet?
The U.S. government isn’t protecting us from threats to our freedoms.
The Waigani National Court has finally handed down a ruling finding Boship Kaiwi guilty of causing the death of his wife Jenelyn Kennedy three years ago.
Despite persistent denials by Kaiwi that he had caused the death of Kennedy, he admitted to the court during the trial that he had elbowed and punched Kennedy around 18 June 2020.
Kaiwi’s defence lawyer had also argued that there was no direct evidence by the state to prove that Kaiwi had caused the death of Kennedy.
Jenelyn Kennedy … died aged 19 in a tragic domestic violence case in Papua New Guinea in 2020. Image: EMTV News
However, acting judge Justice Laura Wawun-Kuvi, when handing down the verdict on Thursday, ruled that the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Kaiwi had caused the death of Kennedy.
Justice Wawun-Kuvi was satisfied with the witness statements that Kaiwi actually had an abusive relationship with Kennedy and he did cause the injuries that led to the death of Kennedy.
“I’m satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant (Kaiwi) had caused the death of Kennedy,” Justice Wawun-Kuvi said in her ruling.
The judge therefore found Kaiwi guilty.
A decision on sentence will follow in the coming weeks once the pre-sentence report and other documents are presented to court recommending the type of penalty to be imposed on Kaiwi.
Kaiwi was accused of torturing and assaulting his 19-year-old wife Jenelyn Kennedy between June 18 and 23, 2020, leading to her death.
Her case became a major issue and sparked public outrage and demands for tougher action over domestic violence in Papua New Guinea.
SPECIAL REPORT:By Miriam Zarriga at Wapenamanda, Papua New Guinea
Standing in the middle of the countryside, the sound of heavy gunfire is loud and the shouts of the people in rural Wapenamanda in Papua New Guinea’s Enga province are fearful.
Police and the PNG Defence Force officers are crouched hidden on the hillside, safeties off their firearms, silently watching the melee below in Warumanda village.
The echo of the military grade Mac 58 and self-loading rifle (SLR) comes from the tribal fight; bullets aimed at the security officers miss but hit close to their feet.
Provincial Police Commander Superintendent George Kakas stands stoic in the thick of things.
He said his men were outnumbered and outgunned.
“We estimate about 500 men involved in this tribal fight, bullets are coming at us but instead they whiz past us and we can only take fire as we decide our next move,” he said.
The fighting is between Sikin and the Itiokons.
‘Explosion’ of fighting
However, the inclusion of other tribes into both tribes has seen an “explosion of all-out fighting”, Commander Kakas said.
Joining Sikin tribe are the Kaekins, and other tribes from Tsak LLG, Wabag and Kompiam-Ambum and Mupapalu, while the Itiokons include the Nenein tribe.
“I advised Air Niugini to cancel its current flight because of the intense fighting which was taking place right under its flight path towards its descent into Wapenamanda Airport,” Commander Kakas said.
“I will advise them when the situation is conducive later this week.
“We tried to cross over the only bridge over the Lai river to Warumanda village — where the destruction was taking place — and could not cross over because the metal decking has been were removed, preventing us from crossing.
“We exchanged shots with the tribesmen, luckily none of my security force members were harmed in the exchanged,” he said.
“I have now reorganised my men to remain static at strategic sites to prevent the marauding tribesmen to advance further.
‘I need men .. . support’
“I need men, I need firepower and I need the support,” he says.
“Homes are burning and lives lost, 10 people have died with countless others left without a home and without any hope of having one in the coming days.”
“Three bodies were brought out of the battleground, 8 others unaccounted for, and more than 10 taken to hospital by security forces.”
On Tuesday afternoon, security personnel were shot at and a shootout ensued with the personnel seeking higher ground.
Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas said bluntly in Parliament last week that both sides of the House should stop with the projects and concentrate on fixing law and order.
“We cannot keep on saying that everything is okay.
“We need to think beyond our self-interest and start addressing the law and order issues in the country”.
Miriam Zarrigais a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable.
— H.L. Mencken, “Le Contrat Social” in: Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
And so it continues.
This entire fiasco—indicting Donald Trump for allegedly violating both the Espionage Act and obstructing justice by improperly handling classified records—is merely the latest in a never-ending series of distractions, distortions, and political theater aimed at diverting the public’s attention from the sinister advances of the American Deep State.
Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted, diverted or mesmerized by the cheap theater tricks.
This indictment spectacle is Shakespearean in its scope: full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Nothing is the key word here.
Despite the wall-to-wall media coverage, this is all just smoke and mirrors.
Mark my words: the government is as corrupt and self-serving as ever, dominated by two political factions that pretend to be at odds with each other all the while moving in lockstep to maintain the status quo.
If you really want to talk about who’s guilty of treason, set your sights higher: indict the government for overstepping its authority, abusing its power, disregarding the rule of law, and betraying the American people.
When we refer to the “rule of law,” that’s constitutional shorthand for the idea that everyone is treated the same under the law, everyone is held equally accountable to abiding by the law, and no one is given a free pass based on their politics, their connections, their wealth, their status or any other bright line test used to confer special treatment on the elite.
When the government and its agents no longer respect the rule of law—the Constitution—or believe that it applies to them, then the very contract on which this relationship is based becomes invalid.
There are hundreds—make that thousands—of government bureaucrats who are getting away with murder (in many cases, literally) simply because the legislatures, courts and the citizenry can’t be bothered to make them play by the rules of the Constitution.
Unless something changes in the way we deal with these ongoing, egregious abuses of power, the predators of the police state will continue to wreak havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives.
For too long now, the American people have played politics with their principles and turned a blind eye to all manner of wrongdoing when it was politically expedient, allowing the government to wreak havoc with their freedoms and act in violation of the rule of law.
“We the people” are paying the price for it now.
We are paying the price every day that we allow the government to continue to wage its war on the American People, a war that is being fought on many fronts: with bullets and tasers, with surveillance cameras and license readers, with intimidation and propaganda, with court rulings and legislation, with the collusion of every bureaucrat who dances to the tune of corporate handouts while on the government’s payroll, and most effectively of all, with the complicity of the American people, who continue to allow themselves to be easily manipulated by their politics, distracted by their pastimes, and acclimated to a world in which government corruption is the norm.
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so long—sold to us in the name of national security and global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of militarized police and a political elite determined to maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and things are moving fast.
The republic has fallen.
The Deep State’s plot to take over America has succeeded.
The American system of representative government has been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, corporate oligarchy bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad.
Even now, we are being pushed and prodded towards a civil war, not because the American people are so divided but because that’s how corrupt governments control a populace (i.e., divide and conquer).
These are dangerous times.
These are indeed dangerous times but not because of violent crime or terrorism or illegal immigration.
No, the real danger that we face comes from none other than the U.S. government and the powers it has granted to its standing armies to rob, steal, cheat, harass, detain, brutalize, terrorize, torture and kill American citizens with immunity.
The danger “we the people” face comes from masked invaders on the government payroll who crash through our doors in the dark of night, shoot our dogs, and terrorize our families.
This danger comes from militarized henchmen on the government payroll who demand absolute obedience, instill abject fear, and shoot first and ask questions later.
This danger comes from greedy, power-hungry bureaucrats on the government payroll who have little to no understanding of their constitutional limits.
This danger comes from greedy politicians and corporations for whom profit trumps principle.
Consider, if you will, all of the dastardly, devious, diabolical, dangerous, debilitating, deceitful, dehumanizing, demonic, depraved, dishonorable, disillusioning, discriminatory, dictatorial schemes inflicted on “we the people” by a bureaucratic, totalitarian regime that has long since ceased to be “a government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
Americans have no protection against police abuse.
Americans are little more than pocketbooks to fund the police state.
Americans are no longer innocent until proven guilty.
Americans no longer have a right to private property.
Americans no longer have a say about what their children are exposed to in school.
Americans are powerless in the face of militarized police.
Americans no longer have a right to bodily integrity.
Americans no longer have a right to the expectation of privacy.
Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.
Americans no longer have a representative government.
I haven’t even touched on the corporate state, the military industrial complex, SWAT team raids, invasive surveillance technology, zero tolerance policies in the schools, overcriminalization, or privatized prisons, to name just a few, but what I have touched on should be enough to show that the landscape of our freedoms has already changed dramatically from what it once was and will no doubt continue to deteriorate unless Americans can find a way to wrest back control of their government and reclaim their freedoms.
Indictments, impeachments and elections will not save us.
History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a totalitarian state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom.
Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal.
From Clinton to Bush, then Obama to Trump and now Biden, it’s as if we’re caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.
There can be no denying that the world is indeed a dangerous place, but it’s the government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life, and no amount of politicking, parsing or pandering will change that.
It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by political circuses and entertainment spectacles.
What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where “we the people” are at a distinct disadvantage in the face of the government elite’s power grabs, greed and firepower.
The Constitution doesn’t stand a chance against a federalized, globalized standing army protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches that are all on the same side.
Prominent Guatemalan journalist José Rubén Zamora faces 40 years in prison in his sentencing hearing Wednesday for what press freedom and human rights groups say are inflated charges of money laundering. Zamora is the founder and president of the investigative newspaper El Periódico and has long reported on Guatemalan government corruption. El Periódico was forced to shut down last month after months of intensifying harassment and persecution from President Alejandro Giammattei’s right-wing government. The government has held Zamora “as a hostage” for nearly a year as part of its wider crackdown on the press, says his son José Carlos Zamora, a journalist based in Miami who is advocating for his father’s release.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
As Australian protesters gathered outside the Brisbane detention centre calling for the freedom of a Nauru refugee, the man pleaded with authorities to release him.
Hamid has been held in a hotel room and then the detention centre for months.
“They want to kill me gradually with mental torture,” he said.
“New Zealand government, please save me from the cruel and inhuman clutches of Australian politicians,” Hamid, an Iranian who was held on Nauru for almost a decade, told RNZ Pacific.
He is one of hundreds of refugees who had sought asylum in Australia but was detained offshore.
He was brought to Australia in February 2023 for medical treatment and then kept in a hotel room in Brisbane.
“They are actually cruel. And they are actually killing me by mental torture,” Hamid said.
Other refugees released
Other refugees brought to Australia have been released from hotel detention within a week or two but not Hamid, who said he had been confined for weeks on end.
“And they didn’t release me and they released everyone in front of my eyes. So what is this after 10 years? After 10 years, they are putting me in a detention centre with a lot of criminal people. What is this? It’s torture!” Hamid said.
He was held first in the Meriton Hotel, in Brisbane, and on June 7 he was transferred to the Brisbane detention centre.
A protester at Brisbane’s immigration detention centre, BITA ( Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation), on Sunday . . . “Other refugees brought to Australia have been released from hotel detention within a week.” Image: Ian Rintoul/RNZ Pacific
“I’m not a criminal . . . I didn’t come to Australia illegally.
“But they keep me in detention,” Hamid said.
All meals were eaten in his room, and he was sometimes taken to the BITA Detention Centre for one hour’s exercise a day.
RNZ Pacific decided not to interview him in his fragile state while he was in isolation, but since he was moved to detention where he can exercise and walk around the compound, he wanted to speak out about his treatment.
Wish to go to NZ
“I’m sure the New Zealand government and people are lovely. And this is my wish. As soon as possible, go to New Zealand. And please do my process as soon as possible. Thank you so much,” Hamid said.
He begged the New Zealand government to speed up the immigration process which he has applied for under the AUS/NZ Agreement.
“I have to support my family — my wife and youngest daughter are in Iran. And I have to support them. They are my priority. My first priority in my life is to support them. And as they put me here I cannot,” Hamid said.
Protesters at Brisbane’s immigration detention centre, BITA ( Brisbane Immigration Transit Accommodation), on Sunday . . . Hamid was promised he would be released from detention in Australia. Image: Ian Rintoul/RNZ Pacific
Like others brought from Nauru, he was promised he would be released from detention in Australia, and was even asked whether he wanted to be released on a bridging visa or on a community detention order.
He has been awaiting news from the New Zealand government as to whether or not he will be accepted for the freedom he has waited almost a decade for.
Free Hamid rally For the last several months, the Australian Labor government has been transferring the remaining refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru to Australia, the Refugee Action Coalition said in a statement.
In December last year there were 72 people held offshore by Australia in Nauru. As of last week, 13 refugees were left but it is understood that another transfer was to be completed at the weekend.
Last Sunday, a “Free Hamid” rally was held outside the detention centre.
Hamid’s son, Arman, was released from hotel detention in Victoria in 2022 and spoke at the rally.
Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, said the Labor government has no more excuses.
“It’s way beyond time that Hamid was freed from detention and reunited with his son,” Rintoul said.
‘Strong progress’ made on NZ resettlement deal Australia’s Department of Home Affairs (DFAT) told RNZ Pacific in a statement that while it does not comment on individual cases, it is committed to an enduring regional processing capability in Nauru as a key pillar of “Operation Sovereign Borders’.
“The enduring capability ensures regional processing arrangements remain ready to receive and process any new unauthorised maritime arrivals, future-proofing Australia’s response to maritime people smuggling,” the statement said.
DFAT said Australia was focused on supporting the Nauru government to resolve the regional processing caseload, and that “strong progress” had been made on the New Zealand resettlement arrangement.
“I’m so tired of the Australian government, just the government, you know, not the people,” Hamid said.
Immigration New Zealand has told RNZ Pacific it is working as fast as it could to get refugees to New Zealand under the AUS/NZ deal which aims to settle up to 150 refugees each year for three years.
Year one ends this month, on June 30.
Hamid hopes to be one of those included in this year’s intake.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Two banners and candles at the gates of a refugee detention centre during a candlelight vigil in Brisbane. Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Anadolu Agency/AFP/RNZ Pacific
By Gorethy Kenneth and Majorie Finkeo in Port Moresby
The arrest of Papua New Guinea former prime minister Peter O’Neill yesterday was prompted by a complaint by Chief Secretary Ivan Pomaleu to the Commissioner of Police David Manning after reviewing the UBS Commission of Inquiry Report.
In a major incident brief for police obtained by the PNG Post-Courier, Chief Secretary Pomaleu, as the custodian of government’s commission of inquiries and submissions, made a referral on the recommendation of the UBS Report on the US$1.2 billion loan inquiry to police as an investigative authority.
Pomaleu referred the COI report to the Commissioner’s office to commence its investigations on the 5 June 2023.
“The Office of the Chief Secretary to Government in its capacity as the custodian of government’s inquiries and policy submissions including decisions implementations made a referral on the recommendations in the report to police as an investigative authority to cause an investigation,” the police major incident brief detailed.
“On the 05th of June, 2023 the Chief Secretary to Government referred the COI Report to the Office of the Commissioner of Police to commence investigation in the report.
“In the view of the report an obvious infringement was noted to be breached during the COI,” it detailed.
According to the summary of facts, on the 8 June 2023, O’Neill was brought in to the Special Investigation Team office at Airport Police Station, 7 Mile, upon a complaint of offering “delusive evidence” at a Commission of Inquiry.
Three counts of perjury
Yesterday he was charged with three counts of giving false evidence under oath in the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) loan, Commissioner of Police David Manning confirmed.
O’Neill was later released on OR — own recognisance, granted by Commissioner Manning.
The police major incident brief also stated that police conducted a clinical analysis to see whether or not the responses given by the defendant before the Commission on 17 June 2021 were false.
In the responses, the defendant denied having knowledge of any transactions made between Oil Search and Elk-Antelope.
He also denied having any agreements/discussions and correspondences about any potential investments with Oil Search and Elk-Antelope in 10 percent shareholding acquisitions and placements.
Further investigations and deliberations conducted into the recommendations in COI discovered that statements and information produced before it by O’Neill between 2011 and 2019 were false and misleading when presented before the commission.
“Police had to look at the Commission of Inquiry report with several volumes including the transcripts of the COI going over three years.
‘Further investigations’
“Following further investigations by police it was discovered that statements and information produced by Mr O’Neill between 2011 and 2019 were false and misleading when presented before the commission, and contradicted National Executive Council Policy Submission 67/2014 on financial arrangements for the state acquisition of shareholding in Oil Search Limited and state borrowing,” Commissioner Manning said.
“From police investigations, the evidence gathered confirmed that the answers given before the commission were flawed and untrue,” he said.
Subsequently, three charges were laid on Peter O’Neill today as follows that he:
Did appear as a witness of the 17th of June 2021 before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Processes and Procedures Followed by the Government of Papua New Guinea into Obtaining the Off-Shore Loan from the Union Bank of Switzerland and Related Transactions and given false evidence on oath, that he had “no knowledge whatsoever” of what Oil Search Ltd intended to do with the money paid by the State for the purchase of Oil Search shares in 2014, and that Oil Search Ltd intended to use the money paid by the State for shares in Oil Search Ltd to purchase an interest in PRL-15 Elk Antelope, before the Royal Commission of Inquiry;
Did appear as a witness of the 9th of August 2021 before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Processes and Procedures Followed by the Government of Papua New Guinea into Obtaining the Off-Shore Loan from the Union Bank of Switzerland and Related Transactions give false evidence that, “there was never any discussion” about Oil Search Ltd using the money paid by the State for the purchase of shares in Oil Search Ltd to buy an interest in PRL-15 Elk Antelope and “this information did not come to the government’s notice or particularly at the leadership level” before the said Royal Commission of Inquiry; and
Did appear as a witness of the 17th of February 202 before the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Processes and Procedures Followed by the Government of Papua New Guinea into Obtaining the Off-Shore Loan from the Union Bank of Switzerland and Related Transactions give false evidence on oath that “there was never any discussion” about Oil Search Ltd using the money paid by the State for the purchase of shares in Oil Search Limited to buy an interest in PRL-15 Elk Antelope and “this information did not come to government’s notice”.
Gorethy Kenneth and Majorie Finkeo are PNG Post-Courier reporters. Republished with permission.
Former Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O’Neill has been charged with three counts of giving false evidence in a national US$1.2 billion loan inquiry contrary to Section 10 of the Commission of Inquiry Act.
He met reporters outside Boroko Police Station in Port Moresby today stating “this is politically motivated”.
O’Neill, who is also Ialibu-Pangia MP, was at the station for police formalities to be completed in the charges against him.
Earlier, the PNG Post-Courier’s Todagia Kelola reported that O’Neill had been requested to front up at the National Fraud Squad office at Konedobu by today for questioning on allegations of perjury.
In a short media statement on Saturday, Police Commissioner David Manning requested O’Neill to make himself available for questioning on allegations of perjury emanating from the UBS Commission of Inquiry into a loan negotiated with the Union Bank of Switzerland by his government in 2014.
In response, O’Neill said in a statement titled “Is Manning Police Commissioner or Chief of PNG Intimidation?”: “Firstly, I am surprised but heartened the Police Commissioner is working late on a Saturday evening.”
“Violent crimes, kidnap for ransom, rape, and murders along with crippling corruption have been skyrocketing since his time in the high office of Police Commissioner.
‘Blatant intimidation’
“I am sure it is comforting to all Papua New Guineans to know the Commissioner is choosing to go after me late on a Saturday night in what appears to be blatant intimidation rather than focus on keeping the people of Papua New Guinea safe.”
Commissioner Manning in his statement said: “Based upon investigations into the UBS Commission of Inquiry report, we are satisfied that Mr Peter O’Neill gave false evidence whilst under oath.
“I am appealing to Mr O’Neill to cooperate and make himself available by Monday morning to Director Crimes, Chief Inspector Joel Simatab, at the National Police Headquarters in Konedobu,” Manning said.
Commissioner Manning said the ultimate objective of the Commission of Inquiry was to establish whether there were breaches of PNG laws and constitutional requirements in the negotiation and approval of the UBS loan, whether PNG as a country had suffered as a result of the deal, and whether people involved could be held accountable.
“After a thorough investigation and assessment of the facts, we are satisfied and have sufficient evidence that Mr O’Neill has perjured the inquiry — thereby committing an offence under the Commission of Inquiry Act of giving false evidence under oath,” Manning said.
O’Neill, in his statement in response said: “It is nearly 12 months since the internationally presided over UBS Commission of Inquiry ended with no findings against me, and now, late on a Saturday evening, I am instructed via a media statement by the Police Commissioner to attend questioning on the next day, a Sunday,” said O’Neill.
“It appears that before I am questioned, Commissioner of Police in his statement seems to be directing his investigating officers to arrest and charge me of a crime of perjury while under oath in the UBS Commission of Inquiry.”
Court opportunity welcomed
“I welcome the opportunity to face the courts to test a politically motivated and very expensive Commission of Inquiry.
“I have faith in the fairness of the courts but not in yet another Police Commissioner instructed investigation into me.
“The perjury claim that I have learned of in Mr Manning’s statement is false.
“I can only assume he is referring to the unsubstantiated claim given to the COI by a self-serving politician.
“I will attend at 10am on Monday the 12th June 2023 for questioning at Konedobu Police HQ.
“I assure all supporters that I remain steadfast and more committed than ever to Papua New Guinea and the foundations of democracy.
“These terrible times we are all experiencing are temporary.”
The UBS COI final report in its answer to the question, “Who was responsible and what remedies should be sought against them”, recommended that O’Neill should be prosecuted for giving false evidence to the Commission and referred to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Todagia Kelola is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
Seventeen Papua New Guinean schoolgirls who were kidnapped, raped and held hostage by armed men in Bosavi, Hela, last Wednesday were released yesterday.
The National’s source said they were released following a payment of 3300 kina (NZ$1500) and nine pigs as ransom to the gunmen.
“The females were released but they are traumatised. Some of them are just girls. It is the first time for them to be exposed to this kind of violence,” said the source.
“Meanwhile, the teachers of Walagu Primary School are still on the run, with the school closed since then.
“A female teacher who was seven months pregnant was airlifted by police to Komo in a chopper yesterday.”
Another government worker said: “Last week 40 armed men from Komo to Bosavi had accused the villagers for reporting them to police in the last kidnap incident [in February].
“They went to Komo passing through Walagu village near Mt Sisa.
‘Kidnapped at gunpoint’
“At Walagu, they kidnapped the females at gunpoint saying the villagers had assisted security forces and reported them to have involved in the kidnap of the New Zealand research scientist a few months back.
“They were held hostage at Mt Sisa for three days until their release yesterday.
“We are appealing to the Hela government to stop the smuggling of guns in the province.
“We also appeal to the authorities to arrest the 40 men from Bosavi, as they have raped our children who are between the ages of 13 to 15 and yet they demand a ransom.
“People in authority should meet with all its 24 council wards in Komo-Hulia electorate and arrest youths who have homemade guns in their possessions.”
Police sources also confirmed that the group seemed to be the same one that was involved in the earlier kidnap and ransom in February when the captives included an Australian-based New Zealand academic.
Lack of action ‘serious error’
The lack of follow up action by police and the military was a “serious error of judgement and appears to have emboldened them to continue with this kind of activities an easy money making venture”, a police source said.
Meanwhile, condemnation of the action and calls for serious government action came from the Member for Koroba-Lake Kopiage, William Bando; the Vanimo Green MP and Chairman of Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Belden Namah; and the Lutheran Church Head, Dr Jack Urame.
Namah said last night that he was alarmed that the police hierarchy and the ministry had gone silent on a serious issue involving the lives of children.
Majeleen Yanei is a reporter with The National newspaper in Port Moresby. Republished with permission.
But while deputy Police Commissioner (chief of operations) Philip Mitna confirmed the incident to the newspaper, he said he could not comment further as he had not yet received the full report from his divisional commander.
RNZ Pacific’s PNG correspondent Scott Waide said police had not responded to his requests for comment.
Waide has spoken to a local health worker but has been unable to verify the information.
Second Bosavi hostage drama
Hela Governor Philip Undialu said such occurrences were common in the Mt Bosavi area, where gun smuggling, and a lot of other criminal activities took place.
Local media reported police were preparing a rescue mission, but it was unclear when this was to have happened.
In February, the PNG government admitted that 100,000 kina had been paid to kidnappers to release three hostages, including a New Zealander, who were also taken captive in the Mt Bosavi area in the Southern Highlands.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Donald Trump has had one of his worst weeks ever, and things are going to continue to get worse for him as the Summer goes on. To make things worse for him, he now has even more Republican rivals entering the presidential race who aren’t afraid to take some serious shots at him and his […]
A bill introducing harsh penalties and extending the scope of a law applying to those who obstruct public places has been passed after an all-night sitting by the South Australian Legislative Council this week, reports veteran investigative journalist Wendy Bacon — herself twice imprisoned for free speech.
South Australia now joins New South Wales, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland, states which have already passed anti-protest laws imposing severe penalties on people who engage in peaceful civil disobedience.
However, South Australia’s new law carries the harshest financial penalties in Australia.
Thirteen Upper House Labor and Liberal MPs voted for the Bill, opposed by two Green MPs and two SABest MPs. The government faced down the cross bench moves to hold an inquiry into the bill, to review it in a year, or add a defence of “reasonableness”.
The Summary Offences (Obstruction of Public Places) Amendment Bill 2023 was introduced into the House Assembly by Premier Peter Malinauskas the day after Extinction Rebellion protests were staged around the Australian Petroleum and Exploration Association (APPEA) annual conference on May 17.
The most dramatic of these protests was staged by 69-year-old Meme Thorne who abseiled off a city bridge causing delays and traffic to be diverted.
Meanwhile, the gas lobby APPEA which is financed by foreign fossil fuel companies has stopped publishing its (public) financial statements. Questions put for this story were ignored but we will append a response should one be available.
The APPEA conference is a major gathering of oil and gas companies that was bound to attract protests. Its membership covers 95 pecent of Australia’s oil and gas industry and many other companies who supply goods and services to fossil fuel industries.
The dramatic climate protest staged by 69-year-old Meme Thorne who abseiled off an Adelaide bridge last month. Video: The Independent
The principal sponsors of this year’s conference were corporate giants Exxon-Mobil and Woodside.
Since March, Extinction Rebellion South Australia has been openly planning protests to draw attention to scientific evidence showing that any expansion of fossil fuel industries risks massive global disruption and millions of deaths.
The new laws will not apply to those arrested last week, several of whom have already been sentenced under existing laws.
In fact, when SA Attorney-General Kyam Maher was asked about the protests on May 17 shortly after the abseiling incident, he told the Upper House that “there are substantial penalties for doing things that can impede or restrict things like emergency services. I know that (police) . . . have in the past and will continue to do, enforce the laws that we have.”
Sensing that something was in the wind, he said he would be open to suggestions from the opposition.
Fines up 66 times, prison sentence introduced That afternoon, SA Opposition Leader and Liberal David Speirs handed the government a draft bill. This was finalised by parliamentary counsel overnight and whipped through the Lower House on May 18, without debate or scrutiny.
It took 20 minutes from start to finish: as one Upper House MP said, it would take “longer to do a load of washing”.
While Malinauskas and Speirs thanked each other for their cooperation, some MPs had not seen the unpublished bill before they passed it.
The new law introduces maximum penalties of A$50,000 (66 times the previous maximum fine) or a prison sentence of three months.
The maximum fine was previously $750, and there was no prison penalty.
If emergency services (police, fire, ambulance) are called to a protest, those convicted can also be required to pay emergency service costs. The scope of the law has also been widened to include “indirect” obstruction of a public place.
This means that if you stage a protest and the police use 20 emergency vehicles to divert traffic, you could be found guilty under the new section and be liable for the costs.
Even people handing out pamphlets about vaping harm in front of a shop, or workers gathering on a footpath to demand better pay, could fall foul of the laws.
An SABest amendment to the original bill removing the word “reckless” restricts its scope to intentional acts.
The APPEA oil and gas conference in Adelaide last month triggered protests. Image: Extinction Rebellion/Michael West Media
Peter Malinauskus told Radio Fiveaa on Friday that the new laws aimed to deter “extremists” who protested “with impunity” by crowd sourcing funds to pay their fines.
In speaking about the laws, Malinaukas, Maher and their right-wing media supporters have made constant references to emergency services, and ambulances. But no evidence has emerged that ambulances were delayed.
The author contacted SA Ambulances to ask if any ambulances were held up on May 17, and if they were delayed, whether Thorne was told. SA Ambulance Services acknowledged the question but have not yet answered.
The old ambulance excuse Significantly, the SA Ambulance Employees Union has complained about the “alarming breadth” of the laws and reminded the Malinauskas government that in the lead-up to last year’s state election, Labor joined Greens, SABest and others in protests about ambulance ramping, which caused significant traffic delays.
The constant references to emergencies are reminiscent of similar references in NSW. When protesters Violet Coco and firefighter Alan Glover were arrested on the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year, police included a reference to an ambulance in a statement of facts.
The ambulance did not exist and the false statement was withdrawn but this did not stop then Labor Opposition leader, now NSW Premier Chris Minns repeating the allegation when continuing to support harsh penalties even after a judge had released Coco from prison.
It later emerged that the protesters had agreed to move if it was necessary to make way for an ambulance.
The new SA law places a lot of discretion in the hands of the SA police to decide how to use resources and assess costs. The SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens left no doubt about his hostility to disruptive protests when he said in reference to last week’s abseiling incident, “The ropes are fully extended across the street. So we can’t, as much as we might like to, cut the rope and let them drop.”
In Parliament, Green MP Robert Simms condemned this statement, noting that it had not been withdrawn.
In court, the police prosecutor (as NSW prosecutors have often done) argued that Thorne, who has been arrested in previous protests, should be refused bail.
Her lawyer Claire O’Connor SC reminded that courts around the country had ruled bail could not be denied to protesters as a form of punishment.
Shock jocks, News Corp, back new laws She said that, at worst, her client faced a maximum fine of $1250 and three-month prison term if convicted — but added she intended to plead not guilty.
“You cannot isolate a particular group of offenders because of their motivation and treat them differently because of their beliefs,” she said. The magistrate granted Thorne bail until July.
For now the South Australian government has satisfied the radio shock jocks, Newscorp’s Adelaide Advertiser (which applauded the tough penalties), authoritarian elements in the SA police, and the Opposition.
But it has been well and truly wedged. After a fairly smooth first year in power, it now finds itself offside with a massive coalition of civil society, environmental groups, South Australian unions, the SA Law Society and the Council for Social Services, the Greens and SA Best.
In less than two weeks, Premier Malinkauskas’s new law was condemned by a full page advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser that was signed by human rights, legal, civil society, environmental and activist organisations; faced two angry street rallies organised to demonstrate opposition to the laws; and was roundly criticised by a range of peak legal and human rights organisations.
Back to the past Worst of all from the government’s point of view, SA Unions accused Malinkaskas of trashing South Australia’s proud progressive history.
“South Australian union members have fought for over a century to improve our living standards and rights at work. It took just 22 minutes for the government to pass a Bill in the House of Assembly attacking our rights to take the industrial action that made that possible.
“Their Bill is a mess and must be stopped,” SA Unions stated in a post on their official Facebook page.
In hours long speeches during the night, Green MPs Robert Simms and Tammie Franks and SABest Frank Pangano and Connie Bonaros detailed the history of protests that have led to progressive changes, including in South Australia.
They read onto the parliamentary record letters from organisations condemning both the content and unprecedented manner in which the laws were passed as undermining democracy.
Their message was crystal clear — peaceful disobedience is at the heart of democracy and there can be no peaceful disobedience without disruption.
Simms wore a LGBTQI activist pin to remind people that as a gay man he would never have been able to become a politician if it was not for the disruptive US-based Stonewall Riots and the early Sydney Mardi Gras, in which police arrested scores of people.
Protest is about “disrupting routines, people are making a noise and getting attention of people in power . . . change is led by people who are on the street, not made by those who stand meekly by,” he told Parliament.
Simms read from a letter by Australian Lawyers for Human Rights president Kerry Weste, who wrote, “Without the right to assemble en masse, disturb and disrupt, to speak up against injustice we would not have the eight-hour working day, and women would not be able to vote.
“Protests encourage the development of an engaged and informed citizenry and strengthen representative democracy by enabling direct participation in public affairs. When we violate the right to peaceful protest we undermine our democracy.”
At the same time as it was thumbing its nose at many of its supporters, the South Australian government left no one in doubt about its support for the expansion of the gas industry.
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis told the APPEA conference, “We are thankful you are here.
“We are happy to a be recipient of APPEA’s largesse in the form of coming here more often,” Koutsantonis said. “The South Australian government is at your disposal, we are here to help and we are here to offer you a pathway to the future.”
‘Gas grovelling’ not well received This did not impress David Mejia-Canales, senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, whose words were also quoted in Parliament:
“Two days after the Malinauskas government told gas corporations that the state is at their service, the SA government is making good on its word by rushing through laws to limit the right of climate defenders and others to protest. Australia’s democracy is stronger when people protest on issues they care about
“This knee-jerk reaction by the South Australian government will undermine the ability of everyone in SA to exercise their right to peacefully protest, from young people marching for climate action to workers protesting for better conditions. The Legislative Council must reject this Bill.”
During his five-hour speech in the early hours of Wednesday, SA Best Frank Pangano told Parliament that he could not recall when a bill has “seen so much wholesale opposition from sections of the community who are informed, who know what law making is about.
“You have got a wide section of the community saying in unison, ‘you are wrong’ to the Premier, you actually got it wrong. But we are getting a tin ear.”
And it was not just the climate and human rights activists who were “getting the tin ear”: the SA Australian Law Society released a letter expressing “serious concerns with the manner in which the [bill] was rushed through the House of Assembly”.
It wrote, “This is not how good laws are made.
“Good laws undergo a process of consultation, scrutiny, and debate before being put to a vote. The public did not even have a chance to examine the wording of the Bill before it passed the House of Assembly.
“This is particularly worrying in circumstances where the proposed law in question affects a democratic right as fundamental as the right to protest, and drastically increases penalties for those convicted of an offence.”
The Law Society also sent a list of questions to the government which were not answered.
One of the last speeches in the early morning was by SABest MLC Connie Balaros who, wearing a t-shirt that read “Arrest me Pete”, vowed to continue to campaign against the laws and accused Labor MPs of betraying their members, the community and their own history.
No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.
Early this year, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutierrez declared, “2023 is a year of reckoning. It must be a year of game-changing climate action.
“We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing. No more bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”
Climate disasters mount Since he made that statement, climate scientists have reported that Antarctic ice is melting faster than anticipated. This week, there has been record-beating heat in eastern Canada and the United States, Botswana in Africa, and South East China.
Right now, unprecedented out-of-control wildfires are ravaging Canada.
An international force of 1200 firefighters including Australians have joined the Canadian military battling to bring fires under control. Extreme rain and floods displaced millions in Pakistan and thousands in Australia in 2022.
Recently, extreme rain caused rivers to break their banks in Italy, causing landslides and turning streets into rivers. Homelessness drags on for years as affected communities struggle to recover long after the media moves on.
Is it any wonder that some people don’t continue as if it is ‘business as usual’. Protesters in London invaded Shell’s annual conference last week and in Paris, climate activists were tear gassed at Total Energies AGM.
Is it any wonder that some people don’t continue as if it is “business as usual”. Protesters in London invaded Shell’s annual conference last week and in Paris, climate activists were tear gassed at Total Energies AGM.
In The Netherlands last weekend, 1500 protesters who blocked a motorway to call attention to the climate emergency were water-cannoned and arrested.
On Thursday, May 30, Rising Tide protesters pleaded guilty to entering enclosed lands and attempting to block a coal train in Newcastle earlier this year. They received fines of between $450 and $750, most of which will be covered by crowdfunding.
Three of them were Knitting Nannas, a group of older women who stage frequent protests.
This week the Knitting Nannas and others formed a human chain around NAB headquarters in Sydney. They called for NAB to stop funding fossil fuel projects, including the Whitehaven coal mine.
Knitting Nannas, Rising Tide Two Knitting Nannas have mounted a legal challenge in the NSW Supreme Court seeking a declaration that the NSW anti-protest laws are invalid because they violate the implied right to freedom of communication in the Australian constitution.
A similar action is already been considered in South Australia.
In this context, fossil fuel industry get togethers may no longer be seen as a PR and networking opportunity for government and companies.
Australian protesters will not be impressed by Federal and State Labor politicians reassurances that they have a right to protest, providing that they meekly follow established legal procedures that empower police and councils to give or refuse permission for assemblies at prearranged places and times and do not inconvenience anyone else.
Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was professor of journalism at University of Technology Sydney (UTS). She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.Republished from Michael West Media with permission from the author and MWM.
Transparency International Papua New Guinea has welcomed the conviction of lawyer Paul Paraka as the police confirm they are widening the investigation into the fraud case.
Transparency PNG spokesperson, Peter Aitsi, said the evidence outlined the complex structures that Paraka and others put together.
Significant case
He said it was a very significant case because of the amount of public money involved.
“And those are just the funds that have been identified within this case itself and paid to different parties as a result of Paraka’s activities.
“From a TI point of view we would encourage the agencies to continue to develop the evidence and if there are further charges to be laid against individuals then we would encourage them to ensure they uphold their duty and responsibility,” Aitsi said.
Paraka’s law firm, which he claimed was the biggest in the country, was engaged by the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General’s office in 2000, but this arrangement ceased in 2006.
However, from 2007 the state was still making payments to legal firms linked to Paraka.
Investigations have seesawed for 10 years and led to the replacement of the Attorney-General, the shutting down of the police fraud unit investigating the matter, and acccusations of politicians being involved.
Meanwhile, Paul Paraka threatened legal action amid claims the issues were simply administrative matters.
Police action Police Commissioner David Manning has confirmed an investigation into fraud, money laundering and misappropriation following Paraka’s conviction.
Manning said the Paraka case attracted significant national interest due to the huge amounts of public money involved in these corrupt dealings.
“The way and manner in which these funds were syphoned through the Department of Finance to various law firms, who would then transfer this money to Mr Paraka himself, has been the subject of public outrage,” he said.
Manning said police will continue to pursue, investigate, charge and arrest those involved, and to recoup all money lost in these illegal deals.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
— George Orwell
Let’s be clear about one thing: seditious conspiracy isn’t a real crime to anyone but the U.S. government.
To be convicted of seditious conspiracy, the charge levied against Stewart Rhodes who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for being the driving force behind the January 6 Capitol riots, one doesn’t have to engage in violence against the government, vandalize government property, or even trespass on property that the government has declared off-limits to the general public.
This is not about whether Rhodes deserves such a hefty sentence.
This is about the long-term ramifications of empowering the government to wage war on individuals whose political ideas and expression challenge the government’s power, reveal the government’s corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage the citizenry to push back against the government’s many injustices.
This is about criminalizing political expression in thoughts, words and deeds.
This is about how the government has used the events of Jan. 6 in order to justify further power grabs and acquire more authoritarian emergency powers.
This was never about so-called threats to democracy.
In fact, the history of this nation is populated by individuals whose rhetoric was aimed at fomenting civil unrest and revolution.
Indeed, by the government’s own definition, America’s founders were seditious conspirators based on the heavily charged rhetoric they used to birth the nation.
Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Marquis De Lafayette, and John Adams would certainly have been charged for suggesting that Americans should not only take up arms but be prepared to protect their liberties and defend themselves against the government should it violate their rights.
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” declared Jefferson. He also concluded that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government,” insisted Paine.
“When the government violates the people’s rights,” Lafayette warned, “insurrection is, for the people and for each portion of the people, the most sacred of the rights and the most indispensable of duties.”
Adams cautioned, “A settled plan to deprive the people of all the benefits, blessings and ends of the contract, to subvert the fundamentals of the constitution, to deprive them of all share in making and executing laws, will justify a revolution.”
Had America’s founders feared revolutionary words and ideas, there would have been no First Amendment, which protects the right to political expression, even if that expression is anti-government.
No matter what one’s political persuasion might be, every American has a First Amendment right to protest government programs or policies with which they might disagree.
The right to disagree with and speak out against the government is the quintessential freedom.
Every individual has a right to speak truth to power—and foment change—using every nonviolent means available.
Unfortunately, the government is increasingly losing its tolerance for anyone whose political views could be perceived as critical or “anti-government.”
All of us are in danger.
In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”
The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American with an opinion about the governmentor who knows someone with an opinion about the government an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.
You see, the government doesn’t care if you or someone you know has a legitimate grievance. It doesn’t care if your criticisms are well-founded. And it certainly doesn’t care if you have a First Amendment right to speak truth to power.
What the government cares about is whether what you’re thinking or speaking or sharing or consuming as information has the potential to challenge its stranglehold on power.
Get ready for the next phase of the government’s war on thought crimes and truth-tellers.
For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous.
For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.
In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.
There’s a whole spectrum of behaviors ranging from thought crimes and hate speech to whistleblowing that qualifies for persecution (and prosecution) by the Deep State.
Simply liking or sharing this article on Facebook, retweeting it on Twitter, or merely reading it or any other articles related to government wrongdoing, surveillance, police misconduct or civil liberties might be enough to get you categorized as a particular kind of person with particular kinds of interests that reflect a particular kind of mindset that might just lead you to engage in a particular kinds of activities and, therefore, puts you in the crosshairs of a government investigation as a potential troublemaker a.k.a. domestic extremist.
Chances are, as the Washington Post reports, you have already been assigned a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—so police are forewarned about your potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether you’ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.
In other words, you might already be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere—Main Core, for example—that identifies and tracks individuals who aren’t inclined to march in lockstep to the police state’s dictates.
As The Interceptreported, the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies have increasingly invested in corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior.
Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.
And then at the other end of the spectrum there are those such as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, for example, who blow the whistle on government misconduct that is within the public’s right to know.
In true Orwellian fashion, the government would have us believe that it is Assange and Manning who are the real criminals for daring to expose the war machine’s seedy underbelly.
This is how the police state deals with those who challenge its chokehold on power.
This is also why the government fears a citizenry that thinks for itself: because a citizenry that thinks for itself is a citizenry that is informed, engaged and prepared to hold the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law, which translates to government transparency and accountability.
After all, we’re citizens, not subjects.
For those who don’t fully understand the distinction between the two and why transparency is so vital to a healthy constitutional government, Manning explains it well:
This is why the First Amendment is so critical. It gives the citizenry the right to speak freely, protest peacefully, expose government wrongdoing, and criticize the government without fear of arrest, isolation or any of the other punishments that have been meted out to whistleblowers such as Edwards Snowden, Assange and Manning.
The challenge is holding the government accountable to obeying the law.
A little over 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in United States v. Washington Post Co. to block the Nixon Administration’s attempts to use claims of national security to prevent the Washington Post and the New York Times from publishing secret Pentagon papers on how America went to war in Vietnam.
As Justice William O. Douglas remarked on the ruling, “The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”
Fast forward to the present day, and we’re witnessing yet another showdown, this time between Assange and the Deep State, which pits the people’s right to know about government misconduct against the might of the military industrial complex.
Yet this isn’t merely about whether whistleblowers and journalists are part of a protected class under the Constitution. It’s a debate over how long “we the people” will remain a protected class under the Constitution.
Following the current trajectory, it won’t be long before anyone who believes in holding the government accountable is labeled an “extremist,” relegated to an underclass that doesn’t fit in, watched all the time, and rounded up when the government deems it necessary.
Fiji’s 2000 coup leader George Speight, who has been serving time in prison for more than 20 years, has applied for a presidential pardon so he can be released.
When questioned by Fijivillage News, Attorney-General and Chair of the Mercy Commission, Siromi Turaga confirmed that Speight had made an application and the consideration process was underway.
According to the 2013 Constitution, on the petition of any convicted person, the commission may recommend that the President exercise a power of mercy by granting a free or conditional pardon to a person convicted of an offence; remitting all or a part of a punishment.
The commission may dismiss a petition that it reasonably considers to be frivolous, vexatious or entirely without merit, but otherwise
must consider a report on the case prepared by the judge who presided at the trial; or the Chief Justice, if a report cannot be obtained from the presiding judge;
must consider any other information derived from the record of the case or elsewhere that is available to the Commission; and
may consider the views of the victims of the offence.
The Constitution states that the President must act in accordance with the recommendations of the commission.
Fijivillage News has received information that the process has gone through the Fiji Corrections Service, the case management process for George Speight has been done through the judiciary, the commission has had its meeting and a decision is expected from President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere.
Next batch release?
Based on the processes followed under the Constitution, Speight could be released in the next batch of people to be given mercy by the President.
Speight was arrested and taken into custody on 26 July 2000.
In February 2002, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death — the sentence was later commuted to life in prison by the President.
George Speight led a small group of armed men to the Parliament complex in Veiuto on the morning of 19 May 2000, and seized then Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and his government hostage.
The hostage crisis lasted for 56 days.
In 2020, the then Leader of Opposition, Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu urged the President and the then government to also consider the release of prisoners like 2000 coup leader George Speight and Naitasiri high chief, Ratu Inoke Takiveikata.
When questioned by Fijivillage News, Ratu Naiqama said there were more than 3000 people that were charged and incarcerated in relation to the events of 2000, and all including George Speight should be released.
While speaking in Parliament at the time, Ratu Naiqama said this was not to create another coup but to take a step forward.
Vijay Narayan is news director of Fijivillage News. Republished with permission.
