Papua New Guinea lawyer and businessman Paul Paraka has been found guilty of misappropriating K162 million (NZ$75 million) belonging to the state.
Criminal track judge Justice Teresa Berrigan, in a comprehensive and detailed judgment in 114 pages, found him guilty on all five charges laid against him by the state.
In summary, the state alleged that between 2007 and 2011 more than K162 million was paid by the Department of Finance to the ultimate benefit of the accused.
The money was paid to PKP nominees, a property investment company wholly owned and directed by Paraka or to the accounts of seven other law firms which were also named.
The money, according to the state, was paid through 65 cheques, ranging in value from about KI million to almost K5 million.
In every case, the law firms retained at least K30,000 to K50,000 and sometimes as much as K400,000 before almost immediately passing the proceeds on to PPL or PKP nominees.
In summary, cheques totalling the following sums were paid by the Department of Finance to PKP nominees and the seven law firms:
K30,300,000 in 2007;
K30,054,312.68 in 2008;
K14,480,672.28 in 2009;
K39,808,610 in 2010;
K47,608,300 in 2011.
Paraka, who represented himself during the trial, said in a short statement after the court’s verdict: “The decision was a shocker and I will file an appeal during the week.
“There was no hard evidence from [the] Finance Department; hard copies of payments to those law firms were not produced in evidence by the prosecution.”
Accused conduct’s ‘dishonest’
Justice Berrigan, in giving the background of the case in her judgment, said the case had a lengthy history in the National Court with a number of challenges by the accused, which were all refused culminating in this trial.
She concluded that the accused’s conduct was dishonest according to the “standards of honest and reasonable people”.
“Over a period of five years the accused procured another person or persons to apply to his own use and the use of others more than K162 million to which he was not entitled.
“I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that having regard to the intelligence, education and experience of the accused, and the lengths taken by him to disguise the payments, that he appreciated at the time that he procured others to apply the property to his use and that what he was doing was dishonest according to those standards.
“There is no other rational inference. If required, this would establish the guilt of the accused pursuant to s7(4) of the Criminal Code.”
Todagia Kelolais a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
Are the voters responsible for the corruption in the country?
Papua New Guinea’s Health Minister and Member for Wabag, Dr Lino Tom, seems to think so and he is partly right in his public statement on the matter in the PNG Post-Courier last month.
Unlike in the past, when our people were more self-reliant and attended to their own problems or meet every community obligation on their own, the generation today vote in their Members of Parliament to fix their personal problems and not the country.
And that’s a fact.
Our people think that their MPs are automatic teller machines (ATMs), like the ones deployed by the commercial banks that dispatches cash on demand that they have abandoned our honourable and historical self-reliant way of life.
We agree with our Health Minister that MPs spend too much time and resources managing their voters than on projects and programmes in their electorates for public benefit and development of the country.
The office occupied by MPs does not restrict them to electoral duties only, but as legislators they also have a country to run, and their performances are badly affected when their time is taken up by minute matters from their voters.
On the flip side, the MPs have themselves to blame for creating the culture they are dealing with in the contemporary PNG we are living in.
The structural and legislative reforms to the governance and accountability mechanisms in the public service, combined with the funding of key government programmes that they themselves initiated for self-preservation, is fueling this culture of corruption.
Thus, the blame for corruption must be shared by the politicians too because they are in control of so much money that is going into the districts right now.
The root of corruption . . . “The blame for corruption must be shared by the politicians too because they are in control of so much money that is going into the districts right now.” Image: PNG Post-Courier screenshot APR
For instance, the District Development Authority (DDA), the District Service Improvement Programme (DSIP) and the Provincial Service Improvement Programme (PSIP) are all scams that have directly contributed to the unprecedented rise in the expectations and demands from the voters.
Under the DSIP and PSIP alone, K2.4 billion is channeled to the districts every year, controlled by the both the provincial governors and the open electorate members. That is a lot of cash. How else do you expect our people to behave?
Corruption is a very serious challenge confronting PNG at the moment and we agree with our good minister that our people must stop placing these demands on their MPs. Our people must return to our old ways and that is to work hard to enjoy better lives and meet our life goals.
However, to totally rid corruption in the public sector, we also have to abolish all government programmes that legitimise corruption.
In the current situation, the people are colluding with their Members of Parliament to plunder this nation of its hard-earned cash without putting any thing tangible on the ground to generate more money and to grow the economy.
Otherwise, if the MPs really want to retain their multibillion kina DSIP and PSIP and at the same time kill corruption, they have the solution on their hands.
They only have to apply the funds honestly in their electorates to empower our people to become financially independent so that they leave their MPs alone to focus on development and the economy.
That is the way to go and the most honourable way.
This PNG Post-Courier editorial was published under the title “Corruption- who is to blame?” on 24 May 2023. Republished with permission.
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The authorities in Indonesia’s Papua region say the search for a New Zealand pilot taken hostage by West Papua Liberation Movement freedom fighters more than two months ago has been extended.
Commissioner Rahmadani said several efforts have been carried out to rescue the pilot, including involving a negotiating team comprising community leaders, the publication reported.
However, the negotiation has not yielded any results.
The search now covers about 36,000 sq km.
Commissioner Rahmadani said the safety of Captain Merthens was the priority for his team.
In the video, which was sent to RNZ Pacific, Mehrtens was instructed to read a statement saying “no foreign pilots are to work and fly” into Highlands Papua until Papua was independent.
He made another demand for West Papua independence from Indonesia later in the statement.
Mehrtens was surrounded by more than a dozen people, some of them armed with weapons.
Previously, a TPNPB spokesperson said they were waiting for a response from the New Zealand government to negotiate the release of Mehrtens.
In February, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) leader Benny Wenda called for the rebels to release Mehrtens.
He said he sympathised with the New Zealand people and Merhtens’ family but insisted the situation was a result of Indonesia’s refusal to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit Papua.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The West Papua Liberation Army says they would drop the key demand that Jakarta recognise the independence of the Papua region #WestPapua#nzpolhttps://t.co/I2Vd13w66G
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A rise in violence on Toronto’s transit system signals an urgent need to better support people struggling with homelessness, mental illness and addiction, says a forensic psychiatrist with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).
“It’s that combination that is giving rise to this (violence),” said Dr. Sandy Simpson, chair in forensic psychiatry at CAMH and the University of Toronto,
“It’s really impossible to know how much each of those things is to blame. But it’s not a single issue,” he said.
More information is needed about the suspects accused in recent attacks against Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) passengers and employees to make that determination, he said.
But Simpson said drug addiction is likely a factor in some cases, especially crystal meth and crack. Unlike opioids, those drugs can be associated with violent acts.
Lack of social support for people who are living in poverty and who are homeless, as well as poor access to mental-health services for the people who need it most, are also big underlying problems that need to be addressed, Simpson said.
“Frankly, my top solution would be universal basic income,” he said.
“That would make a dramatic difference to the struggles that desperate people get into,” Simpson said.
Mental illness, drug use a factor
People “are sleeping on the TTC because there’s nowhere else to sleep and becoming intoxicated or irritable or in conflict with other people on the TTC because they have nowhere else to go and they’re feeling that the world is structured against them,” he said.
Untreated mental illness, drug use or both can confuse vulnerable people and make them perceive others as a threat, Simpson said.
Right now, the wait time for people in Toronto with serious mental illness to be treated by an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team is 10 to 12 months, he said.
Gord Tanner, general manager of shelter, support and housing for the City of Toronto, said more outreach workers are being hired to offer services to homeless people identified at certain TTC stations in the city.
Six employees wearing red winter coats bearing a Streets to Homes logo on the front and Outreach on the back are currently approaching people on trains, buses and streetcars to help them access a shelter bed, other housing or services such as applying for income support and identification, he said.
A feeling of hopelessness
Plans are underway to employ a total of 20 people by May to provide services 24 hours an day, seven days a week from funding in the city’s current budget, Tanner said.
“There’s been a couple of stations where we’ve seen people bedding down, and that is Union Station and Spadina Station, but there’s parts of the system that have had more people visibly sheltering over the course of the winter,” he said.
“Folks are just having a very hard time making ends meet and so access to income supports and to affordable housing is probably something we hear most often from individuals we work with throughout the shelter system and folks who might be on the street or using the transit system,” Tanner said.
“It’s a feeling of hopelessness that the staff relay to me with respect to the folks that they’re working with.”
Tanner said that since Jan. 1, outreach workers have connected and referred 226 people to shelters from various parts of the transit system but that long-term housing is needed.
“It’s not meant to be a panacea or the solution to the tragic incidents,” he said of the project.
Private security companies are currently holding Papua New Guinea together with the largest workforce of 29,445 and supporting the police in managing law and order issues.
There are only 6832 policemen and women serving the country currently, according to reports.
Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr told Parliament that the security industry in the country was one of the biggest supporters of law and order in helping to reduce crime by protecting life and property, including providing employment.
He said growth of the security industry had increased drastically after 16 years with a total number of licensed security companies recorded at 562, employing a total of 29,445 security guards.
Of these 562 companies, 15 were owned by foreigners.
This week the Royal PNG Constabulary announced that the constabulary would only get 560 best candidates from 13,039 applicants shortlisted out of 48,772 applications received from across the nation.
With the increase in law and order issues throughout the country and job scarcity currently faced, Minister Tsiamalili assured that the government was addressing this critically.
SIA established in 2006
The Security Industries Authority was established by the Security Protection Industries Act 2004 and it came into operation in 2006.
And by than it had registered 174 security companies that employed a total of 12,396 guards.
But after 16 years, as of December 2022, the total number of licensed security companies rose to 562 employing a total of 29,445 security guards.
“You will note that since 2006 till December 2022, the number of licensed security companies and the number of guards has been gradually increasing every year since 2006,” Minister Tsiamalili Jr said.
“The security industry is one of the industries in the law and justice sector that employs the largest workforce (29,445) and this security industry is supporting police and (managing) law and order issues in PNG.
“Security companies are supporting police help reduce crime by protecting life and property and also providing employment for many of our men and women, and more importantly supporting the economy, while police concentrate on investigating and arrest.”
Gorothy Kennethis a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.
The production and trafficking of methamphetamine (meth), cocaine and now heroin is on the rise with Pacific countries now becoming what many are calling the “Pacific drug highway”.
And Papua New Guinea has over three years seen a plane crash, a hotel laboratory, a shipment in postal services, arrival via a container ship, manufacturing in apartments and now a black flight — all to do with cocaine and meth.
Police have had Operation Weathers, Operation Saki Bomb — and now Operation Gepard.
From Operation Gepard, a pink duffle bank was stuffed into the nose of the flight from Bulolo filled with 17 packages of meth. These were transported across the border into Australia.
With the lack of border security, the country has fast become a transit point for the movement of illicit drugs into Australia.
Locals are becoming part of the movement of the drugs playing a key role in ensuring the drugs are hidden and then moved across the border.
Police Commissioner David Manning has on several occasions said “PNG is becoming a transit point for illicit and synthetic drugs”.
New law not implemented
His Deputy Commissioner of Police-Special Operations and acting Director-General of the Narcotics Office, Donald Yamasombi, says the laws under the new Controlled Substance Act 2021 have yet to be implemented.
In total, 337kg of methamphetamine have been found in the country, conveyed, or in possession of people in PNG — worth K164 million (about NZ$75 million)
And the laws? They have been passed but yet no one has been sentenced under the new Controlled Substance Act 2021 and Dangerous Drug (Amended) Act 2021 pertaining to the illicit drugs.
Now another 52kg has been allowed to leave the country and travel into outback Australia where five men were arrested by the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
Commissioner Manning said the positive outcome was a result of close collaboration between the Royal PNG Constabulary (RPNGC) and Australian law enforcement partners and air traffic control agencies.
He said the RPNGC, since working with the Australian authorities, have enabled a wider net to be cast, resulting in the apprehension of transnational offenders in PNG and across the Pacific.
“With our partners we are committed to make our pacific region a hostile and disruptive environment for the transnational criminal element,” Commissioner Manning said.
Strengthening drug laws
“We are also committed to strengthening our drug legislation to ensure that penalties reflect the severity of offending here in PNG.”
According to Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation, Walter Schnaubelt, the airplane was able to get into PNG airspace by flying low.
“When an aircraft is operated with a criminal intent, the pilots deliberately turn off the transponders to avoid detection by radar or ADS-B,” he said.
“If these surveillance tools are turned off, our systems cannot pick them up on the screen.
“Also they deliberately do not submit flight plans or talk to our controllers for the same reason (they don’t want us to see or know about their illegal operations).”
In PNG, after the arrest of the five in Australia, a 42-year-old male Chinese national was arrested at Lae airport last Wednesday.
In terms of investigations, the response has been swift. However, the investigations are prolonged and it becomes a forgotten topic.
Swept under the rug
It remains swept under the rug until judgment is passed and the suspects are charged and sentenced.
So far, only David John Cutmore has been sentenced to 18 years for his part in the black flight that crashed with 644kg of cocaine on board and he was charged under the old laws.
Another seven locals and expatriates are facing court for conveying and being in possession of methamphetamine since 2022.
In total, 18 persons of interest have been arrested or apprehended over their involvement in the methamphetamine trade.
For cocaine, only one person has been sentenced with another four still facing court.
Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.
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“The most important thing from my perspective is a strategic partnership — a partnership where the media should not be seen as the enemy or a nuisance.”
This was the view of the Communications Fiji Ltd news director and Fijian Media Association executive Vijay Narayan expressed at a media segment of the Police Consultative Session in Suva yesterday.
Narayan said the media and the police had the same goals and objectives “focusing on truth, integrity, accountability and transparency”.
He said the media was ready to have regular meetings with the senior command of Fiji’s Police Force, and also extended an invitation to the Acting Police Commissioner Juki Fong Chew and his senior officers to visit individual media outlets to understand their work.
Narayan said that at times there was a disconnect where the only time the media was called in was when police wanted to say something or maybe when there was a major issue at hand.
He said he remembered that the Crime Stoppers Board also included members of the media and media organisations.
He added that they “fought the fight together”.
Communications Fiji Ltd news director Vijay Narayan speaking at the police workshop. Video: Fijivillage
Police need ‘humanising’
Narayan encouraged police to engage more with the public through media conferences as the Police Force also needed to be “humanised”, and not just focus their message on posting to their social media page.
The CFL news director said that at times they might not be on the same page but the tough questions needed to be asked.
Fiji Sun’s investigative journalist Ivamere Nataro said some people she spoke to did not understand the work of the police and kept requesting frequent updates.
Nataro said that in this digital age, news spread faster on social media and if the police did not open up to the mainstream media, it was another thing that people looked at.
She said police needed to engage more with the community and show that they cared.
Commissioner agrees
While responding to the media, Acting Commissioner Chew said he agreed with what had been said, and moving forward the police would try to improve.
But Chew also gave an example of when a story had been published alleging that someone had been tortured.
He said the story was published and they did not know whether it was true or false.
When the matter was investigated, the issue just died out.
He said that if they manage to find that person, he or she would be taken to task for giving false information.
Krishneel Nair is a Fijivillage reporter. Republished with permission.
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The long-running row between the former Fiji government and the Suva-based regional University of the South Pacific (USP) has come back to haunt former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, who spent a night in a police cell on March 9 before appearing in court, charged with abuse of office.
Not only did the “USP saga”, as it came to be known, cause a major rift between Fiji and the other 12 USP-member countries, but it may have contributed to the narrow loss of Bainimarama’s FijiFirst Party (FFP) in the December 2022 election.
Bainimarama’s abuse of office charges included accusations of interfering with a police investigation into financial malpractices at USP. If convicted, he would face a maximum sentence of 17 years in jail.
But there are also serious questions about the future of the party that he co-founded, and which won successive elections in 2014 and 2018 on the back of his popularity.
A day before his indictment, there were surreal scenes at the Suva Central Police Station, as police officers marched an ashen-faced Bainimarama to his cell to spend the night before his court appearance the next morning.
This, under the full glare of live media coverage, with journalists tripping over themselves to take pictures of the former military strongman, who installed himself as prime minister after the 2006 coup and ruled for 16 years straight.
Arrested, detained and charged alongside Bainimarama was his once-powerful police chief, Sitiveni Qiliho, who managed a wry smile for the cameras. Both were released on a surety of F$10,000 (about NZ$7300) after pleading not guilty to the charges.
Shut down police investigation
It is alleged that in 2019, the duo “arbitrarily and in abuse of the authority of their respective offices” shut down a police investigation into alleged irregularities at USP when former vice-chancellor Rajesh Chandra was in charge.
Former Fiji prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama spent a night in a police cell on March 9 before appearing in court, charged with abuse of office. Image: The Interpreter/Pita Simpson/Getty Images
In November 2018, Chandra’s replacement, Professor Pal Ahluwalia, revealed large remuneration payments to certain USP senior staff, some running to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Fiji government, unhappy with Ahluwalia’s attack on Chandra, counter-attacked by alleging irregularities in Ahluwalia’s own administration.
As the dispute escalated, the Fiji government suspended its annual grant to the USP in a bid to force an inquiry into its own allegations.
When an external audit by the NZ accountants BDO confirmed the original report’s findings, the USP executive committee, under the control of the then Fiji government appointees, suspended Ahluwalia in June 2020.
This was in defiance of the USP’s supreme decision-making body, the USP Council, which reinstated him within a week.
Samoa’s then Deputy Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa (who is now prime minister, having won a heavily contested election of her own) said at the time that Ahluwalia’s suspension had been a “nonsense”.
The then Nauruan President Lionel Aingimea attacked a “small group” of Fiji officials for “hijacking” the 12-country regional university.
Students threatened boycott
The USP Students’ Association threatened a boycott of exams, while more than 500 signatures supporting the suspended vice-chancellor were collected and students protested across several of USP’s national campuses. All these events played out prominently in the regional news media as well as on social media platforms.
With Fiji’s national elections scheduled for the following year, the political toll was becoming obvious. However, Bainimarama’s government either did not see it, or did not care to see it.
Instead of backing off from what many saw as an unnecessary fight, it doubled down. In February 2021, around 15 government police and security personnel along with immigration officials staged a late-night raid on Professor Ahluwalia’s Suva home, detained him with his wife, Sandra Price, and put them in a car for the three-hour drive to Nadi International Airport where, deported, they were put on the first flight to Australia.
The move sent shockwaves in Fiji and the region.
To many, it looked like a government that had come to power in the name of a “clean-up campaign” against corruption was now indulging in a cover-up campaign instead. The USP saga became political fodder at opposition rallies, with one of their major campaign promises being to bring back Professor Ahluwalia and restore the unpaid Fiji government grant that stood at F$86 million (about NZ$62 million) at the time.
A month before the 2022 polls, a statement targeting the estimated 30,000 staff and student cohort at USP, their friends and families, urged them to vote against FijiFirst, which would go on to lose government by a single parliamentary vote to the tripartite coalition led by another former coup leader, Sitiveni Rabuka.
Albanese official visit
It was Rabuka who greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on his first official visit to Fiji last week. During talks at the Australian-funded Blackrock military camp, Albanese reportedly secured Rabuka’s support for the AUKUS deal.
Australia is keen for stability in Fiji, which has not had a smooth transition of power since independence, with democratically elected governments removed by coups in 1987, 2000 and 2006. Any disturbance in Fiji has the potential to upset the delicate balance in the region as a whole.
For Bainimarama and his followers, there is much to rue. His claimed agenda — to build national unity and racial equality and to rid Fiji of corruption — earned widespread support in 2014.
His margin of victory was much narrower in 2018 but Bainimarama managed to secure a majority in Parliament to lead the nation again.
His electoral loss in 2022 was followed by a series of dramatic events, which first saw Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, his deputy in all but name, disqualified from holding his seat in Parliament.
Bainimarama went next, suspended for three years by Parliament’s privileges committee for a speech attacking head of state Ratu Wiliame Katonivere. He chose to resign as opposition leader.
Following his March 10 hearing, Bainimarama addressed the media and a few supporters outside court, adamant that he had served the country with “integrity” and with “the best interests” of all Fijians at heart. The former leader even managed to smile for the cameras while surrounded by a group of followers.
With nearly double the personal votes of the sitting PM Rabuka under Fiji’s proportional representation voting system, Bainimarama’s supporters still harboured some hope that he could return as the country’s leader one day.
However, his health is not the best. He is now out of Parliament and bogged down by legal troubles. Is the sun now setting on the era of Bainimarama and FijiFirst?
Dr Shailendra Bahadur Singh is a frequent contributor to Asia Pacific Report and is on the editorial board of the associated Pacific Journalism Review. This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute’s The Interpreter and is republished here with the author’s permission.
Papua New Guinea’s Internal Security Minister Peter Tsiamalili Jr says the Royal PNG Constabulary is “stretched” with only 5000 men and women serving the country of more than 9 million people.
“Now more than ever we need leadership, we are stretched as a force, we all know that — we only have 5000 men,” he said.
“Issues in Hela — we are making every effort to manage this.
“That is happening in Hela, and it’s across the country. I am asking for help. This issue did not happen overnight, this is a culmination of the neglect our force has faced in the last 10 to 15 years.
“I am having sleepless nights, ensuring we work with the operational side of police. We are looking at stronger laws to deter citizens of such criminal acts.”
The minister — who is in charge of both the police and correctional services — was speaking during Parliament when he was asked by Mul-Baiyer MP Jacob Maki and a supplementary question from Abau MP Sir Puka Temu.
As hundreds of thousands, throughout Israel, joined anti-government protests, questions began to arise regarding how this movement would affect, or possibly merge, into the wider struggle against the Israeli military occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
Pro-Palestine media outlets shared, with obvious excitement, news about statements made by Hollywood celebrities, the likes of Mark Ruffalo, about the need to “sanction the new hard right-wing government of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu”.
Netanyahu, who sits at the heart of the current controversy and mass protests, struggled to find a single pilot for the flight carrying him to Rome on March 9 for a three-day visit with the Italian government. The reception for the Israeli leader in Italy was equally cold. Italian translator, Olga Dalia Padoa, reportedly refused to interpret Netanyahu’s speech, scheduled for March 9 at a Rome synagogue.
One can appreciate the need to strategically use the upheaval against Netanyahu’s far-right government to expose Israel’s fraudulent claim to true democracy, supposedly ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’. However, one has to be equally careful not to validate Israel’s inherently racist institutions that have been in existence for decades before Netanyahu arrived in power.
The Israeli Prime Minister has been embroiled in corruption cases for years. Though he remained popular, Netanyahu lost his position at the helm of Israeli politics in June 2021, following three bitterly-contested elections. Yet, he returned on December 29, 2022, this time with even more corrupt – even by Israel’s own definition – characters such as Aryeh Deri, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the latter two currently serving as the ministers of finance and national security, respectively.
Each one of these characters had a different reason for joining the coalition. Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s agenda ranged from the annexation of illegal West Bank settlements to the deportation of Arab politicians considered ‘disloyal’ to the state.
Netanyahu, though a rightwing ideologue, is more concerned with personal ambitions: maintaining power as long as possible, while shielding himself and his family from legal problems. He simply wants to stay out of prison. To do so, he also needs to satisfy the dangerous demands of his allies, who have been given free rein to unleash army and settler violence against Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank, as has been the case in Huwwara, Nablus, Jenin and elsewhere.
But Netanyahu’s government, the most stable in years, has bigger goals than just “wiping out” Palestinian towns off the map. They want to alter the very judicial system that would allow them to transform Israeli society itself. The reform would grant the government control over judicial appointments by limiting the Israeli Supreme Court’s power to exercise judicial review.
The protests in Israel have very little to do with the Israeli occupation and apartheid, and are hardly concerned with Palestinian rights. They are led by many former Israeli leaders, the likes of former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, former minister Tzipi Livni and former prime minister and leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid. During the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid stint in power, between June 2021 and December 2022, hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank. 2022 was described by UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, as the “deadliest” in the West Bank since 2005. During that time, illegal Jewish settlements expanded rapidly, while Gaza was routinely bombed.
Yet, the Bennett-Lapid government faced little backlash from Israeli society for its bloody and illegal actions in Palestine. The Israeli Supreme Court, which has approved most of the government actions in Occupied Palestine, also faced little or no protests for certifying apartheid and validating the supposed legality of the Jewish colonies, all illegal under international law. The stamp of approval by the Supreme Court was also granted when Israel passed the Nation-State Law, identifying itself exclusively as a Jewish state, thus casting off the entirety of the Arab Muslim and Christian population which shares the same mass of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Rarely did the Israeli judicial system take the side of Palestinians, and when little ‘victories’ were recorded now and then, they hardly altered the overall reality. Though one can understand the desperation of those trying to fight against Israeli injustices using the country’s own ‘justice system’, such language has contributed to the confusion regarding what Israel’s ongoing protests mean for Palestinians.
In fact, this is not the first time that Israelis have gone out on the streets in large numbers. In August 2011, Israel experienced what some referred to as Israel’s own ‘Arab Spring’. But that, too, was a class struggle within clearly defined ideological boundaries and political interests that rarely overlapped with a parallel struggle for equality, justice and human rights.
Dual socio-economic struggles exist in many societies around the world, and conflating between them is not unprecedented. In the case of Israel, however, such confusion can be dangerous because the outcome of Israel’s protests, be it a success or failure, could spur unfounded optimism or demoralize those fighting for Palestinian freedom.
Though stark violations of international law, the arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions and the everyday framework. All of these acts are fully sanctioned by Israeli courts, including the country’s Supreme Court. This means that, even if Netanyahu fails to hegemonize the judicial system, Palestinian civilians will continue to be tried in military courts, which will carry out the routine of approving home demolition, illegal land seizure and the construction of settlements.
A proper engagement with the ongoing protests is to further expose how Tel Aviv utilizes the judicial system to maintain the illusion that Israel is a country of law and order, and that all the actions and violence in Palestine, however bloody and destructive, are fully justifiable according to the country’s legal framework.
Yes, Israel should be sanctioned, not because of Netanyahu’s attempt at co-opting the judiciary, but because the system of apartheid and regime of military occupation constitute complete disregard and utter violation of international law. Whether Israelis like it or not, international law is the only law that matters to an occupied and oppressed nation.
The House of Representatives voted not to end the U.S. occupation of Syria on Wednesday. This is disappointing but not surprising. Although all is not lost, 103 leaders voted for it with 56 Democrats joining 47 Republicans to vote in favor of the bill, showing that there is at least some appetite for peace. Opponents of the bill said that they feared that troop withdrawal would revive terrorist groups n the region. Which is a good joke because the U.S. has backed terrorists groups in the region by supporting the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra since the Obama administration.
Henry Kissinger as he launched his long and murderous career
To believe and perpetrate the “Good War” and “Greatest Generation” myths, we must ignore many sordid realities. I’ve written about some of them here, here, and here (and several other posts).
This time, I’ll focus on the memory-holed topic of AWOL American soldiers running wild in Europe.
“Paris was full of them,” remarks historian Michael C.C. Adams.
Journalist Chet Antonine has written of U.S. troops “looting the German city of Jena where the famous Zeiss company made the best cameras in the world.”
The U.S. compiled a list of “Continental AWOLs” that included as many as 50,000 men. Many of them turned to the black market.
“Allied soldiers [in Italy] stole from the populace and the government, and once, GIs stole a trainload of sugar, complete with the engine,” writes Adams.
V.S. Pritchett, in the New Statesman and Nation (April 7, 1945), wrote about GIs stealing cameras, motorbikes, wine glasses, and books.
In the New York Herald Tribune, the legendary John Steinbeck reported on three soldiers arrested for selling stolen watches.
In October 1945 alone, American GIs sent home $5,470,777 more than they were paid.
One illegal form of currency for GIs — AWOL or otherwise — was whiskey. As alcohol dependency rose, desperate soldiers resorted to such homegrown brews as Aqua Velva and grapefruit juice or medical alcohol blended with torpedo fluid.
The buying and trading weren’t limited to moonshine. Throughout the European theater of operations, the Allied soldiers did their best to exploit desperate and vulnerable females.
“In a ruined world where a pack of cigarettes sold for $100 American, GIs were millionaires,” says Antonine. “A candy bar bought sex from nearly any starving German girl.”
“Soldiers had sex, wherever and whenever possible,” Adams reports. “Seventy-five percent of GIs overseas, whether married or not, admitted to having intercourse. Unchanneled sexual need produced rape, occasionally even murder. Away from home, where nobody knew them, some GIs forced themselves on women.”
In northern Europe, venereal diseases caused more U.S. casualties than the German V-2 rocket. In France, the VD rate rose 600 percent after the liberation of Paris.
Where did those 50,000 AWOL GIs go after doing their part to soil the image of a “good” war? Nearly three thousand were court-martialed and one was executed, Private Eddie Slovik of G Company, 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division. The Detroit native deserted in August 1944, surrendered in October of that same year and was put on trial a month later.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the execution order of December 23, 1944, and Slovik faced a twelve-man firing squad at St. Marie aux Mines in eastern France shortly thereafter. None of the eleven bullets (one is always a blank) struck the intended target — Slovik’s heart —and it was a full three minutes before he died. Outrage spread quickly and there were no further executions.
As for the rest of the AWOL GIs, Antonine’s guess seems as good as any: “A goodly number of them undoubtedly stayed on in Europe as they had after World War One. Perhaps some of them got bogged down in ordinary life, marrying and having children. Others may have continued their lives of crime and ended up in prison. Only nine thousand of them had been found by 1948.”
That generation being “great” in Bensheim
Then there was a certain staff sergeant who used his authority to anoint himself the absolute lord of the German town of Bensheim during those black market days: future Nobel Peace [sic] Prize winner, Henry Kissinger.
“After evicting the owners from their villa,” Antonine writes, “Kissinger moved in with his German girlfriend, maid, housekeeper, and secretary and began to throw fancy parties.”
These fancy parties were not the norm in Bensheim, an area where the average German made do with fewer than 850 calories per day. FYI: That’s less food than was given to prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Seventy-eight years later, Kissinger the parasite continues to see himself as an absolute lord. Here’s something I recently wrote about him:
A small speeding vehicle allegedly driven by an off-duty soldier set off a chain reaction this week that saw two security guards taken to hospital and the burning of a vehicle belonging to the security company.
Guards from the Alpha Response Security firm and two PNG Defence Force sailors from Basilisk Naval base in downtown Port Moresby were recorded on video on Thursday morning in a heated argument that turned physical.
The reaction was instantaneous as more than 25 sailors arrived in a bus and destroyed two vehicles, burned a vehicle and put two guards in hospital.
In an all too familiar sight, the scene of soldiers ruling the roads of Boroko was again played out with the public staying far away and gunshots heard as businesses along the Hubert Murray Highway kept their doors locked.
Police stayed clear.
The fear was evident as chatter from the public was kept at a minimum.
Soldiers have once again taken over the streets of Boroko because of confrontations — like they did in 2016.
‘It will be dealt with’
The PNGDF hierarchy comes out with the same response of “it will be dealt with” and then no word, no report and no update to the questions raised by those concerned.
This time though, in 2023, two sailors are now held by military police after they were recorded throwing punches with security guards at the new Boroko Bank South Pacific ATM near the TST supermarket.
PNGDF deputy commander Commodore Philip Polewara said that the sailors’ involvement and the extent of their actions is now being investigated by the military police.
Questions asked of who was in control of such acts were not responded to with protocol of questioning to be followed.
“We are investigating and we will deal with the incident. For now the two sailors involved are in military police custody,” said Commodore Polewara.
Alpha Response Security firm owner Oscar Wei said in an interview he would allow investigations to take place.
In uncovering what occurred, the Post-Courier found that the fight started after the vehicle, a Toyota Mk 2, driven by an off-duty sailor, which nearly mowed down a guard.
Heated argument
A confrontation occurred with the two men returning dressed in their PNGDF uniform and accompanied by another two sailors.
The four men got into a heated argument and fought with the guards before leaving.
As the guards were trying to take down statements of what happened at the Boroko police station, a bus load of sailors arrived and instantly removed the public and other vehicles.
Armed with kerosene, knives, spades and shovels, the windows of three vehicles were smashed with the vehicle parked in the middle of the road set alight by the soldiers.
As swift as their arrival, they departed just as quickly before the Fire Service arrived and stopped the fire.
Attempts to get comments from police about the incident were unsuccessful.
Questioned by pollce
Bainimarama and Qiliho were questioned by the Fiji police investigations unit before being held in remand overnight at the Totogo Police Station in in the capital Suva.
Today’s Fiji Times front page. Image: FT screenshot APR
It was the first time for a former PM and a police chief to be kept in a police cell facing such allegations.
The two men were greeted by their family members and friends who gathered outside the courthouse.
The pair were photographed by local reporters smiling as they walked into the Magistrates Court Room 3.
‘I served as PM with integrity’ After being granted bail, Bainimarama told local journalists outside the court that he would defend the charges laid against him.
“Look, I want to tell you that I have served as Fiji’s PM with integrity and with the best interest of all Fijians at heart,” he said.
“I have been served this charge against my legacy so I am going to fight this charge. Not only for my reputation but for democracy, for all Fijians, and of course for the Constitution,” he added.
Bainimarama: “I am going to fight this charge. Not only for my reputation, for democracy, for all Fijians, and of course for the Constitution.” pic.twitter.com/5ExBntYTbL
Former Fiji Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho appeared before Suva Magistrates Court judge Justice Seini Puamau today and pleaded not guilty to abuse of office charges laid against them.
Justice Puamau stood down the case for 11am as she told the prosecution to provide “substantial evidence” to support the bail conditions it has made.
The conditions set by prosecution include a 8pm to 5am curfew as it has concerns of “high level of interference” with witnesses.
Bainimarama and Brigadier-General Qiliho were charged with one count each of abuse of office after being summoned to the Criminal Investigations Department yesterday afternoon and kept overnight at Totogo Police Station to appear in court today.
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Christopher Pryde said the charges were for allegedly terminating an active police investigation in relation to the University of the South Pacific in July, 2019, were laid following a review of the police evidence docket which the DPP received on February 17, 2023.
“The former prime minister, Voreqe Bainimarama and the suspended police commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho, are alleged to have arbitrarily and in abuse of the authority of their respective offices, terminated an active police investigation,” Pryde said.
“The charges relate to a complaint laid with the police by the University of the South Pacific in July, 2019 in relation to the activities of former staff members of the university.
“The police have also been requested to undertake further investigations into other matters arising from this case and more charges may be laid against other suspects in due course.”
Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.
The Washington Post (3/3/23) blamed the DC Council for forcing Biden to choose “public safety over home rule for the capital city.”
President Joe Biden surprised fellow Democrats when he reversed course and announced he would support a Republican resolution to nullify an overhaul of crime laws passed by the Washington, DC, Council. While Congress has the authority to override DC legislation, it hasn’t done so in more than 30 years, making this move a dangerous new precedent at a time when Republicans are eager to use state power to swat down any progressive advances.
Some observers (Slate, 3/3/23; Popular Information, 3/7/23) called out Biden’s hypocrisy. The president’s move comes after he had both endorsed DC statehood and publicly opposed the resolution (2/6/23), arguing that it was a “clear [example] of how the District of Columbia continues to be denied true self-governance and why it deserves statehood.”
Hometown hypocrisy
Equally hypocritical is the big hometown paper, the Washington Post. The Post‘s editorial board has written forcefully for statehood on many occasions. “That the 650,000 people who live in the nation’s capital are denied their full rights as US citizens is a travesty that cannot be condoned and should not be continued,” it wrote in 2014 (9/12/14).
The Post (6/24/21) used to think it was outrageous that DC residents were “denied the basic democracy this country was founded on.”
In 2020, the board (6/26/20) called it “a civil rights issue,” and lamented that DC’s
conduct of municipal affairs—as has been made painfully clear in recent weeks when the Trump administration shortchanged DC’s effort to deal with Covid-19 and unleashed federal troops against peaceful protesters—is subject to the whims of those who sit in the White House and Congress.
The ugly truth that statehood opponents look away from is that more than 700,000 residents of DC are denied the basic democracy this country was founded on. They are taxed—paying more federal income tax per capita than any state—without equal say in the federal laws that govern them, and the decisions of their local government are subject to the whims of Congress.
But apparently the Post‘s position depends less on the principle of self-government and civil rights, and more on whether the board agrees with those congressional whims. Because rather than decry Congress’s nullification as a travesty, the editorial board (3/3/23) endorsed Biden’s decision to let it proceed. Writing that “it’s a shame it came to this,” the Post nevertheless declared approvingly that Biden “picked public safety over home rule for the capital city,” insisting that “Washingtonians have a right to feel and be safe.”
‘The right to intercede’
The Post (1/15/23) adopted Fox News‘ wildly misleading critique of the DC crime bill as its own.
The board had already made clear its willingness to sacrifice the idea of DC self-government on this issue, writing a week earlier (2/24/23) that “public safety in the District is foundational” and that “Congress’s concern…is understandable.” “It has the right to intercede,” the board insisted.
The board (11/11/22) has been outspoken about its opposition to the crime bill. Among its objections, “Foremost is the reduction in maximum sentences for certain violent offenses and too-lenient treatment of gun crimes.” The Post rhetorically asked of the DC Council, “What message will it send if it goes ahead with plans to reduce penalties for firearm offenses?”
In case the answer wasn’t clear enough, it headlined its next editorial on the subject (1/15/23), “DC’s Crime Bill Could Make the City More Dangerous.” That commentary claimed that the bill “will further tie the hands of police and prosecutors while overwhelming courts.”
In part, this would be because the bill would give people facing possible prison time the right to a jury trial, and it would “leave dangerous people on the streets as they await trial.” In other words, the Post would appear to object to the right to a jury of one’s peers and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
‘Uncontroversial moves’
Slate (1/21/23) explained that the DC bill is “not a liberal wishlist of soft-on-crime policies” but rather “an exhaustive and entirely mainstream blueprint for a more coherent and consistent legal system.”
As Mark Joseph Stern, a DC-based courts and law reporter for Slate (1/21/23), painstakingly explained, the bill “is not a traditional reform bill, but the result of a 16-year process to overhaul a badly outdated, confusing and often arbitrary criminal code.” It was drafted by an advisory group that included representatives from the DC attorney general’s office and the US attorney’s office, the two offices that prosecute all crimes in DC, and its revisions are “in line with uncontroversial moves conducted in red and blue jurisdictions alike since the 1960s.” The advisory group unanimously voted to submit its recommendations to the DC Council, which in turn unanimously passed the bill.
Rampant media claims that the bill would be “soft on crime” and decrease penalties, Stern writes, either maliciously or ignorantly misrepresent the more complicated reality:
The notion that the RCCA “softens” penalties for violent crime—especially carjacking and gun offenses—is false in every way that matters. To the contrary, the law increases penalties for a variety of crimes in ways designed to make their prosecution easier. The max penalty for several sex offenses is significantly higher under the RCCA. So is the max penalty for possessing an assault rifle, ghost gun, large capacity magazine or bomb. And the max for attempted murder surges from five years to 22.5 years.
With lengthy explanations and hyperlinks, Stern concluded that the claim that the bill “could increase violent crime is not borne out by data.”
Dismissing racial equity
Axios (2/28/23) noted that Capehart’s resignation left the Post “with an all-white editorial board…in a city where nearly half the population is Black.”
Stern also expressed frustration at the media campaign against the bill—led by Fox and conservative commentators, but eagerly embraced by the Post—as the bill “is not, and has never been, designed to reduce incarceration in DC,” despite the fact that “the District has one of the highest incarcerationrates in the country.”
Those incarcerated are also over 90% Black, while the DC population is only 45% Black (DC DoC, 1/23). Meanwhile, Congress is 11% Black—and the Post editorial board is 100% white. (The board’s one Black member, Jonathan Capehart, resigned in December 2022, reportedly because, after Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection, Capehart’s white colleagues insisted on a line mocking those who had warned about voter suppression in Georgia—Axios, 2/28/23; Washington Examiner, 2/28/23.)
Its January editorial was the only one of the board’s recent editorials on the reform bill in which the Post addressed issues of racial disparities or equity—and quickly dismissed them as unconvincing:
Proponents of the bill say African Americans are disproportionately convicted of violent crimes and couch their arguments in terms of equity. African Americans are also disproportionately victims of these same crimes.
According to a poll taken last year (HIT Strategies, 3/2/23), 83% of DC registered voters approved of the crime reform bill, including 86% of Black voters. The Post self-righteously condemns those who would deny DC self-governance—until it disagrees with the people’s decisions about how to govern themselves.
Fiji’s top prosecutor has sanctioned charges of abuse of office against former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and the suspended Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho.
In a statement today, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said the charges relate to a complaint filed by the University of the South Pacific in July 2019.
The complaint concerned the actions of former staff members of the regional university.
Former Fiji prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama today . . . charged. Image: Fijivillage News
Public Prosecutions director Christopher Pryde said both men were alleged to have arbitrarily abused their powers and stopped an active police investigation.
Police have been ordered to further investigate other issues as a result of Bainimarama and Qiliho’s alleged interference and more charges are expected to be laid.
Meanwhile, both men were taken in today for further questioning by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID).
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Kept in custody
Fijivillage News reports that Bainimarama and Qiliho have both been formally charged with abuse of office and will be kept in custody tonight.
Former PM Bainimarama and suspended Commissioner of Police Qiliho are again being questioned by Police pic.twitter.com/YT3OFyaHNq
— Stanley Ian Simpson (@stansimpsonfj) March 9, 2023
The CID chief and Acting Assistant Police Commissioner Sakeo Raikaci told a media conference tonight they would appear in the Suva Magistrates Court at 8am tomorrow.
Acting ACP Raikaci said that given the seriousness of the charge, the pair could not be granted bail as it was not a bailable offence.
Additional security will be provided for the special court sitting tomorrow.
The maximum penalty for abuse of office is 10 years imprisonment.
The Crimes Act states that if the act is done or directed to be done for gain, then the maximum penalty is 17 years imprisonment.
Republished with permission.
Voreqe Bainimarama and Sitiveni Qiliho formally charged. Video: Fijivillage News
Eddie Slovik, minutes before his grisly death
