radiofree.asia 
radiofree.asia 
radiofree.asia 

Category: Crime

  • The Explosive Growth of U.S. Militarism after the End of the Soviet Union

    Instead of there being the U.S.-Government-promised ‘peace dividend’ after the Soviet Union ended in 1991, there has been soaring militarism by the U.S., and also soaring profits for the American producers of war-weapons. Both the profits on this, and the escalation in America’s aggressiveness following after 1991, have been stunning. Whereas there were 53 “Instances of United States Use of Armed Forces Abroad” (U.S. invasions) during the 46 years of 1945-1991, there were 244 such instances during the 31 years of 1991-2022, according to the U.S. Congressional Research Service. From a rate of 1.15 U.S. invasions per year during Cold War One (1945-1991), it rose to 7.87 per year during Cold War Two (1991-2022).

    Furthermore: the U.S. Government began in 1948 its many dozens of coups (starting with Thailand in that year) to overthrow the leaders of its targeted-for-takeover countries, and its replacement of those by U.S.-chosen dictators. Ever since 25 July 1945, the U.S. Government has been aiming to take control over the entire world — to create the world’s first-ever all-encompassing global empire.

    Cold War Two is the years when Russia had ended its side of the Cold War in 1991 while the U.S. secretly has continued its side of the Cold War. This deceit by America was done during the start of Russia’s Yeltsin years, when the G.H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations sent the Harvard economics department into Russia to teach Yeltsin’s people how to become capitalists by partnering U.S. billionaires with whomever Russia would privatize its assets to, and so created an incredibly corrupt economy there, which would be dependent upon decisions by America’s billionaires — Russia was then in the process of becoming the U.S. Government’s biggest colony or ‘ally’ after it would be trapped fully in the thrall of America’s billionaires, which was the U.S. regime’s objective. Then, while getting its claws into Russia’s Government that way, Clinton lowered the boom against Russia, by blatantly violating the promises that Bush’s team had made (but which violation by Bush’s successors had been planned by Bush — Bush secretly told his stooges (Kohl, Mitterand, etc.) that the promises he had told them to make to Gorbachev, that NATO wouldn’t expand toward Russia, were to be lies) to Gorbachev, and that NATO actually would expand toward Russia and would exclude Russia from ever being considered as a possible NATO member-nation (i.e., Russia wasn’t to be another vassal nation, but instead a conquered nation, to be exploited by the entire U.S. empire). The expansion of America’s NATO toward Russia was begun by Clinton — on 12 March 1999 near the end of his Presidency — bringing Czechia, Hungary, and Poland, into NATO, blatantly in violation of what Bush’s team had promised to Gorbachev’s team.

    Russia’s top leadership now knew that America’s top leadership intended to conquer Russia, not merely for Russia to become yet another vassal-nation in the U.S. empire; and, so, Yeltsin resigned as President on 31 December 1999, and passed the nation’s leadership (and Russia’s then seemingly insuperable problems from it) to Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who promptly began to clean house and to inform Russia’s billionaires that either they would do what he asks them to do, or else he would make sure that Russia would pursue whatever legal means were then available in order to get them into compliance with Russia’s tax-laws and other laws, so as for them not to continue to rip-off the Russian nation (as they had been doing). Even the post-2012 solidly neoconservative British newspaper Guardian headlined on 6 March 2022 “How London became the place to be for Putin’s oligarchs” and touched upon the surface of the escape of “Russian oligarchs” to London (and elsewhere in America’s EU-NATO portion of the U.S. empire), but their article didn’t mention the worst cases, such as Mikhail Khordorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky. Each of these were individuals who had absconded with billions in Russia’s wealth. (I previously posted to the Web my “Private Investigations Find America’s Magnitsky Act to Be Based on Frauds”, presenting in-depth the case of the American-in-Russia financial operator Bill Browder’s theft of $232 million from Russia, and documenting Browder’s lies on the basis of which President Obama got passed in the U.S. Congress the Magnitsky Act protecting Browder and sanctioning Russia on fake charges that were cooked up by Browder and by the billionaire George Soros’s ’non-profits’. Not all of the American skimmers from Russia were billionaires; some, such as Browder, weren’t that big. But their shared target was to win control over Russia; and this was the U.S. Government’s objective, too.)

    The U.S. regime also changed its entire strategy for expanding its empire (its list of colonies or ‘allies’ — vassal-nations) after 1991, in a number of significant ways, such as by creating front-organizations, an example being Transparency International, to downgrade creditworthiness of the U.S. regime’s targeted countries (so as to force up their borrowing-costs, and thus weaken the targeted nation’s Government), and there were also a wide range of other ‘non-profits’, some of which took over (privatized) much of the preparatory work for the U.S. regime’s “regime-change” operations (coups) that formerly had been done by the by-now-infamous CIA.

    One of these ‘non-profits’, for example, is CANVAS, Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, which “was founded in 2004 by Srđa Popović, and the CEO of Orion Telecom, Slobodan Đinović.” Just about all that is online about Đinović is this, this, this, this and this. It’s not much, for allegedly the 50% donor to CANVAS. Actually, that organization’s major funding is entirely secret, and is almost certainly from the U.S. Government or conduits therefrom (including U.S. billionaires such as Soros), since CANVAS is always aiding the overthrow of Governments that the U.S. regime aims to overthrow.

    Both Popović and Đinović had earlier, since 1998, been among the leading members of another U.S. astroturf ‘revolution for democracy’ organization, Otpor! (“Resistance!”), which had helped to overthrow Milosevic and break up Yugoslavia. Otpor! ended successfully in 2004, at which time Popović and Đinović founded their own CANVAS, which they designed to institutionalize and spread to Ukraine and other countries the techniques that Otpor! had used and which had been taught to Otpor! by the U.S. regime under Bill Clinton. These were techniques which had been formalized by the American political scientist Gene Sharp.

    Even well before Popovic and Dinovic had joined in 1998 (during the U.S-NATO’s prior overthrow-Milosevic campaign to break up the former Yugoslavia) the Otpor student movement to overthrow Yugoslavia’s President Slobodan Milošević, the American Gene Sharp had created the detailed program to do this. Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institute published and promoted Sharp’s books advocating pacifism as the best way to force a ‘dictatorship’ (i.e., any Government that the U.S. regime wants to overthrow) to be overthrown. Sharp presented himself as being an advocate of ’non-violent resistance’ as practiced by Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other actual anti-imperialists, but Sharp himself was no anti-imperialist (quite the contrary!); he was instead purely a pacifist, and not at all anti-imperialist. Einstein, like Gandhi, had been no pacifist, but didn’t know that Sharp, whom Einstein never met, accepted imperialism, which Sharp’s claimed hero, Gandhi, detested. So, Einstein unfortunately accepted the cunning Sharp’s request to write a Foreword for Sharp’s first book praising Gandhi, Gandhi Wields the Weapon of Moral Power, and Sharp then used that Foreword as ‘proof’ that Sharp was a follower of Einstein (even naming his Institute after the by-then deceased physicist) — which was as false as Sharp’s claimed advocacy of Gandhi’s philosophy was. Sharp was a master self-publicist and deceiver. Einstein’s 321-word, 1.3-page-long, Foreword praised the work and its young author, but he might just have cursorily skimmed the manuscript. He probably would have have been appalled at what followed from Sharp.

    Sharp, thus, carefully avoided clarifying that, for example, he would have been a pacifist if he had been in America during the U.S. Revolutionary War, or even perhaps if he had been a northerner during the Civil War, or else been an anti-Nazi partisan during WW II (a pacifist ‘anti-Nazi’). Sharp’s recommendations are useful for the U.S. regime’s coups, because Sharp’s recommendations provide a way to make as difficult as possible for a head-of-state that the U.S. regime has targeted for removal, to remain in office. Sharp’s recommendations are for such a head-of-state to need to employ so much — and ever-increasing — violence against so many of his domestic opponents (fooled non-violent resistors — ‘martyrs’), as to become forced to resign, simply in order not to become himself a casualty of the resultant soaring backlash against himself as being viewed by his own public as simply a ruthless tyrannical dictator, for imprisoning or even killing those ‘democracy protesters’ who had been fooled by agents of the U.S. empire. So: Sharp’s methods are ideal to use so as to increase the public’s support for what is actually a U.S. coup. And that’s their real purpose: to facilitate coups, instead of to create any actual revolution. (As the commentator at the opening there noted, “Missing from Gene Sharp’s list are ‘Constructive actions’ – actions you take to build the alternative society you hope to create.” Sharp’s entire system is for destroying a Government — nothing to create a new one except that it should be ‘democratic’ — whatever that supposedly meant to his fools.) And, then, the coup itself is carried out, by the U.S. professionals at that, once the targeted head-of-state has become hated by a majority of his population. That’s the Sharp method, for coups.

    This is an alternative to what had been the U.S. regime’s method during 1945-1991, which was simply CIA-run coups, which relied mainly upon bribing local officials and oligarchs, and hiring rent-a-mobs so as to show photographic ‘mass-support’ for overthrowing a ruler, in order to replace the local ruler with one that the U.S. regime has selected (like this).

    On 12 November 2012, the pacifist John Horgan headlined at Scientific American, “Should Scientists and Engineers Resist Taking Military Money?,” and he wrote:

    Defense-funded research has led to advances in civilian health care, transportation, communication and other industries that have improved our lives. My favorite example of well-spent Pentagon money was a 1968 Darpa grant to the political scientist Gene Sharp. That money helped Sharp research and write the first of a series of books on how nonviolent activism can bring about political change.

    Sharp’s writings have reportedly inspired nonviolent opposition movements around the world, including ones that toppled corrupt regimes in Serbia, Ukraine [he was referring here to the 2004 ‘Orange Revolution’, but Sharp’s methods were also used in the 2014 ‘Maidan Revolution’], Georgia–and, more recently, Tunisia and Egypt [the ‘Arab Spring’]. Sharp, who has not received any federal support since 1968, has defended his acceptance of Darpa funds. In the preface of his classic 1972 work The Politics of Nonviolent Action, he argued that “governments and defense departments — as well as other groups — should finance and conduct research into alternatives to violence in politics.” I couldn’t agree more.

    So: Sharp’s pacifists are the opposite of anti-imperialists; they are neocons: agents to expand the U.S. empire, by means of (i.e., now preferring) coups instead of military invasions.

    On 11 December 2000, the Washington Post headlined “U.S. Advice Guided Milosevic Opposition,” and reported:

    The lead role was taken by the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s foreign assistance agency, which channeled the funds through commercial contractors and nonprofit groups such as NDI and its Republican counterpart, the International Republican Institute (IRI).

    While NDI worked closely with Serbian opposition parties, IRI focused its attention on Otpor, which served as the revolution’s ideological and organizational backbone. In March, IRI paid for two dozen Otpor leaders to attend a seminar on nonviolent resistance at the Hilton Hotel in Budapest, a few hundreds yards along the Danube from the NDI-favored Marriott.

    During the seminar, the Serbian students received training in such matters as how to organize a strike, how to communicate with symbols, how to overcome fear and how to undermine the authority of a dictatorial regime. The principal lecturer was retired U.S. Army Col. Robert Helvey, who has made a study of nonviolent resistance methods around the world, including those used in modern-day Burma and the civil rights struggle in the American South.

    “What was most amazing to us was to discover that what we were trying to do spontaneously in Serbia was supported by a whole nonviolent system that we knew nothing about,” said Srdja Popovic, a former biology student. “This was the first time we thought about this in a systematic, scientific way. We said to ourselves, ‘We will go back and apply this.’ ”

    Helvey, who served two tours in Vietnam, introduced the Otpor activists to the ideas of American theoretician Gene Sharpe, whom he describes as “the Clausewitz of the nonviolence movement,” referring to the renowned Prussian military strategist. Six months later, Popovic can recite Helvey’s lectures almost word for word, beginning with the dictum, “Removing the authority of the ruler is the most important element in nonviolent struggle.”

    “Those Serbs really impressed me,” Helvey said in an interview from his West Virginia home. “They were very bright, very committed.”

    Back in Serbia, Otpor activists set about undermining Milosevic’s authority by all means available. Rather than simply daubing slogans on walls, they used a wide range of sophisticated public relations techniques, including polling, leafleting and paid advertising. “The poll results were very important,” recalled Ivo Andric, a marketing student at Belgrade University. “At every moment, we knew what to say to the people.”

    The poll results pointed to a paradox that went to the heart of Milosevic’s grip on power. On one hand, the Yugoslav president was detested by 70 percent of the electorate. On the other, a majority of Serbs believed he would continue to remain in power, even after an election. To topple Milosevic, opposition leaders first had to convince their fellow Serbs that he could be overthrown.

    At a brainstorming session last July, Otpor activist Srdjan Milivojevic murmured the words “Gotov je,” or “He’s finished.”

    “We realized immediately that it summed up our entire campaign,” said Dejan Randjic, who ran the Otpor marketing operation. “It was very simple, very powerful. It focused on Milosevic, but did not even mention him by name.”

    Over the next three months, millions of “Gotov je” stickers were printed on 80 tons of imported adhesive paper–paid for by USAID and delivered by the Washington-based Ronco Consulting Corp.–and plastered all over Serbia on walls, inside elevators and across Milosevic’s campaign posters. Printed in black and white and accompanied by Otpor’s clenched-fist emblem, they became the symbol of the revolution.

    However, a WikiLeaked email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton on 26 July 2011, about the Subject “Gene Sharp,” discussed Egypt’s “April 6 movement,” which had overthrown Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak. Sullivan told her that “In order to assess … the role of Gene Sharp’s ideas in the January 25 revolution, several members of the Policy Planning Staff (S/P) looked into the issue during a recent fact-finding trip to Egypt. They met with representatives of a wide range of protest groups — including the April 6 movement — major civil society organizations, and political parties.” And Sullivan concluded that “ the earlier reporting on these purported ties to Gene Sharp now seems somewhat overblown. …  Most other analysts … credit this to the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Sullivan wrote from ignorance. On 3 March 2018, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper headlined “The Resistance Guide That Inspired Jewish Settlers and Muslim Brothers Alike: Opponents of Israel’s 2005 Gaza withdrawal, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and anti-government protesters in Iran have adopted the civil disobedience principles of the late Prof. Gene Sharp,” and recounted that, “Participants in the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 also owe many of their achievements to Sharp’s ideas. In Egypt it’s known that at least four groups of activists were influenced by them. Even the Muslim Brotherhood [the group that Sullivan said was NOT influenced by Sharp’s ideas], whose tradition of violence struck fear into the hearts of many, viewed Sharp’s book as a manual and posted it in Arabic translation on its website.” And, for example, even Wikipedia, in its article on the “April 6 Youth Movement,” says: “The April 6 movement is using the same raised fist symbol as the Otpor! movement from Serbia, that helped bring down the regime of Slobodan Milošević and whose nonviolent tactics were later used in Ukraine and Georgia. Mohammed Adel, a leader in the April 6 movement, studied at the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies, an organization founded by former Otpor! members.”

    Jake Sullivan was stunningly ignorant — not merely arrogant. The U.S. intelligence community has intimately cooperated with Otpor, CANVAS, and other such astroturf ‘revolution’-generators for American billionaires. For example, Ruaridh Arrow, the writer and director of a eulogistic biopic on Gene Sharp, “How to Start a Revolution,” headlined “Did Gene Sharp work for the CIA? Correcting the Conspiracies.” He wrote: “Funds were provided by the NED and IRI to activists for Albert Einstein Institution projects, for example in Burma, but the Institution was never able to fund groups in its own right.” (And what is that “but”-clause supposed to mean?) However, Arrow also wrote there: “Gene Sharp never worked for the CIA, in fact he was highly critical of them and advised activists not to take money from intelligence services. He argued that reliance on outsiders could weaken their movement and make them reliant on a foreign state which could suddenly cut off money and support, causing serious damage to their cause. It’s one thing to deny involvement with the CIA, it’s quite another to go around the world giving convincing arguments NOT to take money from them. … See below for a video of Gene Sharp telling people NOT to take money from the CIA.”

    Sharp’s operation, and that of the other ’non-profits’ such as CANVAS that adhere to it, don’t need money from the CIA, because they can get plenty of money from the billionaires who benefit from America’s coups. On 26 January 2001, David Holley in the Los Angeles Times headlined “The Seed Money for Democracy: Financier George Soros has put out $2.8 billion since 1990 to promote a global open society. His efforts include funding the student movement that helped oust Milosevic in Yugoslavia.” He wrote:

    Yugoslavia was a case where everything democrats had worried about–extreme nationalism, ethnic conflict, corruption, media controls and bickering among opposition political parties–were at their worst. Yet, just as Soros had calculated, it was a grass-roots surge by strong citizen organizations that won the battle for democracy.

    Soros’ branch in Belgrade, the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, was among the earliest backers of Otpor, which grew under young and decentralized leadership to strengthen the fractured opposition to Milosevic. “We gave them their first grant back in 1998, when they appeared as a student organization,” said Ivan Vejvoda, executive director of the Fund for an Open Society-Yugoslavia, the network’s branch here.

    Foreign financial support helped Otpor surreptitiously print about 60 tons of posters and leaflets in the months before the Sept. 24 election that led to Milosevic’s ouster, said Miljana Jovanovic, a student who is one of the movement’s leaders. …

    The vast majority of groups funded by Soros are not nearly as powerful as Otpor, nor do they play for such huge stakes.

    More typical are efforts such as “horse-riding therapy” for disabled children, funded by the network’s Polish branch, the Stefan Batory Foundation.

    I found that article only recently. On 18 April 2022, I had headlined “History of the Ukrainian War” and here was a passage in it that included the Stafan Battory Foundation, but I didn’t know, at the time, that this organization was actually Soros’s Open Society Foundation in Poland. Here is the relevant portion from that history of the Ukrainian war:

    *****

    On 1 March 2013 inside America’s Embassy to Ukraine in Kiev, a series of “Tech Camps” started to be held, in order to train those Ukrainian nazis for their leadership of Ukraine’s ‘anti-corruption’ organizing. Simultaneously, under Polish Government authorization, the CIA was training in Poland the military Right Sector leaders how to lead the coming U.S. coup in neighboring Ukraine. As the independent Polish investigative journalist Marek Miszczuk headlined for the Polish magazine NIE (“meaning “NO”) (the original article being in Polish): “Maidan secret state secret: Polish training camp for Ukrainians.” The article was published 14 April 2014. Excerpts:

    An informant who introduced himself as Wowa called the “NIE” editorial office with the information that the Maidan rebels in Wrocław are neo-fascists … [with] tattooed swastikas, swords, eagles and crosses with unambiguous meaning. … Wowa pleadingly announced that photos of members of the Right Sector must not appear in the press. … 86 fighters from the then prepared Euromaidan flew over the Vistula River in September 2013 at the invitation of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The pretext was to start cooperation between the Warsaw University of Technology and the National University of Technology in Kiev. But they were in Poland to receive special training to overthrow Ukraine’s government. … Day 3 and 4 – theoretical classes: crowd management, target selection, tactics and leadership. Day 5 – training in behavior in stressful situations. Day 6 – free without leaving the center. Day 7 – pre-medical help. Day 8 – protection against irritating gases. Day 9 – building barricades. And so on and on for almost 25 days. The program includes … classes at the shooting range (including three times with sniper rifles!), tactical and practical training in the assault on buildings. …

    Excited by the importance of the information that was presented to me, I started to verify it.

    The Office of the Press Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to answer the questions about the student exchange without giving any reason. It did not want to disclose whether it had actually invited dozens of neo-fascists to Poland to teach them how to overthrow the legal Ukrainian authorities. …

    Let us summarize: in September 2013, according to the information presented to me, several dozen Ukrainian students of the Polytechnic University will come to Poland, at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In fact, they are members of the Right Sector, an extreme right-wing and nationalist Ukrainian group led by Dmytro Jarosz – he declined to comment on his visit to Legionowo.

    Poland’s ‘fact-checking’ organization is (appropriately) titled demagog dot org (Demagog Association), and it is funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation. Demagog’s article about that NIE news-report rated it “NIEWERYFIKOWALNE” or “ NOT VERIFIABLE”. The sole reason given was: “The Ministry [of Foreign Affairs] strongly opposes such news, emphasizing that the weekly (magazine) has violated not only the principles of good taste, but also raison d’etat (reasons of state).” No facts that were alleged in Miszczuk’s article were even mentioned, much less disproven. How can his article be “unverifiable” if the evidence that it refers to isn’t so much as even being checked?

    Miszczuk’s article’s mention of “the Right Sector, an extreme right-wing and nationalist Ukrainian group led by Dmytro Jarosz” referred to the key person (Dmitriy Yarosh) and the key group (his Right Sector paramilitary organization and political party) that has actually been running Ukraine behind the scenes ever since the coup, and they also were the key people who had led the snipers who were firing down from tall buildings upon the Ukrainian Government’s police and upon the anti-Government demonstrators at Kiev’s Maidan Square — the violence simultaneously against both sides — that the newly installed post-coup government immediately blamed against the just-ousted democratically elected President, so that the new top officials were all blaming the ones that they had replaced.

    *****

    On 4 October 2017, the historian F. William Engdahl, who unfortunately leaves many of his allegations not linked to his alleged sources, wrote:

    Goldman Sachs and Stratfor

    Even more interesting details recently came to light on the intimate links between the US “intelligence consultancy”, Stratfor — known as the ”Shadow CIA” for its corporate clients which include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and U.S. government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

    It was revealed in a huge release of internal memos from Stratfor in 2012, some five million emails provided them by the hacker community Anonymous, that Popović, after creating CANVAS also cultivated very close relations with Stratfor. According to the Stratfor internal emails, Popović worked for Stratfor to spy on opposition groups. So intimate was the relationship between Popović and Stratfor that he got his wife a job with the company and invited several Stratfor people to his Belgrade wedding.

    Revealed in the same Stratfor emails by Wikileaks was the intriguing information that one of the “golden geese” funders of the mysterious CANVAS was a Wall Street bank named Goldman Sachs. Satter Muneer, a Goldman Sachs partner, is cited by Stratfor’s then-Eurasia Analyst Marko Papic. Papic, asked by a Stratfor colleague whether Muneer was the “golden goose” money behind CANVAS, writes back, “They have several golden gooses I believe. He is for sure one of them.”

    Now the very remarkable Mr Popović brings his dishonest career to Hungary where, not a dictator, but a very popular true democrat who offers his voters choices, is the target for Popović’ peculiar brand of US State Department fake democracy. This will not at all be as easy as toppling Milošević, even if he has the help of student activists being trained at Soros’ Central European University in Budapest.

    If he had linked to those WikiLeaks documents, then copies of his article that were made before the U.S. regime removed some WikiLeaks files from the Web would have archived those files, but that didn’t happen; and, so, today, a Web-search for the 3-word string

    Stratfor Popović wikileaks

    produces finds such as

    https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1773778_meeting-canvas-stratfor-.html

    https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/17/1792423_information-on-canvas-.html

    of which no copies were saved at any of the Web archives.

    However, a prior article, by Carl Gibson and Steve Horn of Occuy.com, on 2 December 2013, was headlined “Exposed: Globally Renowned Activist Collaborated with Intelligence Firm Stratfor,” and it has links to the WikiLeaks documents. From all of this, it’s clear that the obscure Srđa Popović and Slobodan Đinović, are each well-connected to wealth, if not themselves quite wealthy, from their business, of fomenting coups for the U.S. regime, in the names of ‘peace’ and of ‘democracy’.

    Apparently, CANVAS remains quite active today:

    On 6 October 2023, Kit Klarenberg, at The Grayzone, headlined “A Maidan 2.0 color revolution looms in Georgia,” and reported that:

    The arrest of US regime change operatives in Tbilisi suggests a coup against Georgia’s government could be in the works. As Ukraine’s counteroffensive fails, the West appears eager to open a new front in its proxy war.

    On September 29, in a disclosure ignored by the entire Western media, the US government-run Radio Free Europe’s Russian-language portal Slobodna Evropa revealed that three foreign operatives had been summoned for questioning by the Georgian Security Service, for allegedly assisting opposition elements prepare a Maidan-style regime change scenario in Tbilisi.

    The operatives were staffers of the Center for Applied Nonviolent Actions and Strategies. …

    The ruling Georgian dream [NO — it’s the Georgian Dream Party] has been portrayed in the west as a pro-Kremlin government. In reality, it’s simply reverted to a longstanding policy of balancing between East and West. For the neoconservative establishment, its true sin is being insufficiently supportive of the Ukraine proxy war. Thus Ukrainian elements are set to be involved in a possible color revolution. If such an operation succeeds, it would open a second front in that war on Russia’s Western flank.

    The development seemingly confirms warnings from local security officials earlier this September. They cautioned “a coup a la Euromaidan is being prepared in Georgia,” referring to the 2014 US-backed color revolution which toppled Ukraine’s elected president and ushered in a pro-NATO government. The purported lead plotters are ethnic Georgians working for the Ukrainian government: Giorgi Lortkipanidze, Kiev’s deputy military intelligence chief; Mikhail Baturin, the bodyguard of former President Mikheil Saakashvili; and Mamuka Mamulashvili, commander of the notorious Georgian Legion.

    A September 6 investigation by The Grayzone revealed that Georgian Legion chief Mamulashvili is centrally implicated in a false flag massacre of Maidan protesters, which was pivotal in unseating elected President Viktor Yanukovych. He apparently brought the shooters to Maidan Square to “sow some chaos” by opening fire on crowds, and provided sniper rifles for the purpose.

    Georgian officials say that now they’ve uncovered evidence that young anti-government activists are undergoing training near Ukraine’s border with Poland to enact a similar scheme, which would feature a deadly bombing during planned riots meant to take place in Tbilisi between October and December, when the European Commission is expected to rule on whether Georgia can formally become an EU candidate country.

    The Wikipedia article “Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies” says:

    CANVAS’ training and methodology has been successfully applied by groups in Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), Lebanon (2005), The Maldives (2008)?, Egypt (2011)?, Syria (2011)? and Ukraine (2014). It works only in response to requests for assistance.

    However: anyone who participates in such ‘Revolutions’ is placing oneself at severe personal risk, in order to facilitate a coup by the U.S. Government and its controlling owners, who are billionaires. People such as Sharp, Popović, and Đinović, are merely well-paid and maintained servants to America’s billionaires.

    Here’s how they market their operation, to peaceniks:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20230521063855/https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CANVAS-Core-Curriculum_EN4.pdf

    https://canvasopedia.org/2023/01/05/examining-non-state-stakeholders-role-in-modern-nonviolent-conflict-2/

    https://web.archive.org/web/20231025015004/https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/canvas_presentation.pdf

    They open by paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. This is mocking them — aping their influence, not spreading it.

    And here is how the neoconservative Tina Rosenberg, in the neoconservative Donald Graham’s Foreign Policy magazine, promotes CANVAS, as being “Revolution U“:

    As nonviolent revolutions have swept long-ruling regimes from power in Tunisia and Egypt and threaten the rulers of nearby Algeria, Bahrain, and Yemen, the world’s attention has been drawn to the causes — generations of repressive rule — and tools — social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter — animating the wave of revolt. But as the members of the April 6 movement learned, these elements alone do not a revolution make. What does? In the past, the discontented availed themselves of the sweeping forces of geopolitics: the fall of regimes in Latin America and the former Soviet bloc was largely a product of the withdrawal of superpower support for dictatorships and the consolidation of liberal democracy as a global ideal. But the global clash of ideologies is over, and plenty of dictators remain — so what do we do?

    The answer, for democratic activists in an ever-growing list of countries, is to turn to CANVAS. Better than other democracy groups, CANVAS has built a durable blueprint for  nonviolent revolution: what to do to grow from a vanload of people into a mass movement and then use those masses to topple a dictator. CANVAS has figured out how to turn a cynical, passive, and fearful public into activists. It stresses unity, discipline, and planning — tactics that are basic to any military campaign, but are usually ignored by nonviolent revolutionaries. There will be many moments during a dictatorship that galvanize public anger: a hike in the price of oil, the assassination of an opposition leader, corrupt indifference to a natural disaster, or simply the confiscation by the police of a produce cart. In most cases, anger is not enough — it simply flares out. Only a prepared opponent will be able to use such moments to bring down a government.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Palestinian Diplomat: The U.S. Is Israel’s “Partner in Crime” in Deadly Assault on Gaza


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Bank CEO Had Epstein Dress Girls Like Disney Characters & Bernie Fights To Lower ALL Drug Prices

    More information has been revealed about how a major banking CEO helped Jeffrey Epstein with his illicit activities. Plus, a third major drug company has announced that they are cutting the price of insulin, but Senator Bernie Sanders says that’s just a start – he wants across the board price cuts for prescription drugs and […]

    The post Bank CEO Had Epstein Dress Girls Like Disney Characters & Bernie Fights To Lower ALL Drug Prices appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire Network.

  • Fall of a Fijian trafficker exposes previous government’s blind eye to meth

    By Aubrey Belford, Stevan Dojcinovic, Jared Savage and Kelvin Anthony in an OCCRP investigation

    • The operator of a Pacific-wide network of pharmacy companies, Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, was sentenced to four years prison in New Zealand in August for illegally importing millions of dollars worth of pseudoephedrine, a precursor chemical of methamphetamine.
    • Umarji, a Fijian national, had long been a target of police in his home country but had for years escaped justice thanks to what Fijian and international law enforcement say was an unwillingness by the previous authoritarian government of Voreqe Bainimarama to seriously tackle meth and cocaine trafficking.
    • Fiji’s new government, which was elected last December, is now investigating donations that Umarji and his family made to the previous ruling party, as well as “potential connections” to top law enforcement officials.

    Until recently, Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji was — in public at least — a pillar of Fiji’s business community.

    With ownership of a Pacific-wide pharmacy network, Umarji and his family were significant donors to the party that repressively ruled the country until it lost power in elections last December. He was also a major figure in sports, serving as a vice president of the Fiji Football Association and as a committee member in soccer’s global governing body, FIFA.

    And he did it all as an internationally wanted drug trafficker.

    Umarji’s fall finally came in August this year, after he ended a period of self-imposed exile in India and surrendered himself to authorities in New Zealand to face years-old charges. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison for importing at least NZ$5-$6 million (US$2.9-3.5 million) worth of pseudoephedrine — a precursor for methamphetamine – into the country.

    His sentencing was hailed by Fijian police as a blow against a “mastermind” whose operations stretched across the region.

    But behind the conviction of Umarji, 47, lies a far murkier story of impunity, a joint investigation by an Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), The Fiji Times, The New Zealand Herald and Radio New Zealand has found.

    Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji, on right, shakes hands with Fiji Football Association President Rajesh Patel.
    Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji (right) shakes hands with Fiji Football Association President Rajesh Patel. Image: Baljeet Singh/The Fiji Times

    Umarji was able to thrive for years amid a failure by senior officials of Fiji’s previous authoritarian government to confront a rise in meth and cocaine trafficking through the Pacific Island country.

    And when New Zealand authorities finally issued an international warrant for his arrest, Umarji was able to flee Fiji under suspicious circumstances.

    Reporters found that Umarji and his family donated at least F$70,000 (US$31,000) to the country’s former ruling party, FijiFirst, in the years after he was first put under investigation. This included F$20,000 (US$8,700) given to the party ahead of last December’s election — roughly three years after he was first charged.

    The party’s general secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, was Fiji’s long-serving attorney-general and justice minister at the time.

    Reporters also found that the Umarji family’s business network has continued to expand despite his legal troubles, and currently operates in three Pacific countries. The newest of these pharmacy companies, in Vanuatu, was founded just last year.

    Fiji’s Minister for Immigration and Home Affairs, Pio Tikoduadua, told OCCRP an investigation has been opened into how Umarji was able to flee the country.

    Ships at anchor in the harbor of Fiji’s capital, Suva.
    Ships at anchor in the harbour of Fiji’s capital, Suva. Image: Aubrey Belford/OCCRP/RNZ Pacific

    He said authorities are also investigating donations Umarji and his family made to FijiFirst, and any “potential connections” he may have had to top officials in the former government, including Sayed-Khaiyum and the now-suspended Police Commissioner, Sitiveni Qiliho.

    “Certainly, I am deeply concerned about the potential influence of drug traffickers in Fiji, especially over officials and law enforcement,” Tikoduadua said.

    “The infiltration of these criminal elements poses a significant risk to our society and institutions.”

    Umarji declined a request for an interview and did not respond to follow-up questions. His Auckland lawyer, David PH Jones, said a request from reporters contained “numerous loaded questions which contain unsubstantiated assertions, a number of which have little or nothing to do with Mr Umarji’s prosecution”.

    Sayed-Khaiyum and Qiliho did not respond to written questions.

    ‘A hub of the Pacific’
    The rise in drug trafficking through Fiji is just one part of a booming trans-Pacific trade that experts and law enforcement say has become one of the world’s most profitable.

    In Australia, the most recent data shows that drug seizures have more than quadrupled over the last decade, and Australians now consume 4.7 tonnes of cocaine and 8.8 tonnes of meth a year. In much smaller New Zealand, drug users strongly prefer meth to cocaine, consuming roughly 720 kilograms a year.

    Consumers in both countries pay some of the highest prices on earth for cocaine and meth, much of it exported from the Americas. Lying in the vast blue expanse between the two points are the Pacific Islands.

    Pacific meth cocaine route map.
    The Pacific meth cocaine route map. Map: Edin Pasovic/OCCRP/RNZ Pacific

    “Fiji is a hub of the Pacific. You’ve got the ports, you’ve got the infrastructure, and you’ve got the ability to come in and out either by [water] craft or by airplane,” said Glyn Rowland, the New Zealand Police senior liaison officer for the Pacific.

    “So that really leaves Fiji quite vulnerable to be in that transit route off to New Zealand and off to Australia.”

    Fiji has long been eyed by international organised crime for its strategic location close to Australia and New Zealand’s multi-billion dollar drug markets.

    In the early 2000s, for example, an international police operation took apart a “super lab” in Fiji’s capital, Suva, run by Chinese gangsters with enough precursor chemicals to produce a tonne of meth.

    But after early successes, Fiji in recent years went cold on the fight against hard drugs.

    The previous government of Voreqe Bainimarama, who first took power in a 2006 coup, showed little interest in tackling meth and cocaine trafficking, according to current and former law enforcement officers from Fiji and the US. Despite recent signs that trafficking was increasing, the police force under Bainimarama’s hand-picked commissioner, Qiliho, seemed to overlook the problem, the officers told OCCRP.

    Bainimarama did not respond to questions.

    Ernie Verina, the Oceania attaché for US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), said his agency had become worried about trafficking through Fiji.

    In mid-2022, HSI assigned an agent to be based in the country. But when the agent raised the issue of meth with top officials from Bainimarama’s government, he was met with total pushback, Verina said.

    “Categorically, like, ‘There is no meth’,” Verina said of the Fijian response.

    “That’s what they told the agent.”

    A lot of influence
    Despite high-level denials, Fiji’s narcotics police were very much aware of the country’s drug trafficking crisis. In fact, they had long had Umarji in their sights. But he was a difficult target.

    As far back as 2017, Umarji was identified as “one of the tier one” suspected traffickers in the country, said Serupepeli Neiko, the head of the Fiji Police’s Narcotics Bureau.

    Umarji’s hometown of Lautoka, Fiji.
    Umarji’s hometown of Lautoka, Fiji. Image: Aubrey Belford/OCCRP/RNZ Pacific

    While the drug trade through Fiji is also the domain of transnational organised crime groups, Umarji was suspected of having carved out a niche for himself by using his network of pharmacies, Hyperchem, to legally import pseudoephedrine and divert it onto the black market, Neiko said.

    In early 2017, Umarji and one of his colleagues were charged with weapons possession after scores of rifle bullets were found on his yacht, moored in his hometown of Lautoka. But the charges were “squashed in court,” Neiko said.

    “So that gave a red flag to us that a [drug trafficking] case against Umarji would have been challenging as well.”

    A former senior Fijian officer, who declined to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to the media, put it more bluntly: “Umarji had a lot of influence with the previous government.”

    Reporters found no evidence that any senior Fijian officials intervened against investigations into Umarji. But the perception that he had influence was powerful, current and former police officers said.

    Indeed, since the fall of Bainimarama’s government last year, multiple senior officials have faced charges that they abused their positions, but none have been convicted.

    The suspended police commissioner, Qiliho, and the former prime minister, Bainimarama, were both acquitted by a court on October 12 of charges that they had illegally interfered in a separate police investigation.

    Former Attorney-General Sayed-Khaiyum is also currently facing prosecution in another unrelated abuse of office case.

    Despite becoming a top-level police target, Umarji continued to expand his influence in Fiji.

    Company records show that, in 2015, he and his wife, Zaheera Cassim, opened Hyperchem companies in Fiji, Solomon Islands, and a now-defunct branch in Samoa.

    In May 2017, Umarji opened a new company, Bio Pharma, in New Zealand.

    Ahead of elections the following year, Umarji and his relatives donated a total of at least F$50,000 to the FijiFirst party, declarations from the Fiji Elections Office show.

    Umarji also made a name for himself in soccer, getting elected a vice-president of the Fiji Football Association in December 2019.

    Pills and cash
    By 2019, it was clear that avenues for a Fijian investigation were closed. So police in New Zealand stepped in instead. Reporters were able to reconstruct what happened next via court records and interviews.

    While seconded that year to Fiji’s Transnational Crime Unit, New Zealand detective Peter Reynolds heard whispers about Umarji’s alleged criminal activity from his local colleagues. On returning to New Zealand, he decided to take things into his own hands.

    Digging through police files, Reynolds found a lucky break in a case from nearly two years prior.

    In late 2017, an anonymous member of the public had reached out to an anti-crime hotline with a tip that a businessman, Firdos “Freddie” Dalal, had a suspicious amount of money in his home in suburban Auckland.

    Acting on a warrant, police made their way inside and found NZ$726,190 in cash and 4000 boxes of Actifed, a cold and flu medicine that contains pseudoephedrine.

    Umarji NZ route map.
    Umarji NZ route map. Image: Edin Pasovic, James O’Brien/OCCRP/RNZ Pacific

    Known as Operation Duet, the investigation that led to Dalal’s conviction provided the information that Reynolds needed to go after Umarji. It turned out that Dalal, who owned an Auckland-based freight forwarding company, was also listed as the director of Umarji’s New Zealand company, Bio Pharma.

    Reynolds soon figured out how it all worked. Using his Pacific-wide Hyperchem network, Umarji ordered Actifed pills to be delivered from abroad to his pharmacies in Fiji and Solomon Islands. The shipments were set to transit through New Zealand, where Dalal’s forwarding company was responsible for the cargo.

    While the drugs sat in a restricted customs holding area, Dalal simply went inside and swapped them out for other other medicine, such as anti-fungal cream, which was then sent on to their island destinations. The purloined pseudoephedrine was sold on New Zealand’s black market.

    Dalal did not respond to questions.

    In just three shipments between January and October 2017, Umarji’s operation brought in an estimated 678,000 Actifed pills containing about 40.7 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, Auckland District Court would later find.

    But if deciphering Umarji’s operation was straightforward, arresting him would prove anything but.

    New Zealand Police filed charges against Umarji in December 2019, but Reynolds told the Auckland court that he believed they faced little chance of getting Umarji to voluntarily fly to Auckland and show up in court.

    “If the summons were to be served it would likely result in Umarji fleeing [Fiji] to a country that has no extradition arrangements with New Zealand,” the detective said in an affidavit.

    So New Zealand authorities decided to go through the arduous process of requesting extradition. In November 2021, a Fijian court agreed to the request, and New Zealand Police issued an Interpol red notice.

    Despite all the effort, within days Fiji Police had to contact their New Zealand counterparts with an embarrassing admission: Umarji had fled the country, and was in India.

    New Zealand Police’s Pacific liaison, Rowland, declined to comment on how Umarji was able to flee Fiji, but added: “The reality is, sometimes corruption isn’t about what you do. Sometimes corruption is about what you don’t do, or turn a blind eye to.”

    Despite his legal troubles, Umarji remained a respectable public figure in Fiji, thanks in part to a restrictive media environment that made it difficult for reporters to look into him in detail.

    In May 2021, while Umarji was still in Fiji and his extradition case was pending, he was elected to FIFA’s governance, audit and compliance committee. He kept the position even after his flight abroad later that year, and was re-elected unopposed as Fiji Football Association vice president this June. He only resigned both positions on August 7, two days before his sentencing.

    FIFA and the Fiji Football Association did not respond to questions.

    Umarji also made little effort to hide during his exile in India. At one stage last year, he recorded an online video testimonial for a stem cell clinic outside of Delhi where he said he was getting treatment for diabetes.

    His family’s second round of donations to FijiFirst, F$20,000 ahead of last December’s elections, were similarly made while Umarji was on the run.

    But the drug trafficker eventually tired of exile.

    In early 2022, he first contacted his high-powered Auckland lawyer, Jones, to arrange his surrender to New Zealand Police. He pleaded guilty to the Auckland court earlier this year and was allowed to return to Fiji to sort his affairs before handing himself in for sentencing.

    Hyperchem’s warehouse and office in Lautoka.
    Hyperchem’s warehouse and office in Lautoka. Image Aubrey Belford/OCCRP/RNZ Pacific

    New focus
    With Umarji now in prison, Fijian authorities say they are continuing to investigate his operations.

    Umarji’s pharmaceutical business continues to run with his wife, Cassim, at its head. Cassim has for years been a significant public face for the businesses, including publicising its charitable work. She declined to respond to reporters’ questions.

    OCCRP visited Umarji’s companies in Lautoka in late June, during the period in which he was allowed by the New Zealand court to briefly return to Fiji. Reporters found a bustling network of businesses, including a well-staffed warehouse and office on the edge of town for Hyperchem.

    Reporters contacted Umarji by phone from the warehouse’s reception area, but he declined to come out for an interview and referred reporters to his lawyer.

    Homeland Security Investigations’ Verina said the new government of Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has since removed roadblocks to investigating these sort of trafficking operations.

    “We have started to see enforcement operations and arrests and holding individuals accountable for the methamphetamine smuggling,” Verina said.

    An Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) investigation. Additional reporting by Lydia Lewis (RNZ) and George Block (New Zealand Herald). This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Matt Gaetz Shows The World How Incompetent And Stupid Republicans Are

    Chaos in the House! Matt Gaetz successfully managed to get Kevin McCarthy kicked out as Speaker of the House, and now Republicans appear to be in complete disarray. To make things worse for the GOP, Donald Trump’s fraud trial in New York began this week, and it hasn’t gone his way at all. Ring of […]

    The post Matt Gaetz Shows The World How Incompetent And Stupid Republicans Are appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire Network.

  • Marape seeks help from Australia, Singapore to fight PNG corruption

    By Jeffrey Elapa in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea’s government has appealed to the Australian Federal Police and the Singapore Police to assist PNG police to link money laundering trails.

    Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Prime Minister James Marape said Australia and Singapore had been the major hub of transit for possible money laundering activities.

    He wants help from police in the two countries to assist PNG police in their fight against corruption in the country.

    “We are fighting corruption. For instance, we are following the footprints of the [A$1.2 billion Swiss bank] UBS money that has gone deeply rooted so our police are working on it,” he said.

    “Therefore I want to encourage police in Singapore and police in Australia assist PNG police to deal with money laundered from PNG.

    “I want to appeal again to the Australian police and Singaporean police to assist our police and I make this statement as the Prime Minister of this country.

    “And in the case of UBS, we have made [a] deep incision, we are following the money trail, the entire loot that was looted from this country,” he said.

    ‘Prioritise law and order’
    “I want to give commendation to the Police Commissioner, David Manning — he is not here to stop tribal fights; stopping tribal fights is the job of our members of Parliament.

    “Governors you have PSIP (constituency development funds) funds so prioritise law and order using your funds, do not wait for police commissioners to come and stop tribal fights.

    “PNG has been labelled a corrupt country so I don’t want to leave this label for the next 20 years so we have to make an example out of other existing corruption that has been documented and evidence are used.

    “And the ICAC [Independent Commission Against Corruption] commission of inquiry has sufficient evidence for us to pursue our efforts to fight corruption.

    “I will indicate to this House that we will bring to this floor of Parliament the Finance Inquiry again and other inquiries that are outstanding.

    “We will revisit if they are not time bound but we will not limit the limited police capacity so that is why I appeal to Singapore police and Australia police to assist my policemen to link to the money trails,” the Prime Minister said.

    “Monies do not hide, monies move from one bank account to another bank account, forensic auditors and investigators will follow the money trials and our police are working as part of the law and order conversation, focusing on our country like fighting corruption like never before,” he said.

    Marape said the ICAC, Ombudsman Commission and police would work in partnership in the pursuit to address corruption in the country.

    He said with the efforts to strengthening the work of the ICAC, three commissioners had been appointed while a third Ombudsman commissioner would be appointed this week.

    Jeffrey Elapa is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Chinese ‘miracle water’ grifters infiltrated UN, bribed politicians to build Pacific dream city

    By Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall and Martin Young

    A pair of Chinese scam artists wanted to turn a radiation-soaked Pacific atoll into a future metropolis. They ended up in an American jail instead.

    How they got there is an untold tale of international bribery and graft that stretched to the very heart of the United Nations.

    The stakes could scarcely have been higher for Hilda Heine, the former president of the Marshall Islands.

    A new OCCRP investigation reveals details of how Chinese-born fraudsters Cary Yan and Gina Zhou paid more than US$1 million to UN diplomats to gain access to its headquarters in New York, before embarking on a controversial plan to set up an autonomous zone near an important US military facility in the Pacific Ocean.

    For years, Hilda Heine’s remote archipelago nation of just 40,000 people was best known to the world for Cold War nuclear testing that left scores of its islands poisoned.

    Sitting in the centre of the Pacific Ocean, the country was a strategic but forgotten US ally.

    But the arrival of a couple of mysterious strangers threatened to change all that. With buckets of cash at their disposal, the Chinese pair, Cary Yan and Gina Zhou, had grand plans that could have thrust the Marshall Islands into the growing rivalry between China and the West, and perhaps fracture the country itself.

    Public controversy
    First proposed in 2017, while Heine was still president, Yan and Zhou’s idea raised public controversy.

    With backing from foreign investors, the couple planned to rehabilitate one irradiated atoll, Rongelap, and turn it into a futuristic “digital special administrative region.”

    The Marshall Islands Journal’s front page on 9 September 2022
    The Marshall Islands Journal’s front page on 9 September 2022 reporting Cary Yan and Gina Zhou being extradited from Thailand to the US to face bribery and related criminal charges in New York. Image: MIJ screenshot/APR

    The new city of artificial islands would include an aviation logistics center, wellness resorts, a gaming and entertainment zone, and foreign embassies.

    Thanks in part to the liberal payment of bribes, Yan and Zhou had managed to gain the support of some of the Marshall Islands’ most powerful politicians. They then lobbied for a draft bill that would have given the proposed zone, known as the Rongelap Atoll Special Administrative Region (RASAR), its own separate courts and immigration laws.

    Heine was opposed. The whole thing reeked of a Chinese effort to gain influence over the strategically located Marshall Islands, she told OCCRP.

    A map of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
    A map of Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Image: Credit: Edin Pasovic/James O’Brien/OCCRP

    The plan was unconstitutional and would have created a virtually “independent country” within the Marshall Islands’ borders, she said.

    The new Chinese investor-backed zone would also have occupied a geographically sensitive spot just 200 km of open water away from Kwajalein Atoll, where the US Army runs facilities that test intercontinental ballistic missiles and track foreign rocket launches.

    Became a target
    But when President Heine argued against the draft law, she became a target herself. In November 2018, pro-RASAR politicians backed by Yan and Zhou pushed a no-confidence motion to remove her from power.

    She survived by one vote.

    Even then, the president said she had no idea who this influential duo really were. Although they seemed to be Chinese, they carried Marshall Islands passports, which  gave them visa free access to the United States. Nobody seemed to know how they had obtained them.

    Gina Zhou and Cary Yan sat at a table in a restaurant
    World Organisation of Governance and Competitiveness representatives Gina Zhou (left) and Cary Yan (center) at a restaurant in New York. Image: OCCRP

    “We looked and looked and we couldn’t find when and how they got [the passports],” Heine said. “We didn’t know what their connections were or if they had any connections with the Chinese government.

    “But of course we were suspicious.”

    The plan came to an abrupt end in November 2020, when Yan and Zhou were arrested in Thailand on a US warrant. After being extradited to face trial in New York, they pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to bribe Marshallese officials.

    Both were sentenced earlier this year. Zhou was deported to the Marshall Islands shortly after her sentencing, while Yan is due for release this November.

    But although the federal case led to a brief burst of media attention, it left key questions unanswered.

    Who really were Yan and Zhou? Who helped them in their audacious scheme? Were they simply crooks? Or were they also working to advance the interests of the Chinese government?

    OCCRP spent nearly a year trying to find answers, conducting interviews around the world and poring through thousands of pages of documents.

    What reporters uncovered was a story more bizarre — and with far broader implications — than first expected.

    Aubrey Belford, Kevin G. Hall and Martin Young are investigative writers for the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG police chief warns protesters on water, power ‘domestic terrorism’

    PNG Post-Courier in Port Moresby

    Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning has warned protesters against “domestic terrorism” — when their actions place the safety and security of other people at risk.

    Commissioner Manning made the comments after Koiari landowners in Central Province shut down the water and hydroelectricity supply to Port Moresby, and blocked the access road into the strategic Sirinumu Dam.

    “Police are proceeding with caution to engage with those involved in the shutdown of water and power generation facilities to ensure there is no further damage and to have services restored,” he said.

    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning
    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning . . . “It is not for police to be involved in resolving the politics of an issue, it is our role to protect public safety and security.” Image: PNG Post-Courier

    “We are aware that discussions are underway at the political level, and information on progress in these discussions are part of our considerations in this security matter.

    “It is not for police to be involved in resolving the politics of an issue, it is our role to protect public safety and security,” Manning said.

    He said the intentional disruption to essential services was a criminal activity, and this was the basis for a police response.

    Police vow to act
    “Cutting power and water supply to hospitals, schools, business and the broader population is basically an act of domestic terrorism,” Commissioner Manning said.

    “No individual has the right to deprive fellow citizens of access to essential services in order to elevate their grievances.

    “I appreciate that the landowners of Koiari have grievances that they are seeking to rectify, but causing harm and distress to other people is not the way to resolve this issue.

    “The next steps for police in resolving the issue is to prepare to intervene and remove obstructions and restore services.”

    “This is pending the outcome of discussions between the parties that we naturally hope will be successful and negate the need for police intervention.”

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Ukraine as Another Neo-liberal Privatization Exercise

    When considering the recent performances at the General Assembly of the United Nations this year, the echoes of “peace” resound through the plenary hall. Why should anyone want peace in the Ukraine more than any other place the Empire is waging war? My suspicion is that many of these calls are really for Russia to withdraw to its pre-2014 borders. They believe that would make the US regime happy and be a great relief to the minor and little league oligarchs who long for return to business as usual. Calm and intelligent people could be forgiven for doubting the sincerity of many peace petitioners.

    After all, don’t the continuing wars in Africa, the still pending “United Nations” war against the DPRK (where there is only a 70-year-old armistice since 1953), and the innumerable economic wars being waged in places and ways we do not even know, deserve to end too?

    Like the war in the Ukraine, one will hear how complicated these wars are. They cannot be simply ended. Yet they are all simple in one material way: without the US and its NATO cut-outs—often the principal aggressor in violation of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty—many of these wars would never have started or would have long ago been resolved. So why not demand that the US stop waging wars and why not apply sanctions to the US for its belligerence and violations of the law of nations? How can the United Nations end wars when it cannot even end the one it started in 1951? Could it be that too many of the parties among those who convene to call for peace, really need and want just a piece of the action?

    The two military veterans probably best known for criticising US policy in Ukraine, Colonel Douglas MacGregor USA and Major Scott Ritter USMC, have said loud and clear that at least from a military standpoint the Ukrainian armed forces have lost the war against Russia. There have been numerous voices calling for an end to the conflict, not least because the more than USD 46 billion and counting in military aid alone, has yet to produce any of the results announced as aims of what has finally been admitted is a war against Russia.i If Mr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine’s government in Kiev, is to be taken at face value, then the hostilities can only end when Crimea and the Donbas regions are fully under Kiev’s control and Vladimir Putin has been removed from office as president of the Russian Federation. To date no commentator has adequately explained how those war aims are to be attained. This applies especially after the conservatively estimated 400,000 deaths and uncounted casualties in the ranks of Kiev’s forces since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in February 2022.

    Before considering the political and economic issues it is important to reiterate a few military facts, especially for those armchair soldiers who derive their military acumen from TV and Hollywood films. As MacGregor and Ritter, both of whom have intimate practical knowledge of warfare, have said: Armies on the ground need supplies, i.e. food, weapons, ammunition, medical care for wounded, etc. These supplies have to be delivered from somewhere. In ancient times, armies could live off the land. Essentially this was through looting and plunder—stealing their food from the local population as they marched. To prevent the local population from becoming the enemy in the rear and avoid early exhaustion of local supply, generals started paying for what was requisitioned. Defending forces would often withdraw the civilian population and destroy what could not be taken to avoid supplying their enemies. In fact, this kind of rough warfare against civilians still occurs although it has been forbidden under the Law of Land Warfare.ii Naturally the soldier in the field can no longer make weaponry. Even less can they be plundered from the local inhabitants—unless one comes across some tribe the US has armed with Stingers. All the weapons the Ukrainian armed forces deploy have to be imported from countries with manufacturing capacity. As the two retired officers, among others, have said, such capacity is unavailable to the Ukraine. Obviously it would also be unavailable to NATO forces were they to deploy in Ukraine in any numbers. It is illusory to believe that a NATO army can do what the Wehrmacht could not some eighty years ago with three million men under arms and the most modern army of its day. This was so obvious from the beginning that one has to wonder why this war ever started. Is it possible that wars are started without any intention of winning them? If winning the war is not the objective, then what is?

    Forgery and force: Explicit and implicit or latent and expressed foreign policy

    Historical documents are essential elements in any attempt to understand the past and the present. However, this is not because they are necessarily true or accurate. Forgeries and outright lies are also important parts of the historical record. Perhaps the most notorious forgery in Western history is the so-called Donation of Constantine. This document was used to legitimate papal supremacy and the primacy of the Latin over the Greek Church. Although it did not take long for the forgery to be discovered, the objective was accomplished. Even today most people in the West have learned that the part of the Christian Church called Orthodoxy is schismatic when the reverse is true, namely the Latin Church arose from a coup d’état against Constantinople.

    There is now no shortage of evidence that the British Empire forced the German Empire into the Great War and with US help justified the slaughter of some four million men, ostensibly to expel German forces from Belgium. There is systematically suppressed testimony by commanders in the field and others in a position to know that the Japanese attack on the US colonial base at Pearl Harbor was not only no surprise but a carefully crafted event exploited to justify US designs on Japan and China. Yet to this day the myth of surprise attack against a neutral country prevails over the historical facts. Even though there is almost popular acceptance that the US invasion of Iraq was based on entirely fabricated evidence and innuendo, the destruction of the country was not stopped and continues as of this writing.

    What does that tell us about historical record and official statements of policy? Former POTUS and CIA director, George H.W. Bush expressed the principle that government lies did not matter because the lie appears on page one and the retraction or correction on page 28. In short, it is the front page that matters. That is what catches and keeps the public’s attention. Truth and accuracy are immaterial.

    Let us consider for a moment one of the most durable wonders of published state policy—the Balfour Declaration. This brief letter signed by one Arthur Balfour on 2 November 1917 was addressed to the Lord Rothschild, in his capacity as some kind of conduit for the Zionist Federation. Carroll Quigley in his The Anglo-American Establishment strongly suggests that Lord Rothschild, also in his capacity as a sponsor of the Milner Round Table group, presented the letter for Mr Balfour to sign. As Quigley also convincingly argues the academic and media network created by the Round Table has successfully dominated the writing of British imperial history making it as suspicious as the Vatican’s history of the Latin Church.

    This “private” letter to the British representative of the West’s leading banking dynasty is then adopted as the working principle for the League of Nations’ Mandate for Palestine awarded to the British Empire. From this private letter an international law mandate was created, continued under the UN Charter, to convert a part of the conquered Ottoman Empire into a state entity for people organized in Europe who imagined that some thousand(s) of years ago some ancestors once inhabited the area.iii The incongruence of this act ought to have been obvious—and in fact it was. The explicit policy with which the British Empire had sought to undermine Germany and Austria-Hungary was that of ethnic/linguistic self-determination of peoples. So by right—even if the fiction of a population in diaspora were accepted—this could not pre-empt the right of ethnic/linguistic self-determination in Palestine where Arabic was the dominant language and even those who adhered to the Jewish religion were not Europeans.

    As argued elsewhere there has been a century of propaganda and brute force applied to render the dubious origins and the legitimation for the settler conquest that was declared the State of Israel in 1948 acceptable no matter how implausible. Like the Donation of Constantine, the Balfour Declaration served its purpose. No amount of rebuttal can reverse the events that followed.

    Motors and motives

    However, the question remains what is then the policy driving such acts? What is the motive for such seemingly senseless aggression against ordinary people? Why does an institution supposedly based on national self-determination deny it so effectively to majorities everywhere whose only fault appears to be living on land others covet? By the time the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples was finally adopted in 1960, there was no question of reversing the de facto colonisation practiced by the mandatory powers under the League. Moreover the Declaration was only an act of the UN General Assembly, a body wholly dominated by the three permanent imperial members of the Security Council, each with their veto powers.

    To understand that and perhaps to better illuminate the principal subject—Ukraine—it is helpful to recall that of the five permanent members of the Security Council, the two most powerful are not nation-states at all. The United Kingdom is a colonial confederation as is the United States.

    Russia, France, and China are all states derived from historical ethnic-linguistic determination. Beyond doubt they were formed into such unitary states through wars and revolutions. As de Gaulle famously said, “France was made with the sword”. However, there is no question that these three countries are based explicitly on ethnic-linguistic and cultural congruity within continental boundaries, in the sense articulated by the explicit text of the Covenant and the Charter. On the contrary, Great Britain and the United States are commercial enterprises organised on the basis of piracy and colonial conquest. There is not a square centimetre of the United States that was not seized by the most brutal force of arms from its indigenous inhabitants. “Ethnic-linguistic” among the English-speaking peoples is a commodity characteristic. It is a way to define a market segment.

    Great Britain gave the world “free trade” and liberalism and the US added to that the “open door”. Nothing could be more inimical to the self-determination of peoples than either policy.iv How can a people be independent and self-determined when they are denied the right to say “no”? The Great War and its sequel, the war against the Soviet Union and Communism, aka World War 2, were first and foremost wars to establish markets dominated by the Anglo-American free trade – open door doctrine. One will not find this explicitly stated in any of the history books or the celebratory speeches on Remembrance Day (Memorial Day in the US) or the anniversary of D-Day, to which properly the Soviet Union and Russia ought not to be invited. After all D-Day was the beginning of the official war by Anglo-America against the Soviet Union after Hitler failed. More of Italian, French and German industrial and domestic infrastructure was destroyed by aerial bombardment from the West than by anything the Wehrmacht did—since its job was to destroy Soviet industry. This will not be reported in schoolbooks and very few official papers will verify this open secret. That is because like the Donation much of what counts as history was simply “written to the file”. The facts, however, speak for themselves. When the German High Command signed the terms of unconditional surrender in Berlin-Karlshorst, the domestic industry of the West, except the US, had been virtually destroyed leaving it a practical monopoly not only in finance but manufacturing that would last well into the late 1960s.v Only the excess demand of the war against Korea accelerated German industrial recovery. No one can say for sure how much of German, French, Italian, Belgian, or Netherlands capital was absorbed by Anglo-American holding companies. Hence those that wonder today about the self-destruction of the German economy have to ask who owns Germany in fact. To do that one will have to hunt through the minefield of secrecy jurisdictions behind which beneficial ownership of much of the West is concealed.

    It is necessary to return to the conditions at the beginning of the Great War to understand what is happening now in Ukraine. One has to scratch the paint off the house called “interests” and recall some geography. F. William Engdahl performed this task well in his A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (2011). It would do well to summarise a few of his points before going further.

    Geography and aggrandizement

    Continental nation-states need secure land routes. Pirate states need secure sea-lanes. Britain succeeded in seizing control ruling the waves after defeating the Spanish and Portuguese fleets. It reached a commercial entente with the Netherlands, which helped until the Royal Navy was paramount. The control of the seas meant that Britain could dominate shipping as well as maritime insurance needed to cover the risk of sea transport. So it was no accident that Lloyds of London came to control the financing of maritime traffic. Geography dictated that the alternative for continental nation-states was the railroad. Germany was building a railroad from Berlin to Baghdad which would not only have delivered oil to its industry but allowed it to bypass the Anglo-French Suez Canal and the British controlled Cape route. Centuries before the predecessors to the City of London financed crusades to control the trade routes through the Middle East, propagandistically labelled the Holy Land, whereby this was wholly for commercial reasons. The Anglo-American led NATO captured Kosovo not out of any special loyalty to Albanians but because of geography. Camp Bondsteel lies at the end of the easiest route to build pipelines between Central Asia and the Mediterranean. In short there is not a single war for “self-determination” waged by the Anglo-American special relationship that was not driven by piratical motives, for which ethnic-linguistic commodities are expendable.

    In 1917, the “interests”, for whom Lord Rothschild spoke and no doubt provided financial support, coincided with the pre-emptive control over real estate that had been desired by the banking-commercial cult at least since the establishment of the Latin Church. It is no accident that serious investigations have established that the state created from the British Mandate in Palestine was a commercial venture like all other British undertakings. Moreover it has been able to use its most insidious cover story to veil itself in victimhood and thus immunity for those criminal enterprises, both private and state, that use it as a conduit: money laundering, drug and arms trafficking, training of repressive forces for other countries on contract, etc. all documented and protected by atomic weapons. Moreover this enterprise has been the greatest per capita recipient of US foreign aid for decades. Its citizens are able to use dual citizenship to hold high office in the sovereign state that funds it, too. Any attempt to criticize or oppose this relationship or its moral justification by a public official or personality with anything to lose can lead to the gravest of consequences. Its official lobby in the US, AIPAC, is only one instrument by which any act that could interfere with the smooth flow of cash or influence between Washington and Tel Aviv can be prevented or punished. It draws on an international organisation that does not even have to be organised. The status of ultimate victimhood combined with mass media at all levels committed to protecting “victims” can summon crowds just as Gene Sharp predicted in his works.vi

    A business too innocent to fail

    Now we come to the issues with which this essay began. What is the aim of the war in Ukraine? Will it end when the military operations have failed?

    In April 2022, i.e. just over a month after the Russian intervention, Volodymyr Zelenskyy described “the future for his country”. He used the terms “a big Israel”. In Haaretz it was reported that Zelenskyy wanted Ukraine to become “a big Israel, with its own face”. Writing for the NATO lobby, the Atlantic Council, Daniel Shapiro elaborated what Zelenskyy might mean: the main points are security first, the whole population plays a role, self-defence is the only way, but maintain active defence partnerships, intelligence dominance, technology as key, build an innovation ecosystem, maintain democratic institutions.vii The stories depict this stance for better or worse as the creation of a state under permanent military control, always giving priority to existential threats—presumably from the East.

    But is that really what Zelenskyy meant? Or perhaps that is what he was just supposed to say. What about those who have directed nearly all of NATO armament and so many billions through the hands of the Kiev regime—one notorious even before 2022 as the most corrupt in Europe, if not anywhere? Maybe another construction is to be applied. Perhaps Zelenskyy is talking, like some latter day Balfour, on behalf of his sponsors whose Holocaust piety never prevented them from subjecting nearly entire populations to forced medical experiments starting in 2020. Perhaps he is talking about the extensive participation in all sorts of international trafficking, either as agent or protection for the principals. Perhaps he is talking about the permanent and undebatable foreign aid contributions from the US and the extortion from other countries, e.g. as Norman Finkelstein documented.viii There is no doubt that Ukraine has become a major hub for human trafficking, arms smuggling, and biological-chemical testing. They have atomic reactors and have asked for warheads.ix

    Add to this the potential of a large and potentially self-righteous diaspora spread throughout the West, heavily subsidised and already equipped with influence in high places. A “Ukraine Lobby” was already in preparation in 1947 when the British shipped some eight thousand POWs of the SS Galizia Division (a Ukrainian force) from Italy to Britain without a single war crimes investigation.x From there they were able to spread throughout the Empire as Canada amply indicates.

    Much of the debate about the Ukraine war remains confused because of the successful obfuscation around the term “Nazi”. Essentially a Hollywood story has been substituted for analysis of the historic development of the ideology and government that prevailed in Germany between 1933 and 1945.xi Nazism is treated as sui generis based on criteria that are not unique at all. For example, great attention is given to uniforms and insignia. In fact, after the Great War all the major political factions and parties, e.g. the SPD and DKP, had uniformed paramilitary organisations formed mainly of front veterans. When the NSDAP was able to ban all opponents those uniforms also disappeared. Contemporary fascism also uses current fashion and language. Only the nostalgic retain antiquated uniform and language styles. However repulsive the ideology may be these so-called neo-Nazis are equivalent to the historical re-enactment units found throughout the US for example.

    After WW2 much of Europe was a wasteland, especially the East. Refugees understandably fled as far west as they could because getting to North or South America meant living in territories unscathed by war. The British and US secret services deliberately exploited these refugee waves to cover the removal into safety of the residue of their fascist allies. There they were to prepare for the continuation of war against the Soviet Union by other means. These formations often hid behind ethnic front groups, as the fascists did in occupied West Germany. Hence when an embarrassing discovery was made—usually some low or middle grade Nazi veteran—then he could be disgraced, tried or deported while leaving the bulk of the clandestine organisation in tact. These Nazis were obviously the result of careless immigration oversight but by no means a reflection of state policy.

    Together, historical re-enactment Nazism and “exposed” single Nazi veterans distracted from the large scale programs supporting and expanding anti-communist forces both domestically and for expeditionary deployment. Much more seriously, these two “shows” and the deliberate suppression of meaningful debate about fascist policies and practices—always reduced to anti-Jewish attitudes and actions alone—have successfully prevented any coherent analysis and debate about the relationship between Anglo-American monopoly capital and the cartels that backed the NSDAP regime or the relationship between US/ NATO policy and its consistent support of fascist regimes in Spain, Portugal and throughout the world. It has prevented coherent debate about the long forgotten but documented participation of reconstructed Nazis in the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and their active participation in the Ukrainian war against the Soviet Union after 1945.

    Zelenskyy and his fellow travellers cannot be blamed for their self-confident fascism. It is not an anomaly but a historical product of decades of Anglo-American/ NATO business plans—including the distraction of “Nazi” from the substance of those plans. Given how successful Lord Rothschild’s model for Israel has been, one can scarcely blame a patriot like Volodymyr Zelenskyy for seizing the opportunity to apply it to his own country. The model has been so successful that no one in public dare oppose it. Why not establish another such parasitic machine? Russians just like Arabs provide the permanent enemies with which to sell the permanent victim status at the expense of millions of displaced Ukrainians.

    In other words, there is a very successful business model to be implemented wholly consistent with free trade and the open door and all those other slogans, which have anointed plunder and pillage by the occasionally alpine commercial cult in their campaign to assure that all of us own nothing and they will be happy.

    Endnotes

    i Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow, “How Much as the US Sent to Ukraine Here are Six Charts”, Council on Foreign Relations (10 July 2023). Among those declaring this was Foreign Minister of the German Federal Republic, Annalena Baerbock. Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of the Federal Republic is on record having said that the so-called Minsk Accords were intended to stall the Russian reaction in Donbas until Ukraine could be sufficiently armed to fight against the Russian Federation.

    ii Principally the Hague (1907) Conventions and subsequent Geneva Conventions

    iii More likely the Eastern Europeans in question were descendent from the Khazar kingdom located far closer to what today is Ukraine. The ruling elite was to have converted to Rabbinic Judaism in the 8th century. The Khazar Khaganate was disbursed by the end of the first millennium CE. This would better explain the hostility toward Russia and myth of a national homeland, displaced in 1917 to Palestine based on contemporary political realities.

    iv Historian Gerald Horne ascribes “free trade” to the so-called Glorious Revolution, which also abolished the Royal Africa Company, opening “free trade in slaves”; see The Counter-Revolution of 1776 (2014).

    v Bombing of German factories conspicuously omitted Ford plant in Cologne and GM’s Opel factory in Russelsheim, although both Ford and GM claimed and received reparations for damage done by Allied bombers.

    vi Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (1994)

    vii Daniel B. Shapiro, “Zelenskyy wants Ukraine to be ‘a big Israel’. Here’s a road map”, New Atlanticist (6 April 2022) “By adapting their country’s mind-set to mirror aspects of Israel’s approach to security challenges, Ukrainian officials can tackle national security challenges with confidence and build a similarly resilient state”.

    viii Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry (2000)

    ix This notorious request by Zelenskyy at the Munich Security Conference in 2022 for atomic weapons was another reason President Vladimir Putin gave for a military response to Kiev’s attacks on the Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine that Russia had been forced to recognise as two independent republics and grant protection.

    x A documentary produced by Julian Hendy (The SS in Britain) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjj__aya4BA contains interviews, e.g. with civil servants who were told by US authorities that no pre-immigration investigations were to be conducted. This film about the 14th Waffen SS Division Galizia division has been almost scrubbed from the Web. The film, originally to be broadcast by Yorkshire Television (UK) was never shown. Geoffrey Goodman described details after a private viewing in a Guardian article (12 June 2000).

    xi A useful source for the historical context and actual description of the NSDAP regime can be found in Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944, a detailed study written originally in English by Franz Neumann. This book comprises two parts: the NS state and the economic system. Very little attention is paid to the section on the economic system although the regime cannot be understood without its legacy economic policies and the bureaucracy responsible for implementing them.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Former Papuan governor Enembe’s corruption trial ends – verdict soon

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Yamin Kogoya

    Former Papuan Governor Lukas Enembe has presented his case for the defence, denying the corruption and bribery charges against him, with the end of the controversial and lengthy trial at the Tipikor Court of Jakarta Central District Court this week. The verdict is due on October 9.

    During the hearing, Enembe and his legal team argued there was no evidence to support the allegations made by the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK) prosecutor.

    The two-term Papuan governor and his legal team firmly stated that the KPK prosecutors had no evidence in the indictment against him.

    In a statement presented by his lawyer, Petrus Bala Pattyona, Enembe strongly denied the allegations of receiving bribes and gratuities from businessmen Rijatono Lakka and Piton Enumbi.

    Enembe emphasised that the accusations made against him were “baseless and lacked substantial evidence”.

    Enembe maintains innocence
    He stated that his case was straightforward, as he was being accused of accepting a staggering amount of 1 billion rupiahs (NZ$100,000) from Rijatono Lakka, along with a hotel valued at 25.9 billion rupiahs (NZ$2,815,000) and a number of physical developments and money amounting to Rp 10,413,929,500.00 or 10.4 billion rupiahs (NZ$1,131,000) from Piton Enumbi, lawyer Pattyona said during the reading, reports Kompas.com.

    Enembe maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings and asserted that he had never received any form of illicit payments or favours from either businessman.

    The simplicity of Lukas’ case, as stated by his lawyer, Petrus Bala Pattyona, lay in the clarity of the accusations made against his client.

    Enembe and his legal team emphasised that none of the testimony of the 17 witnesses called during the trial could provide evidence of their involvement in bribery or gratuities in connection with Lukas Enembe, reports National.okenews.com.

    “During the trial, it was proven very clearly that no witness could explain that I received bribes or gratuities from Rijatono Lakka and Piton Enumbi,” Enembe said through his lawyer Pattyona during the hearing, reports Kompas.com.

    “I ask that the jury of pure hearts and minds, who have tried my case, may decide on the basis of the truth that I am innocent and therefore acquit me of all charges,” Enembe said.

    In addition to asking for his release, Enembe also asked the judge to unfreeze the accounts of his wife and son that were frozen by the authorities when this legal saga began last year.

    He claimed his wife (Yulce Wenda) and son (Astract Bona Timoramo Enembe) needed access to their funds to cover daily expenses.

    Ex-Governor Enembe also discussed gold confiscated by the KPK, calling on judges to allow its return.

    Enembe asked that no party criminalise him anymore. He insisted he had never laundered money or owned a private jet, as KPK had claimed.

    Enembe’s lawyer also requested that his client’s honour be restored to prevent further false accusations from emerging.

    KPK prosecutor’s demands
    However, the public prosecutors of the KPK considered Lukas Enembe legally and conclusively guilty of corruption in the form of accepting bribes and gratuities when he served as Governor of Papua from 2013 to 2023.

    The prosecutors alleged that there was evidence that Lukas Enembe had violated Article 12 letter A and Article 12B of the Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 31 of 1999 concerning the Eradication of Corruption Criminal Acts and Article 55 paragraph. (1) of I of the Criminal Code jo Article 65, clause (1), of the Criminal Code, reports Beritasatu.com.

    In addition to corporal crime, the two-term governor of Papua was fined Rp 1 billion. He was also ordered to pay Rp 47,833,485,350 or 47.9 billion rupiah (NZD$5,199,000) in cash, accusing him of accepting bribes totalling Rp 45.8 billion and gratitude worth 1 billion, reports Kompas.com.

    A verdict date is set
    The Jakarta Criminal Corruption Court panel of judges is scheduled to read the verdict in the case against Enembe on 9 October 2023.

    “We have scheduled Monday, October 9, 2023, for the reading of the verdict against the defendant Lukas Enembe,” said presiding judge Rianto Adam Pontoh yesterday at the Central Jakarta District Court after undergoing a hearing of the readings, reports CNN.com.

    The date marks an important milestone in the trial as it will bring clarity to the charges against Enembe. The outcome of the judgement will have a profound impact on Enembe’s future and the public perception of his integrity and leadership, and most importantly, his deteriorating health.

    Former Governor’s health
    Previously, the KPK prosecutor had requested a sentence of 10 years and six months in prison.

    Enembe’s senior lawyer, Professor OC Kaligis, argued that imprisonment of Enembe for more than a decade would be tantamount to the death penalty due to the worsening of his illness, calling it “brutal demands” of the KPK prosecutors.

    “The defendant’s health condition when examined by doctors at Gatot Soebroto Army Central Hospital (RSPAD) showed an increasingly severe illness status. So we, legal counsel, after paying attention to the KPK Public Prosecutor’s concern for the defendant’s illness, from the level of investigation to investigation, concluded that the KPK Public Prosecutor ignored the defendant’s human rights for maximum treatment.

    “With such demands, the KPK Public Prosecutor expects the death of Lukas Enembe in prison,” said Professor Kaligis, reports mambruks.com.

    Lukas Enembe’s life
    Former Governor Lukas Enembe was born on 27 July 1967 in Mamit village, Kembu Tolikara, Papua’s highlands. He graduated from Sam Ratulangi University, Manado, in 1995, majoring in socio-political science.

    After returning to West Papua, he began his public service career in the civil service of Merauke district.

    Enembe studied at Christian Cornerstone College in Australia from 1998 to 2001. In 2001, he returned to West Papua and ran for the regency election, becoming the deputy regent of Puncak Jaya.

    In 2007, he was elected as the regent of Puncak Jaya.

    Enembe served as the Governor of Papua from 2013 to 2018 and was re-elected for a second term from 2018 to 2023.

    His tenure focused on infrastructure development and cultural unity in West Papua, leading to landmark constructions such as a world-class stadium and a massive bridge.

    He also introduced a scholarship scheme, empowering hundreds of Papuan students to pursue education both locally and abroad — such as in New Zealand which he visited in 2019.

    Enembe’s achievement as the first Highlander from West Papua to become governor is a groundbreaking milestone that challenged long-held cultural taboos.

    His success serves as an inspiration and symbolises the potential for change and unity in the region.

    His ability to break cultural barriers has significantly impacted the development of West Papua and the collective mindset of its people, turning what was once regarded as impossible into possibilities through his courage and bravery.

    The fact that he is still holding on despite serious health complications that he has endured for a long time under Indonesian state pressure is widely regarded as a “miracle”.

    One could argue that West Papua’s predicament as a whole is mirrored in Enembe’s story of struggle, perseverance, pain, suffering, and a will to live despite all odds.

    Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic 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.

    Papuan students in Aotearoa New Zealand pictured with Papua provincial Governor Lukas Enembe
    Flashback: Papua Provincial Governor Lukas Enembe (rear centre in purple batik shirt) with some of the West Papuan students in Aotearoa New Zealand during his visit to the country in 2019. Image: APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Advocacy group calls on Senator Wong to press Jakarta over latest West Papua atrocities report

    Asia Pacific Report

    An Australian advocacy group supporting West Papuan self-determination has appealed to Foreign Minister Penny Wong to press Indonesia to halt all military operations in the region following new allegations of Indonesian atrocities reported in The Guardian newspaper.

    In a letter to the senator yesterday, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) protested against the report of torture and killing of civilians in West Papua.

    According to an investigative report by Mani Cordell in The Guardian on Monday, Indonesian security forces tortured and burned to death a 17-year-old high school student, Wity Unue.

    Quoting Raga Kogeya, a West Papuan human rights activist, the report said:

    “Wity had been interrogated and detained along with three other boys and two young men under suspicion of being part of the troubled region’s rebel army.

    “They were taken by special forces soldiers who rampaged through the West Papuan village of Kuyawage, burning down houses and a church and terrorising locals.

    “Transported by helicopter to the regional military headquarters 100km away, the group were beaten and burnt so badly by their captors that they no longer looked human.

    “Kogeya says Wity died a painful death in custody. The other five were only released after human rights advocates tipped off the local media.

    “‘The kids had all been tortured and they’d been tied up and then burned,’ says Kogeya, who saw the surviving boys’ injuries first-hand on the day of their release.”

    The AWPA letter by spokesperson Joe Collins said: “Numerous reports have documented the ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua, the burning of villages during military operations and the targeting of civilians including children.”

    The most recent cited report was by Human Rights Monitor titled “Destroy them first… discuss human rights later” (August 2023), “brings to attention the shocking abuses that are ongoing in West Papua and should be of concern to the Australian government”.

    Quoting from that report, the letter stated:

    “This report provides detailed information on a series of security force raids in the Kiwirok District, Pegunungan Bintang Regency, Papua Pegunungan Province (until 2022 Papua Province) between 13 September and late October 2021.

    “Indonesian security forces repeatedly attacked eight indigenous villages in the Kiwirok District, using helicopters and spy drones. The helicopters reportedly dropped mortar grenades on civilian homes and church buildings while firing indiscriminately at civilians.

    “Ground forces set public buildings as well as residential houses on fire and killed the villagers’ livestock.”

    The AWPA said Indonesian security force operations had also created thousands of internal refugees who have fled to the forests to escape the Indonesian military.

    “It has been estimated that there are up to 60,000 IDPs in the highlands living in remote shelters in the forest and they lacking access to food, sanitation, medical treatment, and education,” the letter stated.

    In light of the ongoing human rights abuses in the territory, the AWPA called on Senator Wong to:

    • urge Jakarta to immediately halt all military operations in West Papua;
    • urge Jakarta to supply aid and health care to the West Papuan internal refugees by human rights and health care organisations trusted by the local people; and to
    • rethink Australia cooperation with the Indonesian military until the Indonesian military is of a standard acceptable to the Australian people who care about human rights.

    A New Zealand advocacy group has also called for an immediate government response to the allegations of torture of children in West Papua.

    “The New Zealand government must speak out urgently and strongly against this child torture and the state killing of children by Indonesian forces in West Papua this week,” said the West Papua Action Aotearoa network spokesperson Catherine Delahunty.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A Year of Lying about Nord Stream

    A screen grab from Danish Defense shows the gas leak from the exploded Nord Stream pipelines causing bubbles on the surface of the Baltic Sea on September 30, 2022. / Photo by Swedish Coast Guard Handout / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images.

    I do not know much about covert CIA operations—no outsider can—but I do understand that the essential component of all successful missions is total deniability. The American men and women who moved, under cover, in and out of Norway in the months it took to plan and carry out the destruction of three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea a year ago left no traces—not a hint of the team’s existence—other than the success of their mission.

    Deniability, as an option for President Joe Biden and his foreign policy advisers, was paramount. No significant information about the mission was put on a computer, but instead typed on a Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona typewriter with a carbon copy or two, as if the Internet and the rest of the online world had yet to be invented. The White House was isolated from the goings-on near Oslo; various reports and updates from the field were directly provided to CIA Director Bill Burns, who was the only link between the planners and the president who authorized the mission to take place on September 26, 2022. Once the mission was completed, the typed papers and carbons were destroyed, thus leaving no physical trace—no evidence to be dug up later by a special prosecutor or a presidential historian. You could call it the perfect crime.

    There was a flaw—a gap in understanding between those who carried out the mission and President Biden, as to why he ordered the destruction of the pipelines when he did. My initial 5,200-word report, published in early February, ended cryptically by quoting an official with knowledge of the mission telling me: “It was a beautiful cover story.” The official added: “The only flaw was the decision to do it.”

    This is the first account of that flaw, on the one-year anniversary of the explosions, and it is one President Biden and his national security team will not like.

    Inevitably, my initial story caused a sensation, but the major media emphasized the White House denials and relied on an old canard—my reliance on an unnamed source—to join the administration in debunking the notion that Joe Biden could have had anything to do with such an attack. I must note here that I’ve won literally scores of prizes in my career for stories in the New York Times and the New Yorker that relied on not a single named source. In the past year we’ve seen a series of contrary newspaper stories, with no named first-hand sources, claiming that a dissident Ukrainian group carried out the technical diving operation attack in the Baltic Sea via a 49-foot rented yacht called the Andromeda.

    I am now able to write about the unexplained flaw cited by the unnamed official. It goes once again to the classic issue of what the Central Intelligence Agency is all about: an issue raised by Richard Helms, who headed the agency during the tumultuous years of the Vietnam War and the CIA’s secret spying on Americans, as ordered by President Lyndon Johnson and sustained by Richard Nixon. I published an exposé in the Times about that spying in December 1974 that led to unprecedented hearings by the Senate into the role of the agency in its unsuccessful attempts, authorized by President John F. Kennedy, to assassinate Cuba’s Fidel Castro. Helms told the senators that the issue was whether he, as CIA director, worked for the Constitution or for the Crown, in the person of presidents Johnson and Nixon. The Church Committee left the issue unresolved, but Helms made it clear he and his agency worked for the top man in the White House.

    Back to the Nord Stream pipelines: It is important to understand that no Russian gas was flowing to Germany through the Nord Stream pipelines when Joe Biden ordered them blown up last September 26. Nord Stream 1 had been supplying vast amounts of low-cost natural gas to Germany since 2011 and helped bolster Germany’s status as a manufacturing and industrial colossus. But it was shut down by Putin by the end of August 2022, as the Ukraine war was, at best, in a stalemate. Nord Stream 2 was completed in September 2021 but was blocked from delivering gas by the German government headed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz two days prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Given Russia’s vast stores of natural gas and oil, American presidents since John F. Kennedy have been alert to the potential weaponization of these natural resources for political purposes. That view remains dominant among Biden and his hawkish foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland, now the acting deputy to Blinken.

    Sullivan convened a series of high-level national security meetings late in 2021, as Russia was building up its forces along the border of Ukraine, with an invasion seen as almost inevitable. The group, which included representatives from the CIA, was urged to come up with a proposal for action that could serve as a deterrent to Putin. The mission to destroy the pipelines was motivated by the White House’s determination to support Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Sullivan’s goal seemed clear. “The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” the official told me. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.”

    Major_russian_gas_pipelines_to_europe.png (771×807)
    The major gas pipelines from Russia to Europe. / Map by Samuel Bailey / Wikimedia Commons.

    I now know what I did not know then: the real reason why the Biden administration “brought up taking out the Nord Stream pipeline.” The official recently explained to me that at the time Russia was supplying gas and oil throughout the world via more than a dozen pipelines, but Nord Stream 1 and 2 ran directly from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. “The administration put Nord Stream on the table because it was the only one we could access and it would be totally deniable,” the official said. “We solved the problem within a few weeks—by early January—and told the White House. Our assumption was that the president would use the threat against Nord Stream as a deterrent to avoid the war.”

    It was no surprise to the agency’s secret planning group when on January 27, 2022, the assured and confident Nuland, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, stridently warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, as he clearly was planning to, that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not. The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies.”

    Asked by a reporter how she could say with certainty that the Germans would go along “because what the Germans have said publicly doesn’t match what you’re saying,” Nuland responded with an astonishing bit of doubletalk: “I would say go back and read the document that we signed in July [of 2021] that made very clear about the consequences for the pipeline if there is further aggression on Ukraine by Russia.” But that agreement, which was briefed to journalists, did not specify threats or consequences, according to reports in the Times, the Washington Post, and Reuters. At the time of the agreement, on July 21, 2021, Biden told the press corps that since the pipeline was 99 percent finished, “the idea that anything was going to be said or done was going to stop it was not possible.” At the time, Republicans, led by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, depicted Biden’s decision to permit the Russian gas to flow as a “generational geopolitical win” for Putin and “a catastrophe” for the United States and its allies.

    But two weeks after Nuland’s statement, on February 7, 2022, at a joint White House press conference with the visiting Scholz, Biden signaled that he had changed his mind and was joining Nuland and other equally hawkish foreign policy aides in talking about stopping the pipeline. “If Russia invades—that means tanks and troops crossing . . . the border of Ukraine again,” he said, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Asked how he could do so since the pipeline was under Germany’s control, he said: “We will, I promise you, we’ll be able to do it.”

    Scholz, asked the same question, said: “We are acting together. We are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different steps. We will do the same steps, and they will be very very hard to Russia, and they should understand.” The German leader was considered then—and now—by some members of the CIA team to be fully aware of the secret planning underway to destroy the pipelines.

    By this point, the CIA team had made the necessary contacts in Norway, whose navy and special forces commands have a long history of sharing covert-operation duties with the agency. Norwegian sailors and Nasty-class patrol boats helped smuggle American sabotage operatives into North Vietnam in the early 1960s when America, in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, was running an undeclared American war there. With Norway’s help, the CIA did its job and found a way to do what the Biden White House wanted done to the pipelines.

    At the time, the challenge to the intelligence community was to come up with a plan that would be forceful enough to deter Putin from the attack on Ukraine. The official told me: “We did it. We found an extraordinary deterrent because of its economic impact on Russia. And Putin did it despite the threat.” It took months of research and practice in the churning waters of the Baltic Sea by the two expert US Navy deep sea divers recruited for the mission before it was deemed a go. Norway’s superb seamen found the right spot for planting the bombs that would blow up the pipelines. Senior officials in Sweden and Denmark, who still insist they had no idea what was going on in their shared territorial waters, turned a blind eye to the activities of the American and Norwegian operatives. The American team of divers and support staff on the mission’s mother ship—a Norwegian minesweeper—would be hard to hide while the divers were doing their work. The team would not learn until after the bombing that Nord Stream 2 had been shut down with 750 miles of natural gas in it.

    What I did not know then, but was told recently, was that after Biden’s extraordinary public threat to blow up Nord Stream 2, with Scholz standing next to him, the CIA planning group was told by the White House that there would be no immediate attack on the two pipelines, but the group should arrange to plant the necessary bombs and be ready to trigger them “on demand”—after the war began. “It was then that we”—the small planning group that was working in Oslo with the Royal Norwegian Navy and special services on the project—“understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command.”

    After Biden’s order to trigger the explosives planted on the pipelines, it took only a short flight with a Norwegian fighter and the dropping of an altered off-the-shelf sonar device at the right spot in the Baltic Sea to get it done. By then the CIA group had long disbanded. By then, too, the official told me: “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war”—Putin was in the process of annexing the four Ukrainian oblasts he wanted—“but was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up” the shuttered Nord Stream 2. “The White House fear was that Putin would get Germany under his thumb and then he was going to get Poland.”

    The White House said nothing as the world wondered who committed the sabotage. “So the president struck a blow against the economy of Germany and Western Europe,” the official told me. “He could have done it in June and told Putin: We told you what we would do.” The White House’s silence and denials were, he said, “a betrayal of what we were doing. If you are going to do it, do it when it would have made a difference.”

    The leadership of the CIA team viewed Biden’s misleading guidance for its order to destroy the pipelines, the official told me, “as taking a strategic step toward World War III. What if Russia had responded by saying: You blew up our pipelines and I’m going to blow up your pipelines and your communication cables. Nord Stream was not a strategic issue for Putin—it was an economic issue. He wanted to sell gas. He’d already lost his pipelines” when the Nord Stream I and 2 were shut down before the Ukraine war began.

    Within days of the bombing, officials in Denmark and Sweden announced they would conduct an investigation. They reported two months later that there had indeed been an explosion and said there would be further inquiries. None has emerged. The German government conducted an inquiry but announced that major parts of its findings would be classified. Last winter German authorities allocated $286 billion in subsidies to major corporations and homeowners who faced higher energy bills to run their business and warm their homes. The impact is still being felt today, with a colder winter expected in Europe.

    President Biden waited four days before calling the pipeline bombing “a deliberate act of sabotage.” He said: “now the Russians are pumping out disinformation about it.” Sullivan, who chaired the meetings that led to the proposal to covertly destroy the pipelines, was asked at a later press conference whether the Biden administration “now believes that Russia was likely responsible for the act of sabotage?”

    Sullivan’s answer, undoubtedly practiced, was: “Well, first, Russia has done what it frequently does when it is responsible for something, which is make accusations that it was really someone else who did it. We’ve seen this repeatedly over time.

    “But the president was also clear today that there is more work to do on the investigation before the United States government is prepared to make an attribution in this case.” He continued: “We will continue to work with our allies and partners to gather all of the facts, and then we will make a determination about where we go from there.”

    I could find no instances when Sullivan was subsequently asked by someone in the American press about the results of his “determination.” Nor could I find any evidence that Sullivan, or the president, has been queried since then about the results of the “determination” about where to go.

    There is also no evidence that President Biden has required the American intelligence community to conduct a major all-source inquiry into the pipeline bombing. Such requests are known as “Taskings” and are taken seriously inside the government.

    All of this explains why a routine question I posed a month or so after the bombings to someone with many years in the American intelligence community led me to a truth that no one in America or Germany seems to want to pursue. My question was simple: “Who did it?”

    The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • PNG’s Chief Censor warns over ‘fake nudes’ harassment of young girls

    By Marjorie Finkeo in Port Moresby

    The rise in social media platforms uploading naked pictures of women and girls has come to the attention of the Censorship Board in Papua New Guinea with Chief Censor Jim Abani warning about the dangers.

    In what many have termed as cyber bullying, a picture of women or girls uploaded on social media is then downloaded by other people who use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in creating new content like images and videos of the women or girls involved in sexual activities, including being naked and also involved in pornography.

    Chief Censor Abani said his office had received many complaints regarding GAI in creating new content like images and videos of recent reported cases, including uploading of nude images of females on social media.

    He said it was disrespectful and a “disgrace to our mothers and sisters”.

    More than 20 girls in Spain reported receiving AI-generated naked images of themselves in a controversy that has been widely reported globally.

    When they returned to school after the summer holidays, more than 20 girls from Almendralejo, a town in southern Spain, received naked photos of themselves on their mobile phones.

    Chief Censor Abani said the increase of using new and advanced technology features was alarming for a young and developing country such as PNG.

    “We are talking about embracing communication and connective and empowering economy but also the high risks and dangers of wellbeing is my concern, Chief Censor Abani said.

    “I call on those sick minded or evil minded people to stop and do something useful and contribute meaningful to nation building.

    New Facebook trend
    “This is a new trend with Facebook users in the country on social media platforms increasing with unimaginable ways of discriminating and harassment using fake names to post images — particularly of young females — that are not suitable for public consumption or viewing,” he said.

    He said he was calling on all relevant agencies to come together, including the Censorship Office, to start implementing some policies and regulations to address these
    issues.

    Chief Censor Abani said people were unaware of dangers — “particularly our female users of social media platforms”.

    These acts were without the individuals’ consent and knowledge using Generative AI applications.

    “Technology is good but we must use wisely and being responsible in using such information that is provided,” he said.

    He said the Censorship Office would work closely with Department ICT, DATACO and NICTA, police cybercrime unit to use the Cybercrime Code Act to punish perpetrators while waiting for the Censorship Act to finalise a review and amendments.

    Marjorie Finkeo is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • ‘Remain calm’, Fiji’s Pio tells public over firebombing incident in Suva

    By Meri Radinibaravi in Suva

    The Fiji government has warned the public “don’t panic” as news of an alleged firebombing incident at Totogo Police Station in the heart of Suva sent shockwaves around the community.

    The incident yesterday also spurred questions about the safety of citizens in the country as such activities were reportedly occurring brazenly, out in the open and during daylight.

    Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua also acknowledged that this was an alleged attempt to attack a key security facility and represented a direct threat to Fiji’s security forces and the peace and security of the nation.

    The Totogo Police Station firebombing incident
    The Totogo Police Station firebombing incident yesterday. Image: Fivivillage News screenshot APR

    “The public should remain calm and confident in our commitment to maintaining peace and security,” he said at a media conference.

    He also confirmed that the 33-year-old suspect was admitted at Colonial War Memorial Hospital after suffering burns, where he remained under police guard.

    The man is expected to be taken back into custody once he has recovered.

    Fijivillage News reports that Tikoduadua said the man threw a lit bottle filled with flammable liquid into the charge room, and in his attempt to throw another bottle he was apprehended.

    Meri Radinibaravi is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

  • NZ election 2023: Dear NZ, our foundations are in ruin and there’s no political courage for tomorrow

    COMMENTARY: By Martyn Bradbury

    Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition – and poll leader — National Party’s three biggest donors have a combined net worth of $15 billion.

    The bottom 50 percent of NZ has $23 billion.

    The top 5 percent of New Zealanders own roughly 50 percent of New Zealand’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent of New Zealanders own a miserable 5 percent.

    IRD proved NZ capitalism is rigged for the rich and business columnist Bernard Hickey calculates that if we had had a basic capital gains tax in place over the last decade, we would have earned $200 billion in tax revenue.

    $200 billion would have ensured our public infrastructure wouldn’t be in such an underfunded ruin right now.

    There are 14 billionaires in NZ plus 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals with more than $50 million each. Why not start start with them, then move onto the banks, then the property speculators, the climate change polluters and big industry to pay their fair share before making workers pay more tax.

    Culture War fights make all the noise, but poor people aren’t sitting around the kitchen table cancelling people for misusing pronouns, they are trying to work out how to pay the bills.

    ‘Bread and butter’ pressures
    “Bread and butter” cost of living pressures are what the New Zealand electorate wants answers to, and that’s where the Left need to step up and push universal policy that lifts that cost from the people.

    The Commerce Commission is clear that the supermarket duopoly should be broken up and the state should step in and provide that competition.

    We need year long maternity leave.

    We need a nationalised Early Education sector that provides free childcare for children under 5.

    We need free public transport.

    We need free breakfast and lunches in schools.

    We need free dental care.

    We need 50,000 new state houses.

    We need more hospitals, more schools and a teacher’s aid in every class room.

    We need climate change adaptation and a resilient rebuilt infrastructure.

    Funded by taxing the rich
    We need all these things and we need to fund them by taxing the rich who the IRD clearly showed were rigging the system.

    That requires political courage but there is none.

    No one is willing to fight for tomorrow, they merely want to pacify the present!

    Just promise me one thing.

    Don’t. You. Dare. Vote. Early. In. 2023!

    I can not urge this enough from you all comrades.

    Don’t vote early in the 2023 election.

    The major electoral issues facing New Zealanders in 2023 . . . inflation, followed by housing and crime. Climate is in fifth position, behind health
    The major electoral issues facing New Zealanders in 2023 . . . inflation, followed by housing and crime. Climate is in fifth position, behind health. Image: The Daily Blog/IPSOS

    Secrecy of the ballot box
    I’m not going to tell you who to vote for because this is a liberal progressive democracy and your right to chose who you want in the secrecy of that ballot box is a sacred privilege and is your right as a citizen.

    But what I will beg of you, is to not vote early in 2023.

    Comrades, on our horizon is inflation in double figures, geopolitical shockwave after geopolitical shockwave and a global economic depression exacerbated by catastrophic climate change.

    As a nation we will face some of the toughest choices and decision making outside of war time and that means you must press those bloody MPs to respond to real policy solutions and make them promise to change things and you can’t do that if you hand your vote over before the election.

    Keep demanding concessions and promises for your vote right up until midnight before election day AND THEN cast your vote!

    We only get 1 chance every 3 years to hold these politicians’ feet to the fire and they only care before the election, so force real concessions out of them before you elect them.

    This election is going to be too important to just let politicians waltz into Parliament without being blistered by our scrutiny.

    Demand real concessions from them and THEN vote on Election Day, October 14.

    If the Left votes — the Left wins!

    Republished with permission from The Daily Blog.

  • Court Precedent Destroys Trump’s 2024 Legal Challenge

    Groups across the country are filing legal challenges to Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and they are arguing that the 14th Amendment prevents Trump from being legally able to hold office. But can those arguments hold up in court? That’s a question that a lot of people may not like the answer to. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more. […]

    The post Court Precedent Destroys Trump’s 2024 Legal Challenge appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

    This post was originally published on The Ring of Fire.

  • Korean doomsday sect Grace Road saga deepens with leader in Fiji custody

    By Henry Pope

    Fiji’s government has taken the local leader of an influential South Korean doomsday sect into immigration custody after he and several other members of the Grace Road Church were declared “prohibited migrants” based on charges filed in 2018.

    Fiji had announced last Thursday that it was taking steps to deport Daniel Kim and the other sect members who had been detained.

    The passports of the sect members had been annulled by the Korean government in 2021, and Interpol “red notices” were issued against them.

    Fiji Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua revealed that all of this had been ignored by the previous repressive Fiji government led by former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama, according to Fijivillage News and other local media.

    Tikoduadua said two sect members had already been deported while the deportations of another two were temporarily halted by a court order.

    One more member was still at large.

    A joint investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP) and KICJ-Newstapa last year exposed how the secretive Grace Road became an economic powerhouse in Fiji during the 16-year rule of Bainimarama, who lost power in elections last December.

    Reporters discovered that the church was able to thrive in Fiji despite Kim and other key members being wanted on international warrants.

    The investigation also uncovered how the church expanded its empire, which included a farm, restaurants, petrol stations, and supermarkets, all while receiving millions in state-backed loans.

    Grace Road’s spiritual leader, Kim’s mother Ok-joo Shin, was arrested at Seoul’s international airport in 2018 and imprisoned for offences, including assault, child abuse, and imprisoning church members.

    Around the same time, South Korean police attempted to bring Kim and other church members back on similar charges in Fiji but were forced to return empty-handed after a court blocked their removal.

    Republished with permission from the Organised Crime and Corruption Organising Project (OCCRP).

  • The Fiji Times: We need to work together in the war against crime

    SUNDAY TIMES EDITORIAL: By The Fiji Times editor Fred Wesley

    If there is a rise in robberies in some of Fiji’s urban areas, then something must be triggering it. Unless this is the norm, and robberies are part and parcel of life in these urban centres, something is amiss, and we need to get to the bottom of what’s causing it.

    Residents along Raiwaqa’s Falvey Rd, we learn, are living in fear as robberies in the area have become an almost daily occurrence. Biren Pal, 61, a resident of the area for more than six decades, claimed robberies and assaults were a norm.

    Last Sunday, Mr Pal was robbed and, in the process, was severely injured in the face when thieves mobbed him before fleeing with his mobile phone. He was walking to a friend’s house when he was pushed to the ground and knocked unconscious.

    The Fiji Times
    THE FIJI TIMES

    He only regained consciousness when his friends took him to the hospital. Southern Police Commander SSP Wate Vocevoce confirmed receiving a complaint from Mr Pal.

    He said in the past four months crimes committed in the area included four cases of assault, one of burglary and property damage and one case of theft.

    In the Lagilagi area in the past six months, police recorded 14 cases of assault, one case each of theft, assault, intimidation, and trespass and two cases of property damage. Now such robberies and assaults on people are harmful for many reasons.

    Aside from the pain and suffering it causes people like Mr Pal, there is the negative impact on life itself for those living in the area for instance.

    Fear, uncertainty and doubt
    There is fear, uncertainty and doubt cast over the area because of the actions of thugs.

    The ripple effect on businesses in the area is felt by everyone connected to it.

    And we are talking about stores operating in the area, shoppers, staff of these stores and residents living in the area.

    There is a sense of fear that may stick to the area because of the robberies.

    People will eventually hesitate to travel through the area, to shop there, or visit family and friends for instance. It breeds doubt, with only the brave who are willing to take their chances, visiting it.

    When High Court judge Justice Daniel Goundar sentenced a 19-year-old casual labourer for stealing a mobile phone recently, he mentioned that muggings were prevalent.

    In the Western Division, we learn that theft, assault, and burglary were among the most reported crimes in the division in the month of August.

    Decrease in overall crime
    Divisional police commander West senior superintendent of police (SSP) Iakobo Vaisewa said while these criminal acts were at the top of the list, their division has noted a decrease in the overall crime rate though.

    “Even if the smallest item is stolen, they are investigated,” he said.

    Now that’s a good thing because how else are we supposed to fight this? We look up to the police force to put in place measures that will empower people to assist it in the war against crime.

    Fiji needs people who are willing to put their hands up and accept responsibility for their actions. In saying that, we look up to the powers that be to lead the way.

    However, it is obvious that we need a united front.

    The flip side to that is more crime, and more uncertainty, insecurity, fear and doubt! And those who assault and rob people need to get a life!

    This editorial was published in Fiji’s Sunday Times today under the title “We need to work together”. Republished with permission.

  • Fiji immigration officials detain Grace Road cult leader Daniel Kim

    By Vijay Narayan and Mosese Raqio in Suva

    Grace Road group Fiji president Daniel Kim is currently in Fiji immigration custody as he has been declared a prohibited immigrant, according to Immigration Minister Pio Tikoduadua.

    Speaking to Fijivillage News this afternoon, Tikoduadua confirmed that Kim had been located and that he was a prohibited immigrant.

    He said there was a court order that stopped Kim from being removed from Fiji now but the government was appealing against the court decision.

    Tikoduadua confirmed yesterday that Daniel Kim was on the run after his passport was nullified by the South Korean government, and the Fiji government stated that it was unable to locate him.

    Tikoduadua said seven other people from Grace Road in Fiji were wanted by the Korean government and this included acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Jin Sook Yoon, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.

    Also on the run is Jin Sook Yoon.

    Tikoduadua confirmed that the government of South Korea communicated through diplomatic channels on 21 September 2018 that they had nullified the passports of the seven individuals connected with the Grace Road cult.

    Passports nullified
    He said these individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid and a warrant issued for their arrest.

    The Fiji Immigration Minister said that in July 2018, “red notices’ were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as “fugitives wanted for prosecution”.

    He said all of these notices were ignored by the former government.

    Tikoduadua said that using his discretion as Minister under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared Prohibited Immigrants making their presence in Fiji unlawful.

    He said yesterday that a task force, consisting of police and immigration officers, began the removal of these individuals.

    Kim had called a press conference at Grace Road Navua yesterday afternoon challenging claims by Tikoduadua that he was on the run and he had demanded an apology from the minister.

    Kim also confirmed that two Grace Road members, namely Byeong Joon Lee and Boemseop Shin, had been removed from the country without the group’s knowledge or information about the removal process.

    Republished from Fijivillage News with permission.

  • Stamping out ‘local terrorism’ a high priority for PNG, says Governor Juffa

    PNG Post-Courier

    Northern Governor Gary Juffa has joined Papua New Guinea’s police chief and the Prime Minister in calling for Papua New Guineans to lay down arms and cease acts of local terrorism.

    “I stand with the Commissioner of Police, David Manning, and Prime Minister James Marape to apply the full force of the law to quell all forms of local terrorism in PNG and, particularly, in Northern Province.

    “I am particularly concerned as a few weeks ago my Oro Bay RPSC [rural police station commander] Sergeant Terry Giwaya was ruthlessly gunned down only a few kilometres away from his station,” Governor Juffa said.

    “I commend Commissioner Manning and his ACP Southern Clement Dalla for their swift action in responding to our plight, seeing through the proficient capture of the alleged thugs and the recovery of an alleged police firearm.

    “The success of this operation is attributed also to the provincial police command, our local Northern police personnel,” Juffa said

    “All gloves off” was not an order given lightly by any police commissioner or prime minister but with “our ignorance of the rule of law” and the disrespect to its enforcement machinery — the RPNGC — such an order was “timely and very necessary”.

    Law and order priority
    Juffa added that law and order in Northern Province would always be a priority on a par with health, infrastructure and education and had seen the Northern provincial government spending close to 1 million kina (about NZ$463,000) to date.

    “Every citizen has a right to move freely without fear and to engage in commerce with the full covering of the laws of our country,” Juffa said.

    “I stand with my prime minister and our police commissioner to clamp down on local terrorism and elements that fuel the atrocities.”

    Governor Juffa indicated plans were afoot to take the body of Sergeant Giwaya back home, including an official programme scheduled to take place after the September 16 independence celebrations next weekend.

    Republished with permission.

  • Interpol ‘red notices’ against 7 Grace Road cult figures, but court orders stay

    By Anish Chand in Lautoka

    The High Court in Lautoka yesterday issued orders to the Fiji police and the Immigration Department not to remove four members of the controversial South Korean religious cult Grace Road from Fiji.

    They are Beomseop Shin, Byeongjoon Lee, Jung “Daniel” Yong Kim and Jinsook Yoon.

    The interim injunction was issued restraining the Director of Immigration, Commissioner of Police, Airports Fiji Ltd, Civil Aviation Authority of Fiji, Fiji Airways and Air Terminal Services from removing these individuals from Fiji.

    The High Court has adjourned the case to September 18 at 9am for hearing.

    The restraining order was obtained by Gordon and Company of Lautoka.

    Earlier, Home Affairs Minister Pio Tikoduadua had called on members of the public to reach out to the authorities if they had information on the whereabouts of Grace Road president “Daniel” Jung Yong Kim and Jin Sook Yoon, reports The Fiji Times’ Meri Radinibaravi.

    An International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) red notice was issued for Kim, Yoon and five other South Korean individuals in July 2018, which Tikoduadua said had been “ignored by the former government”.

    Red notices
    The seven individuals are Kim, Yoon, acting Grace Road president Sung Jin Lee, Nam Suk Choi, Byeong Joon Lee, Beomseop Shin and Chul Na.

    “In July 2018, red notices were published by Interpol referring to these individuals as ‘fugitives wanted for prosecution’. All of these were ignored by the former government,” Tikoduadua told the media yesterday.

    “Using my discretion as minister, under Section 13(2)(g) of the Immigration Act, these individuals were declared prohibited immigrants — making their presence in Fiji unlawful.

    “In that regard, may I just use this opportunity to reach out to these other two who, in my view perhaps, are trying not to be seen or noticed by anybody.

    “We’re unable to reach them, the police obviously, and the relevant authorities are looking for them. Let me remind the general public that it is an offence to actually harbour people who are wanted, it’s against the law to do that.

    “So, please, we welcome information with regard to their location as they are prohibited immigrants in Fiji.”

    Tikoduadua said that while Kim and Yoon were still at large, Joon Lee and Shin had been successfully transported back to Korea, accompanied by a South Korean Embassy interpreter and four Fiji police personnel who “will return to Fiji after a brief stay in South Korea”.

    Passports nullified
    “These individuals’ passports were nullified by the Korean government in relation to charges laid by the South Korean government which had issued a warrant for their arrest.

    “During the removal process, Fiji Airways declined to transport Sung Jin Lee and Nam Suk Choi due to a High Court order. The Solicitor-General (Ropate Green) has received this court order for review.

    “Ms Lee and Ms Choi have been released and are currently at the Grace Road farm in Navua.

    “Additionally, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration is exploring legal options under the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act 1997 and the Extradition Act 2003, given that these individuals are subject to an Interpol red notice.”

    Tikoduadua said that yesterday, Green had indicated plans to appeal the court order.

    Anish Chand is a Fiji Times reporter. Republished with permission.

  • Nikki Haley: The Defense Industry’s New War Horse

    America’s Lawyer E66: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is suffering from a serious health problem, but his aides – and even the Capitol Physician – are refusing to acknowledge that there’s a problem. Crime has become so bad in parts of California that a city councilman was recently robbed while he was talking to reporters about […]

    The post Nikki Haley: The Defense Industry’s New War Horse appeared first on The Ring of Fire Network.

  • Crime Online

    The majority of property crimes now occur online. Our legal system hasn’t caught up.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Papuan lawyers call for impartial probe into woman killed over NZ hostage

    Jubi News

    The Human Rights Lawyers Association (PAHAM) Papua has demanded a “thorough and impartial” investigation into the death of Michelle Kurisi, a civilian involved in gathering information about a New Zealand pilot held hostage by West Papuan pro-independence fighters.

    She was tragically killed on August 28 in Kolawa District, Lanny Jaya Regency, in the Mountainous Papua Province.

    Following Kurisi’s killing, a statement claiming responsibility for the act was made by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) spokesperson, Sebby Sambom.

    The TPNPB alleged that the victim had collaborated with security forces and had engaged in spying activities during her visit to Nduga, where she was collecting data on refugees, including information related to the release of the New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens who has been held hostage by a TPNPB group since February 7.

    Gustaf R. Kawer, chair of PAHAM Papua, said that the focus of the investigation should not be to find a scapegoat or advance a politically motivated narrative.

    Instead, it should prioritise an independent inquiry that delved into the victim’s daily life, her occupation, work-related relationships, and her mission to Nduga, including identifying the institutions or parties she was collaborating with.

    He said it was crucial to determine who was with her until she met her tragic end.

    ‘Close ties with police officers’
    “Based on PAHAM Papua’s digital tracing and monitoring efforts,” Gustaf Kawer said in a media release, “it appears that the victim had close ties with several high-ranking police officers in Papua and was actively involved in various conflicts in the region.”

    Therefore there was a pressing need for an in-depth, impartial investigation into Michelle Kurisi’s death by a neutral entity.

    This would help prevent claims and narratives driven by political interests.

    Kawer stressed the importance of gathering witnesses and evidence — including the victim’s digital footprint — her recent activities, and communications with various parties, particularly during her trip to Nduga.

    These elements were critical in unravelling the motive behind her murder, he said.

    Furthermore, the victim’s participation in a a webinar titled “Indonesia Walk Out Why?” hosted by Bishop Joshua Tewuh was noteworthy.

    During this event, she expressed support for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) delegation and criticised the Indonesian government strongly.

    Speculation about motive
    Given her recent track record, there was speculation about the motive behind her murder, Kawer said.

    It was possible that her death was not solely orchestrated by the TPNPB but could involve groups with vested interests in Papua, aiming to silence her for her statements or to manipulate the narrative surrounding the Papua conflict.

    In light of these circumstances, Gustaf Kawer urged the Indonesian government to establish an independent team, through the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), to investigate cases of extrajudicial killings thoroughly.

    This action was essential to prevent unfounded claims and protect civilians in Papua, whether by the TPNPB or the security forces,he said.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG mother murdered after ‘prayer warrior’ falsely accused her as evil

    PNG Post-Courier

    Standing silently, the 8-year-old girl in Papua New Guinea could only watch as her mother was stripped and tortured until she succumbed to her injuries, catching her last breath in front of her daughter last Wednesday.

    The woman, identified as Lorna Nico, 39, from Kira LLG in the Sohe district, was married to a man from Mumeng and moved to Bulolo to be with the husband and start a family.

    Lorna Nico died after being tortured in front of her daughter after a so-called “prayer warrior” accused her of having satanic powers and being a witch, bringing bad luck into the community.

    She was tortured so badly that salt was used to pour into her wounds causing her more pain while her daughter watched her die.

    The bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Reverend Jack Urame, condemned the actions of the community in Mumeng, saying that the mixing of religion and sorcery was “not what the Bible taught”.

    He said there was “a shift in people using Christianity to identify suspected sorcerers which was now being used to destroy families and commit murders”.

    “Using Christianity as a means to enact killings against those accused of sorcery is an idea condemned by the churches. I as the head of the Lutheran Church do not promote such
    acts and I condemn the actions taken against the innocent family,” Reverend Urame said.

    ‘Prayer warrior’ accused
    Morobe Rural police commander Superintendent David Warap said that the use of the “prayer warrior” pushed the community to commit the torture and the killing.

    “The prayer warrior, using the name of the Lord, started performing a prayer ritual and was describing and naming people in the village who she claimed had satanic powers and were killing and causing people to get sick, have bad luck and struggle in finding education, finding jobs and doing business,” Superintendent Warap said.

    “Upon the woman’s announcement, youths and villagers agreed to kill Lorna and when the village councillors and mediation group tried to stop them, they threatened the group,” he added.

    Lorna Nico saw the group coming and told her family to run.

    “She had with her, her 8-year-old who she was trying to drag and run,” Superintendent Warap said.

    “She looked ahead to her older children and told them to run for their lives. The group of men quickly surrounded Lorna, dragged her and her daughter back to the village and proceeded with the torture.”

    Children fled in fear
    After Lorna Nico died, the group of men left her out in the sun and then they dug a hole and threw her in, covering her body with a canvas.

    The children, in fear of their lives, left the village and walked with several other villagers to the nearest police station.

    Police got to the scene and removed the body and took the body to Angau Hospital morgue in Lae where the corpse will be examined.

    The family have now petitioned the Bulolo MP Sam Basil Jr to ensure the police investigate the case and arrests are made.

    The petition also states that the woman who was brought in as a “prayer warrior” should be identified and dealt with by police for falsely accusing their mother.

    They have also demanded that the rule of law must prevail and they would not accept any form of compensation for their loss.

    Police are continuing their investigation.

    Sorcery accusation-related violence (SARV) in Papua New Guinea is a growing social crisis.

    Republished with permission.

  • PNG deploys armoured vehicles to Enga in action against ‘domestic terrorism’

    By Theophiles Singh in Port Moresby

    Police Commissioner David Manning has warned Papua New Guinea’s security force staff and partners not to let their guard down as hostilities remain simmering in the Highlands with a risk of violent confrontations.

    He said that a stronger approach was needed by the security forces against troublemakers, and increased engagement between stakeholders was yielding results.

    Deputy Commissioner of Police Operations Phillip Mitna has announced that more than 200 security personnel will be deployed with two armoured vehicles to curb a recent spike of killings and tribal fighting in Enga province.

    The deployment will consist of more than 120 PNG Defence Force soldiers who are already on the ground, with an additional two Mobile Squad units who are on standby to be deployed soon.

    Deputy Commissioner Mitna also announced that the Police Commissioner had given the green light to establish a Special Police Unit, similar to the Airborne Tactical Unit (ATU), which would be dedicated solely towards dealing with domestic terrorism in the country.

    “The commissioner has announced the formation of the Kumul 23 Police tactical unit, but further details will be revealed later on,” he said.

    “They will report directly to the Commissioner of Police.

    Rapid deployment unit
    “This will be a rapid deployment unit, tasked to respond to violent crimes like domestic terrorism and domestic threats,” he said.

    “The unit will be spearheaded by the Police but we will have support from the Defence Force as well. “We hope to increase its numbers as high as 1000 personnel.”

    He said multiple search warrants had also been issued to apprehend several hired gunmen and their accomplices.

    This included sponsors and connections who were supplying arms and funding tribal warfare in the province.

    “Search warrants have been issued, some have been executed and some are yet to be executed.

    “We are taking a proactive and reactive approach to the situation,” he said.

    “We have information on several leaders ‘in general’ being involved and are currently working on issuing search warrants.

    Pending approval
    “Some of these warrants are pending approval from the court magistrates.”

    Deputy Commissioner Mitna said the police would not stop until these instigators of violence faced justice.

    He explained that drastic measures had been taken to promptly and safely ensure law and order was returned to normal as the Lagaip Open byelection was approaching.

    The priority areas include Wapenamanda, Lagaip and Porgera.

    “As part of our proactive strategy, we will be deploying Engan-based senior Police officers from NCD back to the province so that they can talk to their own people,” Deputy Commissioner Mitna said.

    But this approach needed the support of the wider community, including business houses, church groups and community leaders who would provide additional support to settle the situation.

    Intel officers
    “Our reactive approach will include our intel officers, who will move on the ground to conduct investigations into identifying those involved to arrest and prosecute them,” he said.

    He said the public was advised not to believe everything that had been spread on social media because most of what was shared online was false and inaccurate.

    “We have both Wapenamanda and Pogera contained, but we have isolated cases of particularly several hired gunmen being killed,” Deputy Commissioner Mitna said.

    “Other than that, we are stepping up operations and the entire area is currently under our microscope,” he said.

    Deputy Commissioner Mitna said that rival factions were using “hit and run” and “guerrilla type” warfare, obstructing police from identifying and arresting perpetrators.

    Theophiles Singh is a PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

     

     

     

  • Five prisoners shot dead in PNG after taking pastor, warder hostage

    PNG Post-Courier

    Five Papua New Guinean prisoners have been shot dead in Buiebi, Imbongu, Southern Highlands, after taking a pastor and duty warder hostage yesterday.

    And while the guards were trying to figure out a way to rescue the hostages, a further 10 prisoners in Barawagi Prison, Chimbu, also escaped.

    Correctional Services Commissioner Stephen Pokanis confirmed both breakouts saying they were trying to put together information about the incidents.

    At Buiebi, between noon and 1pm “about 49 prisoners made a run for the main gate and took with them a pastor and duty warder as hostages,” said Commissioner Pokanis.

    “Forty four managed to escape while five were shot dead.

    “The prisoners held a pastor and duty warder and escaped through the main gate.”

    Commissioner Pokanis said: “Police and the PNG Defence Force are working together with the Correctional Services officers to look for the escapees.

    Second lunchtime escape
    “I can also confirm that the second escape of 10 men at Barawagi Correctional Institution was at lunch time too. Seven were recaptured while 3 were still on the run,” he added.

    These are the third and fourth prisoner breakouts in PNG this year after earlier breakouts in West New Britain and Western Highlands.

    On April 23, at Lakiemata prison in West New Britain, about 16 prisoners were shot dead with investigations still ongoing.

    At Baisu, Western Highlands, 27 prisoners are still on the run with two caught.

    “We will ensure these prisoners are caught and brought back to the prisons,” Commissioner Pokanis said.

    Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • PNG to upgrade Tribal Fights Act with life in jail for ‘domestic terrorists’

    PNG Post-Courier

    Papua New Guineans engaged in tribal fights will face life imprisonment once Parliament has its way with the amendment of the Tribal Fights Act in October.

    And the PNG government is looking at amending laws to also give police additional powers and immunity under special operations to protect the lives of policemen and women.

    The “restlessness” in Enga over the last couple of days has been labelled as “domestic terrorism”, which the security forces will be addressing under the special police unit and force that has been instructed to be set up.

    Prime Minister James Marape enroute to Wabag, Enga Province and then onto Port Vila, Vanuatu, fpor the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders’ summit yesterday said the October Parliament Session would deal with amending the Tribal Fights Act to stop these “horrific fights” throughout the country.

    Under he PNG Constitution there is an Inter-group Fighting Act 1977 with a purpose to discourage fighting between groups of Papua New Guineans by providing for:

    • The creation of offences in relation to such fighting;
    • The imposition of severe penalties for such offences;
    • The collective punishment of the leaders of groups involved in fighting; and
    • The imprisonment of group leaders for non-payment of penalties imposed on them as a result of their group’s participation in such fighting.

    Severe penalties
    The Tribal Fights Act, now under a policy directive to be enacted, will be severe and is expected to deal specifically with life imprisonment among other punishments.

    “Next October when we go to Parliament, we will be amending the Tribal Fights Act,” Marape said.

    “Those who start tribal fights will be receiving life imprisonment, not just for Enga but right across the country.

    “We don’t want people to get engaged in tribal fights, those who cause tribal fights we will give them life imprisonment and that is the policy direction my government has given with the necessary legal change happening and being drafted as we speak.

    “For now, police have been instructed to look into stepping up their operations.”

    Police Commissioner David Manning had put in place an operational order and re-structure to enable the military and police to cooperate — “we try to get a specific command, a high-ranking police officer,” Marape said.

    “I will be stepping into Wabag today and will address our people out there . . . and will be appealing to the people out there.

    It was not the entire Enga Province involved, it was about four tribal fights based on police intelligence.

    “We know who the ring leaders of the tribal fights are,” Marape said.

    “In respect to restlessness in our country we are labelling this restlessness as domestic terrorism and so a special police unit being organised will go in full power to specific hotspot areas.”

    Republished with permission.

  • Violent crime is rising in North Korea amid food shortages

    Murder and other violent crimes are on the rise in North Korea amid spreading hunger, but authorities have had little success in stemming the violence, residents in the country say.

    Most North Koreans are struggling to survive and get food on their tables amid poor harvests and a weak economy still recovering from COVID-19 shutdowns, and sources say the pressures have led to an uptick in weapons-related offenses.

    “Judicial authorities are strengthening controls by mobilizing special riot police, inspection teams, and police officers to crack down on residents’ passage at night, but criminal acts are not decreasing,” said a resident of North Hamgyong province who, like others interviewed by RFA Korean for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity citing security concerns.

    “Last month, while staying at a friend’s house to earn some money in Kyongsong county, a man stabbed the friend in the stomach with a knife because the friend asked him to pay for lodging and meals,” he said. “Cases of injuring people with weapons like this are increasing recently.”

    Intelligence collected by South Korean authorities indicate crime is rising north of the border and starvation is spreading.

    In May, the country’s National Intelligence Service reported to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee that violent crimes in North Korea had tripled compared to the same period last year, while the country’s suicide rate increased by 40%.

    South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said last week that the number of people who died of starvation in North Korea from January to July this year more than doubled compared to the average over the past five years as the food situation in North Korea worsened.

    ENG_NK_Crime&Hunger_08232023.2.jpg
    North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un visiting a field affected by Tropical Storm Khanun in Ogye-ri, Kangwon province, in this undated photo released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Aug. 14, 2023. Credit: KCNA via KNS/AFP

    In another incident, earlier this month, a man stabbed someone to death when he was caught trying to steal a cellphone from someone who was drunk and sleeping in a park, the resident said.

    “The reason why the number of these cases – murder using a weapon after a trivial argument – is increasing recently is that life is becoming more difficult day by day,” he said. “The difficulties have led to emotional outbursts. Now, residents are constantly anxious and reluctant to go out, especially when it gets dark.”

    The local social security department has mobilized special riot police and random patrols, both day and night, “to devise measures to prevent incidents, including criminal acts, in advance,” the source said, “but violent criminal acts are not decreasing.”

    The resident said that the Workers’ Party Central Committee has ordered judicial institutions to deal with the problem, but noted that doing so had become increasingly challenging “because people’s personalities have become very sensitive due to difficult living conditions.”

    Even schools are unsafe

    A resident of Ryanggang province, who declined to be named, told RFA that the local populace has also become fearful of violent crime there amid a spate of attacks.

    “A few days ago, a person who was arguing over a trivial matter on the road took out a knife he had already been carrying and stabbed another person’s leg and body, causing injuries,” he said. “There are so many criminal acts involving weapons that people are afraid to even speak face to face.”

    The source added that violent crimes are also occurring at schools, leading staff to conduct inspections of students’ bags and other belongings.

    “But these projects are only temporary measures, and there is a limit to eliminating [the crimes], no matter how much the judicial authorities try to control them,” he said.

    Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Myung Chul for RFA Korean.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Looting the Looters: Theft at the British Museum

    What happens when the looters are looted?  Perhaps that strange sense of satisfaction called justice, an offence cancelled by another.  One therefore greets the realisation that the British Museum has been suffering a number of such cases with some smugness.  What makes them even more striking is the inability of staff to have picked up on the matter in the first place. When they did come to light, the habitual tendency to bury, or deny matters as best as possible, also found form.

    On August 16, the British Museum stated in a press release that an independent review into its security was being launched “after items from the collection were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.”  The extent of such theft or damage is not clear, though the Museum revealed that one member of staff had been dismissed, with legal action being taken against the unnamed individual.  The Metropolitan Police, through its Economic Crime Command branch, was also investigating the matter.

    Led by former trustee, Sir Nigel Boardman, and Lucy D’Orsi, Chief Constable of the British Transport Police, the review is intended to furnish the Museum with “recommendations regarding future security arrangements” while also commencing “a vigorous programme to recover the missing items.”

    Short on detail, the Museum gave some sense about the items involved, which were, it was keen to point out, “kept primarily for academic and research purposes.”  These included “gold jewellery and gems of semi-precious stones and glass dating from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD.”

    Officials have been keen to contain the scandal, with director Hartwig Fischer insisting that this was “highly unusual”.  In apologising for the whole affair, he also assured the public that “we have now brought an end to this – and we are determined to put things right.”  Fischer’s own occupancy of the director’s role is also coming to an end in 2024.

    The Chair of the Museum, George Osborne, formerly Chancellor of the Exchequer, even saw an opportunity to weave the theft into a strategy of reforming the institution.  “This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the Museum we have embarked upon.”

    The person who seems to have spurred such reimagining was subsequently identified as Peter John Higgs, a curator of Greek antiquities of some prominence.  There is a delicious irony in this, given the fraught history the Museum has had with the Elgin Marbles, so brazenly taken from the Parthenon in Athens by the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1801.

    Much the same could be said about many artefacts housed in the BM’s collections, including the Benin bronzes and the Easter Island Hoa Hakananai’a.  As the notable human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson sourly remarked in 2019, “The trustees of the British Museum have become the world’s largest receivers of stolen property, and the great majority of their loot is not even on public display.”

    What has since emerged is that the Museum has been less than frank about the spate of pilfering, let alone the number of items missing from its inventory.  One report suggests that the number might be anywhere between 1,500 to 2,000, taken over a period of two decades.

    Publicity is being made about the artefacts through official channels without much specificity, which can be taken either as a sign of acute awareness as to where they might be found, or old-fashioned, groping ignorance.  Christopher Marinello, lawyer and CEO of Art Recovery International, is of the latter view.

    Higgs, it transpires, was sacked on July 5 with barely a murmur, despite having led the 2021 exhibition  “Ancient Greeks: Athletes, Warriors and Heroes,” which was received by three Australian museums and slated to arrive in Suzhou Museum in China at the end of the year.  The Higgs dismissal took place, it has been reported, for his alleged role behind the disappearance of various gold jewellery, semi-precious stones and glass.

    The suspicion here is that Higgs operated stealthily, removing the objects over a number of years.  Somewhat odder, and less stealthy, was how many of those objects found their way onto eBay.  Prices also dramatically varied, suggesting either a cheeky sense of humour, or the understanding of an untutored eye.  One item of Roman jewellery, made from onyx, valued anywhere between £25,000 and £50,000, fetched the less than princely sum of £40.

    In 2016, an unnamed antiquities expert cited in a Telegraph report began noting various listings of glass items and semi-precious gems on the e-commerce site.  Pieces from the Townley collection of Graeco-Roman artifacts, which the Museum started purchasing in 1805, were spotted under an eBay seller by the name of “sultan1966”.  Sultan1966 proved less than forthcoming to the expert in question when confronted about any link to Higgs.

    In June 2020, the Museum was informed of the matter.  In February 2021, the BBC revealed that an art dealer by the name of Ittai Gradel had alerted the institution about some of the items being sold online.  Deputy director Jonathan Williams took five months to rebuff the claim: “there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing.”  An unconvinced Gradel chased up matters with a museum board member, claiming that Williams and Fischer had swept “it all under the carpet.”  In October 2022, Fischer repeated the line that “no evidence” of wrongdoing had been identified.

    The son of the alleged perpetrator, Greg Higgs, is mightily unimpressed, declaring that his father could not have been responsible.  “He’s lost his job and his reputation, and I don’t think it was fair.  It couldn’t have been (him). I don’t think there is even anything missing as far as I’m aware.”  The lamentable conduct by the British Museum, notably in initially insisting that nothing had gone missing, would suggest that someone is telling a glorious fib.

    The Economist, in reacting to the affair, suggested that making off with such items from a museum “is easier than you might think.”  But what also matters is the museum’s response to alleged claims of theft.  As Marinello puts it, instances of pilfering are not unusual, but the British  Museum’s failure to involve the police “right away” was nothing short of “shocking”.  The Higgs matter suggests as much and is likely to prove a tonic to those seeking a return of various collections lodged in the British Museum over the years.

    Lina Mendoni, Greece’s Minister of Culture, is one who wasted little time suggesting that the missing objects reinforced “the permanent and just demand of our country for the definitive return” of the Parthenon Marbles.  The fact that the incidents had taken place “from within, beyond any moral and criminal responsibility” questioned “the credibility of the organisation itself.”  Such theft has somehow put the universe of looted treasures into greater balance.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.