X-Post: WSWS- Voting period extended in Papua New Guinea election

By Mike Head
10 July 2012

Anational election called by the unconstitutional, Australian-supported government in Papua New Guinea has become a shambles, forcing an unscheduled third week of polling in seven provinces. Voting in the Eastern Highlands province will now end on July 17—11 days after the original July 6 national deadline.
Logistical breakdowns, combined with allegations of violence, corruption, vote-buying, ballot box-stuffing and the exclusion of enrolled citizens from voting, have thrown the elections into disarray. An extension of time was granted by Governor-General Sir Michael Ogio on the advice of Electoral Commissioner Andrew Trawen.

The disruptions have cast doubt on the hopes of de facto Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, and his backers in Canberra and Washington, that the elections would end months of political instability, and provide a veneer of legitimacy to his administration.
Because of the mountainous terrain and lack of infrastructure across the country, the elections were intended to last a fortnight, ending last Friday. The delay in balloting will push back the counting of votes and then the negotiations between the various parties to form a new government, which are not expected to be concluded until next month.

Infighting within O’Neill’s shaky parliamentary coalition has also worsened, with his deputy prime minister, Belden Namah, accusing O’Neill of orchestrating a “disaster” by reversing the government’s earlier decision to postpone the elections by six months. In April, O’Neill had pushed legislation through parliament to authorise a delay, but did an about-face when threatened with sanctions by Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr. Protests led by university students against an election postponement also placed the de facto prime minister under pressure.
On June 28 Namah issued a press release denouncing O’Neill for bowing to the advice of Australian “advisers” to go ahead with the poll, despite the electoral rolls not being ready. Namah claimed that thousands of people had been deprived of voting rights. He issued a populist appeal to the public resentment against interference by Australia, the former colonial power that ruled Papua New Guinea (PNG) until 1975. “We must be patriotic and nationalistic in our approach towards decision making for the future of our country,” he declared.

Supporters of Michael Somare, whom O’Neill ousted as prime minister last August, have questioned the legitimacy of the elections. Somare’s son Arthur, a sitting member of parliament, said the delayed voting would be influenced by the results declared in the 11 provinces where balloting had finished. Michael Somare fuelled political tensions by telling Australia’s SBS media network that he would win the election and ensure that O’Neill “will go to jail”.
The country’s small political establishment is splintered into 46 so-called parties—many based on local businessmen who have benefited as a result of huge mining operations. In the largest project, US transnational Exxon-Mobil, along with its Australian-based partners, has committed $16 billion to develop natural gas fields in the southern Highlands, with production due to commence in 2014.

A record 3,435 candidates are vying for 89 local and 22 provincial seats. The election has been dominated by “money politics”—the purchasing of votes by wealthy power brokers, or by disbursements from parliamentarians’ electoral allowances. According to media reports, it is not uncommon for businessmen in the western and southern highlands to fork out 1 million kina ($US480,000) on campaigns—subsidising sporting teams and other groups, buying pigs for feasts and financing campaign teams.
The conflicts over the election threaten to deepen a political crisis that began with O’Neill’s removal of Somare, which the country’s Supreme Court declared unconstitutional last December. The court reaffirmed that ruling in May, ordering O’Neill to step down. Instead, O’Neill unlawfully reconvened parliament, purporting to nullify the ruling, even though the assembly had already been prorogued for the national elections.

The turmoil is a striking example of the tensions being generated throughout the Asia-Pacific region by the aggressive drive of the Obama administration to combat China’s growing influence. Washington and Canberra welcomed Somare’s ouster because the longstanding prime minister had developed closer relations with Beijing, and encouraged Chinese investment in major mining ventures.
The US plainly expects Australia to ensure that Chinese influence is pushed back in PNG. The United States was “in a competition with China” in PNG, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated publicly in March 2011. She referred specifically to the importance of the US investment in the Exxon-Mobil project.

Canberra has devoted considerable resources to staging an election that can lend credibility to O’Neill. About 250 military personnel from Australia and New Zealand, together with 22 members of the newly created Australian Civilian Corps, have been deployed. Among other tasks, they have transported more than 1,000 PNG soldiers and police officers to the highlands on the pretext of providing security for the voting.
The Australian High Commissioner to PNG, Ian Kemish, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that it was an unprecedented amount of assistance. After the “pretty turbulent political period over the course of the last year,” he said, it was “very important” for PNG to “move on into new political territory where there’s more clarity and more stability.”

Last week, Australian Financial Review defence columnist Geoffrey Barker, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, wrote that Australia had to arrest PNG’s “plunging trajectory towards state failure”. He advocated providing Australian civilian and military officials to “assist in running struggling departments,” and expanding project aid “to match efforts being made by China to gain a toehold in PNG.”

Barker also suggested that it may be necessary to launch an army and police intervention along the lines of the Australian-led RAMSI occupation of Solomon Islands in 2003. That was a colonial-style takeover of the key levers of power in the small South Pacific state, designed to reinforce Australian hegemony in the region. Barker said such an operation would be criticised by some PNG leaders as “imperialist and neo-colonial”, but “Australia is entitled to protect its citizens, its security and commercial interests in PNG.”
This blatant assertion of Australian interests is another sign of preparations for intense conflicts, military and civil, in the Asia-Pacific region. Last month, the Australian reported that military strategists had drawn up detailed plans for the invasion of PNG, as well as Fiji, as part of the Labor government’s 2009 Defence White Paper.

After the Australian report appeared, the Lowy Institute lamented the fact that the article had “further damaged Australia’s legitimacy to influence PNG political elites and eroded public support among locals for greater Australian intervention.” Nevertheless, the institute insisted that indications of “the most violent and corrupt elections in the nation’s 37-year post-independence history” made clear that “Australia and other friends of PNG” needed to act.
A RAMSI-style intervention in PNG, a far larger country than Solomon Islands, with a population nearing seven million, would require substantial US support, even more than was the case during the 1999 Australian-led military occupation of East Timor. The Obama administration’s rotation of 2,500 US Marines per year through Darwin by 2017 and associated aerial and logistical support could assist such an operation.
Whatever the eventual outcome of the PNG elections, plans are clearly being discussed in Canberra and Washington to assert their geo-strategic interests, notably against China, regardless of the wishes of PNG’s people.

The author also recommends:
Australian military plans for invasion of Fiji and PNG[12 June 2012]
Further political turmoil in Papua New Guinea
[2 June 2012]



Club Em Designs

X-Post-Grubsheet: #99 SMALL COUNTRY, BIG VOICE

 By Graham Davis

– June 22, 2012Posted in: All

Fiji chairs the UN General Assembly (Photo: UN)

The sight of Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Peter Thomson, chairing the General Assembly is yet another reminder that although Fiji is a relatively small country, it punches way above its weight. This week, Peter has been Acting President of the General Assembly, conducting the everyday business of the UN from the famous podium that has produced some of  history’s most memorable images – from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat waving his pistol to Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev banging his shoe. Along with hundreds of speeches from everyone from Che Guevara to Nelson Mandela, from the Queen to Frank Bainimarama.

Thirsty work: Peter Thomson (l) with his Fiji Water within reach (Photo:UN)

It was especially apt that with Ambassador Thomson in the chair, the General Assembly considered reports about the financing of UN peacekeeping operations. This is what really makes Fiji an indispensable member of the club of nations – its ability and willingness to provide troops to wear the UN blue beret in some of the world’s toughest places. All Fijians owe a great debt to the men and women of the military who’ve given their unstinting service – and sometimes their lives – to improving the lives of ordinary people in the Middle East and elsewhere by protecting them from conflict. And for sending the money they earn home to help support their communities in Fiji.

Fijian UN peacekeepers ( photo: UN)

It’s made heroes in the most unlikely places of tough but softly spoken people from island villages on the far side of the world. And it’s given a country of which many would otherwise never have heard gratitude and respect.  Yes, Fiji gets an important source of revenue from its peacekeeping operations. But it remains one of the few nations able and willing to put its troops in the firing line to defend the UN ideal of collective responsibility for all the world’s people.

Ambassador Semesa Sikivou (r) with UN Secretary General U Thant in 1970 ( Photo: UN)

Graham Davis

" Peter has worked tirelessly for the country’s interests, shifting the axis of its global relationships from its traditional western allies to a policy of being “a friend to all”. He has spearheaded the Bainimarama government’s Look North Policy, launched formal diplomatic relations with more than three dozen countries and organised its membership of the Non Aligned Movement[...]

Fiji gain the benefit of lining up with some of the biggest players of the Asia Pacific region, the global powerhouse of the 21st century. And it has moved these countries out from under the skirts of their “big brothers” Australia and New Zealand, which belong to an entirely separate UN bloc – the Western European and Others Group. "

Peter Thomson is the latest in a long line of Fijians who’ve represented the country in New York, starting with the late Semesa Sikivou at the time of independence in 1970. He has had a remarkable personal and professional history. The son of Sir Ian Thomson– one of the most respected administrators of the colonial era who stayed on to head the sugar industry and Air Pacific – Peter began his career as a district officer in Fiji and was then a diplomat in Tokyo and Sydney. He was Permanent Secretary for Information when – with a pistol on the table – Sitiveni Rabuka forced him to write the formal announcement of the first coup of 1987. Then, after he became permanent secretary to the then governor-general, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, Peter became a target of ethno-nationalist extremists in the second coup of the same year. He was tracked down and thrown into a prison cell for several days before being forced to leave the country altogether.

Peter effectively spent more than 20 years in exile, first in New Zealand and then Australia, where he became a successful writer and authored Kava in the Blood, a compelling account of his life in Fiji. Then out of the blue three years ago came a call from Frank Bainimarama’s office. Would he agree to represent Fiji at the UN?

Ambassador Peter Thomson with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ( Photo:UN)

Would he ever. Grubsheet – an old friend – recalls the immense satisfaction for Peter in being recalled to represent his country of birth. It was as if his life had come full circle, the lifting of a two-decade long punctuation mark in his career of service to Fiji.

In New York, Peter has worked tirelessly for the country’s interests, shifting the axis of its global relationships from its traditional western allies to a policy of being “a friend to all”. He has spearheaded the Bainimarama government’s Look North Policy, launched formal diplomatic relations with more than three dozen countries and organised its membership of the Non Aligned Movement. He has vigorously pursued Fiji’s interests in such areas as tackling global warming and rising sea levels, preserving the maritime environment and, of course, the peacekeeping operations that are so important to the country’s economy and prestige. And he has played a vital role in batting off attempts by Australia and New Zealand to have Fiji excluded from those operations as punishment for the 2006 coup.

Frank Bainimarama addresses the UN (Photo:UN)

Even more importantly, perhaps, Peter has taken steps to fundamentally lift Fiji’s status in the global community. He was a prime mover in the formation of the UN voting bloc known as the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS), which gives Pacific nations a far bigger voice in global affairs by acting in concert. PSIDS has succeeded in joining the Asian Group at the UN, which is now officially known as the Asian and Pacific Small Island Developing States Group. This means countries like Fiji gain the benefit of lining up with some of the biggest players of the Asia Pacific region, the global powerhouse of the 21^st century. And it has moved these countries out from under the skirts of their  “big brothers” Australia and New Zealand, which belong to an entirely separate UN bloc – the Western European and Others Group.

The strategic importance of such a re-alignment cannot be overstated. It certainly underlines a fundamental truth about life in the global village for small nations like Fiji. They may not have the ability to project the same power and influence as their bigger neighbours. But in the UN system, it’s numbers, not brawn, that really counts, except for the five permanent members of the Security Council, who enjoy powers of veto. Every other nation gets just one vote. And that is certainly exercising the minds of the Australians right now as they mount a global campaign to get a temporary Security Council seat. Given Canberra’s present hostility towards Fiji, it certainly cannot expect to get Fiji’s support.

An effective foreign minister: Ratu Inoke Kubuabola ( Photo:UN)

Peter Thomson, of course, is a cog in the wheel of Fiji’s international relationships, albeit a big one. His ultimate boss, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola  has been a successful foreign minister and the two enjoy a close relationship as they work with other ambassadors and diplomatic staff to further Fiji’s international ties. And they, in turn, have the confidence of the Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama, who’s become an effective advocate himself both for Fiji and the region in global forums – most recently at the environment summit in Brazil. However much the regime’s critics might decry Commodore Bainimarama’s penchant for globe-trotting, a small country’s loudest voice will always come from its leader and lower-level representation rarely has the same impact. It’s simply a fact of life that for Fiji to be heard, the Prime Minister needs to travel widely to properly put its case.

His Excellency in his previous incarnation as an author (Photo: Peter Thomson)

It was Bainimarama who hand picked Peter Thomson for the UN job. Their fathers had known each other in the 1960s when Thomson Senior was Commissioner Western and Bainimarama Senior was the region’s Supervisor of Prisons. Almost half a century on, Grubsheet is pleased to have played a minor part in re-establishing the connection when – after an interview with the Prime Minister- we talked about the old days in the West and I mentioned that Peter and I got together regularly in Sydney to talanoa about Fiji. Bainimarama’s eyes lit up and while he didn’t say so at the time, he evidently began mulling over the possibility of using Peter in some senior role.

Soon afterwards, Peter began a private mission – financed by veteran Fiji businessmen Mark Johnson and Dick Smith – to try to bridge the gap between Fiji and its Australian and NZ critics. He went to Port Moresby to enlist the support of the PNG leader, Sir Michael Somare, and the initiative produced the first meeting of the respective parties for some time.

That was in 2009. Three years on and Ambassador Thomson is chairing the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a triumphant personal story, the Kai Valagi (European) civil servant removed at gunpoint and forced to leave Fiji now sitting as moderator and adjudicator at the pinnacle of global affairs. But it’s also one of the triumphs of Bainimarama’s determination to use the best people- irrespective of race – to present Fiji’s face to the world. To see my old mate sitting there on the UN podium – Fiji Water bottle by his side – fills me with pride, as it surely must others who hope that Fiji’s best days as a united, prosperous, multiracial nation lie ahead.


Club Em Designs

X-Post- PNG ATTITUDE: Foreign policy, strategic policy & electoral politics

FRANCIS HUALUPMOMI / China

FOREIGN POLICY AND STRATEGIC (SECURITY/MILITARY) policy usually play an important role in election campaigns. 

However, these policies feature much less in Papua New Guinea’s political parities and candidates’ political manifestos. Foreign policy and strategic policy of states are two of the most important elements that define or determine a state’s coexistence and sustainability in the international system. Both feature predominantly in almost all political parties or candidates’ campaigns around the world.

Foreign policy is an explicit policy defining how a state should interact with others (state and non-state actors) in the international system to pursue its national interest. This interaction could be undertaken at bilateral or multilateral level where economic and security assume dominant roles. The strategic policy explicitly defines the national security of the state. Security and survival of state are fundamental. A state without a defensive system expressed in terms of military power is more vulnerable to external and internal threats.The defence/military power projection of state ensures protection of sovereignty and people from foreign invasion or other threats securitized as potential or real.

Both foreign policy and strategic policy are not the same but are closely interrelated. Foreign policy defines how a state should strategically interact to ensure peace and stability regionally or globally. For instance, PNG’s recent UN peacekeeping contribution to Sudan demonstrates the strategic dimension of foreign policy - how our foreign policy is achieved through defence force.

The question one should be asking now is how effective is PNG’s foreign policy and strategic policy in addressing national development? What is PNG’s role in an increasingly complex web of interdependent and globalized world? How can PNG rationally position itself in the region and globally given its growing economic power consistent with Vision 2050? These are some of the basic but fundamental questions political parties and candidates should be highly considering or addressing during campaigns. Since independence less or if not almost all parties and candidates calculate foreign policy and strategic policy as low key issues.

Interestingly, one would find that political manifestos are mostly centred on economic, political and social dimensions, especially on leadership, good governance, corruption, law and order, economic governance and management, and social welfare; however less is featured on how they should manage foreign relations and national security.

This behaviour strongly suggests that their political advisers or strategists may have lacked understanding on these areas or are simply too ignorant. On some extreme cases, one would find that even in Parliament session, there is hardly any critical discussion or debate on certain foreign and strategic policy issues. The moot of discussions feature political attack and point scoring, and economic and social issues of interest.

This is the missing link in electoral politics discourse. The central argument that can be posited is that domestic politics is a reflection of external politics. What it simply means is that global politics affects the organizing principle of domestic politics either directly or indirectly.

For instance, in the regional or global economy, international politics shapes economics or vice versa in ways that can affect national economy. PNG is now an emerging economic power in the region driven by energy resources and economization of these resources will depend on how it rationally plays her economic diplomacy in world economy. Moreover, the capitalist mode of international economy suggests that developing countries are structurally organized in an exploitative principle where they will continue to be an extractive source of great powers’ interest. This syndrome is most common in developing countries where it is politically engineered by capitalism - developing countries are entrapped in a complex web where they cannot easily escape.

In addition, global economic problem of resource scarcity, especially with geo-economic and geo-strategic resources such as minerals, and oil and gas also suggests that competition between great powers and emerging powers will increase exponentially as demand increases. Intrinsically, it would be more rational should parties or candidates consider constructing equilibrium between economic and strategic imperatives in its strategic calculus (policy model). What it implies is that parties or candidates should try to balance national interest between national/domestic policy and foreign policy in a cascading logic.

A coherent policy framework delineating their plausible and trajectories to manage the nation is necessary – a map that shows how they can manage national economy while playing diplomacy with regional and global economic and political powers. Parties and candidates should be concerned about how they should rationally manoeuvre or navigate PNG through uncertain environment.

On strategic front, PNG’s defence force is currently in a weak state that requires boosting through modernization to guarantee security and survival. We are living in world of anarchy where there is no one world government with laws (international law may not necessarily guarantee security) to regulate (rogue) state behaviours therefore states will constantly compete to survive.

Conflict, fear and mistrust are permanent features of world politics. The downsizing of PNGDF with the advice from Australia is an unwise strategic choice. Continuous border incursion from Indonesia, maritime security such as transnational crimes and energy security suggest military modernization and power projection.

As far is national security is concerned, Australia’s important traditional tie with PNG may not necessarily guarantee our national security at some point. Simple economic logic suggests that there will come a peak point in future when Australia’s geo-economic interest and geo-strategic capability to sustain its partnership with PNG will diminish.

The recent minor decrease in Australia’s foreign aid to PNG may perhaps suggest this scenario. Although this may not be likely at this stage given PNG’s geo-strategic significance, it would be more rational for PNG to be prepared to stand on its own feet and should be more assertive in assuming regional leadership.

Should parties or candidates are concerned about future of PNG to become a “Harmonious, Prosperous and Healthy Society by 2050” investing in strategic dimension is one of the important pillars of development.
The world is increasingly and constantly changing and therefore if parties or candidates do not understand dynamics of global politics and national security, they may also find it quite difficult to manage politics in global and domestic environments.

This argument does not necessarily isolate important policies such as social welfare, education, health, law and order, and others. What is suggested is that foreign policy and strategic policy should be part of the overarching policy framework for parties and candidates.

The author is a geopolitical strategist and analyst: francishualupmomi270@gmail.com or fhdrake83@yahoo.com

Club Em Designs

Further political turmoil in Papua New Guinea

The illegal Australian-backed government in Papua New Guinea has engaged in further desperate manoeuvres and authoritarian measures to remain in office. (Read more)

X-Post-Nautilus Institute-Complex: Uncertainties in the Australian Hinge of the Pacific Pivot

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report—Contributor’s blog entry for Austral Peace and Security.

Go to the Weekly Report for 31 May 2012.

Washington’s Pacific pivot is essentially a matter of the Obama administration drawing a line under the distractions of the Bush-era disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-focusing strategic planning on the rise of Chinese economic, political and military power. Rather than the crudities of the opening to India that Condoleeza Rice initiated as a geo-strategic “balance” against China in 2005, the Obama administration is pursuing a complex approach to China made up of both a search for dialogue on key issues such as climate change and the global economy, and at the same time regional military and political restructuring that strengthens old hub and spokes bilateral alliances with Japan, Korea and Australia, increases the military capacities of those allies, and seeks to draw in new regional strategic partners such as Indonesia and Singapore. Containment it may not yet be, but it here can be little doubt the objective is to hedge very strongly against expansion of Chinese influence, while continuing dialogue on the global rules of the road.

Yet the hinge of the pivot strategy is the domestic foundations of alliance amongst America’s three main allies in the Pacific, Japan, South Korea and Australia – all of which are characterised by a volatile disposition to anxiety. While Japan and Korea can point to serious security issues in their environment, the Australian case is characterised by an endemic propensity to alliance anxiety even in the virtually complete absence of serious relevant threat. To take what may appear to those outside Australia as a bizarre official example, while the Obama administration was working through the implications of the president’s Prague speech on the United States’ goal of a nuclear-free world, the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper, greatly expanded official discussion of Australian reliance on United States extended nuclear deterrence, citing the “remote possibilities” of nuclear threats to Australia from Iran and North Korea.

In the past, and again today, Australian alliance anxiety has manifested itself in seeking to demonstrate loyalty and strengthen US commitment not only by responding to US requests for participation in wars outside the region, but characteristically by offering support and military participation before being asked. The large scale expansion of US marine, air force and navy access to Australia facilities that has been underway for several years was accelerated on the occasion of President Obama’s Australian visit in November 2011 with announcements of deployments of US marines and USAF bombers and fighters to Darwin and other facilities. While some analysts concentrated on a theme of US arm-twisting of a reluctant Labor government, PACOM CinC Admiral Robert Willard let the cat out of the bag, saying the Australian side had offered access first:

“Australia made overtures to the United States to increase our engagement with the armed forces of Australia and our utility of the training facilities – ranges, and so forth – that are there.”

In reality, the United States has no firmer ally in the Pacific than Australia. So deeply is the ANZUS alliance (albeit absent nuclear-free New Zealand) embedded into Australian political culture that former Deputy Secretary of Defence Hugh White remarks that in debate about how to respond to the rise of China (Australia’s largest trading partner) very few people on either side of mainstream Australian politics or in the broader security practitioner community seem able to even conceptualise – let alone seriously consider – strategic options outside the current version of the ANZUS alliance. Australian identity appears to have become deeply fused with the US alliance, sixty years after it was established, and in a very different strategic and economic environment.

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report

"[...]While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. "

Last week White’s case was substantiated by a headline in a leading national newspaper proclaiming “Defence cuts a ‘threat’ to US alliance.” In fact, the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments have been even more demonstrative in their support of the United States in Afghanistan and other security concerns than the former conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, dubbed “the Man of Steel” by George W. Bush.

While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. True to his own interpretation of the state of Australian security thinking, White’s admonitions are in turn under attack as an unthinkingly pessimistic interpretation of power-transition theory – but mainly by political figures now far from the centres of power in Australia, such as former hardline Liberal Party Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, now regarded by both sides of politics as a “mad leftie.”

In reality, Australians, living in a small country on the periphery of global power, face an extraordinarily complex set of cultural and intellectual tasks in addressing security threats, genuine and fantasized. The deep structure of Australian political culture involves essentially racialist cultural baggage of the country’s origins in genocide of its indigenous peoples as a settler colonial outpost of mother country Britain in “distant” Asia. This requires rebuilding on twin foundations of internal reconciliation with indigenous Australians and external integration with Asia and the South Pacific. Clearly both issues inflect the current question of “the rise of China” – with the United States having replaced Britain, and “the rise of China” implying much more than just a strategic re-arrangement. Hence the difficulties, silences, and contradictions of the current Australian debates.

The immediate, but clearly difficult first task is to complete the disengagement from the psycho-cultural detritus of the Cold War. In part this is a matter of placing the verities of the ANZUS alliance in a rational national interest perspective. But it is also a matter of unpicking the deep cultural structures of the nuclear aspects of the Cold War in a way that an even smaller but more courageous country New Zealand did in the 1980s. The Lange government of New Zealand did not want to leave the ANZUS alliance: it just did not want to be defended by US nuclear weapons. In the future, if the path to a nuclear-free world is to be more than a chimerical PR phrase, some if not all US allies will have to follow New Zealand on the road to a nuclear free alliance posture, escaping the trap for both sides of the alliance of adherence to extended nuclear deterrence in the absence of a serious nuclear threat that cannot be addressed with conventional responses.

The global transformation of its military forces that the US has embarked on with its Pacific pivot strategy inevitably articulates not only with a complex, contested and highly uncertain global and regional strategic environment, but also with complex and uncertain national domestic environments, which have their own urgent requirements for strategic renewal.

—Richard Tanter, NAPSNet Contributor

The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral security, nuclear deterrence, energy security, climate change adaptation, the DPRK, and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships. 

Further News:

China a better Pacific friend than US: Samoan PM

Times of India video U.S Will Deploy 60% of Navy Fleet To Asia- Pacific region.

U.S Defence Secretary Leon Panetta's entire policy speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue  (video posted below)

 

Club Em Designs

X-Post- Grubsheet: #83 THE AUSTRALIA-FIJI DISCONNECT

By Graham Davis

– May 20, 2012 

The typical Australian stereotype of Fiji (Photo: Tourism Fiji)

As argument rages over Japan bowing to Australian pressure to exclude Frank Bainimarama from the forthcoming PALM summit of Pacific leaders, we’re newly reminded of the striking disconnect between the attitude of the Labor Government and ordinary Australians towards Fiji. Pick up any newspaper and the tough rhetoric of its politicians in the news pages about Fiji’s “draconian” regime gives way to glowing articles in the travel pages extolling the country’s charms.

Among the locals (photo: Tourism Fiji)

It’s worth reading the latest – this offering in the Fairfax Media listing “Twenty reasons to visit Fiji”. Why is it worth reading? Well for a start, most locals wouldn’t be able to give you 20 reasons off the top of their own heads so it’s worth reminding ourselves of the attractions all around us that are sometimes taken for granted. But it also explains why Australians keep coming in large numbers even as their government imposes sanctions on the country and Australian trade unions leaders urge them to stay away.

Of the 631,000 visitor arrivals in 2010 – the latest figures available – more than half – 318,000 – were Australians. Why do they come? Well, cheaper air fares, a four hour daylight flight and the strong Aussie dollar are undoubtedly part of the answer. But the relationship goes far beyond that.

The recent floods threw up countless examples of the strong bonds forged between Australian visitors and the ordinary people they meet in Fiji. It wasn’t just the gratitude expressed by individual visitors in the media for the assistance they’d received, sometimes from people who’d lost everything in the disaster. Many people back in Australia who’d holidayed in Fiji dug deep to support the various flood appeals in ways that were sometimes deeply moving for the expatriate Fijians involved. One of the organisers of the Sydney appeal, Joweli Ravualala, tells of bursting into tears when an elderly Sydney woman gave him two weeks of her pension.

One Australian's story: Ken Lamb ( Photo: Mining "Our story" campaign)

There are countless stories of  friendships forged during Australian holidays to Fiji. Grubsheet made one of the mining ads currently screening on Australian television that features a man called Ken Lamb, a real life Crocodile Dundee who supplies heavy equipment to the mining industry in the South Australian outback. Every year, Ken and his wife, Val, like to get away from the dust and heat to unwind at a resort on Viti Levu’s Coral Coast. And over the years, they’ve formed close friendships with some of the resort workers and their families.

 A couple of years back, Ken took over a box full of those instant prescription glasses you can buy at any chemist in Australia to distribute to the surrounding villages. I’ll never forget the look of delight on his face as he told of the looks of delight on the faces of many of the elderly Fijians who’d benefited from this simple gesture. They were able to read again for the first time in years.

Still doesn't get it: Bob Carr with his Fijian counterpart, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola ( Photo: Australian Govt)

This is the real glue of the Fiji-Australian relationship, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow politician like the miserable Bob Carr,  Australia’s verbose and ultra-nerdy foreign minister. Like his super-arrogant, Napoleonic predecessor, Kevin Rudd,  Carr displays a disturbing ignorance about the factors that brought about the 2006 coup in Fiji.  It’s perhaps understandable that an Australian politician who owes his very existence to the trade union movement should be so obsessed with the fate of one or two Fijian union leaders who’ve fallen foul of the regime. Yet it beggars belief that while he acknowledges that Fiji is taking “credible steps” to return to democracy, Carr wants to maintain sanctions and keep up the pressure because Fiji “hasn’t done enough”.

Blissful ignorance: The Australian way ( Photo: Tourism Fiji)

Done enough of what, Mr Carr? For the first time in more than a decade, Fiji has a government committed to multiracialism and – for the first time ever – creating a level electoral playing field for all its citizens. It is providing basic services to areas of the country sorely neglected by previous administrations. It is fighting corruption and instituting a raft of measures to ensure proper standards of governance. It is maintaining its regional obligations and providing troops to the UN to maintain order in places like Iraq. It is formulating a new constitution to provide Fiji with real democracy – one person, one vote – for the very first time. Yet it “hasn’t done enough” because it hasn’t bowed to Australian demands for an immediate election that would alter nothing because none of the reforms the country so badly needs will have been instituted.

How ironic that a nation that prides itself on its own multiracial and multicultural success can have so strongly supported the previous Qarase Government, with its corruption and blatantly racist agenda to disadvantage 40 per cent of the population. How lamentable that the Australian Labor Government does everything it can to weaken the Bainimarama regime in its quest for racial equality and good governance in Fiji. How out of step is Labor on this with the sentiments of a great many ordinary Australians, just as it is on so many other issues. Fortunately for Fiji, all the opinion polls tell us they can’t wait to turf Labor out.

FURTHER READING : Here’s a link to a devastating critique of Bob Carr’s “underwhelming” performance as foreign minister by academic commentator Peter van Onselen, writing in The Weekend Australia.



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X-Post- Papua New Guinea Blogs: AUSTRALIAN AID TO THE PACIFIC: SUBVERSIVE & SELF SERVING

There are a few people on this site trying their best to distract and detract from the conversation and the real issues raised by this article. It is a deliberate attempt to hi-jack the conversation, and I think we know why.

We are reminded by Onecountry in stark and contrasting language of the depths and the widths of this identity crisis that Australia as a nation struggles with. Its relations with its neighbours is one of disdainful contempt, and of oppression.

The incidence of Mr Marae's arrest clearly demonstrates Australia has no regard for the rule of law and diplomatic protocol. Indeed it would use the law as a tool when it suits it, and disregard it whenever it desires. Mr Marae's prosecution is likely to fail because the Australian government clearly engaged in a kidnap of Mr Marae.

There is a very enlightening article by Patrick Oconnor in the Fiji Sun this week and the link is http://www.fijisun.com.fj/2012/05/19/now-a-moti-row-repeat/ . In this article Mr Oconnor examines the parallels of Australia's arrest and prosecution of Julian Moti in PNG, Solomon islands and in Australia in complete disregard for the rule of law.

The South Pacific is now clearly becoming aware that Australia says one thing and does the other. It is clearly not a model democracy in the region. In fact if anything, New Zealand is a model democracy, and is way ahead by a country mile in its race relations, its observance of the rule of law, and its dealings with the Pacific Islands nations with proper respect and regard for the rue of law. New Zealand abdicated its independent voice during the reign of Helen Clark, when she became John Howards messenger girl to the Pacific, but now John Key should rescue his country and move it to a higher plane.

The AFP's expulsion from Vanuatu two weeks ago is not the first time Australian government aid workers were expelled from Vanuatu. Last year PNG will remember the spectacular expulsion of  former Australian Defence Force Lawyer, Ari Jenshel from the Attorney General's Department, for spying on the Vanuatu government. Mr Jenschel was alleged by the Vanuatu government as engaging in espionage, copying and disseminating to Canberra very sensitive Government documents whilst serving under the guise of  an Aid worker with Ausaid in the AG's Department.

Mr Marae's arrest is likely to be connected with documents that Mr Jenshel supplied.

There is a real lession in all these for PNG and other Pacific countries being recipients of Australian Aid.

Australia has used Aid to implant its spies in all government Departments of PNG to collect information and report back to Canberra. If raised, it will always deny, but the reality is quite different. We have people who have sworn an oath to serve a foreign government, whose real future and loyalties lie with that government, whose career advancement lies with ingratiating themselves with that government, who often are servants of that government, working in our government sensitive positions. They cannot serve two masters. So naturally who do you think they will serve?

That is the challenge today for PNG. Lets not make pretensions about it. We do have a public service that does not function properly because we have weakened it by politicizing it over the years. But that is not the reason why we have to sell the nation to a foreign spying agency! That should not be the reason why we should flush the national interest of PNG down the toilet.

I don't think I am expressing empty opinion because 3 years ago, an Australian Spy in the Finance & Treasury  Department was caught with many original files of very sensitive government documents in his suitcase that he had taken to Canberra. The Department was horrified. The Department sacked the ex-Australian Federal Police man who was obviously  a spy.

Today that same Ex-AFP Policeman, who was sacked by the Finance Department has been re-deployed in the Attorney General's Department in the Sir Buri Kidu Haus in Waigani. He carries on his activities in that Department in the guise of institutional strengthening.

The situation calls for a re-view and if necessary, revocation of the ECP and the Australian Aid program. The Australian Aid, if at all, should be restricted to health and education. All other areas compromises this nations security and its sovereignty. It should be shut down.

All these cases have proved that Australia has a separate agenda with its aid than that of " Helpem Pren".

Papua New Guinea with a new Government ought to be more decisive about Australian Aid, which is clearly subversive and self serving.

Mangi Gazelle

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Stratfor Video Brief: Australia's Bending Foreign Policy

SiFM earlier post highlighted regional observers, who advocated such a shift.

Stratfor's video brief (posted below)on South Pacific geopolitics and describes Australia's shift in foreign policy towards Fiji.

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X-Post-Blak and Black: AFP racism sparks diplomatic row between Australia and Vanuatu

http://blakandblack.com/2012/05/10/afp-racism-sparks-diplomatic-row-between-australia-and-vanuatu/

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Bakchos

On 2^nd May, 2012 the Vanuatu Daily Post reported that Private Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Clarence Marae had been arrested at Sydney International Airport by the Australian Federal Police (“AFP”) whilst accompanying Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Meltek Sato Kilman Livtunvanu to Israel on a diplomatic mission.

Following his arrest, Mr Marae was charged with conspiring to defraud the Commonwealth, contrary to section 86 (1) and 29D of the Crimes Act 1914. The allegations underpinning the charges relate to an incident or a series of incidents which occurred more than ten years before.

What should be of paramount concern to all of the Pacific’s Indigenous people and what has clear echoes in the AFP’s now discredited treatment of Mr Julian Moti QC, the former Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands, is the high-handed manner in which the Australian Government and the AFP treat the Indigenous people of the Pacific, including their political and beaurocratic leaders.

In a statement issued from the office of Vanuatu’s Prime Minister on 1^st May, 2012, the Prime Minister stated that:

…the Prime Minister’s Office was totally unaware that Marae still had an outstanding issue with the Australian Federal authorities.
[…]
Prime Minister’s Office would however like to echo the sentiments forwarded to the Australian Government via a diplomatic note protesting the manner in which the Prime Minister and his delegation were forcibly diverted from the international transit area of Sydney Airport to the Customs area under Australian Government jurisdiction so that the warrant could be served on Mr Marae.

The statement also stressed that this was a public embarrassment to the Prime Minister of Vanuatu and stressed that the Vanuatu Government is reviewing its options and has sought legal advice on the manner in which Marae’s arrest was orchestrated by the Australian Federal authorities at the Sydney International Airport, as it is suspected that in disallowing the delegation to go directly to the international transit lounge the actions may have infringed on international diplomatic protocols set out in international conventions ratified by both Australia and Vanuatu.

In fact, and typical of AFP arrogance when dealing with Indigenous people, the AFP have refused to enter into dialogue with Vanuatu over the issue, resulting in the Vanuatu Government issuing a statement on 9^th May, 2012 giving the AFP 24 hours to close its liaison office, otherwise officers would face arrest for failing to ”take into account the decision of the Vanuatu government’‘.
Again, with strong resonances with the Moti affair, in 2004, Vanuatu’s then Foreign Minister, Barak Sope, wanted to throw the AFP out over allegations of spying and meddling with domestic politics. In May 2011, Australian lawyer and senior Australian Litigation Advisor to the Attorney-General of Vanuatu Ari Jenshel was expelled from Vanuatu by its government after it accused him of espionage.

Mr. Jenshel was made to leave after the Australian government was warned he faced imminent arrest over his activities as senior adviser in the office of the Attorney-General in Port Vila. Among claims being investigated by the police in Vanuatu are that sensitive government documents have been copied and sent to the Australian Government in Canberra. Mr. Jenshel, who is a former Australian Defence Force lawyer seconded to Vanuatu five years ago as part of an AusAID program, says any adverse findings against him by the Vanuatu police will be based on fabrications.

Some of the documents allegedly copied relate to talks between leaders of Pacific countries including Vanuatu, aimed at developing a closer working relationship with Fiji’s interim Prime Minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.

The other documents Mr Jenshel is suspected of accessing, copying and sending to Canberra are confidential Vanuatu Government business and legal affairs, relating to taxation policy. Could these documents relate to Project Wickenby? Project Wickenby is a cooperative partnership between the ATO, Australian Federal Police, Australian Crime Commission, Australian Securities and Investments Commission, and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, with support from the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, the Australian Government Solicitor and the Attorney-General’s Department.
Specifically to Project Wickenby, Mr Marae is an alleged associate of Victorian accountant Ian Henke, who was jailed in March 2011 for a multimillion-dollar tax avoidance scheme working through Vanuatu. Is this why Mr Jenshel was expelled and Mr Marae arrested?

Moti and Marae acts of neo-colonial racism?

The question goes begging – if Mr Marae were accompanying say, the Prime Minister of Britain or the President of the United States or indeed the President of Indonesia on a diplomatic mission rather than the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, would the AFP have acted in such a high-handed manner? The answer, is probably not. Similarly, if Mr Moti were the Attorney-General of one of the aforementioned countries, would he have been treated in the way he was by the AFP? Again, the answer is probably not.

The difference is that Australia sees the Pacific as being nothing more than its colonial domain, a domain which Australia governs through direct police/military intervention (known in the 19^th Century as Gun Boat Diplomacy) and/or a few shekels of silver pressed into the hands of those Pacific ‘leaders’ prepared to sell out their own people to a racist and corrupt Australia in return for the crumbs from Australia’s table.
Australia has tried to justify its neo-colonial interventions in the Pacific by arguing that it was bringing stability to the so-called ‘arc of instability.’

…The so-called ‘arc of instability’, which basically goes from East Timor through to the south-west Pacific states, means that not only does Australia have a responsibility in preventing and indeed assisting with humanitarian and disaster relief, but also that we cannot allow any of these countries to become havens for transnational crime, nor indeed havens for terrorism…

There is no official list of member states in the Arc, however it has traditionally been accepted to include South-East Asian and Oceanic nations such as Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, East Timor, Indonesia and Fiji.
What Australia is really doing in the Pacific is using the tragic events which unfolded in New York on 11 September, 2001 as a pretext to economically colonize the Pacific for its own commercial ends.
In the words of former United States President Woodrow Wilson:

Since trade ignores national boundaries and the manufacturer insists on having the world as a market, the flag of his nation must follow him, and the doors of the nations which are closed against him must be battered down. Concessions obtained by financiers must be safeguarded by ministers of state, even if the sovereignty of unwilling nations be outraged in the process. Colonies must be obtained or planted, in order that no useful corner of the world may be overlooked or left unused[1].

Actions speak louder than words. The actions of the AFP in both the Marae and Moti affairs speak volumes about the attitude of white Australia to the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific.

Post script News:

 http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/support-in-pacific-for-expulsion-of-afp-from-vanuatu/941682

AFP’s long memory of alleged associations from the past

Posted on May 9, 2012 - 10:29am | Category:

• Local News

By B. J. Skane

bjskane@vanuatu.com.vu 

Of the many articles published this week concerning the recent arrest of Clarence Marae, private secretary to Vanuatu’s Prime Minister at Sydney International Airport, only one goes any way to explain why the Australian Federal Police may have taken the action they did.

Ilya Gridneff, writing on May 2 says: “The Herald understands that the arrest is connected to the joint operation Project Wickenby, run predominantly by the Australian Taxation Office. Mr Marae is an alleged associate of the Victorian accountant Ian Henke, who in March last year was jailed, along with two Queensland accountants, for their roles in a multimillion-dollar tax avoidance scheme”

If this is indeed the basis for Marae’s arrest it not only shows that the AFP have very long memories, but also that one can never really escape one’s past – whatever that past may be.

In May 2008, the Australian Financial Review’s Matthew Drummond and Colleen Ryan reported under the headline: “Vanuatu dragnet opens up new front”.

“Ian Henke, who once tried to put former tax commissioner Michael Carmody on trial for war crimes and claimed the Australian Taxation Office was a legal fiction, has been charged over what the Australian Federal Police has (sic) alleged to be a $10 million asset-stripping scheme involving Vanuatu. “Mr Henke, 72, of Victoria, and Robin Huston, 62, of Queensland were summonsed to appear before Brisbane Magistrates Court.

“The AFP alleges the pair promoted a scheme that resulted in the assets of 69 companies being stripped and transferred through an “intricate network” of firms in Australia and Vanuatu.
“The companies, spread across five states, then told the ATO they could not meet their liabilities.
“The alleged asset-stripping scheme is understood to resemble the famous “bottom of the harbour” tax scheme of the 1980s.

“The summons issued to Mr Henke, who has previously described himself a “former senior ministerial policy adviser” and “businessman”, alleges that between July 1999 and May 2001 he conspired with five others to defraud the commonwealth. The alleged associates include Clarence Marae, a former deputy secretary of foreign affairs in Vanuatu, and Philip Northam, whose Vanuatu investment club was closed down by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in 2004. Also named was Lance Miller, a former director of the Institute of Taxation Research.”

In August 2008 accountant Brian Francis Fox was arrested at Brisbane airport in connection with the same alleged asset-stripping scheme that occurred prior to his employment with Hawkes Law (previously KPMG) in Port Vila.

Brisbane Times reported in December 2011 that at the conclusion of a Supreme Court trial in March that year Henke, Huston and Fox were found guilty of conspiring to defraud the Commonwealth of more than $4.59 million. The trio devised, promoted and implemented the scheme between July 1, 1999 and May 23, 2001. [The scheme] involved setting up offshore bank accounts and companies. Through a series of elaborate and fraudulent transactions the men shifted the assets of various companies into the names of their former directors, before closing the businesses without paying off their tax debt.

Henke was initially sentenced to four and a half years in prison to be released on parole after 12 months; Fox to three years and nine months to be released on parole after nine months and Huston to four years jail to be released on parole after 10 months. However, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions appealed their sentences on the grounds they were “manifestly inadequate”. The appeal was upheld. Henke’s sentence was increased from four and half years to six years imprisonment. He will now spend at least three years behind bars before he is eligible for parole.

Fox will spend the next two years and six months in prison, after his sentence was increased to five years and Huston will be imprisoned for three years, as his head sentence was increased from four to six years. “The offending here was serious, protracted and grossly dishonest,” Justice Muir said in his written judgment.

“It was embarked upon by Henke and Huston for personal gain. “Henke pocketed about $145,000 for his part in the scheme, while Huston received $40,000 and Fox gained professional fees through promoting the schemes with his clients. “It put at risk about $4.5 million of Commonwealth revenue,” Justice Muir said.

“The effect of evading tax liability is to deprive the community of revenue needed to provide government services and to impose an unfair burden on those who act honestly.”
The amounts gained by the trio hardly seem worth the risk but maybe risk, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

In 1998, among other things “anti” – anti-tax, anti-Constitution, anti-Commonwealth – Henke’s Institute of Taxation Research (ITR) published a booklet entitled “30 Key Questions About the Australian Taxation System”. A friend in Fiji gave the writer a copy of it the same year. It is a flawed logic, but obviously Henke and his co-convicted didn’t see it that way.

Question 21 asks: “But don’t the ATO have incredible power to investigate and punish?
Henke’s answer: “In a nutshell, no! And what’s more they never have really had these powers. It didn’t matter so much when the old Taxation Department was simply an arm of the government, strict but operating very carefully and correctly. However the transition from Taxation Department to Australian Taxation Office introduced a new culture where bonuses are paid on the basis of the amount of tax collected. Not all ATO offices are on a bonus but enough are to make putting a return in no better than a lottery – but a lottery where you can’t win, you can only lose AND THEY PUT PART OF YOUR LOSS IN THEIR OWN POCKET. The problem is that letters from the ATO still bristle with threats to increase taxes, impose arbitrary penalties and quote various sections of the Income Tax (or other) Act in a way calculated to intimidate including threats to place honest citizens before the courts, a prospect most dread”.

Question 22 follows that line: “But don’t they always win in the courts?”
Henke: “Not any more. The court system may not be about truth - that disappeared long ago from the British/Australian legal system. It is about procedure and precedent and the rules of court and these can be turned against the ATO. It is a question of saying to the ATO ‘forget your rules and play according to ours where the dice aren’t loaded your way.’
“There is a simple question for the ATO. When did they win in a court against our arguments?”
Answer: March and December 2011.
Henke and his co-convicted have around 1000 long nights in jail to ponder it and the booklet’s concluding words: “The truth eventually exposes itself. Fact can’t be kept secret forever”.

 http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/carr-asks-vanuatu-to-reconsider-afp-move/story-e6freuyi-1226352315578

Kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol: Kilman

Posted on May 9, 2012 - 1:05pm | Category:

By Godwin Ligo

Prime Minister Kilman 

Prime Minister Sato kilman described the arrest of Clarence Marae by the Australian Federal Police at Sydney International Airport as “kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol”.
PM Kilman made the remarks immediately upon his arrival in Port Vila yesterday afternoon from the visit to Israel.

“In my humble view, it was kidnap and a breach of diplomatic protocol,” Prime Minister Kilman remarked after being welcomed by the Deputy and Acting Prime Minister Ham Lini Vanuroroa, government ministers and officials and members of the diplomatic corps at Port Vila International Airport yesterday afternoon.
“It is my hope and prayers that Australia can shoulder any representation that will be made in a true spirit,” PM Kilman remarked.
“I am disappointed because Vanuatu and Australia have an agreement in place for exchange of information.

“But there was no information access to a person who should have been refused a visa to enter Australia in the first place.“They were aware, yet granted the visa which led to the arrest,” PM Kilman told government officials and reporters on his arrival yesterday afternoon.

“There is a very strong cooperation between Australia and Vanuatu but unfortunately what happened at Sydney airport is not a sign of the existing cooperation between Australia and Vanuatu. “And if Australia says she is one of the countries in the Pacific but does this to smaller nations in the Pacific then it infringed on the sovereignty of the country.

“We must realize that we are an independent country and must be prepared to accept the consequences of the decisions taken. “We are in the 21st century and must not create instability in the region which would in turn affect world peace,” a concerned Vanuatu Prime Minister remarked in relation to the AFP arrest of Mr Clarence Marae at Sydney International airport.

“Is Pacific important to Australia or not?” Prime Minister Kilman questioned. “If yes, then Australia must make her stand clear on the Pacific,” PM Kilman reiterated.

The Vanuatu Prime Minister thanked the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the senior officials of the Prime Minister’s Office for the Note of concern already communicated to the Australian Government on the issues. He said further considerations will be given on the issue.

Prime Minister Kilman told government officials and reporters that upon their arrival at Sydney International airport, they were taken to the Immigration and Customs and made to fill out forms and had to wait at one of the lounge. He said it was then that they realized that Mr Marae was not amongst them.
When questioning his whereabouts, they were told that he has been arrested by the Australian Federal Authorities.“I am disappointed in the way this was done and in my humble view, it was kidnap and breach of diplomatic protocol,” concerned Prime Minister Kilman said on his arrival in Port Vila yesterday.

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Beazely Bi-lateral Gatekeeping & US Engagement In The Pacific

Fiji One TV segment covers the recent remarks of Australian Ambassador to the U.S, Kim Beazely (K.B) in an interview with "The Diplomat" dated April 14th 2012 titled "How Australia Sees America".

"The Diplomat "(T.D) interview excerpt that focused on US's engagement in the Pacific and Australia's assumed sphere of influence:

(T.D) Within the alliance, the South Pacific has traditionally fallen within Australia’s sphere of influence. In recent years, Australia has taken the lead on engaging its neighbors in the region on behalf of the West, including taking on major peacekeeping operations in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and taking the lead on engagement with Fiji. However, significant challenges have emerged in a number of these countries. Democracy hasn’t taken hold and there now appears to be a slitting of the Pacific Islands Forum along Melanesian and Polynesian lines.

This raises the question of whether the United States should not only take a more assertive role in the region, but also advance an alternative diplomatic approach in situations like Fiji or PNG. From Australia’s perspective, do you see any tension forming within ANZUS on diplomatic engagement in the South Pacific? And, how concerned are you about the rise of anti-Australian sentiment and the emergence of the Melanesian Spearhead Group as a possible alternative to the Pacific Islands Forum?

(K.B) The thing that we have always appreciated in our relationship with the United States is that the U.S. has always kept its engagement with the South Pacific islands under constant discussion with us. They engage us on where American policy is going. Clearly, from our point of view, the U.S. determines its own direction wherever it goes. It will rationalize that policy direction with its friends and others as the U.S. sees fit.

From our point of view, what’s much more important is that the U.S. is engaged. We think that it is good for the countries of the region that the U.S. involves itself. We have been arguing to – rather than with – the United States for a very long time that they become more involved in the region. So, we would do nothing but encourage them.

The region is getting increasingly complex as the leaders in the region become more adept at international diplomacy and more aware of the character of international relations. Australia doesn’t own any of this territory. We did once – at least part of it. But, we don’t own any of it now. So, our concern for that region is that they be wealthy, happy, cheerful, well-governed. That is our objective. And, we all stand for democracy. So, we are prepared to provide material assistance where that aid is sought – not imposed – by countries in the region. Because the U.S. tends to have very civil values, the U.S. is engaged in pursuing those objectives too. 

We don’t have any problems with the U.S. keeping the backdoor open as long as they consult with us. Clearly the U.S. will make up its own mind on what direction it wants to go. So long as it doesn’t give us any surprises, we have no basis for complaint.
The MSG has been around quite a long while, and we have coexisted with it jointly. So, it’s not something that has us phased or fussed.

More views from Kim Beazely below:

Trade &  Security Lecture At University of Virginia March 28 2012(Video posted below)

CSIS Interview Oct 17th 2011 (video posted below)




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X-Post: Strategic Culture-Checkbook Diplomacy Doesn’t Apply to the United States

Wayne MADSEN | 07.02.2012 | 15:29

The United States, Australia, and New Zealand and their ally in Tbilisi, Mikheil Saakashvili, are upset that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently visited Fiji. The fear from Washington, Canberra, Wellington, and Tbilisi was that Lavrov was going to offer Fiji lucrative financial assistance in return for the South Pacific nation’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The two countries broke away from Georgia, triggering a war between Georgia and Russia in 2008

While the Obama administration is cautioning Fiji about recognizing the independence of the two secessionist republics in return for economic aid from Moscow, something Washington calls Taiwan-style “checkbook diplomacy,” it is more than happy to reward other countries with special incentives if they recognize the independence of America’s creation in the Balkans that was severed from Serbia, Kosovo.

The United States has complained, along with its two surrogate “sheriffs” in the Pacific region – Australia and New Zealand – that Russia’s offer of economic perks to Nauru, Vanuatu, and Tuvalu, three nations that have never managed to fully break free of Western colonialist dictates, resulted in those nations’ decisions to recognize the independence of Abkhazia. While Vanuatu recognized only Abkhazia during a government crisis in Port-Vila, the Vanuatu capital, Nauru and Tuvalu recognized both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Previously, only Russia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela recognized the two breakaway nations, with Washington charging that Russia offered military and other deals to Nicaragua and Venezuela in return for their recognition of the two emergent nations.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd lived up to the Australian Labor Party’s total subservience to the United States by calling for transparency in Russia’s dealings with the South Pacific states. Yet Australia’s and New Zealand’s policies to the small Pacific nations has often been based on secret intelligence agreements between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, including the signals intelligence alliance between the three nations that makes the diplomatic communications of the South Pacific states and all telecommunications in the South Pacific subject to eavesdropping by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

Georgia has argued that the cases of Abkhazia/South Ossetia and Kosovo are un-related. However, the United States has cajoled a number of nations into recognizing Kosovo, the latest being Ghana. In return for recognition, Washington has granted countries recognizing the organized crime-imbued regime in Pristina, the Kosovo capital, with the same sort of perks that the United States has accused Russia of providing the South Pacific and Latin American states that have recognized Abkhazia/South Ossetia. While the United States condemns the “checkbook diplomacy” practiced for years by Taiwan and China to gain and swap diplomatic recognition from mostly poor and small nations, it has practiced the same sort of “checkbook diplomacy” with regard to Kosovo.

A State Department cable divulged by WikiLeaks points to the hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy and how Washington has pressured countries into not recognizing Abkhazia/South Ossetia by exerting pressure directly or via its allies.

On February 22, 2010, a cable from the U.S. embassy in Quito, Ecuador cited the visit by the Abkhazian Vice Foreign Minister to Quito and referred to U.S. concern that Ecuador’s Multilateral Affairs Under Secretary Arturo Cabrera had met the Abkhazian official in preparation for the announcement of diplomatic relations. The cable states:

“Cabrera said that the MFA too was surprised by the Vice Foreign Minister's visit, and indicated that nothing materialized from it. He gave the impression that he considered it unlikely the GOE would recognize South Ossetia or Abkhazia as independent states, although he did not say so directly. Cabrera also informed us that the issue was handled by Bilateral Affairs rather than his office. When the opportunity arises, the Embassy will raise the issue also with the MFA's Bilateral Affairs office.”

Previously, on January 26, 2010, the U.S. embassy in Peru ensured that a Peruvian official would raise Washington’s objections with Ecuador over Abkhazia/South Ossetia at a South American defense meeting:

“Charge raised reftel points regarding the Government of Ecuador's potentially recognizing the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with MFA Under Secretary for the Americas Ambassador Javier Leon January 25. Leon said he planned to travel to Ecuador this week for a UNASUR meeting of Vice Ministers of Defense, and would raise the issue with his GOE [Government of Ecuador]
counterparts at that time.”

Wayne Madsen

"The fear from Washington, Canberra, Wellington, and Tbilisi was that Lavrov was going to offer Fiji lucrative financial assistance in return for the South Pacific nation’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. "

The same day, the U.S. embassy in Chile tried to use Chile to pressure Ecuador not to recognize the two secessionist nations but with little success:

“Poloff [Political Officer] delivered reftel demarche to Eduardo Schott, Deputy Director for European Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Schott was unaware of Ecuador's potential decision to recognize the independence of the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He will consult with colleagues about the possibility of raising the issue with Ecuador. He said that Chile is comfortable sharing its reasons for not recognizing the regions, but other countries are free to make their own decision.”

Nauru’s decision to recognize Abkhazia/South Ossetia was seen as a “comedy” according to a December 16, 2009, cable from the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi:

“Georgian officials downplayed the significance of Nauru's apparent December 14 recognition of Abkhazia's "independence," which Russia reportedly encouraged with an offer of $50 million to the island nation. Although officials are discussing with Australian counterparts whether the recognition is actually final, Reintegration Minister Yakobashvili joked in public about Russia's apparent purchase of the recognition, calling it a "comedy," while Deputy Foreign Minister Bokeria told us privately the step was not so important, even if it was true. The relaxed approach represents a welcome shift from Georgia's more manic reaction to previous recognitions by Venezuela and Nicaragua, an approach that we have actively encouraged with our Georgian counterparts. Georgia has also recognized and expressed appreciation for successful U.S. efforts to discourage additional recognitions from Latin American countries . . .”

Perhaps the most draconian use of U.S. pressure regarding recognition of Abkhazia / South Ossetia was the pressure Washington, London, and Paris applied on four poor African states, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali, that signaled a willingness to establish relations with the secessionist states. The information is contained in a September 1, 2009, cable from the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi. The relevant sections of the cable are as follows:

“Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze called in the U.S. and UK ambassadors August 31 to request urgent assistance on two matters. First, the Georgians learned that four African countries -- Burundi, Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali -- are seriously considering recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and the Georgians want help dissuading them from doing so . . . Vashadze told the ambassadors that the Georgian Embassy in Paris learned from the Quai d'Orsay that Burundi, the Central African Republic (CAR), Guinea-Bissau, and Mali were seriously considering taking the step of recognition. He considered this information quite reliable. He expressed great concern that such a step would undermine many of Georgia's diplomatic successes over the past year. He was especially concerned that Russia will orchestrate an announcement of these recognitions at the UN General Assembly, saying that such announcement would be an absolute catastrophe, especially if it occurred when President Saakashvili was in New York. ”

The four African nations were pressured into not recognizing Abkhazia/South Ossetia.

Other leaked State Department cables illustrate Washington’s pressure on various nations, including Spain, Bangladesh, Mauritius, Zambia, Guatemala, South Africa, Brunei, Djibouti, and even the tiny Maldives through the same sort of financial incentives and diplomatic “sweeteners” Washington accused Russia applying on the South Pacific states in return for recognition of Abkhazia/South Ossetia.

When it comes to hypocrisy, there is no greater world center for it than the U.S. Department of State. However, thanks to the leaks of State Department cables, the hypocrisy of the State Department and the Obama administration in foreign policy can be read in their own words.

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