AUSTRALIA BULLYING TO COVER UP ITS CRIMES
Kilman, looking at removing the Wesminster system of government in Vanuatu |
Bullying
is a cultural phenomenon as much as it is a sociological malaise predominant in
the English public school system in the form of crude ritualistic excesses by
persons who practise it as a rite of passage to perpetuate exclusion,
inclusion and or even acceptability. It is a deep form of social ill that in itself
may not necessarily and immediately yield the reasons for a quick fix or
solution. It has much to do with identity as much as belonging, but more often
than not it has to do with lack of identity than anything
else. And on the national stage of a country such as Australia, this
is a deeply rooted problem in the psyche of Australia as a nation, and
Australians as a people.
They do
not belong here in our Pacific. They are nevertheless here as a result of their
criminal past. They are here as outcasts of right thinking and law abiding
England, and indeed of Europe. They only arrived yesterday.
As people
who are in our waters and our backyard, quite as a matter of our generosity,
and the generosity of the Aborigine and Indigenous people of Australia, whose
resources and lands they have stolen to perpetuate their lives, they are
struggling deep within to come to terms with this fact that they are still descendants
of thieves. They essentially they can never change the hand of history, which
once writ cannot be un-writ.
And so it
came to pass that on the 27th of April 2012, the latest act of bullying
unfolded before the very eyes of the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Hon Sato Kilman
MP at Brisbane Airport.
The Prime
Minister and his team were transit through Brisbane to Asia when The PM's Aide
Mr Clarence Marae was unceremoniously arrested, extracted, charged and locked
up in the police cells for alleged money laundering.
The
following week on the 10th of May 2012, Vanuatu expelled the Australian Federal
Police contingent of 12 Policemen in Vanuatu, after no apology or reasonable
explanation was offered.
The
details of what actually happened emerged later. The Prime Minister and his
team were transiting thru Brisbane Airport. Under the terms of the Chicago
Convention 1958 dealing with transit passengers, they are deemed to be
continuously travelling in international airspace. Hence the PM and his team
were not subject to Australian law or its jurisdiction.
Presented
with this difficulty, the Australian Federal Police colluded with the
Australian Customs Service to have the PM and his team denied transit rights.
They were deliberately told that they would not transit ( although they were
issued with transit visas only). They were told to "enter" Australia,
which they didn’t have visas for.
The PM
and his team were forced against their will to "enter' Australia, which
created the scenario of Mr Clarence Marae forced to submit to the Jurisdiction
of Australia, and thereupon being arrested, to the shock, disbelief and dismay
of Hon Sato Kilman. He knew the Australian government tricked him and the
government of Vanuatu.
Australia
deemed this as a normal law enforcement exercise, and was unfortunate. Vanuatu
saw it differently.
The
Charges that Mr Marae was charged with had its genesis in operation wickenby,
an Australian Federal Police and Australian Intelligence Operation aimed at tax
dodgers in Australia. This operation has had mixed results and on the whole has
been seen by the public as a waste of public resources. At the centre of this
is the Australian Federal Police, who want to see themselves as a Police Force
of the Pacific, pushing the expansionist agenda of that errant and misguided
Irish Police Commissioner Mick Kelty, and his blue blood Protestant
( then) bosses Howard and Downer.
Surely
Clarence Marae's charges are quite extraordinary. They are extra-ordinary
in the sense that any one in the Pacific who travels to Australia can be
charged with that very crime of money laundering and tax evasion. Mr Marae didn’t
have to move more than $10,000 to be caught. Any Papua New Guinean remitting
funds to pay for school fees for their children, making payments for importing
goods and services from Australia , paying mortgages or maintaining
families in Australia can be charged by Australian Federal Police of the same
charges.
As a
matter of fact any Pacific Islander who Australia want to keep watch over for
other reasons are normally classified under money laundering or tax evasion.
Under this genre almost all politicians and businessmen from PNG and the
Pacific have a file with the Australian Federal Police. In this sense,
the Charges preferred against Mr Clement Marae, are extra-ordinary.
There is
another reason why those charges are ridiculous and extra-ordinary. Mr Marae
has been travelling in and out of Australia many times over the last ten years.
The incidents used and referred to occurred some 7 years ago, why did they
Australian government wait so long to charge this guy? Why wasn’t he arrested
and charged on one of his previous private visits?
Why was
the Prime Minister of Vanuatu and his team not accorded protocol of a Head of
State? Why was he refused entry into the transit lounge and made to enter
Australia against his will?
The
incident of the treatment of Prime Minister, Hon Sato Kilman MP, is not an
isolated incident. Several years ago when our then outspoken Prime
Minister Grand Chief Somare transited through to New Zealand, he too
was not accorded protocol of a Head of State. Instead he was unceremoniously
processed by Australian Customs and quarantine, not just once, but several
times he was made to undress and take his sandals off. This sparked a
diplomatic row and a demand for apology by PNG, but Australia insisted no one
is above the law, and every Head of the State ( according to Mr Downer) is
accorded the same processes. [ Of course, this was a straight out lie because
the Indonesian President, the Chinese Head of State, the US President, the US
Secretary for State, the British PM, and others have their aides processed with
the highest protocol and they don’t go through these pedestrian and tedious
examinations. Their security teams carry weapons, and they are cleared through
automatically. These heads of State do not have their bags examined etc.
On the
contrary, when Sir Ratu Mara was Prime Minister of Fiji, and was Chair of South
Pacific Forum, he constantly had his bags turned upside down and examined by
the Australian Customs and Police Services.
Sir Ratu
Mara was a Leader of another age in the Pacific. He and Somare are leaders of a
vintage that embrace both form and spirit. They communicate and understand what
is said as much as what is left unsaid. They perceive silences, and give
meaning to space, whether it is a pause or a silently held restraint. Our
people have lived in these parts for over 70,000 years and have learnt to make
both war and peace, and have held their own, with respect and honour playing
the essential role of perpetuating life. Our leaders are leaders of their
people, whether in Parliament or out of Parliament. It is not a temporary
vocation for those among us who are called to leadership, for theirs is a
lifetime commitment and calling.
In the
Pacific there has been several very vocal leaders who have called
Australia to account for its actions. Sir Michael Somare coined Australian Aid
as "Boomerang Aid", and quite rightly so. Hon. Manesseh Songavare MP
then Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, correctly sought to hold Australia
accountable over the Honiara Riots ( which the Australian Federal Police
started by firing tear gas on an otherwise placid crowd). Hon Luther Wenge
challenged Australia over the constitutionality of the ECP Program and immunity
to Australian Federal Police. In Vanuatu, since the days of Serge Vohor, no one
has risen to take the mantle of protection over Vanuatu’s national interests
until Hon Sato Kilman has stepped forth after this incident.
Ironically,
it was the previous Prime Minister of Vanuatu, bribed by an Aid package of $AUD
56 Million, that allowed the Australian Federal Police in, and allowed
the Australian Government open access to all financial and other data of
Vanuatu as a Tax Haven. By a stroke of a pen Australia demolished
Vanuatu's commercial credibility as a tax haven, and thereby destroyed any
chance of it making its own way economically.
Today,
Australia is about beating any dissident voices in the Pacific into submission.
It has done so with Songavare, and with Somare, and anyone else. Only Hon. Sato
Kilman knows why he has been selected for the special bullying this time. The
only leader who seems to escape all the traps set by Australia is Luther Wenge,
Governor of Morobe Province. Perhaps he may not be so lucky this coming elections.
The
Pacific Leaders must learn that they don’t have to fly through Australia to get
anywhere in the world. Their nations need not go or look to Australia to rise
or fall as a people. Our destiny is very much our own choices, and if we choose
to travel through Australia, we will invariably meet with such unwelcome
incidences of those who use the law to subjugate others, those who themselves
are constantly subjugated by the law, as opposed to the operation of social
structure, mores and culture that underpins and regulates society and gives
meaning and value to people. Australia's constants acts of bullying and
subjugation of its hosts is the outworking of its own deep dark struggle
of its own national psyche. It has not accepted that really they are descendants
of criminals living among the free people of the Pacific. It is having a hard
time coming to terms with the fact that Australia is really living off the
proceeds of a monumental crime. It is struggling to come to terms with what to
do with and about the Indigenous people, the real landowners. It cannot
understand that we in the Pacific could live separate yet rich lives within our
own social settings. So as to disrupt us and our being as a people, it
interferes with its Aid moneys ( proceeds of crime) , and hoping that by
pressing us down it will magically rise as a great nation.
Australia
can never be a great nation. It can never be a great nation in the way it
treats its neighbours. It can never be a great nation in the way it
treats its indigenous people. It can never be a great nation if it keeps
proffering the blood moneys of the Indigenous owners of Australia as Aid
in the region. It can never be a great nation because it can never shed the
verdict of history. Above all else, it can never be a great nation because it
is a bully, and sooner or later bullies in the school yard learn that they
can run out of friends, and also that there is always someone bigger and
better than them around.
OneCountry writes on issues of National interest for PNGBlogs he prefers to remain anonymous
It seems the word 'Melanesian' is threatening to White Australians. On BBC over the weekend Australia was considered barren faraway place for convicted criminals from Britain. Later gold diggers came to Victoria and started competitive spirit that is more clear in sports and aid diplomacy especially in the Melanesian sphere of the South Pacific. Perhaps ANU scholars might wish to rebut this!!!
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