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Showing posts with the label Julian Moti

Wikileaks: When the past comes back to haunt

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The ‘Moti Affair’ isn’t over for PNG warns Susan Merrell  Legend has it that Italian courtier Damocles was awarded a much-coveted throne that brought with it great power and wealth. But also inherent in the acquisition was a sword, suspended by a single horse’s hair over the throne - the proverbial ‘Sword of Damocles’. Considering the threat intolerable, Damocles relinquished the throne (although I’ve never quite understood why he didn’t just remove the sword). There are outstanding issues, precariously suspended, like the Sword of Damocles, over the PNG government. The Moti Affair, for instance – while a legacy of the Grand Chief, Sir Michael Somare, unresolved, it’s now been passed on to the new PNG government and, in its current state, will dog any subsequent government. Recent Wikileaks cables emanating from the US embassy in PNG are a reminder. In one cable, headed ‘Papua New Guinea Prime Minister on Moti and Bilateral,’ Somare stated that the PNG government “knows who the cu