Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Hepi Krismas - and political fallout from the Moti affair

AS Café Pacific has been on "vacation" - a rare event - over these past few weeks, many significant happenings have passed without comment from this blog. Issues such as the unravelling of the Indonesian "case" over the Balibo Five murders in the wake of new pressures from the film Balibo, developments over the embryonic Fiji media decree and the views of the detractors and the more critically reflective and the killing of OPM leader Kelly Kwalik in West Papua have passed without a murmur by Café Pacific.

However, a delightful Christmas present has come Julian Moti's way with the throwing out in a Brisbane court of those trumped up charges against the former Solomon Islands Attorney-General. Many in the Pacific were deeply concerned about how once again Australian diplomatic and "legal" bullying was being used to impose a political outcome on a compliant state in the region. This issue was often seen to have more to do with regime change in the Solomon Islands than any genuine pursuit of justice. (See past Café Pacific items on Motigate.) A backgrounder just posted on the World Socialist Website:

Political lessons of the Julian Moti affair
23 December 2009

By Patrick O’Connor and Linda Levin

Last week’s Queensland Supreme Court decision to throw out the prosecution of former Solomon Islands’ Attorney General Julian Moti on trumped up child sex charges is a major blow to the Australian government, its federal police and public prosecutors. The vicious five-year vendetta has cast light on Canberra’s filthy neo-colonial operations in the South Pacific, as well as the complicity of the entire political and media establishment—ranged across the official political spectrum, from the openly right wing to the ex-radical “left”.

The charges originated in an attempted blackmail against Moti, a constitutional lawyer and Australian citizen, in Vanuatu in 1997-98. They were dismissed by a Vanuatu magistrate as “unjust and oppressive”, a decision the prosecutors chose not to appeal. The allegations were
resuscitated in 2004, not by the alleged “victim” but by Patrick Cole, the Australian High Commissioner to the Solomon Islands. They became the means through which the Australian government sought to remove Moti from the Pacific, and permanently destroy his personal reputation and professional standing, for the sole reason that he was perceived as a
threat to Australia’s economic and strategic interests.

Not accidentally, Moti’s victimisation coincided with a shift in Canberra’s foreign policy in the Pacific. Washington utilised the September 11 terror attacks as the pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq—thus pursuing a long-held ambition to reorganise the Middle East under conditions where its post-World War II domination was being challenged by rivals, particularly in Europe and Asia. In similar manner, the Australian ruling elite sought to revive its neo-colonial operations in the South Pacific—a region long regarded as Canberra’s
“sphere of influence”—to shore up its position in the face of mounting rivalries.

Within months of the US-led attack on Iraq, the Australian government dispatched troops and police to the Solomon Islands in July 2003. Involved was the effective takeover by Australian military and civilian officials of the impoverished country’s state apparatus, including its
finance department and central bank, judiciary, police, prisons, public service, and other central institutions. The so-called Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was conceived as a model for potential interventions into other Pacific states, most notably the resource-rich former Australian colony of Papua New Guinea. Moti was a well-known opponent of this agenda. A prominent lawyer, he had worked in several Pacific countries, and had connections with Melanesian nationalist politicians, whose aim was to promote small agricultural producers rather than international investors and who were not averse to cultivating ties with Asian powers as a counterbalance to Canberra’s role in the region.

In late 2004 Moti was touted as a possible Solomons’ attorney-general, and in 2006 the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare appointed him to that position. The case in the Queensland Supreme Court from mid-September until earlier this month saw the disclosure of damning classified memos, emails, and other internal Australian Federal Police, Australian High Commission, and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade documents that provided a rare glimpse into Canberra’s modus operandi throughout the South Pacific. While the witch hunt began much earlier, by 2006 senior Australian politicians, police chiefs, and diplomatic officials were publicly slandering Moti and demanding his expulsion from the Solomons. Meanwhile, other officials and police were working behind the scenes to ensure his return to Australia. The
operation culminated in Moti’s unlawful deportation from the Solomons in December 2007, following the ousting of the Sogavare government after a protracted regime change campaign by Canberra.

Justice Debra Mullins’ decision to award Moti’s permanent stay application, while at the same time whitewashing the Australian government’s role, was highly political. By choosing the most limited and narrowly focussed grounds on which to throw the charges out, the court’s judgment amounted to political damage control. The judge’s argument was entirely spurious; it centred on the assertion that there was no political motivation behind the case and that Moti’s expulsion
from the Solomons was a decision made by that country’s “sovereign” government alone, independent of any Australian pressure. The evidence established the contrary, namely that the 2007 deportation was instigated and facilitated by Canberra with the assistance of its newly
installed satrap in Honiara.

The judge made no attempt to answer the obvious question: why, if there were no political motivation, did Australian police and authorities act as they did? While ruling that the unprecedented witness payments made by the AFP, totalling around $150,000, represented an “affront to the public conscience” and thus deciding to stay the prosecution on that basis, she failed to address the reason behind the payments to the witnesses, without whom the prosecution case would have had no chance of succeeding. To even raise these issues would begin to lift the lid on the role of Australian imperialism in the Solomons, something regarded in official circles as politically taboo.

Throughout the sordid saga, the media functioned as the fifth wheel of the government’s vendetta, sensationalising every lurid sexual assault allegation and then effectively censoring the Supreme Court hearings. As the damning evidence mounted and the Australian government’s operations began to come to light, an effective media boycott was imposed. Few Australians had any idea the case was even underway.

The handful of critical voices after Moti’s arrest in late 2006 quickly fell silent once the Labor Party took office in November 2007. Consistent with Labor’s unconditional support for the former Howard government’s stance, the new government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd consummated the operation, overseeing Moti’s unlawful return and arrest in Australia and authorising his prosecution.

The entire Labor fraternity fell into line. As the case unfolded, lawyers and civil libertarians kept their mouths firmly shut. South Pacific experts in the academic world similarly lent support to the anti-Moti campaign.

The most revealing response came from the so-called “lefts”. Since Labor’s election, not one of the various petty-bourgeois protest organisations, or any of their publications, has uttered a single word on the Moti frame-up or its collapse. While these outfits will, from time to time, denounce the crimes of US imperialism, Britain, Israel, etc., when it comes to the imperialist depredations of their “own” bourgeoisie it is quite another matter. This is especially so under
Labor. After all, the entire ex-radical fraternity worked to get the Rudd government elected on the basis that it was a “lesser evil” to the coalition. The reaction of these groups to the Moti case is yet another expression of their class hostility to the fight for the political independence of the working class from Labor and its nationalist, pro-imperialist agenda.

The role played from the outset by the World Socialist Web Site in the detailed exposure of the Moti witch hunt flowed from our internationalist principles and perspective. Developing an understanding of the role of Australian imperialism throughout the Asia-Pacific region is a vital precondition for the development of a mass revolutionary socialist movement of the Australian working class, and for unifying the working class and oppressed masses throughout the
region—and the world—in a common struggle against imperialism. The bourgeoisie’s exploitation of the region’s resources, wealth, and labour power has been underway for more than a century, even before the federated nation-state of Australia was founded in 1901.

The Moti affair constitutes a devastating exposure of the machinations of successive Liberal and Labor governments in the Solomons, and of the entire RAMSI operation. Despite the best efforts of the Australian political and media establishment, the collapse of the prosecution’s case stands as a damning indictment of Australian neo-colonialism. It is yet another sign that, amid growing hostility in the Pacific towards Australia’s military-police operations, the humanitarian pretexts for the post-2001 turn to militarism and repression are beginning to unravel.

Pictured: Julian Moti when Attorney-General of the Solomon Islands. Photo: Solomon Times.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

'Godfather' indicted after worst journalist massacre in Philippines

EIGHT members of the clan accused of being responsible for the obscene slaughter of 57 people - including up to 30 journalists - in the southern Philippines province of Maguindanao late last month have been rounded up and charged.

The accused include the so-called "Godfather" of the clan. Hundreds of police and security agents have been detained and reports say the entire police force of the province will be replaced.

Women victims were reported to have been mutilated.

Bai Genalin Mangudadatu, wife of Buluan Vice-Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu, suffered 17 gunshot wounds and several "incised wounds," according to a medical report of the National Bureau of Investigation. But the NBI reportedly found no sign of rape among the 15 female victims it had examined.

Genalin had been on her way to file her husband's certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor when gunmen blocked her convoy and killed her and at least 56 others on November 23.

Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr is one of eight members of his clan indicted by prosecutors probing the massacre.

He has been described as the "Godfather" of the political clan favoured by President Gloria Arroyo.

The prosecutors have charged him with multiple murder, destruction of property and robbery.

Ampatuan Sr's son, Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr, is already in jail on charges of masterminding the election-related killings and on 25 counts of murder.

Another of Ampatuan Sr's sons, Governor Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, has also been asked by Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno to answer within five days allegations that he had failed "to protect the civil, human and political rights" of the victims.

An Al Jazeera report described the powerful Ampatuan clan as "political untouchables".

A congressman accused the government on Friday of being the biggest arms supplier of Filipino warlords after the discovery of a large arms cache near the mansion of Governor Zaldy Ampatuan Jr on Thursday.

"The arms cache found near the Ampatuans' mansion confirms that the government, particularly the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), is the biggest arms supplier of the country's warlords," Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño said in a text message.

“This bloodbath is beyond human understanding,” says a journalist from the nearby city of Koronadal. He told Reporters Sans Frontières: “I have lost 12 of my colleagues in this massacre.”

Nonoy Espina of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), who is in Mindanao, told Reporters Sans Frontières before the latest arrests of the clan leaders: "The government is not doing enough to arrest those responsible."

Eight of the journalists have now been buried and media people will stage a protest rally at Mendiola, Manila, on Wednesday, December 9.

Meanwhile, an international emergency mission led by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has arrived in the Philippines to support local journalists and the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in the wake of the massacre.

The delegation comprises representatives from leading journalists' rights and press freedom organisations including the IFJ, the Southeast Asia Press Alliance (SEAPA), the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI), the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance MEAA - Australia), the Thai Journalists' Association (TJA), International News Safety Institute (INSI), International Media Support (IMS), the Institute for Studies on the Free Flow of Information (ISAI) and Union Network International (UNI).

Photo: BJNES






Saturday, November 21, 2009

Criminal libel case dropped against Tempo Semanal


How Pacific Scoop reported José Belo's presidential award.

From Tempo Semanal


A YEAR ago Tempo Semanal published a series of stories that became known as the "SMS Scandal" in which it alleged corruption by Timor-Leste's Justice Minister Lucia Lobato, along with Timorese and Indonesian business people, in relation to projects under her ministry. These projects included the Becora Prison, uniforms for prison guards and Timor-Leste national identity cards projects.

Café Pacific has followed this affair and TS stories include:

1. Tempo Semanal: Edition 108: SMS texts evidence: Minister for Justice Gives Herself And Friends Projects
2. Tempo Semanal Edisaun 108 SMS: MJ Fo Projektu ba An Rasik no Ninia Belum Sira
3. Translation Tempo Semanal Edition 135: (Minister of Justice SMS Corruption Scandal Continues)
4. "Identity Card Project Breaches Law No. 10/2005 and Confirms Allegations of KKN." [In the Ministry of Justice] "Identity Card Project Breaches Law No. 10/2005 and Confirms Allegations of KKN [1]."

Lobato reacted angrily and in October 2008 lodged a criminal libel case against Tempo Semanal and its director José Antonio Belo.

Browse stories on the criminal defamation case:

1. Justice minister sues East Timor newspaper
2. Pacific Freedom Forum Petitions Against "Unconstitutional" Defamation Case
3. Defamation Case against Tempo Semanal: Lao Hamutuk
4. ETAN urges dropping of defamation charges against Timorese editor
5. TAPOL protests against defamation charges against Timorese journalist

Lobato reported the case of criminal defamation against José Belo to prosecutors. Belo was investigated by the International Prosecutor on 19 January 2009 and has been under city detention since then. He has to report to the prosecutor if he wants to travel away from Dili more than 15 days. Since last year, Belo has only made two trips out of Timor-Leste and had to refuse three invitations for foreign travel. He went to Australia for 10 days and to Indonesia for four days.

Pictured: Lucia Lobato - Minister of Justice.

On 13 November 2009, PNTL delivered a two-page notification letter to Tempo Semanal offices in Palapaso Dili.

These letters informed Tempo Semanal officially that the case of criminal defamation had ceased on 15 June 2009 and were signed by International Prosecutor Jose Landim.

The notification letter stated:
The crime of defamation was decriminalised by the new Timor-Leste Criminal Code, DL No. 19/2009 of 8 April 2009, as a result of which the accused can no longer be held criminally liable.

In effect, pursuant to the provisions of article 3, 1. of Timor-Leste's new Criminal Code, 'nobody can be held criminally liable as a result of facts prescribed as criminal acts at the relevant time it was carried into action if the law subsequently ceases to consider it as a crime'.

As such, because it is not now possible to continue with the criminal proceedings against the accused, the proceedings currently on foot are hereby ordered to be closed pursuant to article 235, 1. c) of the Criminal Code.
Tempo Semanal director Jose Antonio Belo congratulated the Prosecutor-General and all her staff by putting the law in place. However, at the same time Belo was disappointed the case would not reach court so that the facts of the corruption case might come before the public.

Belo said he was aware that the then Prosecutor-General had demanded that Justice Minister Lucia Lobato submit more evidence before the case could be sent to court:
Tempo Semanal and I have been left in confusion for an entire year and we don't know the situation of the case against us but this afternoon we have receive this notification letter.

As a Timorese journalist, it is very sad to see our Minister of Justice's actions by lodging a criminal defamation case against Tempo Semanal and me while her office was producing the new East Timor Penal Code which decriminalised defamation.

It seems like the Minister for Justice is confused about Timorese law.
Belo said he would like to make it clear to Tempo Semanal readers that “we are not afraid to go court to prove our story and that's why we have requested the kindness from the good office of the deputy Prime Minister to encourage the Minister of Justice to carry on the case.”

Jose Belo and Tempo Semanal also thanked all those friends who gave courage and support at this difficult time.

It remains unclear if the minister will ever faces charge in relation to the accusations of corruption that have been made against her by Tempo Semanal, the Provedor, the Parliamentary Opposition and many others.

Tempo Semanal's award on Pacific Scoop

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Freddie's second bite at Post-Courier ethics

WHAT has happened to Papua New Guinea's Post-Courier, the once fearless and crusading newspaper that set the tone for professionalism and ethics in the South Pacific? Yes, we know standards have been slipping for some time. But what is it with the Filipino "aliens" fiasco last week? Is an anti-Asian bias getting in the way of the facts? Media commentators around the region have reacted strongly over what appears to have been a lie.

Why would the newspaper defend this? A former editor-in-chief of the Rupert Murdoch-owned daily, Oseah Philemon, could hardly believe it.

Philemon, OBE, who came out of retirement as regional editor to head up the Momase bureau of the rival Malasian logging company's The National, snorted: “No editor in his right frame of mind would stand by any story if he knows – after being told the facts – that the story he published is wrong, incorrect in detail and ought to be retracted ... I am rather appalled that the Post-Courier can still hold its head high after committing the worst sin in journalism.”

Freddie Hernandez, a senior subeditor on The National, exposed the blatant example of yellow journalism in his blog Letters from Port Moresby last week. Some other media such as Pacific Scoop followed up. And the Parliamentary Bipartisan Committee investigating the anti-Asian riots in May now seems ready for the chop after losing credibility in this media mess. And now Freddie has followed up with this week with another condemnation of the Post-Courier, this time calling on Asian residents of Papua New Guinea to ostracise the newspaper:

ASIANS IN PNG SHOULD NOW BOYCOTT POST-COURIER!

By Freddie Hernandez in Port Moresby

WOULD you defend a blatant and deliberate lie? Yes, by all means … at least in PNG’s liberal media environment, Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid Post-Courier has shown in the past week that it would.

Not really. Because over the years, the Post-Courier has flaunted its sheer arrogance as it printed on its pages stories whose credibility were immediately questionable, but not bothering to admit to the transgression and to rectify it.

And worst, it has even fabricated anti-Asian reports, passed them on as truth, and for which the reporters and editors stood by them even to the demise of their own credibility.

One classic example which stands unparalleled yet in the Pacific was showcased on Page 1 by this paper just very recently.

It headlined a fabricated report that proved to be very damaging to the reputation of some 10,000 Filipinos here in PNG and peddled it across the nation as “the plain truth”.

I remember my country’s despot, President Marcos, who had once said that “lies when repeatedly uttered become the truth”.

As far as I am concerned, Marcos’ dictum and what the Post-Courier does in its every day reporting where it peddles lies here and there don’t differ that much. Henceforth, what this daily dishes out would always be deemed as lies, however hard you try to believe them, simply because the credibility has passed out of existence.

For one thing, it has allowed its cronies to malign and destroy some Asian reputations and institutions using its pages where lies had crawled all over, but denying those aggrieved the same opportunity of having their side on the issue at hand to see print in this very same paper, only to be told that such rejection was a management “business decision”.

Distressing events
The events that transpired last week have been the most unsettling, upsetting and stressing for the members of the Filipino expatriate community in Papua New Guinea.

On Tuesday, November 10, Pinoys in Port Moresby and across the country woke up to find themselves in the midst of alleged 16,000 illegal compatriots.

Having read the Post-Courier’s fabricated report that there are “16,000 illegal Filipinos out of the 19,000 who are in the country right now”, they were utterly horrified and in great shock.

A simple arithmetic would immediately show there would only be 3,000 Filipinos living and working legally in the country and they include a few hundreds of those who have acquired PNG citizenship and permanent resident (PR) status. This is not the case, however.

The source of the alleged statistics, according to the Post-Courier, was Philippine Ambassador to PNG, Madam Shirley Ho-Vicario, who, on Friday, November 6, purportedly testified at the Parliamentary Bipartisan Committee probing the anti-Asian riots last May.

In her alleged testimony before a panel chaired by MP Jamie Maxtone-Graham, Madam Ho-Vicario disclosed there are 19,000 Filipinos in PNG and of this, 80 percent, or 16,000, are illegal aliens.

The Maxtone-Graham panel wanted to know what triggered the marginalised Papua New Guineans to go into rioting and looting variety shops and grocery stores owned and operated by Chinese in the Highlands and in Port Moresby.

The locals are said to hate illegal aliens, particularly Asians whose numbers are growing because they feel that they are robbing them of jobs and livelihoods reserved for them under the law.

Flurry of emails
Shortly before noon, a flurry of emails was exchanged among Pinoy expatriates who expressed disbelief that there are 16,000 illegal Filipino workers in the country.

Joey Sena, president of the Filipino Association of PNG (FAPNG), called for sobriety and calm as he urged the members of the community to be vigilant for their own safety against possible physical harm that may arise following the Post-Courier report.

Madam Ho-Vicario said of the story: “This is a pure fabrication! How did the Post-Courier come up with these figures?”

'Maligned'
“The Filipino community has been put at risk because of these anti-Asian sentiments, and I, as the representative of the Philippine government here in PNG, have been maligned by the report.

“I’m vehemently denying the report … it’s all fabricated … it has no factual basis … it’s unfounded and far from the truth.

“I demand that the Post-Courier retract the story and print the truth.

“There could never be 19,000 Filipinos living and working here in this country,” the Ambassador said.

“I never appeared on the said committee hearing on that day to give evidence on the anti-Asian riots.

“I was never interviewed on that matter or present at the Bipartisan Parliamentary Inquiry last Friday.

“I never knew who MP Philip Kikala is, I didn’t know how he looked … I just didn’t know him,” Madam Ho-Vicario rattled off.

“I would never be able to recognise him from Adam even if you put him in front of me unless he has his nametag pinned on his chest!”

MP Kikala was the source that provided the Post-Courier the fabricated figures of “19,000 Filipinos in PNG, of which 16,000 are illegal”.

Madam Ho-Vicario said there are only 10,120 expatriates in the country as of June 19. About 670 of them are permanent residents, 6,600 are temporary migrants (work permit and working visa holders) and the rest are holders of tourist visa and business visa.

Story defended
Just before I filed my story on the Ambassador’s denial, I called the Post-Courier’s editor-in-chief, Blaise Nangoi, for comment.

“We stand by our story,” he told me.

Nangoi said the Post-Courier's report was based on information its reporter had obtained from a source (Mr Kikala) that was at the parliamentary committee hearing last November 6 when Madam Ho-Vicario purportedly testified.

Categorically denying this, the Ambassador said: “I was never present at the Parliament last Friday”.

The National, the leading daily in PNG, carried the denial story the next day, Wednesday, November 11, and was headlined: “Philippine Embassy denies “aliens” report.

On that day, Maxtone-Graham sent an official letter to the Ambassador stating categorically "that you never appeared before my inquiry, either in person or through a representative on the date as stated by the Post-Courier. Neither have we received any written submission from your embassy."

MP testified
The paper stubbornly defended its claim on the presence of 16,000 illegal Filipinos. It reported that Kikala testified on a bipartisan committee hearing on Monday, November 9, that the ambassador “informed” him about the 16,000 illegal Filipinos in the country.

Now, it is very clear that the Post-Courier has confused itself in making the report in an effort to steer clear out of further embarrassment.

First, it reported that Madam Ho-Vicario appeared at the hearing on Friday, November 6, where she purportedly testified on the presence of 16,000 illegal Filipinos out of the 19,000 expatriates. But later, it backtracked and admitted that she never did so.

Then, the Post-Courier contradicted itself again when it reported in its November 12 edition that it was now Kikala who had testified at the committee hearing on November 9 when he declared that the ambassador “informed” him of the 16,000 illegal Filipinos.

However, instead of making Kikala’s testimony the main story for the next day, November 10, it was Madam Ho-Vicario’s fabricated appearance and concocted testimony last November 6 that made the headline.

And worse, Kikala was unable to tell the Post-Courier on what occasion did the ambassador divulge to him the derogatory information. Was it during a parliamentary bipartisan hearing? Was it during lunch or dinner? Or was it during a cocktail party?

From whom did Kikala obtain his statistics? Or, did he deliberately cook up some “blockbuster” story to get some attention and pluck himself out of non-revenue obscurity?

It is ironic that while the Ambassador has categorically said she “never knew MP Kikala or ever met him”, the MP insisted on claiming he obtained the information directly from her.

Just before Madam Ho-Vicario was posted in PNG as the Philippine government’s ambassador in February 2007, she was fully aware of the number of Filipinos that her embassy would be representing in the country. She knew too that PNG is a hardship post.

“There’s no way for me to commit the mistake of giving wrong figures pertaining to the number of Pinoys in Port Moresby,” she told me. “I’m not stupid.”

New recruits
Over the years, the number of Filipino expatriates here has played between 8,000 and 10,000, with many of them going home after their contracts expired, but only to be replaced by new recruits.

And the presence of illegal Filipino workers would be one of her concerns because every time they would be in trouble, they would come to the embassy for help. But there were not many, as the ambassador has noted since her posting more than two years ago now.

With very limited resources, the embassy has been dealing with cases involving illegal Filipinos who would come for assistance would be a nagging problem even if there are only a handful of them.

How much more with 16,000? There’s just no sense for her to just dish out statistics just for kicks without creating problems later for the expatriate Filipinos and the embassy itself.

But then, if ever there are 16,000 illegal Filipinos, it should not be a problem for the Philippine Embassy to deal with. It belongs to the PNG Immigration Department.

And if there are that many, how come the PNG Government is never aware of them?

Now, the Filipino community is asking: “What is Kikala’s agenda? Why is he trying to connive with the Post-Courier in maligning Filipinos and foment racist hatred among Papua New Guineans against them? Are they moonlighting as racists?”

Why did the Post-Courier reject a whole-page paid advertorial that the Filipino Association of PNG (FAPNG) was trying to place with the daily for the Monday, November 16, edition?

In this advertorial, the association is asking the Post-Courier to rectify its story and correct the negative impression about the 10,000 Filipino expatriates that has been generated by its irresponsible reporting.

It said: “The Post-Courier report has caused enormous damage to our reputation as peace-loving, law-abiding and charitable residents of the international community in Papua New Guinea.

“Now, we are suddenly concerned over our safety, because erroneous reporting has created animosity among Papua New Guineans who feel marginalised by the present state of affairs in their own country because of enterprising Asians who they feel are robbing them of their livelihood and jobs."

Abridged from Freddie's blog - read the full blog here.

Pictured: Top: The Philippine Ambassador to PNG, Madam Shirley Ho-Vicario. Photo: Freddie Hernandez. Above: Jamie Maxtone-Graham, chair of the controversial bipartisan committee.

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