AUSTRALIA AND NEO-COLONIALISM IN PNG: THE UNFORTUNATE TRUTH!

Introduction

Few Papua New Guineans today (including politicians, lawyers, academics, etc¡K) have taken the issue of ¡§Ops Charlemagne¡¨ at heart and with objectivity so as to fully appreciate why and how events such as the Bougainville, the Sandline, and more recently the Moti events are of such strategic significance and why similar events are likely to confront Papua New Guinea as a resource-rich nation in the future. As more states become industrialized, the competition for scarce resources becomes more aggressive; hence the surge in military expenditure to protect foreign investment abroad. Third world states such as Papua New Guinea with insignificant military forces are easy prey for these foreign powers who design strategies and new technology to extract resources from any corner of the globe regardless of the well-being of the resource owner. The powerful forces that engineer such events are beyond national jurisdiction and certainly responsible for re-shaping the global political, economic and security landscape. More specifically, there is a general ignorance on how Australia¡¦s quest for global status and influence supported by the United States directly impacts on Papua New Guinea¡¦s national security, dreams and aspirations as a young and growing democracy.

It is in this context that Australia¡¦s shift in foreign policy to ¡¥interventionism¡¦ in the region is viewed as the return of neocolonialism or imperialism. One only has to look at the face of every government institution or corporate body to recognize that Papua New Guineans are no longer making independent decisions as per the spirit of independence. Perhaps the only leaders who had consistently tried to make decisions solely for the interest of Papua New Guinea are Sir Michael Somare, the current Prime Minister and previously Sir Julius Chan. The other politicians appear to be confused and would rather be treated like the Aborigines of Australia. But Somare¡¦s effort to develop the country in a ¡§Papua New Guinean way¡¨ is constantly undermined by Canberra using its advisers in-country or in Canberra, including Papua New Guineans who are suffering from the ¡§inferiority complex.¡¨ The constant themes heralded by these messengers of doom violate Papua New Guineans¡¦ freedom of conscience on a daily basis; i.e. failed-state, systemic corruption and bribery, the exaggeration of HIV/Aids messages on a daily basis, lawlessness and so forth. Yet a good percentage of Papua New Guineans here and abroad would rather see a nationalist prime minister like Somare go in preference for a puppet prime minister. The external perception created by Canberra¡¦s daily propaganda is a country totally doomed and can only be saved by Canberra. This view is certainly racist and dehumanizes Melanesians as colored but intellectual people.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of neocolonialism in Papua New Guinea, how it is being shaped to safe-guard Australia¡¦s national interest, security and influence in global politics. The term ¡¥neocolonialism¡¦ is defined below to set the framework for discussion in this rather controversial issue. The author attempts to prove that neocolonialism is currently shaping its ugly head in Papua New Guinea.

Definition

According to the dictionary of politics and government; neocolonialism is a policy by which a strong country tries to influence or control weaker countries which are independent; e.g. Australia vs. PNG and the Pacific States. The Oxford dictionary of politics equates neocolonialism with imperialism; i.e. domination or control by one country or group of people over others, in ways assumed to be at the expense of the latter; e.g. Australia-Aborigines; Australia-PNG; Australia-Pacific. Given these broad definitions of neocolonialism, the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea is some-what depictive of imperialism or neocolonialism.

The Rationale

The rationale behind the author¡¦s thesis is that Papua New Guinea is one of the few nations with vastly untapped resources, often referred to as ¡¥Australia¡¦s economic backyard¡¦ or ¡¥Australia¡¦s turf¡¦ by John Howard. One of Papua New Guinea¡¦s untapped resources is water. With the ongoing draught problems in Australia, Papua New Guinea is the closest neighbor who can pipe water to Australia to meet the water-requirement of Australian farmers. But through a nationalistic government such as the current incumbent, the Australian government may not secure a favorable bargain it desires financially and Papua New Guinea stands to reap the benefits of the abundant water resource. In direct contrast, a pro-Australian prime minister is likely to ¡¥give-away¡¦ our water resource to Australia. Like Morauta in his term as prime minister when he authorized a ten year moratorium to import rice from Australia. The company has since shifted to PNG under the brand name ¡§trukai¡¨ but is still an Australian company. Bhutan a country in South Asia has no natural resource except water. She exports water to neighboring countries and is able to fund free education for all her citizens to post-graduate level. The ANU is dominated by students from Bhutan. In addition; the country¡¦s vast untapped resources is attracting global attention where Australia is uncomfortable. Industries in Australia and the West need raw material, and in this region Papua New Guinea is the only country with the resources to help sustain Australia¡¦s industries in the long term.

As the competition for scarce resources stiffens, states develop highly sophisticated Armed Forces to support their respective foreign policies. As a result, the third world states often wonder why after the Cold War had lapsed; the industrial nations are still pursuing nuclear capability at the expense of the environment and the poor people of the world.

The second major rationale for neocolonialism in the region (including Papua New Guinea) is about power and influence at the international forum. Papua New Guinea may be a third world state; but its voting power at the United Nations (UN) is equivalent to the US or Australia. Therefore, with China setting a foot-hold in the Pacific, the ¡¥numbers¡¦ game at the UN has the potential to either make, or break western dominance of global politics. These scenarios are rather scary for Australia and the West and like the Iraq invasion are prepared to ¡¥fight¡¦ their way to survival.

The Face of Neocolonialism

The Aus-AID advisers using the conditions attached to the funding programs have infiltrated every institution of government including the military. For instance; Finance and Treasury as the institution that is pivotal to economic growth currently employs officers from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) disguised as IT; financial experts; and advisors. In actual fact they are not. The strategy is to waste all government funding on contract salaries at the tune of approximately K6, 000 per day for as long as it takes. At the end of the contract the government is always blamed for the failures of these contractors, the contract gets renewed, and the ¡¥vicious cycle¡¦ continues. If the government tries to secure another contractor, it could be sued for millions, and so the status quo remains. For instance; the government¡¦s Concept pay and PGAS systems are incomplete programs owned by a private company in Australia. It is supervised by a female ECP adviser who has no idea about the incomplete system contracted to the PNG government through the then Treasury Minister Bart Philemon and Thaddeus Kambanei. Despite her lack of knowledge, the PNG government continues to pay her K6, 000 daily since 2,002.

Military Advisers

Through the instrument of DCP the Australian Defence Force military advisers are able to control and influence the PNG Defence Force hierarchy. This is the major attributing factor to the military being disloyal to the government of the day and the national constitution. Aus-AID financial advisers convince Finance and Treasury that the military is fully-funded by DCP; hence the government should worry about other areas of government. But DCP funding is not visible, has political strings attached, and training for the PNG military is determined by the ADF. For instance; the much promised DCP-funded uniforms remains outstanding since 2000 because of the political stalemate between Canberra and Waigani.

The DCP advisers report directly to the Commander PNGDF and the Australian High Commission (AHC) in Port Moresby. Therefore, the advice from the military to the government of the day is ninety percent foreign. Secondly, advice and clearance for foreign military aircrafts and ships are done by these expatriate advisers who are in the military and other institutions of government.

ADB and World Bank Funding

The WB and ADB funding programs continue to be packaged with Australian and western advisors who seem to think they know what are best for Papua New Guinea. But the vision for these international finance institutions are renowned for contradicting Papua New Guinea¡¦ developmental goals since independence; i.e. the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). When Papua New Guinea is still building its nation (towards singular identity) after the colonial powers including Australia failed to set the right economic infrastructure for growth, Canberra through donor funding continue to shovel money into areas that breed corruption; e.g. institutional capacity building. It is an established fact that 80 percent of the population live in the rural areas; hence the philosophy of the MTDS by the Somare government is proper and relevant to the development needs of the country. Foreign interference using foreign funding such as the WB and ADB funding had been the source of many student unrests at the national universities in the past and in Morauta¡¦s term as prime minister. They continue to target structural reforms where the majority of Papua New Guineans cannot benefit.

The ASIS officers employed in Port Moresby are known to the government of the day and include the following:

1. Jim Kerwin:
„X Facilitates the entry of ASIS officers into the country;
„X ECP officer;
„X Deputy Secretary Policy in the Finance Department;
„X He is monitoring the crash of the PAGUS and Concept Pay system;
„X Facilitates the employment of foreigners instead of training nationals; hence nationals are sidelined. He was given this post by T. Kambanei.

2. Maria Larasy:
„X ECP officer attached with ASIS and employed with Finance Bureau of Operations;
„X Her task is to keep all payroll information confidential and the data sent to Canberra on a daily basis;
„X She was supposed to train locals to takeover but since 2002 has not done so.

3. Mike Petridges:
„X ECP officer attached to ASIS and under the Philemon/Kambanei regime assigned as payroll manager. Same job is done by Mary Laki;
„X Mike was supposed to teach Mary how to run the system, but he cannot because the system is defunct;
„X Even Mike has no training in the current system, and therefore a case of ¡§the blind leading the blind;¡¨
„X Two people are therefore paid for doing one job;
„X In the same manner; the Concept Payroll system is a failure because it allows the Administrator or IT manager (Philippine national) to create as many positions as it wants, and which cheques are made against. Such is how ghost positions are create for ghost names and payment follows;
„X The two Phillipinos employed with Mike are; George Nodallo (IT sales) and Jeff Hernandez (Acting General Manager, IT Finance Department);
„X Because Papua New Guineans are not being trained to take-over, the Concept pay system will over-lap the contracted period, hence the national government is again likely to be blamed for not delivering on time;
„X This situation will again push the government into a corner where they through the Finance Secretary are forced to sign the Concept Payroll Company up for another 3-4 years, costing approximately another US$30 million. So the vicious cycle continues...

4. Brandon Coombs:
„X Allegedly married to a lady from Manus and owns the Concept PNG Company;
„X His company was given a K100 million contract by Philemon and Kambanei to create the PNG government payroll system. However, Brandon Coombs is not trained in this area of IT and neither is his Concept PNG Company;
„X He is a front which ASIS used to get the Australian company into PNG to do the job of sabotaging the payroll system;
„X This job was given to Concept PNG, but then sub-contracted to a company called SOLID ROCK which belongs to Peter Forbes in Australia. The danger is that; the company that was meant to finish the job has not done so creating a vacuum in the system that can be fraudulently misused;
„X It is set up in a way that all payments to public servants are monitored at the AHC creating a breach of privacy and confidentiality for the state of PNG;
„X There is also no guarantee of warranty as for the company, Solid Rock is based overseas and prosecution for not fulfilling their obligations may be hard due to jurisdiction issues;
„X Two nationals; John Kali and Thomas Supuru are known to have bribed Coombs for money. These two nationals knew what was wrong with the Concept Payroll system and have benefited from the ghost payroll positions. Their approaches to Coombs made Coombs fled the country;
„X This is the greatest scam defrauding the state of PNG and of which many more locals are also benefiting;
„X It is a matter of urgency that this scam be halted!

5. Dr. Michael Evans:
„X British citizen, attached to the Financial Management Improvement Program (FMIP) which cost the state US$5 million;
„X Dr. Evans was meant to report to Mr. Eddie Galele. As usual Dr. Evans has taken over the show because of the magnitude of the project. It is hard to believe that there are no locals who can handle that position;
„X Once again Tech One; an internationally based IT company was given the contract and to this date has not delivered;
„X It is more likely that this company does not exist;
„X It is therefore questionable that legitimate companies are being contracted by the Finance Department;
„X To date, a total of K19 million had been paid to this company;
„X However, the same tactics had been employed and the government blamed for not delivering on time an forcing an extension of the project period;
„X The government was forced to fork up another K10 million to extend the delivery period.

The twist however is that; the ADB actually pays these people to do the job but strangely enough the PNG Government is held reliable for the repayment of these payments. Put simply, the Finance Department seems to be holding the nation liable to debt without the prime minister even knowing about it. It is most dis-honorable because the current Payroll system can be manipulated and these repayments made to the ADB without being picked-up and checked as per the normal process of payments. Eventually, all reserves may be depleted and PNG back into economic and social turmoil. Subsequently, Tech One was hired to complement the job of Concept PNG. Since 2002, no improvements have occurred but a lot of public money wasted.

The Pretext of Capacity Building

Capacity-building is the methodology or strategy used not only to divert attention from the government¡¦s MTDS but where all the fraudulent activities take place at the highest pedestal. Because the Concept PNG and the Australian government have used this pretext regularly it has simply caused the PNG leaders to be blind, especially at the bureaucratic level, and they simply say ¡¥yes¡¦ without even questioning the hidden motive or agenda. The same experiences are reported in other government institutions including the military, except for the police who were saved by Luther Wenge. What these blind public servants do not understand is that when it comes to trade; there are no friends. States fight for survival in the international arena, and where the fittest survive. The US invasion of Iraq without UN sanction is a prime example of the US fighting for its survival!

Under such pretext these projects get approved and tied into contracts that are signed for an unrealistic period of three to four years. The next step is to introduce a technological system that is beyond understanding and the skill set of the Papua New Guineans. This forces the Government to stand-down many Papua New Guineans and where foreigners are brought in. The same strategy is employed in the other Melanesian states such as Fiji, Solomons, Vanuatu, and Timor Leste to enable Australians employment opportunities and to occupy positions normally reserved for nationals.

The irony though is that the expatriate who is meant to train locals becomes the trainee in his new job in a new country. Time wasted on the expatriate means that the contract time is wasted on someone that the service provider has assigned. In addition, the Papua New Guinean would need time to adapt and bring his/her level of understanding up to the standard of technology being introduced, which by then the contract of three-four years would have expired.

This avenue unfairly gives the service provider the right to blame the PNG Government for not keeping up, even though it is designed in such a manner so as to milk more money from the government and to give away local positions to foreigners. The government has no choice but to pay extra for a job that is meant for a very specific period in the contract.

Furthermore, the Australian ASIS contingents are simply not complying by the agreement and have seriously failed to teach and show the local Papua New Guineans how to take over the transfer of the software from Concept PNG. The tactic here is quite obvious; e.g. the Australian married to a Manus woman will soon apply for citizenship to meet the conditions for making business in PNG, thus the software will never be transferred to a genuine Papua New Guinean. Even the Manus wife may be used as a front for Concept PNG.

Conclusion

The Concept Payroll System and PAGUS is not a safe and secure system. Its vulnerability had been tested and proven by IT experts from international organizations. National funds are easily siphoned through the system using corrupt Finance and Treasury staff with the support of Concept PNG and PAGUS.
The concept payroll system including all forms of government planning is monitored and controlled from the AHC. Additionally, Australian advisors working in PNG are ninety percent ASIS agents.

A systemic payroll crash is highly possible by the Australian government to cause the Government¡¦s Public Service to come to a chaotic halt creating wide-spread unrest. Compounded with the NGOs pressure on the prime minister to resign, the impact could be catastrophic for national security and stability.

It is highly probable that the ultimate aim is to dethrone Somare and install a puppet government. With the puppet government the ¡¥vicious cycle¡¦ is likely to continue where the country and its citizens will continue to be robbed by Canberra, the West, and their agents.

It is a matter of urgency and national survival that the government takes drastic measures to halt this suspected phased-invasion that could lead to the final realization of neocolonialism. It is difficult to invade a country using an army; but it is much easier to invade using knowledge and technology. Under neocolonialism, Papua New Guinea is likely to become a ¡¥free associate¡¦ state of Australia. In this scenario, PNG¡¦s voice at the UN (including the other Pacific states) would be in favor of Australia and to sustain Australia¡¦s global influence.

To the author, thank you for a well constructed and vivid picture of the neocolonialism approach taken by Australia in the pretext of institutional and capacity building programmes. The arguments and the supported facts, augur well for a nationalistic approach in nation building. However, the sticking points, that will always surface, are in relation to basic good governance and management practices. This will continue to taint PNG even in the face of such expository paper. Rest aside, even the insinuations of Australian controlled media mechanism or other, whether there be, the realities of which some of us have experienced, that continues to thrive and faces our populace, are a testament of the shortcomings on the part of our so-called nationalistic leaders. Hence the challenge and the greater onus being firmly in the domains of our elected agents to take it in their stride and perpetuate our nationhood.

**** WhAT THE FHUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT HERE!

cAN YOU GET TO THE POINT IN LAY MANS TALK

gRUZ RUT

Mr. Anonymous

Did this article touch on your sore. truth hurts ah ?. The language is simple and straight forward. If you can't comprehend - u'd beta go back to school.

Anonymous is a paid Aus. agenthired to discredit and engineer the overthrow of a nationalistic Government of PM Somare and promote Aussie interest in PNG. He is not a national. He is an Aussie. I am sure - he or she should be able to read and understand english better than us coz english is his mother.

ANON

U KAM LO SCHOOL YA. READIM NA SKELIM. HOW YU PAINIM HAT LO READIM DISPLA SIMPLE AND STRAIGHT FOWRARD WRITTEN ARTICLE. INAP LO BILASIM CLASSROOM HA HA HA HA LOL

The author appears to allege almost everyone is ASIS, knowing full well no government employee is allowed to stand up and defend themselves in a public forum such as this. The author is clearly a tertiary-educated Australia with a relatively comprehensive (if not necessarily accurate)knowledge of the internal workings of government, at least on this particular issue. It would not therefore be unreasonable to conclude that the author may also be ASIS. Such a shame the author will never be able to defend him/herself in this public forum without exposing his/her true identity. The author's article smacks of unprofessionalism. This is evident in his/her naming of defenseless public officials. If the author has legitimate complaints regarding public officials working in PNG, why single them out and name them individually? Why not just send appropriately signed letters of complaint directly to Canberra etc?