Papua New Guinea Government is fanning anti Asian sentiments

Let me state at the outset that I do not wish to sound like the Parliamentary opposition nor do I want to be seen to be speaking for them. But as a citizen of this country, I do have the right to speak out on government matters that have a bearing on my individual as well as our collective well beings. Indeed it is our right to scrutinise any Prime Minister of the day and his government, who are the custodians of our cultural, social, political and economic heritage.

That said, the Prime Minister has been acting in a highly suspicious manner in his response to the anti Asian riots that occurred in May this year. He initially made an appearance on the government owned television station, Kundu 2, just after the riots to address Papua New Guineans on the issue and ended up defending Asians and blaming our people for our predicament.

He did not stop there. His worst display was in an interview on the issue with the Arabic television station Al Jazeera where he visibly got emotional and stumbled all over his words defending Asians again and in the process casting Papua New Guineans in a very negative light as a bunch of lazy people. This interview made the popular internet motion image site youtube where the whole world saw and heard what our own Prime Minister thinks about us. Makes one wonder whose interest he really is serving.

While he successfully managed to get the wheels of blame game in full motion, he then turned around and set up the Parliamentary Bi-partisan Committee to investigate the matter as a way of showing us that he was doing something about the issue. But there was a catch. He wasn’t going to fund the committee’s activities. It now appears highly likely that this was a smoke screen to play the all too familiar delay tactics in the hope that Papua New Guineans will simply forget about the rot over time as we almost often do.

To the committee’s credit, the grossly under funded team laboured on under the leadership of Anglimp South Waghi MP Jamie-Maxtone Graham as its Chairman and conducted a series of inquiries into the matter in Port Moresby. Not surprisingly, the committee unearthed some horrifying evidences of a complete collapse of our governance systems and national defence and protection mechanisms, a range of illegal Asian activities and even an inference of a presence of Chinese triads in our country. In my view, the committee did an excellent job and was pushing ahead with its activities under difficult circumstances and with very limited funding support from the government.

But the Prime Minister and his government had other ideas. With their first strategy of shifting blame on Papua New Guineans clearly failing, they then turned to the committee as a façade with the hope of slowly suffocating it to death, and hence the demise of the issue, over a period of time by simply turning a blind eye on its funding requirements. This strategy clearly wasn’t going to work as Mr Graham and his committee refused to take this bait. So what did they do? Use the ultimate power of the Parliament to effectively disband the committee by terminating its chairman without prior notice and without caring to tell us why he was removed.

Paul Tiensten, the mover of this motion to oust Mr Graham, should hang his head in shame for his abusive and arrogant display of power. The picture all of this is painting to us is that Asian interests in Papua New Guinea, regardless of their legality, are deeply entrenched in our corridors of power and that it will be very difficult to address their illegal activities in our country in the most lawful and civilised manner possible. Our government’s seemingly compromised position on this issue raises the great fear we all hold that the man on the streets might grow impatient and start taking matters into his own hands again.

I sincerely hope that this never happens for the sake of the genuine Asian community in our country. But is there a possibility it might happen? Yes indeed. There is a high likelihood of it happening again. At about the time the Prime Minister made that villainous Al Jazeera appearance, the Australian Associated Press released a short news article in which they attributed comments by our own National Intelligence Organisation that the anti Asian sentiments among indigenous Papua New Guineans is at fever pitch high and it is the number one national security threat for our nation at this stage.

The NIO’s assessment is not unreasonable given the fact a certain unsigned e-mail is currently being circulated among working class Papua New Guineans calling and soliciting support for a complete destruction of Asian businesses and property on New Year’s Eve. I hope this doesn’t happen, and it may not happen. But what it means is that what was initially started by the common man has quickly caught on with the working class, and there can never be a more potent situation than this.

The Prime Minister and his government must not underestimate these sentiments and warnings because this is probably the one major thing that has the potential to cause mutiny in our police force and the military and throw the nation into total chaos and anarchy. Don’t forget that our policemen and soldiers are Papua New

Guineans first and foremost, and certain serving individuals would not hesitate to defy lawful orders from their hierarchy and do otherwise if they are convinced enough that the political leadership is incapable of effectively dealing with the issue.

At a time when we are looking for strong political leadership and direction to appropriately deal with this matter and defuse the tensions, our government sees fit to do the exact opposite. The Prime Minister and his government are only fanning anti Asian sentiments by removing Mr Graham under highly suspicious circumstances and must be prepared to take full responsibility if things get out of hand. With due respect to David Arore, he is an untested fresh face in the political arena with little experience in dealing with difficult issues and situations such as this.

We shall wait and see his ability to run the inquiries without fear and favour and to coerce the truth to come out as the committee’s work progresses under his leadership. In the mean time, we can only hope and pray that the common man on the ground can continue to hold his patience while we experiment with inexperienced people at the helm of a crucial investigation exercise of national importance. But for how long he can keep the lid on is another matter?

Source: Post Courier Weekender

Papua New Guinea Government is fanning anti Asian sentiments

Let me state at the outset that I do not wish to sound like the Parliamentary opposition nor do I want to be seen to be speaking for them. But as a citizen of this country, I do have the right to speak out on government matters that have a bearing on my individual as well as our collective well beings. Indeed it is our right to scrutinise any Prime Minister of the day and his government, who are the custodians of our cultural, social, political and economic heritage.

That said, the Prime Minister has been acting in a highly suspicious manner in his response to the anti Asian riots that occurred in May this year. He initially made an appearance on the government owned television station, Kundu 2, just after the riots to address Papua New Guineans on the issue and ended up defending Asians and blaming our people for our predicament.

He did not stop there. His worst display was in an interview on the issue with the Arabic television station Al Jazeera where he visibly got emotional and stumbled all over his words defending Asians again and in the process casting Papua New Guineans in a very negative light as a bunch of lazy people. This interview made the popular internet motion image site youtube where the whole world saw and heard what our own Prime Minister thinks about us. Makes one wonder whose interest he really is serving.

While he successfully managed to get the wheels of blame game in full motion, he then turned around and set up the Parliamentary Bi-partisan Committee to investigate the matter as a way of showing us that he was doing something about the issue. But there was a catch. He wasn’t going to fund the committee’s activities. It now appears highly likely that this was a smoke screen to play the all too familiar delay tactics in the hope that Papua New Guineans will simply forget about the rot over time as we almost often do.

To the committee’s credit, the grossly under funded team laboured on under the leadership of Anglimp South Waghi MP Jamie-Maxtone Graham as its Chairman and conducted a series of inquiries into the matter in Port Moresby. Not surprisingly, the committee unearthed some horrifying evidences of a complete collapse of our governance systems and national defence and protection mechanisms, a range of illegal Asian activities and even an inference of a presence of Chinese triads in our country. In my view, the committee did an excellent job and was pushing ahead with its activities under difficult circumstances and with very limited funding support from the government.

But the Prime Minister and his government had other ideas. With their first strategy of shifting blame on Papua New Guineans clearly failing, they then turned to the committee as a façade with the hope of slowly suffocating it to death, and hence the demise of the issue, over a period of time by simply turning a blind eye on its funding requirements. This strategy clearly wasn’t going to work as Mr Graham and his committee refused to take this bait. So what did they do? Use the ultimate power of the Parliament to effectively disband the committee by terminating its chairman without prior notice and without caring to tell us why he was removed.

Paul Tiensten, the mover of this motion to oust Mr Graham, should hang his head in shame for his abusive and arrogant display of power. The picture all of this is painting to us is that Asian interests in Papua New Guinea, regardless of their legality, are deeply entrenched in our corridors of power and that it will be very difficult to address their illegal activities in our country in the most lawful and civilised manner possible. Our government’s seemingly compromised position on this issue raises the great fear we all hold that the man on the streets might grow impatient and start taking matters into his own hands again.

I sincerely hope that this never happens for the sake of the genuine Asian community in our country. But is there a possibility it might happen? Yes indeed. There is a high likelihood of it happening again. At about the time the Prime Minister made that villainous Al Jazeera appearance, the Australian Associated Press released a short news article in which they attributed comments by our own National Intelligence Organisation that the anti Asian sentiments among indigenous Papua New Guineans is at fever pitch high and it is the number one national security threat for our nation at this stage.

The NIO’s assessment is not unreasonable given the fact a certain unsigned e-mail is currently being circulated among working class Papua New Guineans calling and soliciting support for a complete destruction of Asian businesses and property on New Year’s Eve. I hope this doesn’t happen, and it may not happen. But what it means is that what was initially started by the common man has quickly caught on with the working class, and there can never be a more potent situation than this.

The Prime Minister and his government must not underestimate these sentiments and warnings because this is probably the one major thing that has the potential to cause mutiny in our police force and the military and throw the nation into total chaos and anarchy. Don’t forget that our policemen and soldiers are Papua New

Guineans first and foremost, and certain serving individuals would not hesitate to defy lawful orders from their hierarchy and do otherwise if they are convinced enough that the political leadership is incapable of effectively dealing with the issue.

At a time when we are looking for strong political leadership and direction to appropriately deal with this matter and defuse the tensions, our government sees fit to do the exact opposite. The Prime Minister and his government are only fanning anti Asian sentiments by removing Mr Graham under highly suspicious circumstances and must be prepared to take full responsibility if things get out of hand. With due respect to David Arore, he is an untested fresh face in the political arena with little experience in dealing with difficult issues and situations such as this.

We shall wait and see his ability to run the inquiries without fear and favour and to coerce the truth to come out as the committee’s work progresses under his leadership. In the mean time, we can only hope and pray that the common man on the ground can continue to hold his patience while we experiment with inexperienced people at the helm of a crucial investigation exercise of national importance. But for how long he can keep the lid on is another matter?

Source: Post Courier Weekender

Papua New Guinea Government is fanning anti Asian sentiments

Let me state at the outset that I do not wish to sound like the Parliamentary opposition nor do I want to be seen to be speaking for them. But as a citizen of this country, I do have the right to speak out on government matters that have a bearing on my individual as well as our collective well beings. Indeed it is our right to scrutinise any Prime Minister of the day and his government, who are the custodians of our cultural, social, political and economic heritage.

That said, the Prime Minister has been acting in a highly suspicious manner in his response to the anti Asian riots that occurred in May this year. He initially made an appearance on the government owned television station, Kundu 2, just after the riots to address Papua New Guineans on the issue and ended up defending Asians and blaming our people for our predicament.

He did not stop there. His worst display was in an interview on the issue with the Arabic television station Al Jazeera where he visibly got emotional and stumbled all over his words defending Asians again and in the process casting Papua New Guineans in a very negative light as a bunch of lazy people. This interview made the popular internet motion image site youtube where the whole world saw and heard what our own Prime Minister thinks about us. Makes one wonder whose interest he really is serving.

While he successfully managed to get the wheels of blame game in full motion, he then turned around and set up the Parliamentary Bi-partisan Committee to investigate the matter as a way of showing us that he was doing something about the issue. But there was a catch. He wasn’t going to fund the committee’s activities. It now appears highly likely that this was a smoke screen to play the all too familiar delay tactics in the hope that Papua New Guineans will simply forget about the rot over time as we almost often do.

To the committee’s credit, the grossly under funded team laboured on under the leadership of Anglimp South Waghi MP Jamie-Maxtone Graham as its Chairman and conducted a series of inquiries into the matter in Port Moresby. Not surprisingly, the committee unearthed some horrifying evidences of a complete collapse of our governance systems and national defence and protection mechanisms, a range of illegal Asian activities and even an inference of a presence of Chinese triads in our country. In my view, the committee did an excellent job and was pushing ahead with its activities under difficult circumstances and with very limited funding support from the government.

But the Prime Minister and his government had other ideas. With their first strategy of shifting blame on Papua New Guineans clearly failing, they then turned to the committee as a façade with the hope of slowly suffocating it to death, and hence the demise of the issue, over a period of time by simply turning a blind eye on its funding requirements. This strategy clearly wasn’t going to work as Mr Graham and his committee refused to take this bait. So what did they do? Use the ultimate power of the Parliament to effectively disband the committee by terminating its chairman without prior notice and without caring to tell us why he was removed.

Paul Tiensten, the mover of this motion to oust Mr Graham, should hang his head in shame for his abusive and arrogant display of power. The picture all of this is painting to us is that Asian interests in Papua New Guinea, regardless of their legality, are deeply entrenched in our corridors of power and that it will be very difficult to address their illegal activities in our country in the most lawful and civilised manner possible. Our government’s seemingly compromised position on this issue raises the great fear we all hold that the man on the streets might grow impatient and start taking matters into his own hands again.

I sincerely hope that this never happens for the sake of the genuine Asian community in our country. But is there a possibility it might happen? Yes indeed. There is a high likelihood of it happening again. At about the time the Prime Minister made that villainous Al Jazeera appearance, the Australian Associated Press released a short news article in which they attributed comments by our own National Intelligence Organisation that the anti Asian sentiments among indigenous Papua New Guineans is at fever pitch high and it is the number one national security threat for our nation at this stage.

The NIO’s assessment is not unreasonable given the fact a certain unsigned e-mail is currently being circulated among working class Papua New Guineans calling and soliciting support for a complete destruction of Asian businesses and property on New Year’s Eve. I hope this doesn’t happen, and it may not happen. But what it means is that what was initially started by the common man has quickly caught on with the working class, and there can never be a more potent situation than this.

The Prime Minister and his government must not underestimate these sentiments and warnings because this is probably the one major thing that has the potential to cause mutiny in our police force and the military and throw the nation into total chaos and anarchy. Don’t forget that our policemen and soldiers are Papua New

Guineans first and foremost, and certain serving individuals would not hesitate to defy lawful orders from their hierarchy and do otherwise if they are convinced enough that the political leadership is incapable of effectively dealing with the issue.

At a time when we are looking for strong political leadership and direction to appropriately deal with this matter and defuse the tensions, our government sees fit to do the exact opposite. The Prime Minister and his government are only fanning anti Asian sentiments by removing Mr Graham under highly suspicious circumstances and must be prepared to take full responsibility if things get out of hand. With due respect to David Arore, he is an untested fresh face in the political arena with little experience in dealing with difficult issues and situations such as this.

We shall wait and see his ability to run the inquiries without fear and favour and to coerce the truth to come out as the committee’s work progresses under his leadership. In the mean time, we can only hope and pray that the common man on the ground can continue to hold his patience while we experiment with inexperienced people at the helm of a crucial investigation exercise of national importance. But for how long he can keep the lid on is another matter?

Source: Post Courier Weekender

Research opportunities available in Papua New Guinea

Although it has been touched on before, it is useful to state again why research into certain areas of interest are important. First, determining the specific answers to questions that deals with who, what, when, where and why are vital.

It is important to recognize that the world as a global community need more research to find the real causes of some of our biggest problems. For example, the development of an effective method to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS would be an achievement that would be embraced by many around the world.

I was contacted via Kange Nga Kona from some researchers around the world whether or not if there are possibilities available to conduct researhes. As a third world country, Papua New Guinea offers great opportunities for interested researchers. Below are some of the areas of interest for those who want to spend time in Papua New Guinea doing research.

- Climate/Weather Patterns (tropics)

- Flora and Faunta (richest habitats for flora and fauna)

- Culture (Over 1000 cultures and more than 800 languages)

- Government (Demotratic)

- Papua New Guinea Aid (Biggest donors - Australia, China, Japan, and others)

- Health (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Cholera, tyoid, TB, etc...)

- Businesses (Local and Foreign)

- Mining (Foreign)

- Logging (Foreign)

The above are the common areas where one can pursue to conduct a research. Most of the people in Papua New Guinea will help you in your research but due to communication difficulties, some of the information that you need may not be fortcoming. Therefore, it is important to find some one who knows more about Papua New Guinea of a current resident in Papua New Guinea. If you need more information, please contact me.

When you set your feet on the shores of Papua New Guinea, you will truely experience the land of the unexpected and begin to expect the unexpected. I wish you good luck and safe stay in Papua New Guinea.

Research opportunities available in Papua New Guinea

Although it has been touched on before, it is useful to state again why research into certain areas of interest are important. First, determining the specific answers to questions that deals with who, what, when, where and why are vital.

It is important to recognize that the world as a global community need more research to find the real causes of some of our biggest problems. For example, the development of an effective method to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS would be an achievement that would be embraced by many around the world.

I was contacted via Kange Nga Kona from some researchers around the world whether or not if there are possibilities available to conduct researhes. As a third world country, Papua New Guinea offers great opportunities for interested researchers. Below are some of the areas of interest for those who want to spend time in Papua New Guinea doing research.

- Climate/Weather Patterns (tropics)

- Flora and Faunta (richest habitats for flora and fauna)

- Culture (Over 1000 cultures and more than 800 languages)

- Government (Demotratic)

- Papua New Guinea Aid (Biggest donors - Australia, China, Japan, and others)

- Health (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Cholera, tyoid, TB, etc...)

- Businesses (Local and Foreign)

- Mining (Foreign)

- Logging (Foreign)

The above are the common areas where one can pursue to conduct a research. Most of the people in Papua New Guinea will help you in your research but due to communication difficulties, some of the information that you need may not be fortcoming. Therefore, it is important to find some one who knows more about Papua New Guinea of a current resident in Papua New Guinea. If you need more information, please contact me.

When you set your feet on the shores of Papua New Guinea, you will truely experience the land of the unexpected and begin to expect the unexpected. I wish you good luck and safe stay in Papua New Guinea.

Research opportunities available in Papua New Guinea

Although it has been touched on before, it is useful to state again why research into certain areas of interest are important. First, determining the specific answers to questions that deals with who, what, when, where and why are vital.

It is important to recognize that the world as a global community need more research to find the real causes of some of our biggest problems. For example, the development of an effective method to prevent and cure HIV/AIDS would be an achievement that would be embraced by many around the world.

I was contacted via Kange Nga Kona from some researchers around the world whether or not if there are possibilities available to conduct researhes. As a third world country, Papua New Guinea offers great opportunities for interested researchers. Below are some of the areas of interest for those who want to spend time in Papua New Guinea doing research.

- Climate/Weather Patterns (tropics)

- Flora and Faunta (richest habitats for flora and fauna)

- Culture (Over 1000 cultures and more than 800 languages)

- Government (Demotratic)

- Papua New Guinea Aid (Biggest donors - Australia, China, Japan, and others)

- Health (HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Cholera, tyoid, TB, etc...)

- Businesses (Local and Foreign)

- Mining (Foreign)

- Logging (Foreign)

The above are the common areas where one can pursue to conduct a research. Most of the people in Papua New Guinea will help you in your research but due to communication difficulties, some of the information that you need may not be fortcoming. Therefore, it is important to find some one who knows more about Papua New Guinea of a current resident in Papua New Guinea. If you need more information, please contact me.

When you set your feet on the shores of Papua New Guinea, you will truely experience the land of the unexpected and begin to expect the unexpected. I wish you good luck and safe stay in Papua New Guinea.