Australia's dictatorial agenda

by Tom Pearson

Australia's intention of sending a "flying squad" to Papua New Guinea to 
oversee the spending of Australian aid monies is another arrogant little-
dictator act, following on the heels of the Howard Government's hijacking 
of the recent South Pacific Islands Forum.

Officials from Australia will go to Papua New Guinea periodically to 
dictate the use by the Papua New Guinea Government of Australia's $330 
million aid program to "ensure it is not abused by corrupt government 
officials". That is the plan outlined by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, 
anyhow.

Papua New Guinea has other ideas, Prime Minister Michael Somare saying he 
was fed up with hearing that Papua New Guinea and other Pacific nations 
were corrupt and had poor governance i.e. the "failed states" jargon. As 
far as the aid program was concerned, he said: "Yes, review it. If they 
want to remove, remove it for God's sake."

Papua New Guinea Planning Minister Sinai Brown was also blunt and to the 
point. "I think Papua New Guinea must free itself from being dictated to by 
Australians and [official aid body] AusAID." In fact he called for direct 
government-to-government communications instead of through AusAID and its 
offshoots so as to stem the flow of the estimated 70 percent of aid money 
that returns to Australia via Australian-based consultancies.

"There are so many Australian agencies in Papua New Guinea working for 
AusAID and directing and telling Papua New Guinea what we should do. This 
has to stop."

He added that "corruption is far worse in countries like Australia where 
huge corporations are closing down [and] billions of dollars are involved 
in corrupt dealings, yet they come here and try to dictate to us."

In the broader scheme of things the aid is a measly amount in terms of 
Australia's responsibilities toward its former colony and WW2 ally. The aid 
is not a gift handed over on the whim of government: historically Australia 
has been behind the ruthless exploitation of Papua New Guinea labour by 
Australian corporations and the rape of Papua New Guinea's natural 
resources by mining and logging companies.

Pacific union

Papua New Guinea's stance reflects a growing anger amongst Pacific island 
nations who rightly see the aggressive interventionist hype coming out of 
Canberra — including the Howard Government's push for a pan Pacific union 
dominated by Australia — as neo-colonialism.

According to a government-commissioned Senate report the Pacific union 
would entail Pacific nations adopting the Australian dollar, amalgamating 
key services, the setting up a "regional unit to fight transnational crime 
and terrorism", a regional central bank and a currency board.

Privatisation is high on the report's (and government's) agenda: "Millions 
of dollars have been allocated from small national budgets to support 
chronically loss-making public enterprises." There would also be a 
"regional approach to monetary and exchange rate policy", under Australian 
control of course.

There is to be a Pacific police training college set up in Fiji with a $15 
million contribution from Australia. Its training program is to form the 
basis of a regional police force.

The South Pacific Islands Forum is to be the platform for the running of 
this bogus union, which is why, with threats and vote buying, Greg Urwin 
became the first Australian Secretary General of the Forum, held in New 
Zealand earlier this month.

Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands interventions are examples of how 
this union is to come about. The economic and military threats are the 
first festering germs of Australian absolutism. As is already clear, this 
is not to be a union of equals, but the creation of an Australian colonial 
empire in the Pacific.

As such it involves intimidation, meddling in the affairs of other 
countries, outright military intervention and the disarming of island 
nations, where possible with the complicity of governments in the pocket 
and pay of Australia.

And by logical extension it will also involve the bringing down of non-
compliant governments by force where conditions necessitate, or through the 
organising of coups, the exiling of leaders, or their imprisonment or 
assassination, the latter better known as "regime change".

As none of the Pacific nations Australia is now standing over and bullying 
pose a threat to Australia's security, the fundamental policy of Pacific 
union is a form of pre-emptive strike. Whereas the war on Iraq and the 
threatened war on "rogue states" are based on the bogey of "weapons of mass 
destruction", the pretext for the Howard Government's dirty little exercise 
in domination and occupation is "failed states".

It will be a union based on exploitation and plunder — control of the 
Pacific for the transnational corporations — under an Australian-
administered jackbooted colonialism.

Countries will either fall in line, allow military bases to operate from 
their soil if so ordered, and participate in the policing of their 
neighbours, or they will be deemed "failed states" that threaten regional 
security and so be the subject of "regime change".