Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
Losing Money Fast in ‘Get-Rich’ Scams
Get-rich quick offers operated by Nigerian scam artists continue to sucker unsuspecting people in the Pacific. In American Samoa, a Congregational Church treasurer awaits sentencing in connection with losing more than $200,000 in one such scam. At least two people in Tonga are said to have lost thousands of dollars in a new “money scam” also operated by Nigerians. In a lower level pyramid scheme, Tuvaluans are spending relatively large sums in hopes of cashing in.
In Pago Pago, former Congregational Christian Church of American Samoa Treasurer Rev. Laufuti Ta’afua has agreed to provide information on the Nigerian scam to local and U.S. federal officials. Originally charged with misappropriating $207,000 in church funds in a get-rich-quick Nigerian scam, Ta’afua entered a “no contest” plea recently to two amended counts of forgery in a plea agreement.
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Meanwhile, a new “black money scam” — labeled as “fraud of the month” on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Web site — has reportedly taken thousands of dollars from at least two people in Tonga who have been given a suitcase with black paper that was said to be $2 million in U.S. currency, needing only a “special chemical” to clean it.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in the black money scam, “the scam artist tells the victim that it was necessary to dye the money black in order to smuggle it out of the country. The victim is then shown a suitcase containing currency-sized pieces of black paper.” The victim is told that in order to clean the money, it has to be washed with special chemicals that will remove the dye without damaging the money, the bank said. “The cost of the chemicals, however, is substantial and the victim is asked to provide payment for the purchase up front.”
Finally, despite warnings broadcast on Radio Tuvalu about investment scams, a rip-off of a somewhat different nature is now operating in Tuvalu. This is the “Pentagono” scam being operated from an address in Italy. To join, one’s name goes at the bottom of a list, the seventh name. This costs US$40 to be paid to the name at the top of the list, and US$40 to Future Strategies Sri in Capri, Italy. The money is paid through the National Bank of Tuvalu. The payer is issued three copies of the list to pass on to sucker friends to pay up and join. When name number seven gets to the top, you get US $120 — provided, of course, the three you laid it on have paid up.
Oz Aid Takes Wide Pacific View
International aid has a lot less to do with philanthropy and charity than with the geopolitical realities of spheres of influence, although, rather quaintly, this was firmly denied recently by Japan’s foreign minister. No such delusion affects the Australian government’s department of foreign affairs. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer makes this clear. “The Pacific,” he writes, “is a region in which Australia has significant interests at stake, both strategic and economic.” In broader terms the Australian aid program “aims to advance our national interest.”
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In keeping with this outlook, Australia’s aid to the Pacific Islands for fiscal year 2001-02 covers every Pacific Island country worthy of the name excepting the French territories and even including the otherwise wholly New Zealand-dependent Tokelau. The total Pacific aid bill is A$507 million, if one factors in Papua New Guinea, which receives 21 percent of all Australian international development assistance — a total of A$342.9 million in aid this year.
To add strength to the assertion that aid and politics are attached, the new Pacific program announces that the total aid to Fiji and Solomon Islands is “to be determined,” adding that although fundamental development measures are still in place, the restoration of “constitutional and democratic government” will be a determining factor in future assistance to Fiji. As for the Solomons, “reconstruction and rehabilitation activities, with a strong focus on the law and justice sector” will influence aid targets.
Those countries, along with Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga, are relatively big players in the Pacific Islands aid game. What’s in it for the smaller nations? Nauru, which proudly resisted overseas aid for many years, succumbed in 1993 to an arrangement which gave it a one-off payment of $A57 million and $A20 million a year for 20 years as compensation for Australia’s long-time plundering of its phosphate resources.
Kiribati, vast in marine area but limited in land resources, has to deal with a population imbalance: South Tarawa is one of the most densely peopled places in the Asia/Pacific region. Part of Australia’s $A10.7 million aid package is going towards a water supply and sanitation project for distant Christmas Island, in an attempt to encourage migration from Betio and other crowded islets in South Tarawa.
To round off the picture, current Oz aid programs reach as far as the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands although, not surprisingly, Australian contributions appear very modest compared to those from the U.S. or even Japan, and are directed mainly towards educational assistance in the form of scholarships to regional institutions and small, grassroots grants.
Wake Up Calls and Whales at SPTO
“South Pacific Wake Up Call!” was the theme of the 3rd South Pacific Tourism Conference held in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in early September. It served as a strong reminder that all is not well with tourism in Paradise. The theme, according to the Fiji-based South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO), coordinators of the event, “echoed the resounding need for the tourism industry members in the region to be aware of the frailties that exist in our environment, cultures and social structures, and that the onus is on everyone to protect these fragile and valuable assets.”
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The troublesome question of donor funding was in the forefront of discussion, especially since SPTO’s funding position has been described as “perilous,” with some marketing and promotional projects on hold, and the organization’s staff levels reduced considerably. The European Union, SPTO’s major sponsor since its inception, has provided A$38 million to date, but now applies more rigorous guidelines to funding.
SPTO Chief Executive Lisiate ‘Akolo, pointed out that of the 689 million people who traveled internationally in 2000, only one million traveled to the South Pacific, a fact which illustrated — yet again — the difficulty of access from major markets and the lack of coordination and infrequency of air services to the region.
The expression “eco-tourism,” if not the concept itself, came in for criticism, some delegates claiming that it was in danger of losing its meaning by overuse. However, a genuine eco-tourism activity — whale watching in Tonga — sounded one of the relatively few cheerful notes. Pio Emosi Manoa, a delegate representing Greenpeace Australia told the conference that whale watching brings A$1.9 million annually to Tonga, where Vava’u Island was “almost a beacon for whales.” Other South Pacific Islands, said Manoa, could take advantage of the worldwide interest in whale migrations. “Every live whale,” he said, “brings A$3 million in its lifetime to Tonga.”
More Charges in Daewoosa Case
Two former Daewoosa Samoa managers have been charged with involuntary servitude while two former employees have pled guilty to conspiring to enslave Vietnamese workers. In addition, more charges have been filed against Daewoosa owner Kil-Soo Lee, who has been in jail in Honolulu since earlier this year awaiting trial.
Former assistant production manager Nuuuli Ioane and former packing division worker Sialavaa Fagaima pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Oki Mollway in Honolulu recently for “conspiring to deny Vietnamese garment workers of their 13th Amendment right to be free from involuntary servitude.”
Ioane had repeatedly denied Vietnamese workers’ allegations that Daewoosa owner Kil-Soo Lee ordered him to tell the Samoan workers to beat up Vietnamese workers not obeying orders of returning to work. This incident sparked the November 28, 2000 melee at the garment factory’s compound, igniting a media frenzy over allegations of slavery in American Samoa. U.S. Attorney Elliot Enoki said Ioane admitted that per instructions from Lee, he directed Samoan workers to beat up the Vietnamese workers in order to make them work.
The federal government has set February 19, 2002 as the new trial date for Lee after new charges were filed against him in late August. He was originally set for trial on September 25, 2001. But on August 31, a Honolulu federal grand jury issued a 22-count superseding indictment against Lee and former managers Soliai and Atimalala. Lee, Soliai and Atimalala all pled not guilty in early September to the new charges. Lee’s federal public defender, Alex Silvert, has maintained Lee’s innocence, which he says, will be proven in court.
CNMI Moves Against Alien ‘Sex Workers’
The Northern Marianas Attorney General’s Office is asking the Commonwealth’s Dept. of Labor and Immigration to revoke the entry and work permits of more than 50 nonresident workers allegedly engaged in prostitution activities. CNMI Attorney General Herb D. Soll said petitions had been filed to revoke the entry and work permits of 52 alien workers.
Soll, who is also chairman of the Tourist-Related Crime Prevention Task Force, stressed that the petitions were meant to prod the department to take appropriate actions against the nonresident workers, and not the establishments they work for. The attorney general has recommended the revocation of the working permits of those alien workers following a thorough investigation on prostitution activities in the Western Garapan area.
Photo: Greenpeace Pacific
