In yet a further example that the release of the so-called “Panama Papers” furthered the agenda of the United States and its FIVE EYES intelligence allies Australia and New Zealand, there was an immediate condemnation of the role that certain offshore tax haven islands in the Pacific played in the tax avoidance schemes of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm accused of helping shelter billions of dollars from tax authorities.
The first salvos were fired against the self-governing New Zealand territory of Niue and the independent State of Samoa for being referenced in some of the selectively-leaked Panamanian law firm documents.
Because of the paternalistic and neo-colonialist policies of Australia and New Zealand, many South Pacific independent states and self-governing territories had no choice but to set up tax evasion and avoidance havens in order to attract much-needed revenue from corporate filing fees. However, these tax havens often find themselves fending off criticism from their former colonial masters.
In fact, the Pacific states were pressured into establishing havens for foreign shell companies and anonymous numbered bank account operations by the very powers that now seek to limit their independence and autonomy. New Zealand’s two alleged “self-governing” territories, the Cook Islands and Niue, have come in for particularly heavy criticism from the Americans and their intelligence lackeys in Canberra and Wellington. Niue, which cannot engage in any meaningful economic development without the approval of New Zealand, became a center for international corporate registry for a bargain annual fee of $150. The island state, under the Kiwi jackboot, is subject to terrible air service and a lack of Internet connectivity for its citizens. New Zealand’s absurd insistence that Niue is “self-governing” was shown to be fraudulent when Niue’s one-time prime minister, Sani Lakatani, was living in Auckland while pretending to be governing Niue, all the time collecting his pension as a retired corporal in the Royal New Zealand Army.
New Zealand is now crying foul over Mossack Fonseca’s operations in Niue because the Panamanian law firm’s Niue registered agent happens to be the daughter of Prime Minister Toke Talagi. If New Zealand permitted Niue and the Cook Islands real independence, these states could diversify their economies by engaging with China, Russia, India, and other countries on projects like rare mineral mining of sea beds, reliable regional air transportation, high-speed ferry service, and sustainable aqua-culture development. In addition, the ability of these small states to receive low-interest loans and grants from China, Russia, Iran, and other countries not integrally a part of the Western banking spider web would enable local artisans to market their crafts and goods abroad with the availability of low-cost and reliable Internet and electronic commerce services.
Currently, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand prevent through unfair commercial practices, direct air services between many Pacific islands. Aviation regulations route air passengers and cargo through Honolulu, Guam, Auckland, and Sydney or Brisbane.
The Cook Islands became known as a tax dodging haven because of a complicated scheme, or “scam,” actually set up by New Zealand authorities in the 1980s. In 1992, computer dealer Paul White bought 92 floppy disks in a wine box. However, the disks were not blank but contained sensitive documents. The disks were inadvertently discarded by the New Zealand branch of Citibank. The banking information pointed to a tax avoidance scheme involving a Cook Islands entity called European Pacific Investments (EPI) and a number of politicians, including the leaders of the National and Labor parties of New Zealand. The tax avoidance contrivance was also linked to Central Intelligence Agency money laundering operations in the Asia-Pacific region and the Caribbean. Unlike the Mossack Fonseca documents, which were deliberately leaked by the CIA to embarrass the leaders of the BRICS nations (Rousseff, Putin, Modi, Xi Jinping, and Zuma), the “Wine Box” files were never meant to be made public. Paul White discovered how sensitive the disks were when he suffered a suspicious fatal car accident and the disks disappeared. However, White had wisely shared their content with a New Zealand journalist. Enough information on the Cook Islands operation were leaked before the New Zealand government initiated a draconian blackout on news coverage of the so-called “Wine Box Affair“.
After phosphate-depleted Nauru lost its only means of income, the bird guano industry, it resorted, with the acquiescence of Australia and the United States, to offshore banking. After the island became the headquarters of over 400 banks, some with dubious connections to Russian-Israeli mobsters and Latin American drug dealers, the US forced President Bernard Dowiyogo to sign an agreement to close the banks. The 9/11 attacks put the US on the warpath against some offshore operations, including those in Nauru. Dowiyogo flew to Washington to ink the deal. After he signed the agreement, he fell ill and died while undergoing surgery at George Washington University hospital. The CIA prefers no witnesses to its myriad global financial arrangements. Nauru was soon relegated to serving as a host for Australia’s Guantanamo Bay-like “gulag” refugee detention center.
The Mossack Fonseca controlled “leak.” enabled by the George Soros and US Agency for International Development/CIA-funded International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), also cast a wary eye on Samoa, whose deputy high commissioner at the diplomatic mission in Canberra, Luciano Fonoti, is accused of helping the Panamanian firm set up shell companies in Samoa. One of the firms stands accused of violating an embargo against the Syrian government. Perhaps Samoa would not have to resort to offshore financing if the United States ended its arcane colonial rule over the state’s eastern neighbor “American Samoa,” a territory that should rightly be granted its independence and be permitted to re-unite with its brethren to the west to create a stronger united Samoan nation.
The US, along with Australia, New Zealand, and Israel, maintain a paternalistic oversight of the foreign affairs of the Pacific states. Israel is involved in order to deny the Palestinian cause near-unanimous votes in the United Nations General Assembly. As long as de facto US protectorates like Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands, and quasi-independent countries like Nauru, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands cast votes in favor of Israel and Zionism, Israel can point to its diplomatic allies in the Pacific as a defense for its actions. The people of the island territory of Chuuk (Truk) are so unhappy with their neo-colonialist status under the oppressive dictates of Washington and the US puppet government of the Federated States of Micronesia, it is talking about declaring independence from the so-called “Compact of Free Association” with the United States.
The United States and the regional colonialist powers of Australia and New Zealand are already using the Mossack Fonseca disclosures to advocate a greater involvement in the affairs of the Pacific island states. Australia showed its true intentions when it unilaterally abolished the self-government of Norfolk Island, destroying its financial services and off-track betting industries in the process. Norfolk Island cried foul and plans to bring its cause to the United Nations, where it will find plenty of other aggrieved Pacific islanders, from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) to Hawaii and the Northern Marianas to Niue.
This article originally appeared in Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
