According to the UN, 12,000 people have died as a result of the conflict, a figure that is surely greatly underestimated given the extent to which whole swathes of the country have been cut off from the rest of the world.
It has also displaced 7.1 million people, including 1.5 million in neighbouring countries, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, on Thursday, describing it as "the world's largest displacement crisis".
On Friday, the United Nations Security Council expressed "concern" at the intensification of violence in Sudan, while "strongly condemning" attacks against civilians and the extension of the conflict "to areas hosting large populations of displaced persons".
At the time of his death, he was serving an eight-year prison sentence for a graft conviction.
His attorney, Petrus Bala Pattyona, said Lukas had been diagnosed with acute kidney failure since the start of his legal proceedings and he died at around 10:45 a.m. at 56 years old.
"He was first diagnosed with kidney failure amid the court hearings in October," Petrus said.
Enembe was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on Jan. 10, 2023, as he was trying to flee the country. Since his arrest, Lukas Enembe had been in poor health, leading to his hospitalization. Lukas claimed to have suffered a stroke and kidney failure. After his condition improved, Lukas was detained at the KPK Detention Center.
The Jakarta Anti-Corruption Court found former Papua Governor Lukas Enembe guilty of corruption and sentenced him to eight years in prison on Oct. 19, 2023. In addition to the prison term, he was ordered to return Rp 19.7 billion ($1.2 million) in embezzled state funds and fined Rp 500 million.
During his tenure, Lukas has been accused of accepting Rp 47 billion in bribes from private companies that secured contracts with the Papua government. He also faces a separate indictment related to money laundering allegations after the KPK seized a substantial sum of banknotes worth Rp 82 billion in various denominations from him.
The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) revealed that Lukas made payments totaling 55 million Singapore dollars (US$39 million) to overseas casinos since 2017. This information came to light after analyzing the governor's financial records at the KPK's request. At one point, Lukas made a single casino payment of 5 million Singapore dollars, according to the PPATK.
KPK was also investigating allegations of the purchase of a private jet by Lukas Enembe. The KPK suspected that the purchase of the jet was related to the alleged receipt of gratuities and money laundering offenses.
These policemen do all the planning and then engage the 'wanted boys' to carry out the main criminal holdups … even the firearms belong to them," the leaders claim in a petition sent to the government.
Mike Piau is one of the "wanted boys".
He said he was bashed up and arrested by police in 2020 when he refused to take part in a robbery.
"They almost shot me with a pistol. When I didn't do what they asked, they turned on me and arrested me and beat me up," he told the ABC.
Mr Piau told the ABC he had been approached by police because he was an influential resistance fighter during the Bougainville crisis from 1988 until 1998.
At the time, local dissatisfaction with a major mining project sparked an armed uprising against the PNG government in which 20,000 people died.
Other "wanted boys" the ABC has spoken with say they are now hiding out in villages to escape arrest.
Mr Piau said the alleged police misconduct could hurt Bougainville's independence bid.
"These sort of men will create bigger problems which will impact our road to independence," he told the ABC.
Despite the 2019 referendum, which was non-binding, Bougainville's fate lies in the hands of the PNG parliament, which is yet to make a decision on the issue.
The Bougainville Police Service still operates under the auspices of the Royal Papua New Guinea constabulary and is largely dependent on funding sort of coming through the PNG government system," he said.
Dr Dinnen said there was some community mistrust in the police following the Bougainville crisis.
When tensions began to break out in the late 80s, the PNG police deployed mobile squads to the region.
They were later accused of serious human rights abuses.
"There's a kind of memory of that other kind of policing, that Bougainvilleans did not want to duplicate or replicate," Dr Dinnen said.
Dr Peake said Australia had a role to play in training the PNG police, which it has done for decades.
It is also reported that the Chinese company has already build its factory in China ready to chip Vanuatu’s round logs, but the only problem is that round logs are prohibited for export under Vanuatu.
He said that they believed that more than 10,000 round or unmilled logs are currently stocked at a former slipway at Palekula.
The land owner said forestry department failed to measure the logs after they have cut down by the Chinese company for transportation to Palekula where they are stocked.
He said to know the price of a log the department has to measure it to evaluate the price but so far nothing has been done.
“Heaps of logs are currently stocked at Palekula and to remove them to take their measurement, it will take more than a month. This is the problem of the company and the department to short it out. For us the land owner we just want the payment of our trees,” said the land owner.
He said under the agreement signed between them, the Chinese company and the department, it was agreed to pay 2500 vatu per cubic metre.
But this fixation has alarmed some scientists and climate activists, who warn that technologies are being used to distract from the primary task of stopping fossil fuels being burned. Cop28’s president, Sultan Al Jaber, also the head of the UAE’s national oil company, has questioned the feasibility of a fossil fuel phase-out.
A record number of fossil fuel lobbyists are at this Cop, including Darren Woods, chief executive of Exxon, who has said he wants an “emphasis put on a problem statement of eliminating emissions, versus a problem statement focused on the oil and gas industry per se.”
You may think to yourself “but the west gives money to these people all the time”. But first you need to see the mechanics, distribution and employment of said money.
If it’s IMF, World Bank or any loan based system, chances are it’s apart of modern colonization, whereby the west relies on corrupt officials to furnish them with cheap, raw resources and the plan is generally that the loan takers will most likely default. In various western nations, this is considered predatory on a ground level and is even illegal some places. But when it comes to national loans, then we see conditions that would be absolutely unacceptable by normal loan terms and standards. “The Paris Club” is basically a bazaar for access to resources, which usually leads to massive austerity measures. Massive “austerity measures” in these cases means tax cuts for the rich, whereas poor people’s taxes go into paying down the loan, meaning that the ones who took the loan in bad faith get off scot-free, as well as the ones who gave the loans in bad faith.
Multinationals are also apart of this, as they become an independent arm of the same process. Oil companies are especially guilty here, especially when employed in places like Africa. All regulations, be they health, safety or anything labour rights gets tossed out the window in the flight over. Several multinationals have been accused of relying on slave labour, and we’re talking both wage-slave labour and direct slavery. Oh sure, you could blame the locals, but at the end of the day these companies rely on desperation to furnish them with non-discerning labourers, and usually get it by way of corrupt conditions. It’s basically taking advantage of a bad situation, exacerbated by the loan conditions as well.
For me charity culture is also a crock. It’s basically window dressing for a bunch of ribbon cutting. If you combine the total tally of all well digging done around Africa, with all the money put in, the entire African continent could have had irrigation systems, sewage systems, easy access to internet and actual infrastructure, which is what was needed all along.
For me, giving reperations directly is out of the question though, at least for now. Personally I think my own countrymen need to take inventory with where all our money ends up, and that you can’t blame anyone else but corrupt politicians. If we did, then all those who suffer under these conditions would also be implicit, and the circle argument continues, as it has for decades. This is not going to budge an inch, for various reasons.
“But why not give reperations directly?” Bruh, did you read anything I wrote up 'ere? That shits gonna get misappropriated, on either side, like real quick. Don’t be naive enough to think that it won’t happend, because suddenly you have a new sky scraper somewhere, or a African oligarch has some 50 new Rolls Royce’s, or some European has suddenly captured entire markets, while western politicians have also probably found a way to game that money flow somehow.
It is therefore easier from a political perspective to instead demand that we cancel the loans. They were made in bad faith on both sides, allowing corrupt politicians leeway. Oh sure, it would create a hit to the western economy, as the tallying of bananas would lead to a bunch of money just “disappearing”, but guess what? We deserve it. More to the point, our politicians deserve it, and even more to the point: impoverished nations subjugated under these loans deserve a much needed economic respite. This should be the snapback that tells the west “woa there, son. You do anything bad and all bets are off”. It sets a precedent where corrupt officials in the west could have a brief end to their career as billions just suddenly disappear over night.
They key here is not reparations, but repercussions, because again, corruption thrives in poverty, and creating conditions whereby countries are poor by default is the real issue, because that alone draws corrupt multi-nationals and politicians into the money circle and will make common people hesitant to give any reperations at all, as they’ll rightfully believe that money will be misappropriated. And then what happens? It could invariably be the same song and dance, just dressed up differently.
Maybe sometime in the future we can talk reperations, but for now… those loans should be cancelled.
Or maybe, just maybe, in a perfect world, we could cancel those loans and furnish these countries with UBI for some years until their economy and politics heal. Ideally, this would be great! But, realistically… cancel those fucking loans. I don’t care if some corrupt African oligarch walks away with the bag, western politicians (fucking liberals, be they classic or noe) played ball with people they knew were corrupt, because they too were trying to get the bag. It was part and parcel of the design. We need to go down that rabbit hole.
I mean they are Jewish and they have a strong opinion on this conflict; I think it would be safe to assume they know the particulars of who has done what?
He was a powerful force in the United States, a major donor to Republican causes and a friend of the Bush family, Henry Kissinger and other conservative luminaries.
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