Some Pacific islands are prohibiting human-to-human contact during aircraft refueling. In the case of the sparsely populated northern Cook Islands coral atolls of Penhryn, Pukapuka, Manihiki, Rakahanga, and Nassau, island authorities turned away the supply ship “Kwai,” which was carrying critical but perishable supplies. The islands were in fear they would be overwhelmed by the virus, which has already appeared in French Polynesia. As with a number of Caribbean islands, Pacific islands are taking no chances by allowing cruise ships to make port calls. As a result, cruise ships have been banned from, in addition to the Cook Islands, New Caledonia, Tonga, and Samoa.

At the time Aitutaki refused docking privileges to the cruise ship, hundreds of cruise ship passengers exposed to the coronavirus were being flown into or transported quarantine centers in the United States. Had the Trump administration ordered all the ships to remain in port and board no passengers inside or outside U.S. territory, the number of virus vectors might have been reduced. However, Trump and other Republican office holders receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from deep-pocketed owners of cruise ship firms and related industries. Profit margins over public health rules the day inside the Trump White House.

Before being concerned about the health of American citizens, among Trump’s first priorities was a government financial bailout of the cruise, airline, and hotel industries. One of Trump’s major campaign donors is Israeli-American dual national Micky Arison, the chairman of Carnival Corporation, which owns both Carnival and Princess cruise lines. The Trump National Doral golf club is located very close to Carnival’s corporate headquarters in Miami. Carnival was also a corporate sponsor of Trump’s two cheesy reality TV shows, “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice.” In addition, one of Trump’s impeachment defense attorneys who appeared before the U.S. Senate, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, was registered as a lobbyist for Carnival North America prior to signing on as Trump’s attorney. Bandi’s sister-in-law, Tandy Bondi, has also served as registered lobbyist for Carnival North America.

It was aboard Princess cruise ships that the coronavirus spread among crew and passengers in Yokohama and off the coast of California like a wildfire. The American taxpayer was left holding the tab for quarantining ship passengers, transporting them to quarantine sites across the United States, and providing room, board, and medical services.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said, “Cruise companies should immediately stop launching new voyages . . . if they won’t do it voluntarily, we should look at mandatory measures.”

Island nations that depend on tourism are being hit by a double whammy with the coronavirus. While they are losing precious tourism money that bolsters their economies, they are, at the same time, spending diminished treasury funds on preparation for the virus infecting their populations. Mark Brantley, the premier of Nevis, a Caribbean island that forms a federation with neighboring St. Kitts, wrote on Twitter that the coronavirus “is taking a terrible toll on the health and economic well-being of our Caribbean region. Even little Nevis that has no cases yet has suffered hotel cancellations.” St. Kitts and Nevis realize that when the virus strikes them, they will be largely on their own as larger and more powerful nations deal with their own emergency situations. Island nations, including those in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean, and Pacific are doing their best to cope with the virus. They are enhancing pre-emptive health screening at immigration controls, barring entry to nationals of countries impacted by the coronavirus,  requiring St. Kitts and Nevis nationals visiting coronavirus-infected countries within the virus’s 14-day incubation period to be medically screened upon return, and preparing their national health systems to detect, contain, and manage the pandemic when the virus arrives on their shores. The Caribbean islands are keeping abreast of the coronavirus situation by maintaining close links with the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the Pan American Health Organization, and the World Health Organization. On March 5, CARPHA upgraded the risk of transmission of COVID-19 to the Caribbean Region to “Very High.” The arrival of the first coronavirus cases in Jamaica, Martinique, Saint Barthelemy, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, St. Maarten, and Trinidad and Tobago has every Caribbean island on full public health alert.

Island states in the Indian Ocean attempted to forestall virus infections. However, in the case of the French territory of Reunion, the first four cases were imported from mainland France, including one patient who contracted the virus while on a cruise ship in the Bahamas. Up to 34 other Reunion residents participated in the same Bahamas cruise and were being sought out by public health authorities in Saint-Denis, the Reunion capital.

In Maldives, the entire island resort of Kuredu Island in the Lhaviyani Atoll was locked down after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19. All flights in and out of the island were halted. Four other resort islands, Vilamendhoo, Batalaa, Thinadhoo, and Kuramathi, were also placed under quarantine with transfers to and from the islands banned. The Maldives took the extraordinary step of creating a quarantine resort for coronavirus patients on the island of Villivaru in the Kaafu Atoll. Two French tourists showed coronavirus symptoms prior to the creation of the specially-designated resort for coronavirus patients.

Even islands with relatively advanced health care systems can take for granted that they will not be overwhelmed by overwhelming numbers of patients requiring intensive care and respiration. Security levels not seen since World War II are in effect for the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Faroe Islands, and Mauritius. The Seychelles, a popular tourist destination in the Indian Ocean, has postponed all official conferences scheduled until May of this year. As far as the enterprising tourist who has thought about the far-flung British Overseas Territories of St. Helena, Ascension, Tristan da Cunha, or the Falkland Islands, entry requirements are now so stringent in order to protect the local populations, they are effectively closed to tourists until further notice.

The coronavirus is the last type of “island fever” isolated patches of land scattered about the seven seas and having small populations need at the current time.

The PLG, meeting at its 8^th summit in Tuvalu in June 2018, admitted three new members – Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Hawai’I, and New Zealand, or, as it is known in the Maori language, Aotearoa. These potential members of a future Polynesian Union joined Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, the Cook Islands, Niue, French Polynesia, Tokelau, and Wallis and Futuna in the PLG.

In the latter half of the 19^th century, four Polynesian kings, wary of encroaching Western imperialist moves into the South Pacific, attempted to launch an alliance of Polynesian kingdoms to stand up to the European and American colonialist powers. The chief proponents of the alliance were King Pomare V of Tahiti, King Kamehameha V of Hawaii, King Malietoa Laupepa of Samoa, and King George Tupou II of Tonga.

The PLG leaders meeting in Tuvalu left open the possibility of other Polynesian states joining their alliance. These could include Norfolk Island, which saw its self-governing status unilaterally abolished by Australia in 2016; Pitcairn Islands, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom; Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Howland, Jarvis, and Baker islands, unincorporated territories of the United States, and Rotuma, a dependency of Fiji.

Polynesian-inhabited islands of majority Melanesian and Micronesian Pacific states could also be invited to join a Polynesian Union. These include Anuta, a densely-populated island of 300 in the Solomon Islands; Bellona, Ontong Java, Pileni, Sikaiana, Tikopia, and Rennell islands in the Solomons; Mele and Emae islands in Vanuatu; Nukumanu and Takuu in Papua New Guinea; and Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro in the Federated States of Micronesia.

The Polynesian people are growing weary of being treated as second- and third-class citizens on their own ancestral islands. They are growing more concerned about their collective future as they witness island after island being swallowed up by rising sea levels brought about by global climate change. Their ability to govern themselves is stymied by unfair political relationships with metropolitan powers hammered out by colonial overseers. Niue and the Cook Islands are subject to “associated state” status with New Zealand. Micronesia has a “Compact of Free Association” with the United States. French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna are territories of France. Norfolk Island has been administratively and politically absorbed into the Australian state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

In extending an open invitation to join the Polynesian Leaders Group, Prime Minister Enele Sosene Sopoaga of Tuvalu, said, “In accordance with the MOU [memorandum of understanding] which we signed, we welcome other Polynesian communities in other places and locations to join the PLG as brothers.”

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that an effort for New Zealand to become a republic and sever its ties with the British monarch, who remains New Zealand’s head of state, is not a current priority. Recognizing past injustices against the Polynesian Maori people, the original inhabitants of New Zealand, Ardern said redressing the wrongs committed against the Maori if of a greater priority to her government than seeking republic status.

Ardern could start to redress the wrongs committed by New Zealand against Polynesians by instructing her father, Ross Ardern, the present Administrator of Tokelau and past High Commissioner to Niue, to begin the process of full decolonization of these territories with the goal of full membership in the United Nations.

New Zealand has warned the Cook Islands that if it seeks UN membership, Cook Islanders will lose their New Zealand citizenship. The Cook Islands government has responded to the threat by presenting a proposal for Cook Islanders to have dual status – both Cook Islands and New Zealand citizenship. Niue has also sought full membership in the UN and dual Niuean-New Zealand citizenship. The requests from the Cook Islands and Niue have fallen on deaf ears. That may change of New Zealand or Aotearoa comes to terms with its Maori and Polynesian character.

In a 2007 referendum, Tokelau’s desire for associated status with New Zealand failed by 16 votes. A two-thirds vote was required for Tokelau to achieve the same self-government status as the Cook Islands and Niue, however the bid failed with 64.4, just short of two-thirds of the electorate, voting yes. Had the measure passed, Tokelau would likely be striving for UN membership, along with its sister Polynesian states of the Cook Islands and Niue.

In return for signing Compacts of Free Association (COFAs) with the United States, three former UN Trust Territories in Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau, agreed to allow the United States to maintain military bases on their territory in return for unfettered rights to live and work in the United States, as well as cash handouts in the form of economic assistance. So far, Washington has only exercised its military base option in the Marshall Islands, where it maintains the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site in Kwajalein Atoll. With the Donald Trump administration ratcheting up tensions with China, insisting the Pacific is an “American lake,” the other Micronesian states may see new US military bases.

If Micronesia opted to join a Polynesian-Micronesian Union of states, the semi-colonized Federated States of Micronesia, consisting of Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, and Kosrae; the US territories of Guahan (Guam) and Northern Marianas; the semi-colonized Republic of Palau; the Republic of Nauru, and the Republic of Marshall Islands could find political and economic power as part of a trans-Pacific entity.

The Melanesian states of Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, and Kanaky New Caledonia have formed the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a nascent political and economic union that may, eventually, include West Papua, currently occupied by Indonesia; the Republic of Timor-Leste, and East Nusa Tenggara and the South and North Moluccas, currently a part of Indonesia; and Bougainville, if it decides to opt in a 2019 referendum on independence from Papua New Guinea.

Western colonialists and neo-colonialists have managed to stifle trans-Pacific unity by creating artificial barriers to cooperation and unity between island peoples. One egregious example is the regime of requiring travel permits and visas for visits between Samoa, an independent nation, and American Samoa, a US territory whose residents do not enjoy full US citizenship unless one of their parents is a US citizen. Relations between Samoans living in two different jurisdictions are relegated by bureaucrats in far-away Washington, DC and by government officials in Samoa, a former New Zealand territory, but where the government is usually influenced by dictates from New Zealand.

Across the Pacific and Polynesia, the heavy-handed presence of colonial and neo-colonial powers is reflected in a paucity of approved direct air routes between islands, visa requirements, availability of Internet connections and a variety of satellite-transmitted television news channels (not merely Fox News, CNN, or the BBC), attempting to freeze out Chinese economic development, and lack of overall free trade between islands. The Polynesian Leaders Group is a step in the direction of unity for Pacific peoples. The only barrier to it and the Melanesian Spearhead Group is interference from the politico-military viceroys in Canberra, Wellington, Washington, London, and Paris.

During the 1970s and 80s, the “threat” from outside the South Pacific region was hyped by Canberra and Wellington, acting at the behest of their masters in Washington, to keep the small island states in line, politically, economically, and militarily.

Today, the ANZUS powers are warning that China is posing a significant “threat” to the nations of the South Pacific. It is as if China were still a 1970s medium-size power confined to East Asia and not the global economic and political force that exists today.

Over the past few months, Australia has been circling the wagons against what it perceives as a Chinese “invasion” of the South Pacific. Canberra put pressure on the Solomon Islands to freeze out from an undersea high-speed Internet cable project the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies Company. Instead, Australia said it will foot the bill for the project to connect the Solomon Islands by a submarine cable to Papua New Guinea via Australia. Of course, the Australian Signals Directorate, under the direction of its U.S. National Security Agency bosses, will ensure that the cable is fully compliant with “FIVE EYES” (Australia, United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, and Canada) signals intelligence technical capabilities.

A $90 million wharf project, financed by China and planned for Vanuatu’s port of Luganville, also has the military-intelligence cadres in Canberra taking time off from swilling beer to complain about Vanuatu becoming a future Chinese “military base.” The Australian political think tank denizens, along with their compatriots in Wellington and Honolulu, are pointing to the large debts being racked up by Vanuatu, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea for Chinese infrastructure improvement projects as some sort of proof of a long-term Chinese goal of controlling the South Pacific. These “experts” fail to mention that Japan, which has a much more onerous military history in the region, has also engaged in major infrastructure projects in the island-states, driving these micro-economies into huge debts to Tokyo.

China-bashing is now the vogue in Australia and New Zealand, with U.S. President Donald Trump leading the way with his trade war against China. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull used the occasion of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London to pull aside Vanuatu Prime Minister Charlot Salwai to warn him about allowing China to build a naval base in Luganville.

Salwai and Beijing had previously vehemently denied an unsourced report by Australia’s Fairfax Media Group that China planned to establish a base in the island nation. That dubious report led to high-level discussions between Canberra, Wellington, and Washington about standing firm against any Chinese military forays into the region. Fairfax Media Group — which publishes “The Sydney Morning Herald,” “The Australian Financial Review,” “The Dominion Post” of New Zealand, and maintains the “Huffpo Australia” joint venture with the sensationalist “Huffington Post” — is well known for its close ties to the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), Australia’s version of the Central Intelligence Agency.

In London, following his meeting with Salwai, Turnbull told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “the Prime Minister of Vanuatu has made it very clear, quite unequivocally, that the media reports about Chinese interest in establishing a military base in Vanuatu have no basis in fact, so he said those reports are absolutely untrue.” Turnbull also assured Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela that Australia was committed to building the undersea cable link with Papua New Guinea, following the freezing out of Huawei.

Before the CHOGM summit in London, Turnbull has fanned the anti-China flames by warning Vanuatu against allowing China to build a base in the island nation. Vanuatu Foreign Minister Ralph Regenvanu had rejected the allegations made in the Fairfax Media Group report as false and questioned the standards of Australian journalism. The denial did little to calm the reactionaries in Canberra. Canberra had its own agent of influence peddling the China scare in the Vanuatu capital of Port-Vila. Opposition leader Ishmael Kalsakau stoked the China scare fervor by pointing to a Chinese naval visit to the islands last year and Vanuatu’s diplomatic support for China in the South China Sea standoff.

New Zealand Labor Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who comes from a New Zealand colonialist family, owing to her father having been the most recent Administrator of the New Zealand territory of Tokelau, weighed in with her own anti-China scare tactics, stressing that her government is opposed to the militarization of the Pacific. Ardern does not seem to care that the United States is currently building up its military presence in Darwin and Queensland in Australia, American Samoa, and Guam.

Ardern, who governs in coalition with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Winston Peters — an outspoken opponent of Asian immigration to New Zealand — has, like her recent Labor Party Prime Minister predecessors, moved the New Zealand Labor Party to the right. This shift began in the 1980s following the ouster of Labor Prime Minister David Lange, an opponent of the arcane ANZUS relationship with Washington and Canberra and an opponent of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.

After Vanuatu, which had been a colonial joint Anglo-French “condominium” known as the New Hebrides, became independent in 1980, the saber-rattlers in the Ronald Reagan administration, bolstered by their right-wing allies in Australia and New Zealand, began warning that Vanuatu was destined to become the “Cuba of the Pacific.” This was primarily due to the non-alignment pursued by Vanuatu’s first prime minister, Father Walter Lini, who found an enthusiastic ally in Prime Minister Lange.

Fairfax Media was not the only Western media outlet to pounce on Vanuatu and the “fake news” Chinese military base story. The Associated Press, in a report datelined April 10, 2018 from Canberra, not only echoed the Fairfax Media story but claimed the Chinese were looking to establish a “permanent military presence” in Vanuatu, which the AP cited as a “former French colony.” This was factually incorrect. Vanuatu was an Anglo-French condominium. But, by calling Vanuatu a former French colony, the AP, which is nothing more than a consortium of wealthy newspaper owners, a subliminal finger was being pointed at the French territory of New Caledonia, which lies to the southwest of Vanuatu.

China bashing has also led to the outbreak of violence against ethnic Chinese in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Timor-Leste, all of which have been accused of entertaining proposals for Chinese naval installations. There is a belief that Israel, which ensures that the South Pacific island states support it in the United Nations General Assembly, has convinced the islanders to adopt Jerusalem’s policy of setting off violence by Jewish settlers in the West Bank against Palestinians to encourage the evacuation of the Palestinians. Riots against ethnic Chinese in the Solomons, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste, as well as growing native resentment being stirred against ethnic Chinese in Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and the Cook Islands, may be the result of encouragement by Israeli “agents provocateur,” egged on by the intelligence services of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Israeli agents have been deported for certain dubious intelligence-related activities from the Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Fiji, and New Zealand.

On November 4, 2018, an independence referendum will be held in New Caledonia. Right-wing parties, representing the French colonial interests, have warned an independent New Caledonia – or Kanaky, as it is known by the indigenous population – may go the way of Vanuatu, the implication being that the Chinese may be welcomed to the new nation. This is nothing more than the same fear-mongering being pursued in Canberra, Wellington, Washington, and by the opposition in Vanuatu. When the Chinese send a few navy, satellite tracking, and fishing ships; a trade delegation; or an economic development team to the impoverished islands of the South Pacific, the neo-colonial powers shout “the Chinese are coming.” The knee-jerk reaction in Canberra, Wellington, and Washington about the Chinese is as wrong-headed in 2018 as it was with the Soviets, Libyans, and Iranians in the 1980s.

Normally, the sudden heart attack death in June of Vanuatu’s 67-year old president, the Anglican priest and Banks Islands traditional chief Baldwin Lonsdale, would have hardly raised any suspicions of foul play. However, when considered with other sudden deaths of Pacific leaders over the past few decades, Lonsdale’s death raised eyebrows. For many Pacific islanders, Lonsdale’s death was a case of déjà vu.

Although actual political power in Vanuatu rests with the prime minister, in 2015, Lonsdale overturned pardons for 14 right-wing members of parliament who were convicted of bribery. The speaker of parliament, Marcellino Pipite pardoned himself, along with 13 other MPs. Lonsdale returned home from a state visit to Samoa and quickly overturned the pardons, claiming that no one is above the law.

Pipite served as foreign minister of the conservative government of prime minister Serge Vohor. In 2004, Vohor secretly established diplomatic relations with Taiwan even though the People’s Republic of China maintained an embassy in the Vanuatu capital of Port Vila. Vohor’s decision to recognize Taiwan was later overturned by the council of ministers. In forging links with Taiwan, Vohor established himself as a hero for certain right-wing and anti-state interests around the world. In 2015, Vohor found himself again serving as foreign minister but he was subsequently convicted of bribery along with the other politicians whose pardons were overturned by Lonsdale.

Lonsdale had previously earned the enmity of the world’s biggest polluters after he pledged to sue Coal India, Anglo-Swiss commodities trader Glencore Xstrata, and the Anglo-Dutch oil firm Shell for being the largest contributors to greenhouse gases, and thus, rapid climate change that was devastating the Pacific islands. In 2010, Prime Minister Edward Natapei was toppled by a no-confidence vote while in Mexico City attending a climate change conference. Natapei died at the age of 61 after a reported «long illness», which was apparently a surprise for Lonsdale, who was quite shaken by the death of his friend and political ally.

Lonsdale was the second Anglican priest to serve as a leader of Vanuatu. The first was Father Walter Lini, the founder of Vanuatu who served as the nation’s first prime minister. When Lini became prime minister of Vanuatu in 1980, he was immediately faced with a secessionist rebellion on the predominantly French-speaking islands of Espiritu Santo and Tanna. The rebellion was financed by a shadowy American «libertarian» group called the Phoenix Foundation, a Carson City, Nevada-based organization headed by a real estate investor named Michael Oliver, which hoped to establish the «Republic of Vemerana» as a tax-free libertarian utopia and which had been involved in an earlier attempt by white Abaco islanders in the Bahamas to secede from the central government in Nassau.

Lini called in a military force of 200 troops from Papua New Guinea, which put down the revolt in what became known as the «Coconut War». Some of those who backed the secessionists had more than a passing relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency and the French intelligence service, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE).

Lini irritated the United States, Australia, and New Zealand by establishing diplomatic relations with Vietnam, Cuba, and Libya and signing a fisheries agreement with the Soviet Union. He and his political party, the Vanuaaku Pati, adhered to the concept of Melanesian socialism that was inspired by the pan-African socialist leaders Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. Lini refused an American embassy in Port Vila. Vila also annoyed France by supporting the native independence movement of New Caledonia, an act that persuaded France to covertly support the Espiritu Santo rebellion. Lini’s political power began to wane after he suffered a stroke in 1987 during a visit to Washington, DC. Lini suffered the stroke while planning to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington. The annual prayer breakfast is sponsored by the Fellowship Foundation, a group of wealthy Christian businessmen and influential politicians. The history of the Fellowship or «Family», as it is more popularly known, suggests that the group has had a long history of links to the CIA. Lini never made it to the prayer breakfast or a meeting scheduled with President Ronald Reagan, who was irritated by Lini’s dalliances with Libya, Cuba, and the Soviet Union.

Lini’s ensuing poor health, including paralysis on his right side, resulted in his loss of political power in Vanuatu and he was defeated in a vote of no confidence in 1991, a move that resulted in his resignation. Lini died at the age of 57 in 1999. Throughout his political career, Lini was subjected to constant «Five Eyes» signals intelligence bloc’s eavesdropping by the U.S. National Security Agency intercept facility in Waihopai, New Zealand, a unit codenamed IRONSAND. IRONSAND has routinely intercepted the communications of Pacific island leaders. Standing in opposition to the Vanuatu MPs convicted of bribery in 2015 were Lonsdale and Ham Lini, a former prime minister and the brother of the late Walter Lini.

Lonsdale’s recent death brought attention to the continued involvement of the Western powers in Vanuatu’s affairs. Many of the MPs convicted of bribery have links to the anti-state Na-Griamel Movement, led by Jimmy Stevens, the half-Tongan, half-Scottish leader of the ill-fated «Vemerana Republic», and the U.S. Libertarian Party, both of which were behind the 1980 secessionist revolt on Espiritu Santo and Tanna. One of the heads of the Phoenix Foundation was Dr. John Hospers, the 1972 Libertarian candidate for president of the United States, who also served on the board of the «Vemerana Development Corporation», a likely CIA front that was behind the attempt to populate a «New Hawaii» in Vanuatu with 4000 U.S. military veterans. One of the Vemerana conspirators was Mitchell Livingstone WerBell, a shadowy CIA weapons smuggler based in the state of Georgia who had been involved in an earlier illegal weapons shipment to the «Abaco Independence Movement» in the Bahamas.

Sudden death syndrome involving politicians is not limited to Vanuatu. Many Pacific islanders remain suspicious about the mysterious death of Nauru’s president, Bernard Dowiyogo. The president died at George Washington Hospital in Washington, DC on March 10, 2003, while on an official trip to the United States. Dowiyogo, a former President of the republic, returned as president after President Rene Harris signed a controversial agreement with the John Howard government in Australia to become a processing center for Howard's «Pacific Solution», a program to house Middle Eastern and South Asian refugees in Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea in return for cash.

Dowiyogo, who was 57, collapsed after signing a contentious (and secretive) agreement with George W. Bush administration officials on the sale of Nauruan passports, off-shore finance, and support for Bush's so-called «war on terror.» Dowiyogo died after eleven hours of heart surgery and while still on the operating table. The corporate media reported that Dowiyogo died of complications from diabetes. Dowiyogo's body was returned to the Nauruan government by the U.S. Air Force. Dowiyogo's funeral in Nauru was postponed in Nauru because of unexplained «delays» encountered in getting the president's body back to Nauru from Washington.

Dowiyogo’s suspicious death was not the first nor the last for Pacific island leaders. Palau's first President Haruo Remeliik was murdered in 1985. His successor, Lazarus Salii, supposedly committed suicide in 1988. Both Palauan presidents died after they said they opposed a free association treaty with the United States permitting U.S. nuclear warships to have access to Palauan ports. In 1990, Ricardo Bordallo, Guam's ex-Governor who favored Chamorro rights over the U.S. military’s domination of the island, was found dead with a gunshot wound in the head while wrapped in a Guamanian flag. The death was ruled a suicide.

Like Remeliik and Salii, Dowiyogo was a strong opponent to U.S. Navy nuclear ship patrols in the region, as well as French nuclear testing in French Polynesia. Just a few weeks after Dowiyogo died, Dowiyogo's successor as Nauruan president, Derog Gioura, 71, a Dowiyogo political ally, suffered a heart attack and was rushed to an Australian hospital from Nauru. Later reports stated that Gioura suffered a stroke. A few weeks later, Gioura said he was surprised to learn that the Bush administration had claimed that six suspected «terrorists», including two members of «Al Qaeda», had been arrested in Southeast Asia carrying Nauruan passports. On March 20, 2008, Christina Dowiyogo, President Dowiyogo’s widow and Nauru’s longest-serving First Lady, reportedly «died overnight» in Nauru at the age of 60, with no further details provided. Madame Dowiyogo had been at her husband’s side when he died in Washington.

In 1996, Amata Kabua, the five-term first president of the Marshall Islands, died after suffering from nausea and chest pains at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu. Kabua, 68, was an irritant to the United States over legal claims and law suits brought by the residents of Kwajalein Atoll who were forcibly removed from Bikini Atoll so the U.S. could test atomic and hydrogen bombs in their ancestral island chain. Kabua’s obituary claimed he had died after a «long illness» even though he first complained about his condition only a month before his death in Hawaii.

Even the leaders of America’s surrogate «enforcers» in the Pacific are not immune to dying suddenly after crossing swords with Washington. New Zealand’s Labor Party prime minister Norman Kirk was a vocal critic of the United States for everything from its nuclear armed ships in the Pacific and its war in Vietnam to Washington’s involvement in the 1973 coup in Chile. In 1974, Kirk, 51, died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. Later, Labor Party president Bob Harvey called for a Royal Commission to investigate whether Kirk had been assassinated by the CIA with a «contact poison». Based on President Lonsdale’s more recent death, such investigative commissions should also be established in Vanuatu, Nauru, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Guam (Guahan).

Photo: Access Now

However, Snowden’s fate is being weighed at the highest levels of the U.S. government… Some within NSA believe that President Obama should offer Snowden amnesty if the self-exiled whistleblower agrees not to reveal any more NSA secrets. Most legal experts agree that such an amnesty would be questionable on legal grounds and that it may be a clever trap being dangled like a carrot to lure Snowden into a trap and a lifetime prison term, or, if Woolsey and his neocon friends have their way, on to an execution gurney and a lethal injection.

NSA supporters contend that Snowden did irreparable harm to U.S. and its allies’ national security by absconding with a reported 50,000 to 60,000 classified NSA documents. However, to date, not even two percent of the estimated total number of documents has been released to the media. 

In 2006, another individual who was cleared for only a small portion of the surveillance operations of NSA and its «FIVE EYES» signals intelligence partners posthumously revealed classified information. However, in the case of this individual, David Lange, he was a former prime minister of one of the FIVE EYES countries, New Zealand and he had died in 2005.

On January 15, 2006, the Sunday Star Times of New Zealand reported that the archived papers of the late Prime Minister Lange included a 31-page TOP SECRET UMBRA HANDLE VIA COMINT CHANNELS ONLY New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) report on New Zealand's communications intercepts on behalf of the National Security Agency (NSA).

The intercepts were of targets in the South Pacific and Antarctica. GCSB maintained two major communications intercept stations at Waihopai and Tangimoana. Waihopai, which is codenamed IRONSAND, intercepts trans-Pacific foreign satellite communications. The 1985/86 GCSB Annual Report stated that among the targets of surveillance were UN diplomatic cables. The report also states that among GCSB's main tasks were translating and analyzing «most of the raw traffic used… (coming) from GCHQ/NSA sources». 

GCHQ is Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, the agency tasked by NSA to conduct «surge» eavesdropping on UN Security Council delegations in the lead up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The NSA tasking memo was leaked by GCHQ analyst Katharine Gun to the British press. Criminal charges against Gun were later dropped. 

Since the revelation of the UMBRA classification by a number of sources, NSA has dropped its use. It has been replaced with classifications such as «TOP SECRET/COMINT/NOFORN» and «TOP SECRET / COMINT/X1».

The New Zealand report also states that GCSB's tasking included «reporting on items of intelligence derived from South Pacific telex messages on satellite communications links». It added that reporting «was accelerated during the year… A total of 171 reports were published, covering the Solomons, Fiji, Tonga and international organisations operating in the Pacific. The raw traffic for this reporting provided by NSA the US National Security Agency)».

The report also revealed that 238 GCSB intelligence reports on intercepted Japanese diplomatic cables, using «raw traffic from GCHQ/NSA sources», was stymied by a new Japanese encryption system. «The Japanese government implementation of a new high grade cypher system seriously reduced the bureau's output», states the report. The GCSB «relied heavily on GCHQ acquisition and forwarding of French Pacific satellite intercept» for translation and analysis by GCSB. Chinese diplomatic traffic intercepted by NSA and GCHQ was also sent to GCSB for analysis and translation. 

The report stated that Tangimoana targets in 1985 and 1986 were «French South Pacific civil, naval and military; French Antarctic civil; Vietnamese diplomatic; North Korean diplomatic; Egyptian diplomatic; Soviet merchant and scientific research shipping; Soviet Antarctic civil. Soviet fisheries; Argentine naval; Non-Soviet Antarctic civil (including Indian and Polish communications); East German diplomatic; Japanese diplomatic; Philippines diplomatic; South African Armed Forces; Laotian diplomatic [and] UN diplomatic». In addition, the New Zealand Tangimoana outstation intercepted 165,174 messages from its assigned targets, which represented «an increase of approximately 37,000 on the 84/85 figure». The report added, «Reporting on the Soviet target increased by 20% on the previous year».

GCSB was also responsible for eavesdropping on the communications of New Caledonia and French Polynesia (both French territories), Vanuatu, Kiribati, Nauru, and Tuvalu. Because Waihopai intercepted bulk Pacific Intelsat traffic, the communications of American Samoa (whose inhabitants are U.S. citizens) would have been available to NSA and other FIVE EYES But because of the NSA role as the operational leader of the FIVE EYES network, New Zealand, and to a similar extent, Australia, Britain, and Canada, do not have access to the intelligence NSA or receives from Waihopai / IRONSAND. The intelligence includes communications intercepts from Niue and the Cook Islands (New Zealand territories), Norfolk Island (Australian territory), and Samoa (Western Samoa).

Lange always believed that his own SIGINT agency, GCSB, on the orders of NSA and the Americans, were less than forthcoming with him on the extent of surveillance of communications in his country. His fears matched those of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who demanded the Americans tell him exactly the nature of its Australian bases, including the large facility in Alice Springs. Lange and Whitlam were both forced from office in «constitutional coups» having CIA and NSA fingerprints.

Lange’s GCSB document about spying is very similar to the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) document released by Snowden titled «Bude Sigint Development Reports». The GCHQ document outlines GCHQ/NSA intercepts from the GCHQ base at Bude, Cornwall, code named CARBOY, and the NSA’s TIMBERLINE base at Sugar Grove, West Virginia of the communications of Mohamed Ibn Chambas, an official of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); various corporations in Beijing; the NGO Doctors of the World (Medecins du Monde); the Geneva-based UNICEF and the UN Institute for Disarmament Research; the French companies Thales and Total; the German embassy in Rwanda; an Estonian Skype security team; a French ambassador; European Union anti-trust commissioner Joaquin Almunia; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert; the Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, German ministries in Berlin, German communications links with Turkey and Georgia; and the UN Development Program (headed up by one of Lange’s Labor Party prime minister successors, Helen Clark). 

Whether they are the 2006 disclosures from Lange or the 2013 revelations from Snowden, the leaked documents from the Anglo-American surveillance alliance only prove one thing: individuals large and small are eavesdropped upon merely because they are communicating something that intelligence agency eavesdroppers want to hear. There is hardly ever a counterterrorism or even a counterintelligence predicate involved. It is surveillance for the sake of surveillance.