Communist Group Credits Faleomavaega

Saying “His call for Washington to assert its own position on Fiji and other regional matters now appears to have received a favorable hearing in the State Department,” the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), through its official World Socialist Website, has credited American Samoa congressional Delegate Eni Faleomavaega with playing the key role in changing the U.S. government’s position on dealing with the Fiji dictatorship.

The ICFI is the international Communist organization that follows the Marxist teachings of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky, a leading rival to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin until Stalin had him assassinated in 1940. Although Faleomavaega was for years a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, from its inception in 1991 until he quietly dropped out when his membership threatened to become a campaign issue earlier this decade, and the caucus has ties with Democratic Socialists of America, it is unclear what ties, if any, Faleomavaega may have with the ICFI or other Trotskyite organizations.

Nonetheless, in addition to his vigorous defense of Fiji military dictator Commodore Frank Bainamarama, Faleomavaega also has been cozy with autocratic leaders in Kazkhstan, Laos and Vietnam, the last where he praised Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi a couple of years ago.

As evidence of the shift in U.S. policy, the ICFI in the article points to

• Obama recently issuing a personal statement marking the 40th anniversary of Fijian independence;

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton including the Fiji Foreign Minister in an hour-long meeting in New York with senior Pacific leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in later September;

• Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s testifying before Faleomavaega’s subcommittee that “Our objective is to put Fiji back on track for . . . elections no later than 2014,” tantamount to endorsing a timetable which now puts “Washington . . . at odds with Canberra on this question:”

• the U.S. recently announcing it will re-establish an AID mission in Suva after a 15-year absence;

• State Department opening a new multi-million dollar regional embassy in Suva;

• The U.S. government issuing no comment on the arrest of former Prime Minister and current Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry, “on spurious charges of breaking an emergency decree . . .”

Faleomavaega no doubt approves of all these developments. At the hearing at which Campbell testified, he said “Clearly, the Australian and New Zealand policy of sanctions and isolating and punishing Fiji has not only failed but totally been counterproductive. For too long we effectively outsourced our policymaking toward the Pacific Islands to Australia and New Zealand. “

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “the sometimes imperious attitudes and actions of our friends in Canberra and Wellington toward the Pacific Islands have fostered a degree of resentment and distrust that has limited their influence as well as their ability to represent US views and interests . . . By deferring to the foreign ministries of Canberra and Wellington, we left a vacuum in the Pacific that China has been only too eager to fill.”

Given Faleomavaega’s closeness to Communist China in recent years, it is unclear why he is expressing concern about China’s activities in the Pacific and the article in this publication sheds no light on that.

Election time again

Well folks, it's election time again, so we are opening up our survey to give you a chance to choose who you prefer to replace Faleomavaega as delegate to Congress. The choices this year are Aumua Amata begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting, who has contested the seat several times in the past and Tuika Tuika, Jr., who has run for congress once before.

The good news for a lot of governments around the world is that they are safe from Eni's wrath for three weeks while he confines himself to the territory to face the voters. So, he will have to put aside his two main, seemingly contradictory preoccupations: coddling dictators and championing the oppressed. In the former categories are such people as Frank Bainamarama (Fiji), Nursultan Nazarbayev (Kazakhstan), the late Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) and Bouasone Bouphavanh (Laos). The oppressed people include West Papua's Melanesians, French Polynesian separatists, Armenians, Koren comfort women, Cambodian Agent Orange sufferers, Native Hawaiians, American Indians on reservations and low-wage cannery workers.

The only place where he has had any impact, as far as we can tell, is with the low wage cannery workers. He fought for and won for them an increase in the minimum wage, forcing one cannery to close and the other to downsize, so that now he can champion a new group: the no-wage ex-cannery workers. Atta boy, Eni, way to go in your never-ending search for "social justice."

The good news for Eni is that if he wins again, he is likely to have a whole lot more time to devote to his pet causes because if Republicans take control of Congress, as many analysts now believe they will, he won't need to show up in Washington every once in a while to chair hearings or cast committee votes at the direction of his party to give cover to real members. As was the case for the 12 years Republicans controlled the House between 1995 and 2007, he will be largely irrelevant as a member of the minority. Even though Republicans will control travel budgets, they do like to have Democrats on their fact-finding delegations abroad to show "bipartisanship," and Eni has proved useful for that purpose because he never refuses a trip he is offered.

He seems to have adopted a strategy of flying under the radar this election, as he made no formal announcement of his candidacy, just quietly filing his petitions to activate his candidacy. And he can count on Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is one of the editors, to play his little game of keeping controversy out of print. There are only 22 days left in the campaign and so far there have been exactly NO stories in the paper about the campaign. The candidates each made the first of their customary television presentations last week and Samoa News did not even bother to cover them. nor have any of the media taken the simple step of going on-line to the Federal Election Committee website to see how much money has been raised any from whom. Virtually every other newspaper in the country does this for their local congressional races but apparently not Samoa News. Maybe his sister-in-law won't like what she sees: massive contributions from people with Asian names with addresses in the U.S. No one seems to care or wonder why all these people would be so interested in a congressional race on a small, remote Pacific Island. As long as the voters are fed on Election Day, why bother, I suppose?

FALEOMAVAEGA SICK; SAMOA NEWS SILENT; HOLDS SHAM HEARING

When a major politician is seriously ill, it is the responsibility of the media to report it. Whatever you think of him, Faleomavaega is a major politician. Senior in Congress, head of a subcommittee. But a lot of people know that when he was in American Samoa recently for Flag Day, he had to be hospitalized. Then he went to the plane by wheel chair for Honolulu, where he was hospitalized again. Then to Washington where again he was hospitalized. Not a word in Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is an editor. If Samoa News is an honest, independent newspaper, we challenge them right now to put a reporter on this story and find out what is going on with Faleomavaega’s health. Although he was in Washington at the time, he was the only territorial delegate to skip a White House meeting with President Obama. Some people thought it might be because he would have been forced to wear a standard American business suit, which he no longer does (he is usually dressed in open shirtsleeves, sometime with a loose Indian bolo tie when required (like on the House floor), a lavalava and sandals. Perhaps he missed it because he was in the hospital or otherwise sick in bed.

Meantime, looking drawn and with an unusually weak and raspy voice, he nevertheless conducted a congressional hearing. He ranted. He raved. He fumed. But in the end, like everything else he tries, nothing will come of Faleomavaega’s April 22 subcommittee hearing to specifically discuss the lingering affects of unexploded ordnance in Laos left from the Vietnam War-era. As is not uncommon, he issued a press release labeling the hearing as “historic,” and as usual, the sycophantic Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is one of the editors, dutiful carried the description. Please don’t bother to ask Samoa News to ask Faleomavaega why this hearing was so historic. There was no mention of it in the New York Times or Washington Post the following day. Neither Time nor Newsweek magazine saw fit to say anything about it in their editions the following week. Historic maybe in Eni’s mind and now all those who read it in Samoa News but hardly anywhere else. Don’t hold your breath waiting for legislation to remove all the ordnance, either. Ain’t gonna happen.

Maybe something will happen with the bill he has introduced in the House to authorize the Tribal Development Bank to support U.S. tribes to engage in trade relations with the First Nations of Canada, Maori tribes of New Zealand and perhaps even the Sami of Norway and Finland. If the House accepts such amendments, indigenous nations in countries such as Canada and New Zealand, who commit to protecting indigenous nation trade from unfair import/export duties or tariffs, will be able to engage in business partnerships with U.S. tribes. The bill to create a Tribal Development Bank for Native Americans is Inouye’s brain child. Amendments involving other “First Nations” are Eni’s, so don’t expect much here, either.

Over Obama, Clinton Objections, Faleomavaega Casts Deciding Vote on Genocide

Faleomavaega has continued to stake out his maverick course in dealing with the Obama administration by recently voted for a House Foreign Affairs Committee resolution that, if passed by the full House, would put Congress on record calling for Turkey to acknowledge and apology for a genocide imposed on its Armenian minority during World War I. Turkey over the years has refused to accept that it conducted such a genocide.

Although Faleomavaega is not very influential in Congress, he does have a full vote in committee and in this case his vote turned out to be very influential, because it was the tie breaker in a 23-22 vote in favor of the resolution. President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have signaled to House speaker Nancy Pelosi that they hope the resolution will not be put to a test on the Floor of the House.

For someone who represents a constituency that is so reliant on the federal government for assistance, Faleomavaega is either very brave or very foolish to buck the White House so often. His genocide vote comes only weeks after he condemned the very same Obama and Clinton for failing to include meetings with Pacific Island leaders on her maiden trip to the region. That trip was truncated in Hawaii because of the Haiti earthquake and despite promises by Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary for the region, at a recent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that Clinton would include island leaders on her rescheduled trip, it is by no means certain she will do so, especially if Faleomavaega continues to pummel the administration.

In addition to the genocide vote and the criticism of the Clinton trip, at the same hearing Faleomavaega complained to Campbell that the 176,000 dollars U.S. has given Communist Laos to clear around 80 million bombs that failed to detonate during the Vietnam was grossly insufficient. "This is absolutely outrageous,” ranted Faleomavaega, “and it's not the America that I would think of." He continued: "They never declared war against us. We're the ones that just simply went over there and bombed the heck out of them." But Campbell stood his ground, insisting that while both Vietnam and Laos want better relations with the U.S., much needs to be done in the area of human rights and democracy before real progress can be made. Once again, the ultra liberal Faleomavaega seems to turn a blind eye to such matters when it comes to his favorite left-wing and right-wing dictatorships.

Meanwhile, there has been no word out of the White House as to whether Obama will accept Faleomavaega’s invitation to visit American Samoa on his return from Indonesia-Australia trip later this month. He leaves for the Pacific in just nine days’ time: March 18. Rahm “The Enforcer” Emanuel no doubt is weighing Faleomavaega’s behavior towards Obama in the deliberations. Perhaps that is what Faleomavaega hopes to achieve: carve out an independent course and use that as an excuse if Obama declines to visit the territory. It’s all part of the Washington game. And the voters likely will rally around Faleomavaega for the discourtesy Obama would have shown. Never mind any discourtesies Faleomavaega might have shown the White House.

Critics of Faleomavaega Visit to Hmong Camp Persist

Faleomavaega’s travel blitz covering Asia, North Africa, Europe and the Western Pacific over the past six weeks has been so truly breathtaking in his scope it is difficult to remember that one of his first stops was Laos, where he pronounced returning Hmong refugees free from persecution in their repatriation camp outside the capital. Early on he was denounced for turning a blind eye to the real situation and even though he is long gone and on to other issues, the criticism persists.

However, that testimony has not pacified many observers concerned about the status of the recently repatriated Hmong. Writing for Worldnet Daily, Anthony C. LoBaido says Faleomavaega’s “testimony has not pacified many observers concerned about the status of the recently repatriated Hmong.”

LoBaido notes that Amnesty International contends Thailand's deportation of the Hmong "violated [Thailand's] obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which provides that state parties must not send people to countries where they risk torture. The government also claimed, after holding them [the Hmong] for three years in arbitrary detention in constant fear of forcible return, that the Hmong agreed to return to Laos voluntarily. In fact, the Thai authorities told them that they would be resettled to third countries only if they first agreed to go back to Laos."

The U.S. ambassador to Thailand wrote in the Bangkok Post that "All the refugees we interviewed in Nong Khai told us on December 28th, that they did not wish to return to Laos, clearly indicating that the return was involuntary. The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program was available to consider referrals of individuals from this community. This was clearly articulated repeatedly by U.S. officials. Both the UNHCR and the Royal Thai Government had, indeed, determined that many among this population were in need of protection. And the United States, along with many other countries, stood ready to provide third-country resettlement as an option, but this course was not allowed."

Like the People’s Republic of China and Vietnam, two other governments Faleomavaega likes to champion, Laos is a Communist dictatorship. One has to wonder what it is about communist dictatorships that Faleomavaega finds so appealing, especially when so many other people see things that seem to escape his attention.

The complete Worldnet story can be found at http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=124605.

We are not holding our breath that Samoa News to cover this continuing story or anything else about his travel. At this point, we would settle for the paper to simplyh inform its readers that over the past six weeks, the delegate has visited Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Morocco, Spain, Austria and Palau in three separate junkets, with very little time in Washington, which, supposedly, is his duty station.

CPPA Denounces Faleomavaega for Laos Visit

The Center for Public Policy Analysis ( CPPA ) in Washington, D.C., and a coalition of dozens of Laotian and Hmong organizations today issued an international communiqué denouncing American Samoa Congressional Delegate Eni Faleomavaega's statements, along with those of the other two Members of Congress who recently visited a government model show-camp in Laos and declared that there were no human rights violations against Hmong refugees forcibly returned from Thailand to Laos.

According to CPPA, over 8,000 Lao Hmong refugees who fled political and religious persecution in Laos were forced by the Thai and Lao military back to Laos from 2007-2009. Between Christmas and the New Year holiday, over 4,700 Lao Hmong refugees were forced back to Laos. Most of the refugees have been imprisoned in Laos’ secret network of jails and camps in remote provinces. Australia journalists from “The Age” recently sought access to one such secret camp where many Hmong refugees were held behind razor wire in squalid conditions. The Australian journalists were arrested and their cameras reportedly seized; they were expelled.

Laos, under the Hanoi-backed communist Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR), is one of the most corrupt, says CPPA, and oppressive regimes in the world according to a recent public sector corruption and press freedom indexes issued by the respected non-governmental organizations Transparency International (TI) and Reporters Without Borders (JSF). Laos is listed at the bottom of these indexes along with its allies in North Korea, Burma and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV).

The following is taken from the text of the joint international communiqué issued by the CPPA and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong organizations:

“We are deeply saddened by, and must denounce in the strongest terms, the deplorable, distorted and misleading comments of the three U.S. Congressmen, Joseph Cao, Mike Honda and Eni Faleomavaega, during their recent visit to Laos, and to the Lao government's Potemkin Village show camp at Pha Lak in Vientiane Province. Tragically, the U.S. Congressmen have helped to cover-up and whitewash the horrific crimes of the Lao government against the Laotian and Hmong people and refugees who were brutally forced back from Thailand in recent years by the Thai and Lao military,” the International Communique stated.

“It is important to note that Pha Lak village houses only a fraction of the Hmong refugees returned to Laos in previous years as well as many dozens of Lao government informants and undercover agents. It is a tightly-controlled, Lao government camp upgraded for foreign visitors and administered in cooperation with the LPDR Ministry of Propaganda.

“The Lao government and military continue to attack and kill unarmed Laotian and Hmong people. Congressmen Joseph Cao, Mike Honda and Eni Faleomavaega, at their press conference in Vientiane and upon their return to the Washington, D.C., have remained silent on the horrific human rights violations, persecution, atrocities and war crimes that have been inflicted on the Laotian and Hmong people in recent months and years, including the arrest of over 300 peaceful protest marchers in November of last year that prompted a resolution that was passed by the European Parliament that was passed on Thanksgiving Day, November 26.

“We also denounce the failure of the U.S. Congressmen to address at their press conference in Vientiane, while visiting Laos, the clearly articulated concerns of the European Union in their recent resolution of November 26, 2009, urging the release of all Lao political and religious dissidents, and prisoners of conscience, including the Lao student pro-democracy leaders of the October 1999 Movement for Democracy as well as the November 2, 2009 reformist marcher leaders who were arrested.

“It is deplorable that [Faleomavaega and his colleagues] did not visit, or seek to visit, the secret camps and prisons in more remote areas in Laos where most of the Hmong refugees as well as Laotian dissidents are being jailed, tortured and imprisoned. Many of these secret prisons and camps in Laos are administered jointly by the Vietnam Peoples Army (VPA) and Lao Peoples Army (LPA).

“Independent journalists from ‘The Age’ in Australia and other human rights organizations and activists have documented the existence of secret camps and prisons in Laos where refugees and dissidents are held in squalid conditions.

“Other independent sources, including the New York Times, Al Jazeera, Time Magazine, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, the Foreign Prisoners Support Service have documented human rights abuses against Lao Hmong refugees as well as the enclaves of Lao and Hmong civilian and dissidents hiding in the jungles and mountains that suffering from starvation, military attacks and persecution in Laos.

“Hundreds of Lao Hmong refugees have disappeared or have been killed by the Lao government and military in recent years. Moreover, many hundreds of Laotians, were arrested in Laos in November of 2009, and in recent years, seeking to organize political and economic reform movements as a result of the one-party military regime and its systemic corruption and exploitation of the Laotian people.

“Additional hundreds of independent Laotian and Hmong Christian, Catholic, Animist and Buddhist religious believers, who continue to flee Lao military and security force persecution and attacks, according to independent religious and non-governmental organizations.

“Religious persecution of the Laotian and Hmong people, including the thousands of refugees who fled to Thailand and then were forcibly repatriated back to Laos, was never discussed by [Faleomavaega] or the other U.S. Congressmen. Lao Hmong and minority Protestant Christian, Catholic and Animist believers have been brutally persecuted in Laos as well as by the Thai military in refugee camps prior to their forced repatriation back to secret camps in Laos.

“We are concerned that the three U.S. Congressmen have, at their press conference in Vientiane and in subsequent public comments, repeatedly misled the international community about the nature of the regime in Laos and the plight of the Lao and Hmong people; They have helped the Lao government with its devious and terrible agenda to force Lao Hmong political refugees and asylum seekers back to Laos and oppress and persecute them;

“Moreover, it is deplorable that Congressmen Joseph Cao, Faleomavaega and Mike Honda did not visit the jailed Lao student leaders or the Lao and Hmong political and religious dissidents imprisoned in Laos.

“At a critical time in the Lao Hmong refugee crisis, the three Congressmen made no effort to address these key issues or other vital human rights concerns at their press conference in Vientiane, Laos or its aftermath in Washington, D.C. Congressman Joseph Cao, Congressman Eni Faleomavaega and Mike Honda have perpetuated the Lao government's propaganda against the freedom-loving Laotian and Hmong people, and the defenseless refugees forced back to Laos."

The Joint International Communiqué from which the above information was drawn was cosponsored and issued by the following organizations: United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc., the Lao Human Rights Council, Inc., the Laos Institute for Democracy, the Lao Veterans of America, Inc., the Hmong Advancement, Inc. , Hmong Advance, Inc. , Lao Abroad Solidarity Foundation, Lao Hmong Students Association, Laotian Students Organization for Democracy; Laotian Community of Louisiana, Lao Hmong Community of Minnesota, Hmong Community Organization of Minnesota, Laotian Community of Minnesota, Laotian Community Network of Texas and Louisiana; Laotian Community of New York; Michigan Lao Hmong Community Group; Laotian Community of Virginia; Lao Hmong Community of California; Laotian Community of Tennessee, Lao Hmong Community of North Carolina, Laotian Community of Florida and others.

These groups are the latest who can get in line behind others who have been incensed by Faleomavaega's controversial pronouncements during his various travels in Asia and the Pacific over the last three years, especially during the three frightening years since he has become subcommittee chairman for the region. Of course, he has little real influence on U.S. policy but while that is understood in Washington, it is not appreciated in the region or especially in his home district, where the local daily paper, Samoa News, where his sister-in-law is an editor, carefully keeps controversy out of print.

Faleomavaega has managed to alienate Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Indonesia and Turkey in the past three years as well as groups struggling against repressive regimes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone, especially not his cheering squad in American Samoa.