4/24/08
AFP clamps down on Pacific
This is nothing more than facilities across the islands to spy on and to repress local populations. Transnational crime bullshit, right wing "academics" have written off our young men across the Pacific as transnational youth gangs, just like the bullshit war on terror this is all about control of the Pacific its people and it resources.
See Also:
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2007/09/presence-of-australian-federal-police.html
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2008/03/paramilitary-wing-of-afp.html
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2008/02/keetley-expired.html
http://uriohau.blogspot.com/2008/01/australia-in-pacific-islands.html
Joining Together to Fight Crime in the Pacific
24 Apr 2008, 11:10
Canberra, Australia:
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has stepped up the fight against transnational crime in the Asia Pacific region with today's opening of the Micronesia Regional Transnational Crime Unit (TCU).
The Micronesia Regional TCU is a joint initiative between Australia, the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia, and the opening has been welcomed by Micronesia's Secretary of Justice Maketo Robert.
It is the sixth to open in the Pacific region, and is linked to a network of existing TCUs in Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea.
The AFP first forged a relationship with the United States' Hawaii-based Department of Defence Joint Interagency Task Force West (JIATF West) in 2004 to create a more proactive criminal intelligence and investigative presence in the Pacific.
AFP's Manager International Network Paul Osborne said the TCU network allows law enforcement agencies to share intelligence, and to profile and target transnational crime groups operating across the region.
"The fight against transnational crime can only be successful through strong collaborative partnerships and effective law enforcement intelligence," Commander Osborne said.
The AFP's engagement in the Pacific is focused on long-term capacity building, and addressing issues such as the transportation of narcotics, people smuggling, child sex tourism and transnational sex exploitation.
The AFP has provided the Micronesia TCU with $300,000 of equipment and support, including a new vehicle, intelligence training and an AFP advisor for the first 12 months.
JIATF West has contributed $450,000 to the project for the refurbishment of offices including the provision of cabling, air-conditioning, furniture and computer and communications equipment.
JIATF West's Deputy Director of Intelligence Gary Royster said the facility now had the level of technology required to fight transnational crime in the 21st century. AFP, 23/04/08.
2/1/08
Keetley Expired?
Has federal police boss reached his use-by date? Sushi Das January 31, 2008
. And embarrassingly for him, his protests are becoming more preposterous and hysterical.
The most unpalatable element of his accusation this week that journalists have misinformed the public over counter-terrorism cases and undermined the judicial system is his shameless hypocrisy.
And his call for a media commentary blackout on the reporting of these cases until all legal avenues have been exhausted raises the question: on which hilltop does Keelty stand when he makes such demands of Australia's robust democratic institutions?
In Keelty's ideal world there would have been no public scrutiny of the Mohamed Haneef case, which collapsed spectacularly after the AFP and the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions made crucial mistakes — mistakes that were revealed by the media. The Indian-born doctor was charged last July with providing a mobile phone SIM card to a terrorist organisation. The charges were later dropped because of lack of evidence.
Let's refresh our memories over key events. There was the incorrect assertion that Haneef's SIM card was found in the exploded jeep at Glasgow airport. This claim was used to support the ongoing detention of Haneef.
First Keelty tried to blame the prosecutors and then he tried to blame the British police for providing wrong information — a mistake the British police say they corrected before Haneef was charged.
The AFP knew the SIM card was not in the jeep when they laid the charges and they knew the prosecutor misinformed the court. The AFP did not immediately correct the mistake. In fact it did not seek to correct information in the public domain until the ABC revealed the SIM card was recovered hundreds of kilometres away in Liverpool — exactly where Haneef had left it. This was followed by Keelty's garbled comments about the SIM card being in "in the vicinity of London" and "still at Glasgow". His subsequent failure to entirely dismiss an Indian "dossier" alleging Haneef had links to al-Qaeda was plain dirty.
When charges against Haneef were finally dropped, Keelty tried to blame the DPP, saying police were obliged to charge Haneef on the prosecutor's advice. The DPP presses charges based on evidence put forward by the police.
Last year Keelty attacked the media for making police investigations difficult and he savaged Haneef's barrister, Stephen Keim, for leaking a transcript of the AFP's interview with Haneef. Everyone's to blame but him.
Then in a speech to the Sydney Institute this week, he attacked media manipulation of public sentiment, acting in the defensive manner of someone who believes he has no case to answer. The AFP has many media spokespeople and they all want to spin the news their way.
At least when Keim gave the transcript to The Australian, he owned up to it. He took responsibility.
But who has taken responsibility for the "secret information" about the case that police claimed could not be divulged — the innuendoes, smears and leaks that look suspiciously like they came from the police themselves?
In calling for the creation of a "society of editors" that police and intelligence chiefs can use to brief the media in an off-the-record forum to set matters straight, Keelty displays that he knows little of the competitive media environment. It would take only one editor to breach the rules, one leak to a blogger, one whisper in the wrong ear.
Keelty's boo-hoo-hoo antics belie the AFP's woeful record on the Haneef case. The cops got clobbered and they know it. Keelty just can't handle it, so he lashes out at the media because there is no one else to blame.
The saddest thing about this whole drama is that Keelty has a reputation for being a good cop. He is respected by many in the force and applauded for the AFP's expert handling of matters after the Bali bombings.
The AFP has done excellent work catching terrorists in conjunction with the Indonesian police. He was unfairly pilloried for stating the plain truth after the Madrid bombing when he said Australia's involvement in Iraq had made the threat of terrorist attacks worse, and he even got slapped down when he said climate change posed a threat to national security.
One might have expected, after heading the AFP since 2001, through some tumultuous times for Australia's crime fighting forces, that he might have been mentioned in this year's Australia Day honours.
Since the AFP failed to remain independent and above politics as Howard government heavies weighed into the Haneef case to exploit popular insecurities, it's hard to see how the AFP under Keelty is going to redefine itself.
And redefine itself it must, to some degree, under the Rudd Government, which has signalled that while it is not about to soften tough counter-terrorism legislation, it will broaden its national security strategy to include a new focus on social policy to build bridges with the Islamic community.
On the domestic terrorism front, things have been going awry for Keelty for some time. But sheeting the blame home to the media, the very same media that his spin doctors seek to manipulate, is unworthy of his office.
If he hasn't already lost it, he is on the precipice of losing the public's trust. Perhaps the time has come for Keelty to hand in his badge.
Sushi Das is a senior writer.
Email: sdas@theage.com.au
Related:
1/31/08
Australia in the Pacific Islands
Regional programs for "Australian Forces Abroad"
"Australia in the Pacific Islands" is one of a series of briefings published by the Nautilus Institute at RMIT, for the "Australian Forces Abroad" series of briefing books.
As well as major overseas deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, Australia has deployed military, police and intelligence personnel closer to home - to Timor Leste and the small island states of the Pacific.
Since the late 1990s, Australia has deployed police, troops or naval vessels to Solomon Islands, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Nauru, and extended joint operations with New Zealand and other member states of the Pacific Islands Forum. The largest deployments include Australian involvement in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Enhanced Co-operation Program (ECP) to Papua New Guinea, and extensive operations by the Australian Federal Police (AFP).
The Nautilus Institute is developing a series of country specific sites (listed below) on Australian operations in the Pacific. However a number of police and military programs operate at regional rather than national level - thus "Australia in the Pacific Islands" includes briefings on a number of multi-country programs that operate in the region, such as the Law Enforcement Co-operation Program (LECP), the AFP's Pacific Transnational Crime Network, or the Pacific Patrol Boat Program.
Navigation
About Australian Forces Abroad and Australia in the Pacific islands
Australian Defence Force regional programs
Australian Federal Police
- Law Enforcement Co-operations Program (LECP)
- International Deployment Group (IDG)
- Operational Response Group (ORG)
- Pacific Transnational Crime Co-ordination Centre (PTCCC)
- Pacific Regional Policing Initiative (PRPI)
- Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police (PICP)
Attorney General's Department
Country briefing books for the Pacific region
Australia in Timor Leste (forthcoming)
"Australian Forces Abroad" - Australia in the Pacific Islands
Project coordinator: Richard Tanter
Project researcher: Nic Maclellan
URL: http://gc.nautilus.org/Nautilus/australia/australia-in-pacific/australia-in-pacific
10/3/07
Solomon Islands FM blasts Australia for continued occupation
Otti also called on the United Nations to assume a greater role in the mission, saying the Solomon Islands' experience with Australian-designed "cooperative intervention" proved that the world body must retain a leading role in international peacekeeping.
The 2,200-strong Australian-led international security contingent known as the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) has been in the country in 2003, when it arrived to help quell communal strife in which hundreds died.
But relations between Australia and the Solomons plunged since Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare took office in May 2006 following parliamentary elections.
Sogavare has criticized the mission over the past year, threatening to expel Australian personnel from the mission and to strip the troops of their immunity from prosecution. He accused the mission of representing too much of Canberra's interests and of failing to focus on its mandate to restore law and order in the South Pacific nation.
Sogavare has called for a RAMSI "exit strategy."
Canberra responded by accusing the Solomons' leader of poor governance. Australian peacekeepers also raided Sogvare's office, saying they were searching for evidence in a child sex criminal case.
Otti said it was the Solomons' "sovereign right to determine the terms on which the government of the Solomon Islands will permit our continued occupation by the visiting contingent."
"My (government) remains unmoved by Australian resistance to our attempts to reclaim our sovereignty and independence," he said.
Otti noted that after the government had criticized Australia's military role in the Solomons, he too had been denied a visa to visit Canberra.
"One would have to admit that this is an incredible justification for excluding democratically elected leaders of neighboring countries unknown for breeding terrorists," he said.
9/27/07
SOLOMON IS: Bartlett lashes out at AFP
the very people who were supposed to uphold justice and truth went about establishing a false case against an innocent person, that's what I'm saying that this whole thing was fabricated and it was totally wrong in terms of law and investigation as far as professional conduct is concerned.
- 07/08/2007
A former spokesman for the Solomon Islands militant group, the Malaita Eagle Force, who has been acquitted of conspiracy says the charges against him were absurd. The High Court dismissed four charges against Alex Bartlett of murder, arson and riot in relation to last year's riots in Honiara.Presenter - Sam Seke Speaker - Alex Bartlett, former cabinet minister & Malaita Eagle Force spokesman
listen windows media >BARTLETT: I feel that my innocence had been vindicated and of course justice and truth prevailed, and I am indeed most grateful.
SEKE: Mr Bartlett the presiding judge, Justice David Cameron in dismissing the charges against you said that the evidence against you was not credible and that no reasonable tribunal could rely on such distorted evidence. Were you expecting him to say something to that effect?
BARTLETT: I don't think the judge per se had said anything in favour of me, but other than interpreting the law was expressing his professional finding on the charges that were brought against me by RAMSI. But as I said all along I had maintained my innocence, and the fact that the judge had gave that ruling revealed very seriously the absurdity of the conspiracy case and other charges that were brought against me.
SEKE: So did you feel that you have been victimised?
BARTLETT: Well if charges were brought against you for which you knew full well you didn't commit or were not involved in such incidents or activity, of course you would feel that you had been victimised, which indeed this case was. And I think it bares very negatively on the investigators and the perpetrators of this case, because as the judge ruled I mean there was just no such meeting, no such activity and for someone to come up and just make up or fabricate or find a case or statement against you is totally absurd.
SEKE: Now Mr Bartlett you have singled out Australian Federal Police officers involved in the investigations, they conducted their investigations in a very unprofessional manner, why did you say that?
BARTLETT: I mean our code of ethics as far as investigation under the British system which Solomon Islands is used to, you bring about a charge against someone when you had adequate information or evidence that that person was involved in a crime. In this case there was no such thing.
SEKE: You have accused the original assistance mission to Solomon Islands, that's RAMSI as the perpetrators, now surely they did not tell the crowd to go down to Chinatown and burn the place and loot it. Why did you say that?
BARTLETT: What I'm saying is that the way they brought about this case against me, the charges against me were totally wrong, totally illegal, and the very people who were supposed to uphold justice and truth went about establishing a false case against an innocent person, that's what I'm saying that this whole thing was fabricated and it was totally wrong in terms of law and investigation as far as professional conduct is concerned.
SEKE: Are you seeking any sort of compensation from anybody for that matter?
BARTLETT: This is a very serious case and we're looking into all possible and exploring all possible avenues to seek remedies because our lives for the last two years have been completely devastated by the actions that were taken by the Australian Federal Police, and they've distorted our lives for very wrong reasons.