Posted on 01/03/2003 3:57:26 AM PST by Ranger
In a persisting diplomatic nightmare, the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga has again been linked to the world's most wanted outlaw, Osama bin Laden.
The nation of just 109,000 people has acquired notoreity for get-rich-quick schemes but this time Nuku'alofa, the capital, runs the risk of incurring Washington's wrath.
The Washington Post newspaper this week quoted US intelligence officials as saying bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network was moving operatives around the Mediterranean on a shipping fleet flagged in Tonga.
Quoting US and Greek officials, it said the shipping firm - which is called Nova and is incorporated in Delaware and Romania - has for years engaged in smuggling illegal immigrants.
The Post said US intelligence officials had identified about 15 cargo freighters around the world that they believed were controlled by al-Qaeda or could be used by the terror network to ferry operatives, bombs, money or commodities over the high seas.
Tonga's role goes back to 2000 and the arrival in Nuku'alofa of Peli Papadopoulos, who said he represented Axion Services Ltd in Piraeus, Greece.
He persuaded authorities to allow him to run Tonga International Registry of Ships (TIRS) out of Athens.
The deal was signed in a small ceremony recorded in a grainy government photo showing Papadopoulous, then justice minister Tevita Tupou and cabinet secretary 'Eseta Fusitu'a, a trenchant defender of the royal family which has near absolute authority.
In a country turned into a laughing stock when the Californian court jester lost the kingdom's 50 million pa'anga ($A35 million), around 40 per cent of the government's annual revenue, on an Arizona re-insurance scheme, the flag operation unsurprisingly turned sour.
In January last year Israeli commandos seized Karine A, a Tongan flagged ship, in the Red Sea and found it was carrying 50 tonnes of mainly Iranian weapons allegedly meant to be given to the Palestinians.
Tongan Police Minister Clive Edwards said then that police were investigating what happened.
Last February, eight Pakistani men jumped off Tongan ship Twillinger, at the Italian port of Trieste, after a trip from Cairo. The Post said US officials have since determined that al-Qaeda had sent the men.
In June last year a Tongan government statement said TIRS was to be closed down.
"The TIRS had also not lived up to commercial expectations," chairman of a cabinet committee, Noble Fielakepa said in a statement.
"International terrorism and an increase in people smuggling and asylum seekers were clearly key factors. Even our own region has felt the impact of these problems."
Fielakepa said the government did not want Tonga's image to be further hurt by events beyond its control.
In September Italian authorities intercepted another Tongan ship, Sara. They claimed it landed 15 Pakistani nationals, said to belong to al-Qaeda.
In October Croatian police seized the Tongan registered ship Boka Star that they claimed was smuggling military explosives to Iraq.
Just prior to that, Edwards told the Tongan parliament that police were trying to close down the registry and added that Tonga had not only not made any money on the deal, but that it had lost $US300,000 ($A530,000) in the scheme.
AFP
Haven't you heard? We're a kinder and gentler nation now. We call it compassionate conservatism.
(After all, we don't know for sure that everyone on those ships is a terrorist--and we certainly wouldn't want any harm to come to "innocents". And if we'd only taken the same precautions in WWII, the Germans and Europeans might not dislike us so...)
Yes. It would be terrible if these ships mysteriously disappeared at sea.
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