Noah Musingku
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Noah Musingku, under the name "King David Peii II", claims to be head of the twin "kingdoms" of Papaala and Me’ekamui on Bougainville Island in the North Solomon Islands, which are not considered to be real kingdoms by any government authority. Musingku is the creator of U-Vistract, which was banned as a pyramid scheme in Papua New Guinea. After the banning of U-Vistract in Papua New Guinea, Musingku fled to Bougainville, taking advantage of the political situation on Bougainville to avoid prosecution and the aggrieved investors of U-Vistract from whom he had collected millions of kina. [1][2][3][4][5] As of November 2020, his "kingdoms" remain at large, mainly due to fears of destabilising the island and because many of the local authorities have invested in him.[6] Musinku's influence in Bougainville is widely considered one of the chief problems facing President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville Ishmael Toroama in his attempts to stabilise Bougainville in preparation for its independence.[7]
Background
A Unilateral Declaration of Independence was made on 17 May 1990, but Australian and New Zealand-brokered peace talks tended to ignore this fact. Francis Ona controlled over half of the island, and proclaimed himself king of Me’ekamui ("holy land") in May 2004. Musingku assumed the throne of Paapala Kingdom, as well as his 500-man "Me'ekamui Defense Force"[9] in the same year, and upon Ona's death from malaria in July 2005, Musingku consolidated control of the "Twin Kingdoms" on Bougainville Island.
U-Vistract
In 1997, seven years after the unilateral declaration of independence, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army was in control of the island, but its leadership split into factions. Ona was in control of the army, and sought full independence. His co-president in the Bougainville Interim Government, Joseph Kabui, sought rapprochement with PNG and formation of an Autonomous Bougainville Government. Musingku met with each of them as a mediator, and by 19 December 1997 had signed agreements with each. They jointly realized that it would be impossible to achieve political independence without financial sovereignty.[10] As Musingku's wrote,
- In other words, Bougainville needed to create her own independent and sovereign system in order to be free from the control of the other international financial and governing structure. Also, it was very clear that the funds we needed to work with in uprooting, pulling down, destroying and overthrowing the existing foreign control system could not be earned through the conventional system. A new international system needed to be established whose control and coordination would not be based overseas but right here on our own soil.[10]
At first, the "U-Vistract Mission" was established as a Christian mission program in Australia. Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) found it to be an unlicensed securities and investment program.
- Within a few years, some 70,000 Papua New Guineans had deposited K350 million into U-Vistract alone. U-Vistract also attracted followers in Australia, Solomon Islands and Fiji. In Australia, a small number of Queensland investors contributed some AUD500,000 between July and October 1999.[11]
"On 19 October 1999 in one of my trips to Australia the ASIC placed me under house-arrest…. After a heavy interrogatory session they demanded me to shut down all my operations in the country. The ASIC publicized the matter in the media to let the world of Australia know about the so-called illegal operations. However, U-Vistract grew even stronger, gaining momentum almost overnight. The number of my agencies grew in Kempsey, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold coast, etc."[12]
From Australia, he went to Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. While in Port Moresby, he tried to set up a bank in the old Hawaiian Bank building, but he was shut down by the PNG government and forced to leave to the Solomon Islands. He began again to set up his system, but the Australian police in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) forced him out. In 2003 he travelled to Ona's headquarters in Guava, Panguna, Bougainville, and established a bank there. Two years later he was able to travel to his ancestral village of Tonu, where he established his bank headquarters in an old cattle farm owned by the paramount chief.[citation needed]
Beliefs
A
Fijian Soldiers Incident
Musingku in 2005 announced that he was hiring a security force from
References
- ^ "Mercenaries return to PNG", The World Today/ABC Radio, 15 November 2005
- ^ "Musingku urged to surrender", Post-Courier, 30 November 2006
- ^ "Fijians look forward to re-uniting with families" Fiji Times Online, 12 February 2008
- ^ "SI border raids prompt talks", Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 13 September 2006
- ^ a b Ilya Gridneff, "U-Vistract conman offers 'Jesus money'", Sydney Morning Herald, 8 July 2009
- ^ "Bougainville's conman 'king' still on the run as island edges closer to independence", ABC News, 15 November 2020
- ^ Wyeth, Grant (27 January 2021). "Musingku: Bougainville's 'Royal' Pyramid Scheme Problem". The Diplomat. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
- ^ The Times, 4 September 1975
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Bougainville - Papua New Guinea. YouTube.
- ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Papala Chronicles Issue 7 p 10 - ^ [1] Archived 23 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine http://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/docs/SSGM_09_05_bainton_cox.pdf
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2011.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) Papala Chronicles Issue 5 p 9 - ^ [2] Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Papala Chronicles Issue 18
- ^ [3] Archived 6 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Papala Chronicles Issue 19