ANALYSIS: By Dr Philip Cass

There was an American entrepreneur who claimed he was being pursued by the CIA and an Australian bookmaker whose racing career could best be described as colourful.

There were Libyans with money to spare and political ambitions in the Pacific and Russians after oil and a fishing port in Tonga.

The Australian and New Zealand governments were concerned. The US embassy in Fiji appears to have been slightly frantic.

READ MORE: Quixotic ruler who brought education, health and agricutural reform to his South Pacific kingdom

It was 1977 and as a major diplomatic crisis brewed in Nuku’alofa, in the midst of it all was King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, who was convinced that the way to prosperity for the kingdom was to build an airport that could handle 747 jumbo jets.

The king believed his dreams would be financed by the Bank of the South Pacific, a financial institution whose existence he had allowed and placed in the hands of John Meier.

Meier, an American financial adventurer, once claimed he had once seen the body of his former boss, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes, in a deep freeze in Florida.

According to a US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, other ambitious projects being floated included establishing a Tongan flag airline, establishing aircraft and boat construction industries, funding a pharmaceutical distribution centre and building an industrial park.

Diamonds in the Sky
Speaking to BBC reporter Julian Pettifer for the 1979 television series Diamonds in the Sky, the king said he planned to build a 3657.6 metre long runway that would turn Tonga into “an anchored aircraft carrier in mid-Pacific.”

At the time of the interview Fuaʻamotu International Airport, which started life as an American bomber base during the Second World War, could only take twin engine BAC1-11s (then operated by Air Pacific) and Boeing 737s.

He wanted to upgrade it to be able to take 747 jumbo jets which then stopped at Nadi in Fiji on their way to New Zealand and Australia. He believed that if the runway was available then the bigger airlines would want to use it.

He told Pettifer a dozen airlines had told him that they wanted to put Tonga on their flight schedules.

Pettifer was sceptical, noting the enormous cost of building and maintaining such a facility and remarking that “unfortunately, His Majesty may be unaware that in a world where there are not too many kings remaining, there may be a tendency among commoners to tell royalty what they imagine royalty want to hear.”

Regardless, the king saw a future in which Tonga was the base for an electronics industry, with parts being flown in and assembled by cheap labour. Looking at neighbouring Fiji, he also saw it as a boost for tourism in the kingdom.

All of this would, he believed, be funded by the BSP. Perhaps unknown to the king, Meier was wanted on charges of swindling his employer out of tens of millions of dollars and had fled to Canada before arriving on Tonga.

US government radar
Meier had persuaded the king to establish the Bank of the South Pacific, whose operations would be essentially controlled by Meier rather than the king or the Tongan government. Alongside Meier was a group of people with no apparent banking experience, but all of whom were on the US government’s radar.

Bridging the gap between the Americans and the king was Tonga’s honorary consul general in Sydney and Melbourne, Australian bookie and racehorse trainer Bill Waterhouse. Waterhouse would gain as much notoriety as wins on the track during his career.

Meier’s presence in the kingdom seriously alarmed Washington, Wellington and Canberra, which kept a close eye on proceedings. On September 16, 1977, the US Embassy in Suva sent a cable US diplomatic cable outlining its concerns.

It described the BSP as a merchant bank, but quite how it would work remained the subject of “considerable puzzlement”.

“Main office will apparently remain Vancouver, with Nuku’alofa branch handling offshore activities free of taxes according to charter approved by Privy Council,” the cable said.

The funding for the bank would come from Canadian, Japanese and Arab sources. The bank would be permitted to receive a cut of a head tax on passengers arriving in Tonga and would be involved in buying new aircraft.

The US report said the king had his heart set on an airport extension and had dismissed what it called “the fishy odour” surrounding the operation. It described King Tupou as “bright and determined,” although it said he was often “heedless of practical considerations”.

No truth to rumour
It said he had “smilingly” told the Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy’s Pacific Headquarters in Hawai’i that there was no truth to a rumour that the Soviet Union had approached him about building the airport, claiming the money would come from Canada.

The diplomatic cable warned that if the BSP collapsed the king could well turn to the Russians to improve the airport in return for fishing bases in Tonga. In 1976, Soviet oil companies had expressed interest in prospecting in Tonga and there were negotiations between Tonga and the Soviet Union about a loan to develop Tonga’s airport and make it 11,000 feet long, more than the required length for a fully laden 747.

In March 1978, King Tupou IV visited Libya to talk with President Muammar Gaddafi about a loan for the airport project.

Meier later claimed that in 1978 he had been offered financial assistance with the runway project by a Soviet Embassy official in Wellington. He also claimed that on the flight back to Nuku’alofa he had been warned by an American naval officer that Washington would block the runway project.

What also exercised Washington was that the king had given Meier a diplomatic passport, making him immune to extradition or arrest. Meier was wanted not just for allegedly defrauding the Hughes Corporation, but also for his alleged role in a murder.

Meier would always maintain his innocence and would claim that he had long been targeted by the US government for his role in the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.

Meier travelled extensively trying to sell bonds in the BSP, but as any substantial investment failed to materialise, there was intense pressure to find a way to have him arrested and brought back to the US.

Difficult to judge
How much of this was due to a desire by US authorities to bring Meier to justice and how much was an attempt to make sure the Russians and Libyans did not gain a foothold in the South Pacific is difficult to judge 40 years after the events.

Unfortunately, much of what has been written about John Meier since then often reads more like a conspiracy theory than sound analysis.

In July 1978 Meier was arrested in Sydney on an extradition warrant from the United States alleging fraud and tax evasion. Using his diplomatic passport, which had been endorsed by the Australian High Commission in Suva, Meier walked free, but the US, Australia and New Zealand were anxious to bring the matter to a head

Later that month the Australian High Commissioner in Suva and senior US diplomatic staff flew to Nuku’alofa to meet with King Tupou IV.

Before the meeting, the Tongan Supreme Court had ruled that the charter ordinance on which the BSP was based had been issued extra-constitutionally and would have to be resubmitted to Parliament in statutory bill form.

According to a US diplomatic report on the meeting between the Western diplomats and the king released by Wikileaks, the US Embassy in Wellington reported that the charter of the Bank of the South Pacific would not now be submitted to Parliament for confirmation.

The diplomatic cable said Meier’s associated with Tonga would be ended and he would have to deal with criminal charges as a private citizen. Police were ordered to confiscate his diplomatic passport if he returned to Tonga.

‘Not disturbed’
“The king indicated that he was not disturbed by the actions of the government of Australia or the US government,” the cable said.

The report continued: “The king’s face-saving comment at the end of the audience was that the Tongan government had used Meier as far as it could and that at least he had interested ‘others’ who were now willing to take up the airport project.

“The ‘others’ are apparently Japanese or Arab commercial interests, both of which the king has mentioned recently. We remain sceptics about the possibility of anyone picking up the project at this stage.”

Back in Australia, Meier sent his family to Canada and then – according to one highly colourful account – used a fake New Zealand passport supplied by the Cuban embassy to flee Australia. He reached Canada later that year, but was arrested and extradited to the United States where he was tried and convicted the following year of obstruction of justice.

He later claimed that while in jail the CIA tried to force him to sign a confession that he had deposited large sums of money from Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi into King Tupou’s bank account.

Soon after his release from prison he was indicted for murder, but after a tortuous legal process the case collapsed and he was freed after agreeing to a lesser charge, but did not serve any jail time.

Timelines:

Born in 1933, John Meier is believed to be still alive.

King Tupou IV died in September 2006.

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered during a coup on October 20, 2011.

The Russians never did explore for oil or establish a fishing port in Tonga.

The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.

Today, the United States, Australia and New Zealand worry about Chinese expansion in the Pacific instead.

Fuaʻamotu airport’s main tarmac runway is now 2681 metres long, just enough for a 747. However, no jumbo jet has ever landed or taken off there because the runway is not strong enough to support its weight.

Dr Philip Cass is a media academic, associate editor of Pacific Journalism Review and editorial adviser to Kaniva Tonga. This article was first published by Kaniva Tonga which has a content sharing arrangement with the Pacific Media Centre.

References:

• US diplomatic cable September 16, 1977
• US diplomatic cable August 1, 1978
• A New Howard Hughes: John Meier, Entrepreneurship, and the International Political Economy of the Bank of the South Pacific
• Age of Secrets
• Julian Pettifer and Kenneth Hudson. Diamonds in the Sky. London: The Bodley Head, 1979.
• Julian Pettifer introduces his 1979 BBC series Diamonds in the Sky

Greenpeace NZ executive director Russel Norman has been charged under New Zealand’s Crown Minerals Act along with two others for their peaceful protest at sea against the Amazon Warrior, which is searching for deep sea oil on behalf of Chevron and Statoil.

Russel Norman, Greenpeace NZ executive director and a former co-leader of the Green Party, Sara Howell a 25-year-old Greenpeace volunteer from Wales, and Gavin Mulvay, a kite maker from Ashburton, have been charged with interfering with the oil exploration ship Amazon Warrior under the Section 101B(1)(c) of the Crown Minerals Act, known as the Anadarko Amendment.

They were arrested just after they got off the protest boat Taitu in Napier.

In response, Norman made the following statement:

Charged by the ‘Ministry of Oil’
“Three of us who got in the water yesterday in front of a climate-destroying oil ship have been charged.

“We have been charged, not by the police, but by ‘The Ministry of Oil’ (the petroleum division of MBIE [Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment]) – the government’s ministry responsible for supporting, subsidising and propping up the oil industry here in New Zealand, using public money.

“The science of climate change is unequivocal. It tells us that if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change we cannot burn even known fossil fuel reserves, let alone new oil – which is exactly what the Amazon Warrior is looking for.

“The oil industry is the most powerful industry in the history of humanity and they have huge influence on governments.

“Ours is no different.

“Our government are backing that industry’s greed over the collective interests of its own people and all humanity.

“For the first time in New Zealand history, we are being charged under the ‘Anadarko Amendment’ – part of the Crown Minerals Act for interfering with a mining ship.

“This piece of legislation was specifically written and passed to stop peaceful protest at sea after Greenpeace protests against Petrobras in 2011.

“It was put in place by the government to protect the interests of big oil and to stifle dissent.

“It is an anti-democratic law designed to silence the voice of reason – a collective voice that demands we stop this insane trajectory toward self-destruction on that is drilling and burning oil which drives climate change.

“Because of our government’s complicity with the oil industry, and its failure to protect us from dangerous climate change, we had no choice but to take action yesterday to secure our common future.

“We will continue to resist the oil industry by every peaceful means available – until our action, and the collective action of millions of people here and across the planet, eject this industry from New Zealand and from the rest of the world.

“If all of us are to have a future. The oil industry can have no future.

“We are the generation that ends the age of oil.”

• Greenpeace activist swimmers halt seismic oil exploration ‘Beast’
• Greenpeace NZ’s chief warns Amazon Warrior
• Greenpeace’s live feed from the Taitu
• New Greenpeace boat key to oil industry battle

Our message it clear! Rise up. End oil. The Taitu crew are flying a giant banner from a kite and streamers that carry anti-oil exploration messages from New Zealanders. Follow the action here: www.greenpeace.nz/taitu #greenpeace #oil #taitu #statoil #chevron #ocean #sea #clouds #picoftheday

A post shared by Greenpeace Aotearoa NZ (@greenpeacenz) on Apr 9, 2017 at 12:53am PDT

The giant oil exploration ship is conducting offshore oil exploration off the New Zealand coast on behalf of Arctic driller Statoil and Chevron, a US oil company part-owned by President Donald Trump, reports Greenpeace News.

The swimmers’ position forced the Amazon Warrior to halt its operations and deviate off course.

They were 50 nautical miles off the Wairarapa coast when the action took place.

To find oil, the Amazon Warrior is using seismic cannons to blast the seafloor with soundwaves every eight seconds, day and night, reports Greenpeace News.

The ship needs to travel in straight lines along a grid to get data about potential oil reserves, and any deviation makes this data unusable.

The blasts the Amazon Warrior lets off are comparable in sound to an underwater volcano and can cause chronic distress to whales and dolphins in the area.

‘Extreme depths’ permits
Statoil and Chevron have permits to drill to extreme depths of up to three kilometres if oil is found – twice as deep as Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, which caused the world’s largest and most devastating oil spill in 2010.

The “fossil fuel” President, Donald Trump, has shares in Chevron, and the oil company funded a large part of his presidential inauguration.

Twenty five-year-old Sara is another of the swimmers who was floating in the path of the Amazon Warrior with Russel Norman.

She said she was putting her body “on the line” because the ship was searching for the very oil that would “destroy her future”.

“The science is settled that we can’t burn the majority of the fossil fuel reserves we know about if we want to keep the Earth’s temperature below dangerous levels,” she said, according to Greenpeace News.

“What this means is that not a single newly discovered oil well anywhere in the world can operate if we want to avoid a climate catastrophe. Right now I’m looking at a ship that’s been invited here by the New Zealand government to do just that.

“I’m young and I’m already experiencing the effects of climate change. Every year the storms get worse, the floods and the droughts are getting more extreme. Just imagine how grim my future looks if we can’t stop this.

‘People rising up’
“It’s easy to feel powerless because what we’re up against is so big. But everywhere, people are rising up and demanding change. Their actions are having a snowball effect, and in many parts of the world, we’re starting to see huge, positive changes.”

Greenpeace has been tailing the Amazon Warrior for the past two days in its newest boat, Taitu.

The organisation crowdfunded nearly $100,000 in just a week to buy the 15-metre boat, and ran an online competition to choose her name.

A 2013 Amendment to the Crown Minerals Act, dubbed the “Anadarko Amendment”, was put in place to stop protests at sea around oil exploration. The law change makes it an offence to interfere with or get closer than 500 metres of an offshore ship involved in oil exploration.

From on board Taitu, Greenpeace’s Dr Russel Norman, said the right to peaceful protest was essential to a healthy democracy and New Zealand had a long and proud tradition of protest at sea.

“Neither the government nor the oil industry can stifle people across New Zealand peacefully rising up against this mad pursuit of new oil to burn in the midst of what is nothing less than a climate emergency,” he said.

“Climate change threatens our homes, health and families. Despite knowing this, our Government is actively subsidising oil companies to look for new oil, putting profits above people’s lives – it has become necessary for people to take action.

‘Extreme storms’
“In New Zealand, we’ve already seen extreme storms, flooding, drought and fires in the space of a just a few weeks, and it’s only April. Climate change makes these weather events more frequent and more intense.”

Taitu’s trip follows on from a flotilla that included Ngāti Kahungunu’s voyaging waka, Te Matau a Māui, which travelled out to the Amazon Warrior to deliver a message on behalf of more than 80 hapū of Te Ikaroa.

Public opposition to oil exploration has seen protests in ports, petitions garnering tens of thousands of signatures, and significant local government and iwi opposition.

• Greenpeace NZ’s chief warns Amazon Warrior
• Greenpeace’s live feed from the Taitu
• New Greenpeace boat key to oil industry battle

Our message it clear! Rise up. End oil. The Taitu crew are flying a giant banner from a kite and streamers that carry anti-oil exploration messages from New Zealanders. Follow the action here: www.greenpeace.nz/taitu #greenpeace #oil #taitu #statoil #chevron #ocean #sea #clouds #picoftheday

A post shared by Greenpeace Aotearoa NZ (@greenpeacenz) on Apr 9, 2017 at 12:53am PDT