Transnational crime and street gangs in Oceania

[Pacific Empire’s Phil Howison brings us this week’s edition of Oceania Day – YH]

Home-grown street gangs are a growing threat to Oceania’s island states. In addition, criminal organizations from around the world have taken advantage of the economic vulnerability and weakness of the Pacific islands, using them as bases for money laundering, drug smuggling, illegal immigration and other nefarious activities. Australia and New Zealand, threatened by illegal immigrants, drugs and the possibility of terrorist cells gaining access from the Pacific, are at the forefront of efforts to maintain law and order in Oceania.

Street gangs

Street gangs in many Pacific islands are a byproduct of economic stagnation, overcrowding and urbanisation in island cities. However, for other Pacific states, notably Tonga and Samoa, the gang problem is imported via re-immigration from South Auckland (as featured in Time), Sydney, Los Angeles and other destinations for Polynesian immigrants. Some Polynesian kids find the gang lifestyle appealing, styling themselves on LA gangsta rappers. In turn, the imposing stature of many Polynesians creates a demand for their services as street enforcers.

A common response to teenage criminality is for either the parents or the host country to send them back to the islands, as veteran Pacific reporter Michael Field explains. He links US gangs to the riots which destroyed part of Tonga’s capital last year, and to the assassination of a Cabinet minister in Samoa in 1999. The gang problem may also have contributed to a growing teenage drug and suicide problem in Samoa and elsewhere in Oceania.

“Third-generation” street gangs have been called a “mutated form of urban insurgency”. If a third-generation street gang has political links and transnational connections, then the gangs of East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands would qualify. In those countries, it is difficult to distinguish between gang violence and insurgency. Port Moresby, capital of PNG, is consistently ranked as the worst city in the world due largely to murders, rape and robbery committed by heavily-armed and politically connected “raskols”. Urbanisation and the growth of squatter settlements provide fertile ground for raskol recruitment, and the lawless Highland areas are a source for guns and drugs, which can be traded across the Torres Strait with Australian gangs. As for East Timor, gangs are a frequent source of political violence as illustrated in David Axe’s “War is Boring” comic, and one report lists 107 such groups.

The growth of squatter settlements outside Suva, Fiji and Port Vila, Vanuatu will probably cause more problems in future. Massive overcrowding in other areas, for example the Marshall — where one island has a population density of over 23,000/sq. km — is also likely to create problems.

These problems are exacerbated by often-ineffective police and prisons in Oceania. While most Pacific states have a high ratio of police to population, some islands have no police presence, and in others the police take orders from tribal leaders. Police forces tend to be underfunded, underpaid and undertrained, and police weapons are frequently stolen or lost. The loss of police loyalty and weapons to militia and gangs in the Solomon Islands led to a civil war.

Transnational crime

However, as dangerous as these street gangs are, there are far more threatening groups targeting the Pacific. Their activities threaten the economic wellbeing, security and international reputation of the most vulnerable islands, and are affecting Australia and New Zealand as well.

Transnational crime in the Pacific includes:

• Illegal fishing, causing environmental damage and economic losses for states barely able to police their own waters.
• Illegal logging, causing erosion and environmental damage in Melanesia.
• Money laundering – billions of dollars every year, a strong temptation for small island states. Nauru, the worst offender, has been pressured into signing international agreements, but was previously accused of laundering billions of dollars for the Russian mafia, and may have helped launder cash for Middle Eastern funds linked to terrrorism.
• Immigration scams and passport sales – an American conman who became the “court jester” for Tonga’s late king sold $20 million worth of Tongan passports, embezzling the proceeds from the Tongan government. Nauruan passports were used by a group of Al-Qaeda suspects. Chinese illegal immigrants have arrived in PNG, Fiji and other countries, and these states have been used to gain access to Australia.
• Drugs: again, linked to Chinese organised crime. Large methamphetamine labs and shipments have been seized in Fiji, thought to be intended for export to Australia and New Zealand. Shipments of cocaine have been seized in Tonga. On a smaller scale, drugs are carried on ferries between Samoa and American Samoa. Papua New Guinea is of increasing importance as cannabis plantations spread in the lawless highlands.
• Arms dealing, usually on a small scale using weapons stolen from government armouries. However, in the 1980s containers full of arms were intercepted on arrival in New Caledonia and Fiji. And a Tongan flag of convenience was used on a freighter carrying 50 tons of weapons for the Palestinian Authority, prompting Tonga to stop offering no-questions-asked registrations.
• Asian gangs: Involved in the above activities, along with illegal gambling and prostitution, this is a growing phenomenon linked to illegal immigration from China, especially in Fiji and PNG, and contributing to an anti-Chinese backlash as seen in the riots in Tonga and Honiara last year. Brutal murders relating to turf wars have included a Chinese prostitute dismembered in Fiji, and two Chinese gangsters killed with hammers in Vanuatu. This Sydney Morning Herald article offers more details and background.

A regional response

The response has been for Australia and New Zealand to offer aid, training and partnership to Pacific police forces, along with a regional Transnational Crime unit set up in Suva and individual Transnational Crime units in most Pacific states. Money laundering in Nauru has been successfully dealt with by the international community. However, Oceania will probably remain an attractive target for criminals as long as the islands remain poor and isolated, with corruptible police and politicians.

Efforts to stamp out street gangs have been less effective. In 2005, an Australian plan to send police officers, judges and lawyers to help improve law and order in Port Moresby, PNG was sunk by a court action which challenged an immunity provision. And even full-scale military interventions in Timor and the Solomons have been unable to halt gang violence.