[LINK] "Tales of Two Samoas"

Andre Vittchek's "Tale of Two Samoas", hosted at Foreign Policy in Focus, paints a very unflattering picture of life in the Samoan archipelago. Homeland of the Polynesian Samoans, Samoa divided between an independent Samoa (formerly Western Samoa) with close New Zealand links and the dependent American territory of American Samoa. Like other Polynesian states, both Samoas have very heavy emigration in the second half of the 20th century, with Samoans heading in very large numbers to New Zealand and to American Samoa, Samoans leaving American Samoa in turn for the United States, and Samoan communities growing up elsewhere throughout the Pacific Rim. This ermigration is driven partly by economic factors--both Samoas are quite poor. In Vittchek's reading, motives for emigration extend well beyond the economic.

Samoans leave for more than just economic reasons. Samoa is a feudal and extremely oppressive society, a combination of imported democratic principles and the tribal rule of the so-called matai (chiefs). Ordinary citizens are controlled by the chiefs, the family, and religious institutions including the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. The suicide rate is very high in both Samoas as is the rate of sexual abuse, domestic violence, and violent crime in general.

Boredom is another factor behind emigration. The entire country of Samoa boasts only one bookstore, which is really a bible shop rather than a bookseller. There is only one cinema. Samoa may be a paradise for a few, mainly retired, foreigners who call it home. But despite the bombardment from the government of nationalist and often xenophobic slogans, Samoa is hardly a paradise for the great majority of its citizens. Fa’a Samoa--the Samoan Way--justifies all manner of ills and inequities.

[. . .]

In the 21st century, American Samoa is a very sad place. Two tuna canneries harbor Asian ships and hundreds of illegal workers. Local youth hang out aimlessly around a capital city that increasingly resembles a U.S. ghetto. There are abandoned and burned-down buildings. Graffiti is ubiquitous. Everything is in a state of general disrepair. City residents are moving out to the suburbs. The only hotel in town recently shut down one of its wings.

American Samoa is also awash in yellow ribbons, as well as bumper stickers that read "Support Our Troops in Iraq." On one of the most picturesque parts of the island, an enormous banner proclaims: "May Peace Be With Our Samoan Soldiers in Iraq. God Bless You All." U.S. flags are everywhere.

American Samoans are dying in disproportionate numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is difficult to compile exact figures, but at least 15 American Samoans have died in Iraq. The death toll is tremendous, considering that the territory is the size of a small American city. Many American Samoan soldiers have come back with devastating war injuries. Post-traumatic stress disorder also plagues the returnees. Behind its barbed wire, the United States Reserve Te’o Soldiers Support Center offers a telephone number for the suicide hotline. It is posted near the entrance door, together with other emergency numbers.

[. . .]

An old lady on remote Aunu’u Island told me: "Many people want to serve in the U.S. navy or army. They want to make money but they also want to join the army to escape boredom--to experience adventure that they are being promised. Many people are very poor, working for three dollars an hour. We have over 400 inhabitants here on the island, but every week someone leaves for the United States. To some it doesn’t matter what they are going to do on the mainland: whether they wash dishes or go to the military barracks."

[BRIEF NOTE] The Bernier Affair

The ongoing sex scandal surrounding Foreign Minister Maxine Bernier and his former girlfriend Julie Couillard, accused of having links to biker gangs, intensified recently when news that Bernier had left classified documents at Couillard's residence became public. Bernier has since resigned. Opposition parties in the federal parliament are now attacking the Conservative government for failing to notice this mistake even after five weeks had passed ("Five-week gap fuels outrage in Bernier affair").

Questions about how secret government documents went missing for five weeks without alarms being raised dogged Stephen Harper's government the day after Maxime Bernier was forced out as foreign affairs minister over the security breach.

The Prime Minister, in Paris on a European tour he began only hours after he announced Mr. Bernier's resignation, essentially declared the affair over – insisting that a Foreign Affairs Department review of the incident is enough, and rejecting an expanded probe.

But the scandal is likely to intensify calls for security checks of ministers' spouses and companions, and for control of classified government documents to be tightened.

Mr. Bernier resigned on Monday after admitting he left classified documents about an April NATO summit at the home of his ex-girlfriend Julie Couillard.

For weeks, after news reports surfaced about Ms. Couillard's past, the opposition had pounded the Conservatives with questions on whether her earlier relationships with members of criminal biker gangs posed a security risk – queries Mr. Harper rebuffed as intrusions into the pair's private lives.

Tuesday, the opposition charged that the government had ignored serious security issues – and expressed skepticism that classified documents could be misplaced for five weeks without raising government flags.

“Why did it take the government five weeks to discover that documents were missing, and why did it take the government five weeks to ask a question either of the member for Beauce, the former minister, or of Madame Couillard?” Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae asked in the Commons.

“Why do you sit on your duffs and do nothing for five weeks?”

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan insisted that the Prime Minister's Office was told about the missing documents only on Monday, “and after being informed of the situation with these documents, the Prime Minister acted.”

The affair has attracted some international attention.

While the breaking news of the resignation came too late for overseas publications, some did spice up their wire service headlines on websites by playing up the woman behind the fallen cabinet minister.

"Good night and very bad luck," titled Australia's Sydney Morning Herald over a story from the Reuters News Agency, while Britain's Daily Telegraph went with "The minister, the classified papers and a lover linked to Hells Angels."

Few websites didn't run with a photo of the former so-called ministerial couple, including the BBC website which, like many outlets, pointed out that Bernier was under pressure to resign following previous slip-ups such as his suggestion the "Afghan President Hamid Karzai replace the governor of Kandahar province, where Canada has 2,500 troops stationed." Chinese News Agency Xinhua noted Bernier "has been under fire recently for his former girlfriend's links with an organized crime group."

"A calamitous moral affair" put an end to his career, wrote France's Le Figaro - under the banner "A Canadian minister forgets his files at his lover's home" - which added "pretty" to international descriptions of Couillard, which ranged from "gorgeous" and "glamorous" to the "provocatively dressed," used in a widely run Associated Press piece.

The French paper colourfully noted that "the depth of the neckline had reddened the cheeks of royal gendarmes," during the swearing-in ceremony.

India's Hindustan Times also referred to the ceremony: "the gorgeous woman also made headlines in August 2007 when dressed in a plunging neckline she accompanied Bernier for his swearing-in as minister for Foreign Affairs."

Is it because no one expects sex scandals in Canada? This whole mess does seem to be Canada's biggest sex scandal since the Gerda Munsinger sex scandal of the 1960s, for whatever it's worth.

[BRIEF NOTE] On Canadian biker gangs

inuitmonster's comment on the previous post, on the resignation of Canada's foreign minister, reminded me that most non-Canadians aren't nearly as familiar with the history of Canada's biker gangs as Canadians. Perhaps biker gangs elsewhere in the world are relatively law-abiding. Biker gangs, as the CBC notes, rank among the most notable organized crime groups in Canada. I've no disputes with William Marsden's summary in mental_floss about the history of biker gangs in Canada and their involvement in organized crime in this country.

In the late 1970s, the Hells Angels were thriving in the States under the leadership of Sonny Barger, a founding member of the Angels’ original chapter in Fontana, Calif., and arguably the most famous Hells Angel in history. The group was reported to be deeply involved in drug smuggling, prostitution, and extortion, and Barger saw opportunity for the Angels in Montreal, where the local gangs were less organized and local authorities less prepared to resist the group’s presence. So, in 1977, Barger established the first Canadian chapter of the Hells Angels in Montreal. Almost immediately, they began muscling their way to supremacy, reorganizing the country’s homegrown biker gangs into well-disciplined bands of killers.

But dominating the biker scene wasn’t always easy. In many regions—specifically Québec—the Hells Angels had to fight turf wars with rival gangs such as the Outlaws and Bandidos. That’s when things started getting bloody, and that’s when Yves “Apache” Trudeau came into the picture. One of the original Canadian Hells Angels, Trudeau was a notorious drug addict and psychopath. In his quest for Angel dominance, Trudeau was rumored to single-handedly have killed 43 people and to have played a part in the murder of 40 others. By 1985, more than 100 people had died as a result of biker-gang violence.

After that, Trudeau became the face of les Hells, as the Angels were known in French Canada. But during the latter half of the 1980s, the group began turning on itself. Still under Trudeau’s leadership, various chapters of Angels started vying for power in certain areas and fighting to control the spoils of crime. In one instance, five Angels were murdered by members of a rival chapter, their bodies dumped in the St. Lawrence River. The killers had hoped to murder Trudeau as well, but he escaped. Seeking sanctuary, Trudeau did the unthinkable and turned to the police, instigating one of the biggest biker busts in Canadian history. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Trudeau sent 50 of his fellow Angels down the river.

In the aftermath of Trudeau’s arrest, only two of Québec’s five chapters remained. Police thought the Hells Angels were finished, but they were wrong. It was only a matter of time before a new leader emerged on the biker scene. This time, it was Maurice Boucher, better known as “Mom” (because he liked to make breakfast for his fellow Angels).

Boucher expanded the Hells Angels presence in Canada even further. Looking to smuggle huge drug shipments into North America, local chapters of the Angels infiltrated major ports in Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. By 2000, Boucher’s drug network in Montreal was purportedly trafficking more than $100 million a year in cocaine, hashish, and marijuana (that’s according to the gang’s own computer records, by the way). But with expansion came more territorial warfare … and more violence. Between 1994 and 2001, another 165 people died as a result of motorcycle-gang violence.

The violence continues: Two years ago eight bikers were massacred in rural Ontario.

How is Bernier connected to this decidedly unsavoury criminal movement? As the Chicago Tribune points out, Couillard certainly has some interesting connections.

On Monday, Couillard began her television interview by insisting that she was "definitely not a biker's chick." And she noted that she had never been accused of a crime. But once that was out of the way, she went on to confirm the essence of news reports connecting her to organized-crime figures.

Beginning in 1993, Couillard lived for three years with Gilles Giguere, a well-known crime figure connected to Maurice Boucher, the now-jailed leader of the Hells Angels in Quebec who is better known as Mom.

After police arrested Giguere for possessing submachine guns and a large quantity of marijuana, he became an informant. Giguere was killed in 1996; his body was discovered in a ditch.

In her interview with French-language television network TVA, Couillard claimed that she told Bernier early on about her past. This contradicts with Bernier's claim that he knew nothing about her past until relatively recently. Bernier was appointed to his ministerial position by the Conservative government in an effort to appeal to the Francophone electorate in Québec. Québec is also the Canadian province where the biker wars were most intense. Perhaps, just perhaps, the expansion of the scandal to include the loss of confidential documents was silently welcomed by a Conservative government that didn't want to lose its tentative foothold in la belle province.