© Rodrigo Arangua / AFP
In yet a further example that the release of the so-called "Panama Papers" furthered the agenda of the United States and its FIVE EYES intelligence allies Australia and New Zealand, there was an immediate condemnation of the role that certain offshore tax haven islands in the Pacific played in the tax avoidance schemes of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm accused of helping shelter billions of dollars from tax authorities.
The first salvos were fired against the self-governing New Zealand territory of Niue and the independent State of Samoa for being referenced in some of the selectively-leaked Panamanian law firm documents.
Because of the paternalistic and neo-colonialist policies of Australia and New Zealand, many South Pacific independent states and self-governing territories had no choice but to set up tax evasion and avoidance havens in order to attract much-needed revenue from corporate filing fees. However, these tax havens often find themselves fending off criticism from their former colonial masters.
In fact,
the Pacific states were pressured into establishing havens for foreign shell companies and anonymous numbered bank account operations
by the very powers that now seek to limit their independence and autonomy. New Zealand's two alleged "self-governing" territories,
the Cook Islands and Niue, have come in for particularly heavy criticism from the Americans and their intelligence lackeys in Canberra and Wellington.
Niue, which cannot engage in any meaningful economic development without the approval of New Zealand, became a center for international corporate registry for a bargain annual fee of $150. The island state, under the Kiwi jackboot, is subject to terrible air service and a lack of Internet connectivity for its citizens. New Zealand's absurd insistence that Niue is "self-governing" was shown to be fraudulent when Niue's one-time Prime Minister, Sani Lakatani, was living in Auckland while pretending to be governing Niue, all the time collecting his pension as a retired corporal in the Royal New Zealand Army.
Comment: More lies from the forked tongue of Kerry? Or is he actually coming around to reason? Because Kerry has been anything but up front and sincere up until this point.