NZ Issues Invitation to Samoa, American Samoa & Tonga Leaders To Attend National Memorial; Update on Governor’s Office American Samoa

[picapp src=”4/b/b/6/John_Key_Embarks_cb65.jpg?adImageId=7110572&imageId=5330625″ width=”500″ height=”326″ /]

File photo. APIA, SAMOA – JULY 07 2009: New Zealand Prime Minister John Key (L) and Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele (R) sign a Visiting Forces Agreement between the two countries at the Prime Ministers office, July 7, 2009 in Apia, Samoa. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Samoa’s Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi  has accepted an  invitation to attend New Zealand’s National Memorial Service for New Zealand citizens killed in the Pacific tsunami of 29th of September 2009.   It will be held on Sunday in Auckland. New Zealand Government has also extended an invitation to Governor of   American Samoa Togiola TA Tulafono and the Prime Minister of Tonga to attend.

No problem with the Prime Minister of Tonga or Prime Minister of Samoa attending.We’ve been impressed with the flow of information between government and certainly media in terms of letting us know what’s going on.  That flow of information between governments and people is vital in a disaster and emergency situation. Considering the communication obstacles that the affected areas of Samoa and Niuatoputapu had to contend with, our take from where we stand is that they did a good job keeping people informed.

Update on Governor’s Office, American Samoa

That has not been the case with American Samoa Government. Given our own experiences dealing with the Governor’s office, we strongly suggest that the Governor of American Samoa would do well to take care of his citizens and not attend to any more international flying given the latest revelations from CNN. Our own sources confirm much of what was revealed in the CNN report.

Governor of Samoa and his Cabinet is under an FBI investigation for misuse of funds that lead the US Government to freeze funds

Mike-Sala, Director of American Samoa Homeland Security

intended for the tsunami siren warning system. The Governor’s office has responded to our questions by putting the blame on the US Government. Our response is that, had the Governor and his Government not abused the federal funds for personal and extravagant use, then the US Government would not have frozen aid. The high risk status being applied to American Samoa extends beyond the homeland security budget. American Samoa received close to $23 million since 2003 for disaster preparedness yet it appears that much of those funds did not reach the office for which it was intended, that is, homeland security. Instead, it was used by Governor and his officials to buy items like a big screen TV and trips to Las Vegas, for example.

Mike Sala, American Samoa’s Homeland Security Director, in emails sent to pacificEyeWitness.org and cc’d to the Governor and the rest of his Cabinet, puts the blame on the whistleblower and the US Government for the island not have tsunami siren warnings installed.

From our information, and reading the public message boards within American Samoa, there is mounting anger among American Samoan citizens towards the Governor and his Cabinet.  Not surprisingly, the latest CNN report has  also outraged American Samoans abroad and within the islands.  The Administration’s refusal to publicly release a casualty(citing privacy laws that apply to medical patients that no other US government agency applies at a time like this), is another example of an Administration that seems to operate at its own will, not the people’s.

Meanwhile, pacificEyeWitness received a tweet from a tweeter using the psuedo-name busycorner aka John Wasko. His profile lists his age as 65 years old (though his profile pic is remarkably young) and living in American Samoa.  Busycorner has a YouTube Channel and is  listed as “Dad”.

We’ve published John Wasko’s tweets below along with our responses. He initially tweeted us.

John Wasko busycorner 10:32am, Nov 02 from Web

@pacificeyewit US Federal medical records privacy laws bar American Samoa from distributing names of victims. Its the law.

Let me explain the law that John Wasko refers to. It is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996(HIPPA) Privacy Rule. This is the same policy that Communications Director Dr Jacinta Galeai at the Governor’s Office cited when asked to explain her refusal to release a casualty list for American Samoa.  So we had a look at the law. And this is where it gets even more confusing, or perhaps we should say, revealing. Because the law Galea’i and Wasko refer to relates to health information and patient privacy.  It has nothing to do with casualties. Those who perished in the tsunami did not die as a consequence of hospital or medical treatment. The casualties of the tsunami in American Samoa are casualties. When a soldier dies in the US military, their names are released. I can easily access that information. As for the casualties of the tsunami, no one is seeking to know health information. Its citizens only want to know the names of the deceased from Government. To honour them and remember them. Lest we forget.

It should not be left to private citizens to come up with the names of the casualties, as American Samoa has been left to do.

Back to John Wasko

@busycorner the dead in american samoa tsunami were not patients so fail to see how privacy law apply to the dead once next of kin informedabout 19 hours ago from HootSuite in reply to busycorner

John Wasko busycorner
10:49pm, Nov 03 from Web

@pacificeyewit Samoa News has already published the list of victims. ASG goes by US privacy law of medical records. No 3rd world here.

@busycorner samoanews did not get any help or info from govt. they used their journalism skills to track down some of the familiesabout 18 hours ago from HootSuite in reply to busycorner

Post-tsunami, John Wasko has also been critical of  what he says has been US neglect of American Samoa for decades. It’s hard to have sympathy for his view given the millions, that have turned into billions, of aid and other federal funds to American Samoa. The only problem is, the CNN investigation has uncovered that often those funds do not go where it was supposed to go. So if there’s anyone that John Wasko and others need to point the finger at, it is its own Government, the Governor and its representatives in the Senate.

All the millions in US aid that American Samoans never saw, except a privileged few, in Government.  With that aid, its people, infrastructure and lands should be well resourced and maintained. Instead, even before the tsunami, it looked like a third world country. Only now, post-tsunami, are the rest of the world beginning to discover the extent to which the American Samoa Government has misled its own people, and withhold vital aid money that would have, for one, provided a much needed tsunami siren system.

Meanwhile, under the Bush Administration, and without fanfare, American Samoa was put on the high risk list for federal funds and more accountabilities sought. American Samoans were not aware, until after the tsunami, that the United States Government had, in fact, provided funds for a tsunami  warning system to be set up. But the negligence of its leaders meant that further aid was frozen after the American Samoan Government refused to pay back the millions in federal funds it had misused. None of it went on disaster preparedness despite being given federal funding to do so.

---