Noah Musingku

File:Tonu village in southeast Siwai, Bougainville, 1977.jpgNoah Musingku was born in 1964,{{Cite magazine |last=Williams |first=Sean |date=November 2024 |others=Illustrated by Daniel Liévano |title=The Island King |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2024/11/the-island-king-sean-williams-bougainville/ |access-date=1 April 2025 |magazine=Harper's Magazine}} in Tonu, a small village in Siwai, South Bougainville.{{Sfn|Cox|2018|p=27}} In the late 1970s, Musingku went to Buin High School.{{Cite web |last=Nalu |first=Malum |date=September 26, 2016 |title=Masiu holds talk with Musingku |url=https://www.thenational.com.pg/masiu-holds-talk-musingku/ |access-date=1 April 2024 |website=The National}} His schoolmates included James Tanis, who later became president of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, and Timothy Masiu, the member of parliament for South Bougainville. Tanis remembers Musingku as a "mysterious kind of student" who was enthralled by rags-to-riches stories and bragged that his father was a Japanese spy during World War II who taught him how to read palms. After Tanis and his friends got caught stealing lab equipment to make an "invisibility potion" they drank, Musingku complained that they had messed up his recipe. Musingku later attended Kerevat National High School on New Britain.{{Sfn|Cox|2018|p=27}} After he graduated, he briefly served in the Papua New Guinea Defence Force.

Musingku took didiman and architectural courses at Unitech, but he never completed them.{{Sfn|Cox|2018|p=27}}{{Sfn|Cox|2011|p=187}} Tanis recalled that, in 1988, when he saw Musingku again, he was going to classes in full military uniform and ran distance races holding a wooden stick as if it were a rifle. He studied political science at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he served as president of the National Union of Students.{{Sfn|Cox|2018|p=27}}{{Sfn|Cox|2011|p=187}}

In 1988 a civil war began with workers and landowners from Panguna mine. This mine, owned by the PNG government and Bougainville Copper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group, was established under Australian aegis.The Times, 4 September 1975 A Unilateral Declaration of Independence was made on 17 May 1990, but Australian and New Zealand-brokered peace talks tended to ignore this fact. Francis Ona controlled over half of the island, and proclaimed himself king of Me’ekamui ("holy land") in May 2004.

{{main|U-Vistract}}

In 1997, seven years after the unilateral declaration of independence, the Bougainville Revolutionary Army was in control of the island, but its leadership split into factions. Ona was in control of the army, and sought full independence.{{cite web |url=http://www.ibom.biz/public%20docos/Issue%207.pdf |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2011-01-18 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110706151616/http://www.ibom.biz/public%20docos/Issue%207.pdf |archivedate=6 July 2011}} Papala Chronicles Issue 7 p 10

Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) found U-Vistract to be an unlicensed securities and investment program.

:Within a few years, some 70,000 Papua New Guineans had deposited K350 million into U-Vistract alone. U-Vistract also attracted followers in Australia, Solomon Islands and Fiji. In Australia, a small number of Queensland investors contributed some AUD500,000 between July and October 1999.[http://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/docs/SSGM_09_05_bainton_cox.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923211602/http://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/docs/SSGM_09_05_bainton_cox.pdf|date=23 September 2015}} http://www.csrm.uq.edu.au/docs/SSGM_09_05_bainton_cox.pdf

From Australia, he went to Port Moresby,. While in Port Moresby, he tried to set up a bank in the old Hawaiian Bank building, but he was shut down by the PNG government and forced to leave to the Solomon Islands. He began again to set up his system, but the Australian police in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) forced him out. In 2003 he travelled to Ona's headquarters in Guava, Panguna, Bougainville, and established a bank there. Two years later he was able to travel to his ancestral village of Tonu, where he established his bank headquarters in an old cattle farm owned by the paramount chief.Ilya Gridneff, [http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/uvistract-conman-offers-jesus-money-20090708-dcuu.html "U-Vistract conman offers 'Jesus money'"], Sydney Morning Herald, 8 July 2009

Musingku stayed in the small Me'ekamui-controlled "no go zone" before returning to Tonu, his home village, in 2004. Declaring Tonu the Kingdom of Papaala, he rechristened himself King David Peii II, and established a 500-man militia named the "Me'ekamui Defense Force".Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211210/xYsDWautKpc Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20110316223349/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYsDWautKpc Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite AV media| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYsDWautKpc| title = Bougainville - Papua New Guinea | website=YouTube}}{{cbignore}} Musingku continued his scams, which took the form of banks. He allied with Me'ekamui, which he had convinced Ona to restructure as a kingdom. After Ona died in 2005, Musingku proclaimed himself the king of Papaala and Me'ekamui. His unrecognized micronation, a small compound, remains. Other Me'ekamui factions do not recognize his authority.

Musingku's ideology is radically nationalistic and heavily influenced by the prosperity gospel and Pentecostal Christianity; with Guardian reporter Sean Williams commenting that his style of speech bore many similarities to that of televangelists. Musingku rejects any collaboration with the Papua New Guinean government as supposedly degrading to the people of Bougainville, and is hostile to western cultural influence for similar reasons. He justifies his status as King by arguing that kingship is the most universal form of leadership; allowing religious differences to be papered over.

After the 2019 Bougainville independence referendum, the ABG expressed an interest in integrating remaining holdouts to its authority into the independence process.{{Cite web |date=2 August 2019 |title=Bougainville extends inclusiveness to Musingku and Koike |url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/395840/bougainville-extends-inclusiveness-to-musingku-and-koike |access-date=28 August 2024 |website=Radio New Zealand}} The only two significant such holdouts were Musingku and Damien Koike of Konnou. Koike subsequently agreed to co-operate with the ABG, leaving Musingku as the last remaining Me'ekamui holdout.{{cite web|url=https://www.postcourier.com.pg/leaders-called-unite/|title=Leaders called on to unite|website=PNG Post-Courier|date=25 April 2019|accessdate=11 April 2025|last1=Masiu|first1=Romulus}} As the independence process stalled in the following years, many ABG leaders became concerned that Musingku would take advantage of delays to forment an insurrection; James Tanis expressing to The Guardian that Musingku's anti-western ideology could see him try and forge connections with Iran.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/mar/06/in-search-of-the-south-pacific-fugitive-who-crowned-himself-king|title=In search of the South Pacific fugitive who crowned himself king|website=The Guardian|last1=Williams|first1=Sean|date=6 March 2025|accessdate=11 April 2025}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Cox |first=John |title=Fast Money Schemes: Hope and Deception in Papua New Guinea |publisher=Indiana University Press |year=2018 |isbn=9780253025609}}
• {{Cite thesis |last=Cox |first=John |title=Deception and Disillusionment: Fast Money Schemes in Papua New Guinea |date=2011 |access-date=1 April 2025 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of Melbourne |url=https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John-Cox-7/publication/342170694_Deception_and_Disillusionment_Fast_Money_Schemes_in_Papua_New_Guinea/links/5ee7357d92851ce9e7e3c181/Deception-and-Disillusionment-Fast-Money-Schemes-in-Papua-New-Guinea.pdf}}

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Category:Papua New Guinean politicians

Category:Bougainvillean independence activists

Category:People from the Autonomous Region of Bougainville

Category:Heads of state of states with limited recognition

Category:Self-proclaimed monarchy

Category:Bougainvillean activists