Cook Islands 'Murder Plot':

Some Nearly Died Laughing!

From a Rarotonga correspondent

How much truth was there in the recent story of a proposed coup in the Cook Islands during which Pre mier Sir Albert Henry was to be killed?

An urgent telephone call was re ceived in Rarotonga for the Premier at 10.45 pm on Thursday, April 7.

Due to the late hour the call was put through to the Premier’s secretary, Mr Gordon Sawtell.

The caller was an ex-policeman named Kilkelly who said: “I am ringing to warn the Premier that his life is in danger. A plot to overthrow his government was revived about September, 1976, when plans were made to transport firearms to Rarotonga to our counterpart there.

The plot was supposed to be carried out without bloodshed. But I have now discovered that one of the main issues in the take-over bid was to get rid of Albert Henry.”

The caller gave a West Coast (NZ) phone number and address, but refused to reveal the name of the chief plotter or the name of his Rarotonga “counterpart”. He said he would reveal this information only to Premier Sir Albert Henry or his official nominee.

Sir Albert refused to believe there was any truth in the story after police had decided to inform him of it at 2 am next day. He reaffirmed his intention of representing the Cook Islands, with Lady Henry, at the opening of Nauru House in Melbourne a few days later.

The Cooks’ government was in formed that the New Zealand police were treating the matter seriously and, as a result, strict security measures were immediately enforc ed in Rarotonga. The baggage of arrivals by Air New Zealand flights was thoroughly searched for fire arms, as were visiting vessels. No such discoveries were announced.

When he reached Auckland, en route to Melbourne, Sir Albert told the NZ newspaper Truth that his in formant wished to talk to him and to his police bodyguard further about the plot. The NZ police arranged for Mr Kilkelly to be flown from Christchurch to Auckland where he

talked to the police detectives, but did not meet Sir Albert personally.

Kilkelly’s story was that “a handgun” had “unwittingly” been given to a ringleader in the plot, and that an Islands resident had return ed to the Cooks with the weapon a month before. It was planned to ob tain more weapons by raiding New Zealand military armouries, then the guns and about a dozen mercen ary soldiers would be shipped to Rarotonga on a chartered vessel.

Communication centres and other vital points would be captured, then the mercenaries would strut around the island displaying their weapons to intimidate the population.

Kilkelly, an ex-soldier, was to lead the fleasized expeditionary force.

He had been told by his boss that once they were in Rarotonga their task would be easy because they would be supported by many of the local people. But Sir Albert Henry “would have to disappear”.

The mercenaries were to remain about a month while the new government got settled in, then they would depart after receiving very generous payments. The new government would seek a $5 million loan from the NZ Government.

They would then seize selected land sites, put in roads and water and sell the sections to wealthy Americans, at an estimated profit of $45 million. The NZ Government loan would then be repaid.

One wonders what New Zealand would have done over an invasion of its “protectorate” by NZ mercen aries certainly not lend them money!

Kilkelly said he decided to turn informer once he realised there might be actual bloodshed.

The wild plan was as full of holes as a fishnet, but the Premier and his cabinet ministers and other close as sociates took it very seriously and made political capital out of it. They did this in May and June during the ‘address in reply’ debate in the Legislative Assembly.

The assembly proceedings are broadcast live so that listeners in all the far-flung Cooks are made aware

of them. Indeed, during power failures in the past, members of both sides of the House have often de cided to adjourn debates until their voices could be heard again.

The plot was debated at length and a long series of propaganda type articles about it appeared in the government-run daily Cook Islands News. The serialisation of the sory, instead of its publication in one piece as would have been done any where else where the safety and peace of the country was threatened, added to the effluvia surrounding the whole thing.

In the House on May 24, the Minister of Finance, Mr Geoffrey Henry, said it would seem that some people involved in the overthrow attempt could well be in the House, and he proceeded to make the following claims; • That the country knows of the association between Dr Tom Davis (Leader of the opposition De mocratic Party) and Mr O’Farrell (a Christchurch businessman). • That between them they con cocted an abortive attempt to defeat the Cook Islands Party at the last elections, arranging for Cook Islan ders living in New Zealand to travel through the Bon Voyage Agency to Rarotonga to vote in the elections.

But that attempt failed. • That the warning telephone call was made to the Premier by Kilkelly in New Zealand. • That immediate security ar rangements were enforced. • That Commissioner Burnside, Chief of Police in New Zealand, treated the matter as serious and said that the threat to the Premier’s life was more real in the Cook Is lands than in NZ. • That Kilkelly flew at his own expense to Auckland to interview the Premier, but talked instead to Cook Islands and NZ police, Mr Henry claimed that from in formation provided by Kilkelly it was clear that “three people in the Cook Islands” knew things about the plot that had been unknown to the government. He added; “Two of these people I know it is a fact

are government officials, and one of them is a politician from the op posite side.”

The Premier, Sir Albert Henry, told the assembly and the listening public on June 1 that Dr Davis was involved in the assassination plot.

“He knows he is involved and very soon you will know about this,” said Sir Albert.

Replying at the next day’s sitting, Dr Davis ridiculed the claims as “a Disneyland story”. He said every body was laughing, but that only in the assembly had he heard an actual charge of treason that he, Tom Davis, knew about a plot to take over the government by force.

He described the whole fuss as “a tissue of lies designed to smear my name and that of the Democratic Party”. It was an act of desperation, concocted because ordinary people were leaving the Cook Islands Party and moving over to the Democratic Party.

Dr Davis said that the informer, Kilkelly, an ex-policeman and ex fisherman who had worked for Christchurch businessman, Mr Paul Gerald O’Farrell, had been sacked by O’Farrell, and that this was his way of paying O’Farrell back.

A new angle to the affair emerged briefly at a Christchurch court hear ing in June. The court, which was hearing three charges against a local policeman over a .32 revolver, was told that the weapon (not produced in court) had been needed by Dr Tom Davis to protect himself from harassment by a “goon squad” con trolled by Sir Albert Henry. It was alleged that Dr Davis had been fired on by these people at his home. The charges against the policeman were dismissed.

Sir Albert Henry later denied all knowledge of any armed attacks on Dr Davis.

Maybe New Zealand journalist Noel Holmes gave the best summing up of the whole affair in his story Ruritania, Pacific Style, which ap peared in the Auckland Star of June 4. Holmes wrote: “The thing to remember about the Cook Islands is that they’re a very small teacup in which to have a storm.”

He added; “So how do we review the recent flap about the alleged plot to assassinate Premier Sir Albert Henry and take over the government by a military coup? We don’t take it seriously...”