Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape hit back at President Joe Biden's recent statement implying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals on the island during World War II, while also calling on the United States to come remove remnants of the war that still litter the island.
"President Biden's remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such," Marape said on Sunday. "World War II was not the doing of my people; however, they were needlessly dragged into a conflict that was not their doing."
Biden made the cannibalism comment while he was speaking about Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., a member of the Army Air Corps. The president claimed that his uncle's aircraft was shot down over Papua New Guinea, while he was fighting in the Pacific theater.
"They never found the body because there used to be - there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea," he said.
American military records, however, say that Finnegan's plane crashed when its engines failed. There was one survivor but the other three crew members, including Finnegan, vanished.
Marape made his remarks about Biden's story on the same day that he met with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi about establishing a closer relationship. Papua New Guinea is a key American ally in the Pacific, as China works to expand its zone of influence.
Marape also used the controversy as an opportunity to speak about the lasting impact of World War II on his country. The Prime Minister claimed that the remains of Finngan's plane are among the debris scattered across his country.
"The theaters of war in PNG and Solomon Islands are many, and littered with the remains of WWII including human remains, plane wrecks, shipwrecks, tunnels and bombs. Our people daily live with the fear of being killed by detonated bombs of WWII," he said.
"Perhaps, given President Biden's comments and the strong reaction from PNG and other parts of the world, it is time for the USA to find as many remains of World War II in PNG as possible, including those of servicemen who lost their lives like Ambrose Finnegan."
