New Guinea
From Lomwiki, the micronation encyclopaedia
| New Guinea | |
 Flag |  Arms |
| Motto: Scientia, veneratio, libertas (English: Science, Veneration, Liberty Musical Anthem: none | |
| |
| Location: | Approx 75 km SE of McGrath, Alaska, USA |
| Co-ordinates: | 62°37′05.88″N 153°37′23.52″W |
| Area: | 0.080937 km2 |
| Capital: | Roundpond Settlement |
| Membership: | 5 |
| Date of foundation: | 2011 |
| Leadership: | Caesar Mathius Dinucci (First Citizen Archangel) |
| Organisational structure: | Republic |
| Language: | English |
| Currency: | Dáanaa |
New Guinea is a micronation created in 2011 by Caesar Mathius Dinucci - (born 196?), thought to be a resident of the US state of Alaska, who asserts that he legally changed his name to Archangel in 1983.
New Guinea purports to have been founded "on Compuserve", "sometime in 1983"; the fact and manner of this 'foundation' is unspecified, and is unverifiable. It further purports to have been, since 2007, the sole legitimate sovereign authority for the Unorganized Borough of the US state of Alaska - an area of some 837,710 km2 with a population of approximately 81,803 - of whom 6500 are deemed to be members of the micronation.
In reality there is no evidence of New Guinea's existence prior to the appearance of Archangel/Dinucci on an online micronation discussion forum in May 2011, and no evidence that the micronation's membership extends much beyond the bounds of his immediate family.
New Guinea's actual territorial pretensions are believed to be coterminous with a 0.080937 km2 recreational land claim - Parcel ADL 229884, referred to by Dinucci/Archangel as Roundpond Settlement - which was awarded by the state of Alaska in 2006 to a woman named by Dinucci/Archangel in a 15 June 2011 email to the author of this article as Louann Chin. The email identified Chin as Prime Minister of New Guinea. The land claim is situated a short distance east of Never Never Lake, which in turn is situated a short distance north of the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River. The site is approximately 75 kilometres southeast of the town of McGrath, and is located within Township 029N Range 023W. The nature of the relationship between Dinucci/Archangel and Chin is unknown.
A third named indivdual associated with New Guinea is purported to have the legal name of Tejas Dragon. Her previous legal surname may have been Gunn. Dragon/Gunn is thought to be the marital partner of Archangel/Dinucci. A fourth named individual associated with New Guinea is Sharon Leme, who was identified in a 24 June 2011 email to the author of this article as the micronation's Information Minister.
Archangel/Dinucci has asserted that Roundpond Settlement and its environs has been developed with residential structures, earthworks and access trails, and he has published a close-cropped, low-resolution image purporting to show a large timber cabin at the site. However, the photograph has been digitally manipulated in order to introduce into it a rendering of the New Guinea flag, and Google satellite images of Remote Recreational Cabin Site ADL 229884 show the entire area to be undeveloped wilderness. New Guinea purports to have issued printed banknotes denominated in Dáanaa, which Archangel/Dinucci has publicly asserted are in wide use as part of a barter economy that exists throughout the Unorganized Borough of Alaska, however none of these assertions can be substantiated.
A notable percentage of the written content of the New Guinea website is plagiarised from the website of the Empire of Atlantium. Most of the site's limited pictorial content consists of generic landscape and wildlife images that lack any location or contextual details. A picture on the website which purports to show the flag of New Guinea flying from a flagstaff is a deliberate misrepresentation; the source of the image is a travel website, where it is clearly identified as the flag of St Lucia inadvertently hoisted upside-down beside those of its Caribbean neighbours - Trinidad & Tobago, Dominica and St Kitts & Nevis; the flag of New Guinea is simply the 1979-2002 flag of St Lucia rotated through 180 degrees. A second photograph depicting the flag of New Guinea hoisted from the stern of a beached watercraft has been shown to be a digital manipulation of a photograph that actually depicts the former St Lucian flag.
Given the extravagant, largely unverifiable nature of the various assertions related to New Guinea, the uncertain identities of the named individuals purportedly associated with it, and the obviously doctored and misrepresented nature of much of the limited photographic evidence relating to it which is available in the public domain, it is probable that the micronation is a largely fictional creation. It has been suggested that it may in fact be a hoax authored either by one Daniel Garstecki, a sometime resident of Santa Rosa, California, who has been described as a "delusional con-artist", or by David Mevis, creator of the Kingdom of Bahoudii.
References
External links
- New Guinea website.
Gallery
 Caesar Dinucci, aka Archangel, creator of New Guinea. |
 Tejas Dragon, First Lady of New Guinea. |
 Purported Roundpond Settlement cabin. |
 Purported New Guinea banknotes. |
 Flag of New Guinea. |
