Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape criticized comments from President Biden last week, during which he implied that his uncle was eaten by cannibals in New Guinea during World War II.
The president said during remarks in Pittsburgh on Wednesday that his uncle’s plane was shot down in New Guinea and added, “they never found the body because there used to be – there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”
Marape shot back, arguing that his country couldn’t be associated with cannibalism and urging Biden to clear up the situation.
“President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labelled as such,” Marape said in the statement, Reuters reported. “I urge President Biden to get the White House to look into cleaning up these remains of WWII so the truth about missing servicemen like Ambrose Finnegan can be put to rest.”
When White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned last week about the president’s implication in his remarks, she said Biden is “incredibly proud of his uncle’s service in uniform.”
She highlighted that Biden had hit former President Trump during those remarks for previous comments, when Trump reportedly said he didn’t want to visit graves of the American soldiers buried at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France because “they were all ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’”
Trump’s former White House chief of staff John Kelly later said Trump had made several similar comments during his time in the administration, including when he referred to dead U.S. service members as “suckers.”
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