Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape reacted to President Joe Biden’s claim that his uncle was eaten by “cannibals” on the island in World War II, in a statement to the Associated Press.
While visiting a Pennsylvania war memorial, Biden remembered his uncle, Second Lt. Ambrose J. Finnegan Jr., who the president said was shot down during WWII over New Guinea and never found because “there were a lot of cannibals” on the island. The claim does not match the official U.S. military account of Finnegan’s death, as the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency writes that the plane was abandon into the ocean for unknown reasons. Marape took offense to Biden’s tale in a Monday statement to the AP.
“President Biden’s remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such,” Marape told the outlet, adding that…
