In the Penal Colony Theme of Foreignness and 'The Other'

The protagonist of "In the Penal Colony" is an explorer from Western Europe who travels the world to observe other cultures. He finds in the penal colony a system of justice so strange, grotesque, and unjust to him that it challenges his usual guiding principle of never intervening in what he sees. Both the officer/judge the explorer meets and the colony's ruling Commandant grant him special prestige as a "Westerner," and each hopes to win his support in their struggle over the colony's traditional judicial procedure. The explorer ultimately refuses to support the officer, causing him to put himself in his own execution device. The explorer's experience of the penal colony troubles him greatly, and he leaves in haste.

1. Why is it that the new Commandant attaches prestige to the explorer? Does the officer also attach some kind of prestige to the explorer, or is he merely hoping to use him to sway other members of the colony?
2. Is the explorer guilty of intervening in the affairs of the penal colony? If so, is there any way he could avoid interfering with the penal colony?
3. Does the explorer experience a genuine conflict between his sense of justice and his commitment to non-intervention, or are they ultimately not in conflict? Which do you think it would be more important to follow (justice or non-intervention) if confronted with a situation like the penal colony?
4. Is there anything in the penal colony's system of justice that appeals to the explorer, or does he just admire the officer's conviction?

The new Commandant, and other members of the penal colony, view the explorer as a representative of a more "modern" and "progressive" world, while looking at their own traditions as backward.

The explorer does intervene in the affairs of the colony, but could not have avoided doing so, since even remaining silent about the officer's procedure would have doomed it.