A NEIGHBOUR BREAKS DOWN
Australia’s
Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) entered Solomon
Islands in July 2003 at the request of the Solomon Island's Prime Minister and
to the great relief of the vast majority of Solomon Islanders who, while
denying their nation had become 'a failed state', had had it born upon them
that they were not able to bring order back to civic life.
What were called
'ethnic tensions' had exposed Solomon Islands to chaos and destruction. The
term had a particularly currency at the time as the world watched the old
Yugoslavia implode. In the Solomons 'ethnic tensions' refers to conflict
between Malaitans and Guadalcanalese (Guadis)
on Guadalcanal.
Malaita and
Guadalcanal are two of the large islands which make up the double Solomons chain.
The others are Choiseul (which lies on the border with Niugini, close to the
island of Bougainville which is the northern end of the Solomons chain but part
of Niugini for historical reasons), Santa Isabel and Makira (the Spanish place
names derive from the failed attempts to colonise the islands by the Spanish
sailing across the Pacific from Peru in the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries - Makira for example was and is still known also as 'San
Cristoval'). The country is in its
watery extent by far the largest of all Pacific island nations. Its land mass
is twenty-eight thousand square kilometres (Australia is seven point seven
million). Besides the central chain of five large islands it is made up of
smaller island groupings including the Outliers which are Polynesian. Basically
though, Solomon Islands is Melanesian. English is the official language and
that of education however Solomons Pijin is the lingua franca, a huge force for coherence in a nation of the
richest language diversity in the world. Christianity is also such a force,
with spheres of influence divided principally between the Church of Melanesia
(Anglican), Catholic, Methodist and Seventh Day Adventists.
The Crisis in
Solomon Islands is an exemplum of postcolonial struggles to develop an
appropriate form of government for peoples gathered into an arbitrarily created
state which was then abandoned to its own devices. In this case the abandoning
power was Britain. A protesting Solomon Islands had independence thrust upon it
in 1978. At the independence ceremony it was widely noted that the new nation's
flag refused to unfurl when it was raised as the Union Jack was lowered. The
British left Solomon Islands with insufficient local administrative expertise,
mainly because they had invested next to nothing in education. That was left to
the missionaries, of whom there were plenty. Their educational aims were tied
to The Bible. Education at all levels
in Solomon Islands remains authoritarian with pupils afraid to answer questions
much less ask them. Critical thought, deconstruction, analysis all happen
beyond the formal sites of learning and if conducted in public are couched in
the most laboured English imaginable. The
Bible is still referred to for authority on every matter. Technical education is hugely
neglected at the expense of a so-called 'academic' education which carries a
completely unrealistic prestige.
The British, in
their haste to leave, invited some Solomon Island representation in forming the
Constitution but ever mistrustful of local wisdom ignored Solomon Island
requests for the traditional power bases of the Chiefs to be integrated into
the legislative process and warnings about possible problems with land rights.
Local reservations about the right to freedom of movement throughout the
country were also dismissed as not conducive to true democracy. Solomon
Islanders are still struggling with the burden of Britain's haste to abandon
the colony. To say the least, it had never been a money-spinner.
The impending
Crisis was given a big boost forward when that flag refused to unfurl on 7 July
1978.
It says much about
the character of the country that the 'ethnic tensions' did not result in the
kind of atrocities which the world continues to witness in sub Saharan Africa
and elsewhere and of the strength of its subsistence economy which prevented
famine overtaking the dispossessed and those who sheltered them. Since
Independence, Solomon Islands has promoted itself as 'the Friendly Isles' and,
in the face of what follows, they are.
Let us take the
attack at Tambea Beach in December 1998 as the beginning of the Crisis in the
Solomons. Tambea, near the village and mission of Visale, is west of the
capital Honiara. (Solomon Islanders tend to orientate West/East where
antipodean Europeans orientate North/South; I will follow Solomon Island
practice). A security guard was murdered at the resort. This murder was said to
be a payback because the guard had helped police investigate an earlier raid on
the property. This was the spark. Malaitans in that western part of Guadalcanal
where Tambea resort is situated counterattacked the Guadis whom they considered
responsible for attacks on Malaitans living in the area. The long simmering
conflict between Guadis and Malaitans who had settled on Guadalcanal and who
seemed excessively represented in public life and the police force had now
found open expression.
Most importantly
to the Guadis, Malaitans were taking over more and more of their land. The
birth rate in Malaita was and is the highest in the country and the land there
is not good. A Malaitan diaspora, sanctioned constitutionally as a democratic
right, was the result. Guadalcanal and the Western Province were both
economically vital and therefore attractive to Malaitan settlers.
Traditionally, land rights in Guadalcanal and the Western Solomons are based on
a matrilineal descent system. Malaitans have a patrilineal system. People
(predominantly Malaitans) were establishing land rights to which, according to
Guadalcanal tradition, they had no claim. Malaitans married to Guadalcanal
women were able to use land traditionally held by Guadalcanal clans. Malaitans
brought their wantoks (literally 'one
talk', people who speak the same language but the word connotes 'relatives')
over to their wives' villages, where they too settled. The issue of land tenure
was complicated by misunderstandings about the 'sale' of land. Having received
money from Malaitans for parcels of land, some Guadis then claimed that they
had not 'sold' their land because it could not be sold for it belonged to the
clan. They did not explain what
they thought the money they had received was for.
Marriage into
Guadalcanal had increased with the rise of Honiara after the World War 11 when
the capital was moved there from Tulagi in what is now the Central Province.
The traditional landholders of Honiara felt at the time that they had not been
properly compensated for their loss and their descendants felt this injustice
more keenly as land values rose. Added to this was a felt history of Malaitan
aggression and violence towards Guadis. Twenty-five Guadis had been murdered by
Malaitans in the twenty years previous to the outbreak of the Crisis.
Guadi resentments
were known to exist and to be potentially explosive. There were demands for
'compensation payments' from Malaitans for a series of murders and attacks on
Guadis. Malaitans on Guadalcanal also made compensation claims against Guadis;
the rape of two schoolgirls in particular contributed to the tensions we are
considering. These demands for compensation were an aggravation of the land
rights problem, for Tradition came into conflict with the Law over them.
Governments regarded the murders and assaults as criminal matters to be dealt
with by the Legal system yet they were also the subject of compensation claims
in the Traditional manner. This clash of the two systems caused confusion and
frustration. Unfortunately the Guadalcanal Provincial Government (Guadi) and
the National Government exploited this confusion for their own ends in ways
which increased tension between Guadis and Malaitans. For example, the parents
of the two raped (Malaitan) girls demanded compensation from their school and
the Guadalcanal Provincial Government. Both of these authorities refused this
claim. The parents then approached the National Government. The Prime Minister
Ulufa'alu (a Malaitan) met the claim and deducted the amount from funds going
to the Guadalcanal Provincial Government. The Premier of the Guadalcanal Provincial
Assembly Ezekiel Alebua responded by claiming one hundred thousand dollars for
each of the victims of the twenty-five Guadis killed by Malaitans in the
previous twenty years. This particular clash occurred in May 1998.
Accumulating
grievances were put aside by successive waves of Government and key
administrative personnel because they were either Malaitan themselves or feared
what they would invoke if they tried to address the now deep if not intractable
issues of land rights and violent expression of conflict.
Besides, everyone
was out for himself. Solomon Islands operated and operates on a system of what
would be called corruption in most other Western democracies. Logging was a
particular temptation for underhand deals and the late Solomon Mamaloni, a
revered political leader and many times Prime Minister, himself seems to have
set the pace. This kind of sub officio
wheeling and dealing left a few marvellously enriched, landholders surprised
and angry at the paucity of their returns and their land devastated. Logging
provided more than sixty per cent of the country's export earnings.
Within the corrupt
system itself the underhand financial deals must have come to seem
irresistible, inevitable and justifiable - the norm. This kind of corruption segued nicely with the wantok system
in which relatives and close associates benefit from disbursements of Big Man
largesse. It is through largesse that a Big Man leader is created and defined.
His beneficiaries are then obliged to him. It is tradition. What is wrong with
that?
Whole communities
were supposed to benefit from moneys waylaid by advantageously placed Big Men
who distributed them, or not, as if they were in their gift. Those outside his
largesse felt the injustice keenly.
Many new
democracies work on similar systems and the older ones have to guard against it
day-by-day, case by case, bureaucrat by bureaucrat. In the Solomons the
traditional means of distributing wealth was transformed into nepotism.
Such corrupt
practices have proved extremely difficult to prosecute and it has to be said
that Solomons leadership has displayed a particular Melanesian talent for
deflecting accusations with obfuscation.
In a scathing
attack on the leadership of the country, the Governor of the Central Bank of the
Solomon Islands, Rick Hou, who during the worst of the Crisis had vainly tried
to oppose warrior chiefs simply turning up at the Bank and demanding huge sums
of money, characterised Government Ministers as having no real leadership experience, even in their rural communities and as a result of their personal conduct, their
political life was seen as immoral, unscrupulous and corrupt. They appear to
represent nothing but themselves who are merely rent-seeking opportunists.
A characterisation it is hard to disagree with ... from the outside. The result
of this widely held view is that few legitimate investors will even consider
the country thus exposing it to more and more local and foreign shyster
enterprise. This seems to have become the only way of doing business in Solomon
Islands.
Guns and alcohol
sustained the Crisis. Overseas experts called in to help the country settle
expressed amazement at the quantity and quality of firepower horded in Solomon
Islands. Another legacy of British rule was that the Royal Solomon Islands
Police force also acts as a defence force for the country. The Bougainville
Crisis had seen incursions by Niuginian militia searching for rebel
Bougainvilleans into Solomons territory. For a while, Solomon Islands was the
only country which recognised the legitimacy of the rebel Bougainvillean cause
(now everyone does). Solomon Islands bought up rifles and bullets big and
stored them in various police armouries. There were also piles of privately
horded World War II weapons and more available for salvage. Armaments are said
to have flowed into the country from Bougainville once peace initiatives had
been established there.
As in all such
conflicts, young men determined to be warrior chiefs and intoxicated with the
power arms and violence grants, as well as more literally by alcohol in this
case, rampaged through their communities creating havoc and distress and
enriching themselves. Also characteristically, they were manipulated by already
powerful men who grasped the opportunities social disorder brings to add to
their wealth and influence and to diminish or eliminate their rivals. The young
erstwhile warriors are now in gaol while those who encouraged and manipulated
them remain in venerable positions, their shadowy dealings the subject of
rumour. The Prime Minister Sir Allan Kamekeza now says he welcomes
investigations of his part in the unrest. A former Prime Minister, Ezekiel
Alebua, was wounded in a shotgun attack at his home outside Honiara. At the
time (June 2001) he was Premier of Guadalcanal, in which role we have already
encountered him. His name is associated with the establishment of the
Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army and it was said that he was shot because Harold
Keke, leader of the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army, had come to believe Premier
Alebua was holding two hundred thousand dollars in compensation money.
Three warrior
chiefs rose to eminence - Stanley 'Satan' Kaori, Jimmy 'Rasta' Lusibaea and the
already mentioned Harold Keke.
Satan Kaori was little more than an opportunistic thug with gang
support, Jimmy Rasta had rather better support, being a commander of the
Malaita Eagle Force whose spokesperson was Honiara based lawyer Andrew Nori, a
descendant of the Ma'asina Ruru Nori,
more about which later. Harold Keke, who was once a policeman, has a history of
raskol gang membership in Niugini and of alcohol and drug abuse. Rasta and
Satan affected a look popular at the time with the militants - gangsta. In
Rasta's case it was supplemented by two rounds of large bullets draped across
his chest. Keke, who appears insane, is the only one of the three to command
any respect from the RAMSI hierarchy for apparently he at least had 'ideals'
(no doubt to purge Guadalcanal and Solomon Islands government and administration
of undue Malaitan influence).
Keke's case gives
us a thread by which we can follow the incidents which led to Solomon Islands
becoming known as a 'failed state'.
Let us return to
Tambea Resort. Harold Keke, his brother Joseph Sangu and two others were involved
in the payback murder of the security guard there in December 1998. The police
chased and apprehended Keke, Sangu and the two others on Bungana Island in the
Central Province. Keke was charged with attempted murder, armed robbery and
theft of firearms. The Public Defender urged the Chief Magistrate to release
them. The Guadalcanal Premier Ezekiel Alebua (again) and a Catholic priest
posted the bail. In March 1999 Keke and co absconded to the Weathercoast of
Guadalcanal where they were able to garner anti Malaitan resentment into
resistance in the form of the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army aka Guadalcanal
Liberation Front.
Frank Short, who
had taken up the position of Commissioner of Police in mid 1997, claimed in his
account published in the Solomon Star
that if the four arrested on Bungana Island been tried and convicted, the
uprising which was to follow would have been averted. Short was, like others
who seemed likely to save the country from itself, made to feel his position
was untenable. He was an admirable Commissioner of Police even though his
manner may not always have been fortunate. It prompted rumours about his past,
variously given as 'British', South African' and 'Rhodesian'. The affectation
of a swagger stick may suggest why. The Solomons lost a man genuinely and
deeply committed to their future when they allowed the forces of corruption to
harass him.
Sinister powers
were thus clearing the way for their own advancement.
Malaitan Eagle
Force spokesperson Andrew Nori has named participants including Premier Alebua,
Keke, Sangu and two senior Guadalcanal
police officers in a meeting at Tambea Resort in July 1998 five months
before the payback murder. In a letter to the Solomon Star, Short mentions a still earlier meeting at Visale
(Visale is in the same area as Tambea) on 14 March 1998 which had the same aims
and attendees as the July one Nori writes about. Short says the raid on Yandina
Police Station in the Russell Islands in the Central Province to obtain weapons
was planned at this March meeting. This meeting (or meetings if there was one
in March at Visale and a similar one at Tambea in July) encouraged the
formation of a 'Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army' and the stockpiling of homemade
and World War II weapons with the aim of attacking Malaitans and driving them
from Guadalcanal.
Malaitan groups
began attacking Guadis in the Tambea/Visale area in retaliation for the threats
and attacks on their own.
The Guadalcanal
Provincial Assembly, itself beset by dubious forces, coalesced in opposition
towards the National Government. Both are housed in Honiara. Honiara is as
close to an omnipotent government and administrative centre as you are likely
to find. Much of the rest of the country where eighty per cent of the
population live felt it languished neglected in the shadow of the capital.
The so-called
'Joint Operation Task Force' was formed by politicised members of the Royal
Solomon Islands Police Force. It was an arm of the Malaitan Eagle Force created
to protect Malaitans and their interests in Honiara which was in any case
Malaitan dominated. On 5 June 2000 the 'Joint Operation' placed the Prime
Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu (apparently insufficiently Malaitan in the eyes
of the 'Joint Operation Task Force', he was also probably the country's best
hope for responsible leadership) under house arrest from which he and his
family were allowed to flee Honiara. Ulufa'alu was replaced by Manasseh
Sogavare when the two other nominees for Prime Minister failed to show up. The
police armoury in Auki, capital of Malaita, was - one could not say 'broken
into' as much as laid open, as were other police armouries around the country.
Many high-powered automatic weapons and plentiful ammunition were dispersed.
The now corrupted police force in Honiara created willy nilly 'Special
Constables' in an attempt to legitimise the standover tactics of the Malaitan
Eagle Force.
The Malaitans held
Honiara, the rest of Guadalcanal was help by Guadis such as Harold Keke's
militia on the Weathercoast. The Guadi militia were associated under the title
the Isatabu Freedom Movement. Stanley 'Satan' Kaori's gang figured prominently
in the Movement. Kaori's sphere of influence lay just east of Honiara (the term
'war lord' seems excessive to me in these circumstances). As for the rest of
the country, one would not have thought Choiseul, Isabel, Makira, Temotu, and the Outliers existed. Through
the Crisis they were to suffer even more neglect and diminution of services
than previously.
As 2000 progressed
mayhem ensued on Guadalcanal. There was wanton destruction of infrastructures (the term has a more
general meaning in Solomons English, including plant and equipment). The few
viable industries such as the palm oil plantation and Gold Ridge Mining were
attacked and ruined. Copra (it is dried coconut, the oil from which is used to
produce soap, cosmetics and vegetable fats for cooking) production, on which
the country had been built, dwindled away as export became impossible. Solomon
Taiyo, the long established Solomons/Japanese tuna industry, shut down
operations and flew its Japanese crew home. Government enterprise was halted by
the theft (commandeering) of vehicles
and other equipment and the work of bureaucrats made nearly impossible by the
disorder. Schools were closed and clinics broken into. The National Library was
a shambles. Doctors and nurses were attacked in the Central Hospital and two
wounded Isatabu Freedom fighters were assassinated there by masked Malaitan
Eagle Force men. The prisoners in Rove Prison walked free. Expats fled. College
students housed in Honiara were recalled to their home islands. The fees of
Solomon Islanders studying overseas were not paid. The pay of the public
service was increasingly intermittent (some found ways of compensating themselves).
There was general dismay and frustration. The welfare of the general populace
and the nation was ignored while young thugs marauded and opportunists snatched
and grabbed. In 2003 when the worst was over, the Commissioner of Forests
Gideon Bouro related how 'individuals' escorted by militants used standover
tactics including firing shots to demand timber licences but denied any of his
officers had bowed to such pressure. Since the beginning of the Crisis 34.9 million Solomon dollars were
ushered out of the country to be invested in real estate around Brisbane.
M Ps were too busy
securing their own interests to come together to remedy the situation. Secret
meetings were the order of the day. The Roman Catholic and Church of Melanesia
stayed firm, actively addressing the situation. An old ally of the Solomons,
the Republic of China (Taiwan) took the opportunity to strike a deal - it paid
eight thousand Solomon dollars per licence for forty-two tuna fishing licences,
five per cent of the usual fee. Alexander Downer kept Australia resolutely out
of the mess when the Solomon Island Government appealed for help. The
Government of Helen Clark in New Zealand with closer ties to Pacific nations
than Australia, also declined active intervention. The new Australian consulate
block being strategically built high on a ridge outside Honiara was attacked
and set fire. Australians were treated to a glimpse of the texture of life in
Crisis Honiara when a television crew resting in the foyer of the Mendana Hotel
secretly filmed a high ranking member of the Royal Solomon Island Police Force,
drunk, demanding beer from the reception staff who had none and no access to
any. In his drunken frustration the police officer turned and struck the face
of an elderly man standing in the foyer. He was a distinguished visiting
professor. Though shocked, he handled the assault with a marvellously
philosophical poise.
If the centre was
not holding, the peripheries did. Police in far flung areas, under-equipped,
ill paid and fortunately ignored by the central authority, maintained law and
order. Nursing staff continued to
operate clinics and teachers to teach. These people were often not paid for
months on end. Many public servants in areas away from provincial capitals had
to (and still have to) pay large sums to travel to their local capital to
access their meagre and intermittent pay. Resentments ran high but there was an
underlying faith amongst the population at large that the country would pull
through this aberrant period. Most importantly, Solomon Islands women
maintained as sane a texture of life as was possible and discouraged the modus operandi of intimidation and
assault.
Bizarre and
outrageous schemes surfaced, to the delectation and horror of a watching world
and nation. Despite repeated and insistent warnings from Central Bank Director
Rick Lou, uneducated people placed their money in a savings scheme which
promised wildly unrealistic returns. Of course it collapsed and though its
principals were arrested the money was not returned to the gullible. In full
view of an enthralled world, the Queen's Representative Governor General Sir
George Lepping, the Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza (he had replaced Manasseh
Sogavare in December 2001 in a miraculously well run election) and his Minister
for Finance Snider Rini accepted invitations from and listened to an illegal
immigrant Noah Musingku who was offering a return of 2.6 billion dollars (the
National Debt) if the Solomons Government paid 10 million dollars to join his
Royal Assembly of Nations and Kingdoms. Musingku was wanted for extradition to
Niugini for failed pyramid schemes. Some said the dallying with Musingku was a
diversionary tactic on the part of the Government, nevertheless it did not inspire
confidence at home or abroad. Musingku's career had been and continues
sensational in his police no-go zone on Bougainville.
Australia and New
Zealand began to respond to the repeated appeals from Solomon Islands
Government Members for help. Australia's foreign affairs focus had
traditionally left the Pacific region to Aotearoa/New Zealand for monitoring
while it attempted to come to terms with its Southeast Asian neighbours. The
resolution of the East Timor conflict freed newly created Australian expertise
in intervention in 'trouble spots' for Solomon Islands action. It undertook
support for the various peace initiatives of Solomon Islands Government - the
various Accords, Agreements, Memoranda of
Understanding and Communiqués
issued between June 1999 and May 2000 – by overseeing a series of explorative
meetings amongst the warring gangs in and around Honiara. More explorative
dialogues were hosted on board HMAS Tobruk
in Honiara harbour. Australia brokered the Townsville Peace Accord in
October 2000. One hundred and thirty Solomon Islanders were taken to Townsville
in Queensland to negotiate the return of reason and order to their country.
Harold Keke was not among them; he had developed a distrust of the Isatabu
Freedom Movement which was otherwise well represented in its variety. The
parties reached agreement in Townsville and Australian facilitators were
pleased. A general amnesty was to be granted and a Peace Monitoring Council set
up to oversee the surrendering of weapons and the restoration of order.
According to
Solomon Island participants now the negotiations were rushed (Melanesian
conflict resolution is lengthy in western terms and ritualised) but it could
also be said that they entered into and acted in the process in less than good
faith. The Townsville Peace Accord failed in its most important aspect: after a
month none of the parties to the conflict had handed in a single gun. The
Malaitan Eagle Force then complained not all branches of the Guadi movement had
signed the Accord and in any case they wanted to renegotiate.
Harold Keke and
his gang (the 'Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army' or the 'Guadalcanal Liberation
Front') continued to maraud the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal from which there is
not a single road across the island to the markets of Honiara. Some years
previously, Weathercoast Chiefs complained that Solomon Airlines pilots were
refusing to land on strips there. But the grass strips had not been mown. The
Weathercoast is a fastness over which Harold Keke held sway. Fourteen hundred
people fled across the mountains to Honiara where they were placed in refugee
camps.
This situation did
not lessen the conflict in Honiara nor did the fact that the Government could
not pay the 'compensation payments' offered to the twenty thousand Malaitans
who had been 'repatriated' from Guadalcanal to the island of their ancestors.
These 'compensation payments' were a source of unreasonable expectation and
offered new scope for corruption and political leverage. Overseas aid money
earmarked for this process evaporated before it reached the needy. Many of the
repatriated lived in hope of it, a hope fanned by those wanting their political
support. For some Malaitans 'compensation payments' took on the force of the
rewards anticipated by cargo cultists. For most, the more the payments were
deferred the more potent they became as incitements to the resentment, rage and
retribution encouraged in the harangues of demagogues.
The hopes
generated by the Townsville Peace Accord were soon best forgotten.
In 2003 Prime
Minister Kemakeza flew to Canberra and extracted a promise of active
intervention from Prime Minister Howard. Upon Sir Allan’s arrival back in
Honiara and after strong debate, the enabling legislation was passed
unilaterally. A series of events had probably prompted the Prime Minister's
action and the positive response this time from his Australian counterpart.
In June 2002, the
'Kwaio Ten' , ten men from that part of Malaita, set out on an expedition to
capture or kill Keke. They themselves were intercepted and killed. A
Bougainvillean accompanying them (Noah Musingku?) was allowed to escape and
fled back to his homeland.
In December 2002
Cyclone Zoe struck the most remote part of Solomon Islands - the islands of
Anuta and Tikopia. The world was alerted, thus returning a celebrity to
Tikopia, long forgotten since the days of We,
the Tikopia Raymond Firth's once famous book. For five days no-one knew the
number of casualties or the extent of the damage. World attention was briefly
focused on these impossibly remote and obscure islands. An Australian Hercules
flew over and reported on their state but dropped not so much as a stick of
chewing gum. There was widespread indignation and Australia was embarrassed.
Honiara proved incapable of mounting a rescue; maritime workers refused to make
a move until they were paid very, very high wages. The Government would not or
could not pay them (with their antique Polynesian ways and huge remoteness from
the capital the two Outliers were probably last on their list of worries).
Prime Minister Kemakeza for example, could find one and a half million dollars
to pay off 'Special Constables' shooting at his home but nothing two weeks
later to get a patrol boat on its way to the devastated Outliers. The world, turning
from greater and mounting horrors in the Middle East and elsewhere, expressed
indignation and concern. Australia now responded by dropping supplies to the
Anutans and Tikopians. Other foreign aid finally enabled a vessel to set out
from Honiara with food supplies and materials for rebuilding. Tikopia had been
devastated; Anuta escaped Zoe's force relatively unharmed. There appear to have
been no casualties. The relationship between Solomon Islands and Australia had
been made clearer.
In February 2003
the first ever Solomon Islander Commissioner for Police and a National Peace
Council activist Sir Frederick Soaki was assassinated by a drunken Edmund Sae
in a restaurant in Auki, capital of Malaita. Sae is also under suspicion for
another murder committed in Auki Police station. Sae was the 'Special
Constable' responsible for other 'Special Constables' on Malaita. He had told
several of his intention to kill Sir Fred. Apparently he believed Sir Fred had
kept funds meant to be used to demobilise the 'Special Constables'. Sir Fred's
death was an enormous shock to Solomon Islands despite its people becoming
inured to outrageous acts and violent ends.
In May 2003
Australians had the matter of the perilous state of their neighbour brought
home to them even more forcefully when a Seventh Day Adventist volunteer, Lance
Gerbach, was wantonly decapitated while working in the grounds of Atoifi
Hospital in the Kwaio District of Malaita. Locals only assisted authorities in
the capture of the murderer when the hospital was threatened with closure.
In July 2003 in
response to Sir Allan's flight to Australia and the passing of the Facilitation
of International Assistance Bill on the 17th July 2003, the Regional Assistance
Mission to Solomon Islands arrived. Though the Opposition probably felt it
needed to debate strenuously the arrival of foreign troops on Solomon soil, the
actions of Harold Keke made their voting with the Government inevitable. Keke
had taken hostage seven Melanesian (Anglican Church) Brothers and killed a
couple of nephews and others with whom he did not agree or whom he did not
trust. Furthermore the electricity supply to Honiara had become unreliable and
the Solomon Island Water Authority had run out of chlorine for the capital's
drinking water.
The troop of
2,225 - mainly Australians but
also Aotearoan/New Zealanders, Tongans, Niuginians and Fijians (later joined by
Samoans) - were located at Red Beach (which they called the 'Guadalcanal Beach
Resort') just west of the capital. Operations were conducted from there and
HMAS Manoora in Honiara harbour under
the very able leadership of Australian Nick Warner and with the enthusiastic
response of most Solomon Islanders. However there were dissenters - 'Satan'
Kaori had announced he would 'battle it out' with the Assistance Mission, and
Jimmy 'Rasta' did not think their presence necessary. There was now to be no
general amnesty.
Perhaps
we should take into account here the international context. September Eleven,
the Bali and Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombings had occurred. Nauru, also a
Pacific state facing disintegration, had welcomed money laundering operations
by the Russian mafia onto its shores. All the countries contributing to RAMSI's
operations had an interest in seeing that Solomon Islands did not become a site
for potential terrorist activities and international organised crime.
RAMSI's
first job was to get back the guns. A twenty-one day gun amnesty was announced
and ceremonies were conducted to mark the handing in of some of the weapons in
civilian hands. Australian Prime Minister Howard committed one hundred million
dollars to rebuild the prison service. This was followed by a further
commitment of twenty-five million dollars for budget support.
In August 2003
Harold Keke shot dead the M P for South Guadalcanal Father Augustine Gere in
full view of villagers on the Weathercoast where Father Gere had gone to attend
a meeting called by Keke to discuss Father Gere's resignation from the
Government.
The arrival of Sir
Michael Somare, Prime Minister of Niugini, followed by visits from Mr Howard
himself and the Prime Minister of New Zealand Helen Clark signalled the
re-establishment of the dignity of the country. Aotearoa/New Zealand took an
active role in the renewal of education in Solomon Islands. Australia committed
one hundred and forty million dollars more and in September 29th 2003 RAMSI was
able to declare the Government payroll had been stabilised. The National
Library had been refurbished and was re-opened in October. At the end of its year
of operation, RAMSI had secured the arrests of four thousand individuals.
These were
remarkable achievements, speaking not only of the effectiveness of RAMSI's
operations but of the general desire for stability and the end to the Crisis
situation in Solomon Islands. RAMSI had not needed to fire a single shot.
Satan, Rasta and
Harold Keke are now in gaol, as are other murderers and corrupt police such as
Constable James Kili who had promoted himself to 'Superintendent' after taking
part in the coup. RAMSI officers seem to have proceeded with careful alacrity
in capturing these men without sparking bloody battles which could have had
complicated implications amongst people whose traditions include payback
systems which future generations are expected to pursue. RAMSI also needed to
proceed with some care in order to supply Solomons courts with the evidence
required to indict those who had committed the most outrageous offences during
the Crisis. Unfortunately it was not able to rescue the seven Melanesian
Brothers held hostage by Keke. His Supreme Operations Commander Ronnie Kawa was
charged with their murder.
The prisons
themselves were subject to scrutiny after Australian Broadcasting Corporation
commentator Phillip Adams publicised in a series of his Late Night Live programs broadcast from Solomon Islands inhumane
conditions including the twenty-three hour lock-up regime some inmates were
subject to, including some in solitary confinement. Despite Australia's one
hundred million dollars the prisons were not designed for tropical conditions
and are extremely hot and airless. Adams' campaign has resulted in prisoners
being given four hours respite from their cells instead of one. Dissatisfaction
over prison rations triggered a riot and four prisoners lodged a case in the
High Court which ruled that the prison authorities had failed to provide the
minimum diet required.
Of course RAMSI
has not been able to purge Solomon Islands of corruption. There was an
international scandal when dolphins were captured, penned and sold to Mexico
for entertainment purposes when the Mexican Government was passing legislation
to prevent Mexican dolphins being so abused. What this export brought the
Solomons Government remains obscure, early reports claimed next to nothing,
later ones that each dolphin earned the country four thousand Solomon dollars,
which would be used to carry out research
on the status of dolphins in Solomon Islands. In any case, it seems that
Marine Exports Ltd, the company involved, found the profit margin worthwhile.
The scandal broadened when Solomon Island Police attacked journalists covering
the loading of the poor animals at Honiara's airport.
A month after
RAMSI arrived almost the entire Ministry of Natural Resources was caught out in
a seven hundred and eighty thousand dollar scam and was just prevented from
adding one point six million to the sum shared amongst them. The moneys came
from the international Tuna Associations and were for licenses to operate in
Solomons waters. Natural Resources Officers instigated the fraud when the
Cabinet did not approve their ex gratia
claim of five thousand dollars per officer. About one hundred public servants
were involved and they could not be sacked as the Ministry could not operate
without them. The Sydney Morning Herald
claimed they pocketed at least two thousand dollars each. If these were
Australian dollars, that would come close enough to their original claim.
The police are
still suspect. One of the criticisms of the Townsville Peace Accord was that it
allowed members of the force already implicated in the coup and dubious
dealings to continue in their positions. A number of prisoners have escaped
under highly suspicious circumstances. Edmond Sae, murderer of Sir Fred Soaki,
is one such and at this date is said to be roaming the mountains of East Kwaio,
as is the murderer of the decapitated Seventh Day Adventist volunteer, who also
'escaped'.
We might note here
that the East Kwaio region lies across Malaita, just east of its capital Auki.
This is where the murderers of Sir
Fred and Lance Gersbach came from (and where Atoifi
Hospital where Gersbach was murdered is located). East Kwaio was the home
ground of the most famous of the Malaitan ramos
Basiana who instigated a famous incident in Solomons history, 'the Malaita
Massacre', by assassinating the Australian born District Officer William Bell
and his party in 1927. Ramos were
hired assassins who sometimes killed wantonly just to show they could. Basiana
killed Bell because he was collecting a much resented tax (there appeared to be
no returns for the money given to the Government) and because the District
Officer had insulted him on a previous trip. East Kwaio is the area where the
'escaped' murderers now find refuge. It seems the ramo tradition is still a force amongst the people there.
Other movements
which have clear antecedents in colonial times have surfaced on Malaita. The
Crisis saw the emergence of 'Cargo cults' and the resurfacing of the Ma'asina Ruru as the Ma'asina Forum. The
Ma'asina Ruru (or Marching Rule) was
a movement which flourished mainly on Malaita between 1947 and 1950 with the
withdrawal of the U S troops. Its principal aims were wage reform, self rule
and the return to kastom (‘custom’ -
traditional ways) and it refused taxation on the grounds there were no returns
for it. Its leaders tried to prevent the Malaitan diaspora, particularly in the
form of recruitment to help build the new capital of Honiara. As it waned the Ma'asina Ruru became infected with Cargo
cultism focused on the return of U S troops with their untold wealth. The
contemporary Ma'asina Forum might be placed more clearly amongst Cargo cults
than the post World War II Ma'asina Ruru.
The Ma'asina Forum Executive is very suspicious of RAMSI and seems to be
driving at an independent Malaita which would then attract foreign aid
specifically to the Malaitan homeland. The Forum invokes traditional Chiefly
authority and calls upon special grassroot exertions à la Chairman Mao to develop the economic potential of the homeland
which it believes to be very varied and great. Its paradoxical appeal to
Chiefly authority and villager exertion appears to make it considerably less
democratic than its forebear, the Ma'asina
Ruru. It is sustained by a belief in a special destiny of great riches from
overseas sources. Harold Keke also appears to have promised his followers large
economic rewards and encouraged belief that he is 'chosen', thus attempting to
charge his appalling actions with messianic overtones.
Other Solomon
Islanders share the Ma'asina Forum's doubts about RAMSI. In a 'Street Talk'
article in The Solomon Star which
asked if RAMSI had a 'dark side', respondents who thought it did said so because the way they handle the law and
order is not agreeable to Melanesian style; because their treatments of natives
are too unmerciful and it looks like another colonial regime will emerge and
because RAMSI want (sic) a mass exodus of people from other
provinces going back to their respective provinces, away from Guadalcanal.
RAMSI, whatever it finally achieves, will have to bear a long time burden of
projection for many Solomons anxieties and longings.
There are
persistent calls for the 'instigators' of the Crisis to be brought to justice
now that their henchmen are being rounded up and there is widespread belief
throughout Solomon Islands that the dark forces at the top are escaping
justice. The M P for East Kwaio Alfred Sasako claimed that Harold Keke knew
even before they had left Honiara that the Kwaio Ten were on their way and that
before the men were slaughtered, they
told Keke that it was Sir Allan who sent them to their deaths ('Sir Allan'
is Kemakeza, the Prime Minister). Sasako pushed for a National Parliament
Special Select Committee to investigate the matter. It has now announced that
it was not in a position to name those
who have organised and finance (sic) the
mission. But it did uncover a pattern
of mercenary behaviour ... in relation to the leader of the expedition, Kalisto
Ganiufaria, a life-time prisoner who escaped from Rove Prison and spent the
rest of his life (sic) in East Kwaio.
Ganiufaria received two payments from the Government Treasury: twenty thousand
dollars for allegedly apprehending a gunman and one hundred thousand just
before the Kwaio Ten left Honiara for the Weathercoast. The rumour is that the Kwaio Ten were to get three point
three million for Harold Keke, dead or alive.
The return of
order has seen new business opportunities being explored. There is talk of
vanilla production (unlike copra and palm oil it is a high value crop), an
Australian company is actively encouraging pearl oyster production, a Japanese
company is investigating nickel mining on the small island of San Jorge and
Santa Isabel off which it lies, the Taiwanese once again say they are
developing rice farming, coconut oil has been successfully trialed as a fuel
for diesel engines, the fishing industry is re-examining its options with
Soltai tuna back in production and calling for dried akabare chilli fruits from local growers for its popular tins
of chile tuna. The copra burners are being fired up again. Tourism should
increase. It says much about 'the Friendly Isles' that the Crisis did not deter
a steady flow of divers and parties wishing to commemorate their World War II
dead from visiting Solomon Islands. Building plans include a three storey
office and retail complex called Sipeu
Mutual Wokman Haus and the demolition or conversion of the National Gallery
for a foreign owned hotel (economic rationalism at its worst; foreign economic
advisers, schooled in nothing else, insist on the application of free market
principles despite their blatant inappropriateness). The first National Trade
Show in four years was held in July 2005 in Honiara.
Logging at the
present rate has been declared by all to be unsustainable. In 2000 568,000
cubic metres were logged; in 2005 800,000 cubic metres. The sustainable level
is accepted to be 400,000 cubic metres.
A Solomon Islands
Trust adviser, Dr John Roughan, has pointed out that despite RAMSI, the
Kemakeza government has not created jobs and that youth are desperate, turning
to marijuana and kwaso (the local
brew). Basic food prices continue to rise. The country is still frighteningly
dependent on foreign aid and worse still, expects it as a matter of course.
It might be worth
reflecting here that Dr Hermann Oberlie who led the medical team on the first
vessel to reach Tikopia and Anuta after Zoe struck has now left the country.
His strenuous efforts on behalf of Solomon Islanders went unrecognised
officially. Women have been denied adequate official recognition for their
contribution to the peace process. Solomon Islands has a serious problem with
sexism and a concomitant urge to celebrate and honour representatives of a
self-seeking and swaggering maledom which has deluded and dishonoured the
country. But this is almost a universal phenomenon.
Politically there
are few encouraging signs. The Chiefs of Temotu, as part of a national reconciliation
process, have put aside their rivalries in order to lead their far flung and
neglected Province (Tikopia and Anuta lie in it) towards long delayed
developments. After a very difficult term of office, the Governor General Sir
John Ini Lapli has retired. His successor Nathaniel Waena is from a humble
background and neither Guadi nor Malaitan (an orphan from childhood, Waena was
brought up in Ulawa and Makira). He believes custom reconciliation ceremonies
will assist in reunification.
The National Soccer
team drew with Australia in the Oceania round of the World Cup competition thus
creating joy in the nation and great anticipation about the games to be played
in October 2004 in Australia and September 2005 'at home'. Though Solomon
Islands lost, the games were hugely enjoyed and the excellent playing of the
Solomons team in Australia created much pride.
This is good but
creativity as an expression of national spirit is dispiritingly low. Craft
products are getting more and more careless in manufacture and are formulaic
rather than traditional. The range of artistic endeavours is extremely small,
highly derivative and often crude in every way. Small agit prop dramas carry
all sorts of worthwhile messages. Solomons Pijin has been the subject of debate
between its proponents and those who feel the need to defend the use of English
in Solomon Islands. Unfortunately those supporting the use of Solomons Pijin
tie their arguments and practice to the translation of The Bible in which they are abetted by foreign bible bashers. A
Solomons literature is likely to be much more lively in Pijin than in English
which is bound to the heavy bureaucratese Solomon Islanders find so impressive.
As RAMSI was
arriving the National Museum acquired two wooden sculptures from traditional
carver Paul Sukuru of Owa-rii (Santa Catalina). One was a kerosene wood bonito
with a cavity for storing the bones of important men, the other was of
Karimanua, the human shark. He is now gentler and more sociable than in the
1920's account by the Reverend Charles E Fox in The Threshold of the Pacific. In the present account Karimanua
begins to imitate a shark when he goes for a swim with his brother. When
Karimanua bumps into his brother he unexpectedly cut his body into two halves.
In Fox's account Karimanua charges his brother and tears him in two. In the old
and new accounts Karimanua is remorseful and attempts to unify the pieces which
were his brother but is interrupted and flees the outraged villagers by
swimming away. Now he is helpful, sometimes stealing ashore and into villages
clandestinely to help the villagers pound casava for feast puddings. In Fox's
account Karimanua creeps ashore to steal bamboo tubes of pudding from the great
feasting bowls. In both accounts he is desperate to be reunited with his
community but naturally they fear him.
Postscript
In 2005 two
Australian soldiers died while on duty with RAMSI. One death was accidental,
the other was by sniper attack at night while the soldier was in a vehicle
patrolling Honiara. James Tatau was charged with this murder following the
arrest of another man on the same charge. RAMSI had been behind further
arrests, some of influential figures, including Cabinet members but many
Solomon Islanders feel dissatisfied that the big fish have still not been
netted. Nevertheless it is a measure of RAMSI’s continued success that there
has been nothing comparable to the withdrawal of Australian police from Niugini
which was instigated when the High Court in Port Moresby found the invited presence
of Australian police officers was unconstitutional. This decision was in the
context of all kinds of dubious resentment, not least from police in Port
Moresby.
The main written
source for this article was The Solomon
Star 2002 - 05.
Andrew Nori's
article '5th June in Perspective' is a very important document. I found it at
www.sibonline.com.sb/Analysis%20archive.asp - Solomon Islands Broadcasting
Commission's site.
Radio Australia
was accessed at www.abc.net.au/ra/solomons/location/
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