Islands Business - Politics/ Solomon Islands: NEED FOR RAMSI TO BE OPEN --REPORT

‘We stopped trusting them’

Michael Field
As dawn broke over the haunting mountains of Guadalcanal, an Australian Air Force Hercules swept into Honiara Field.

Nearby, Australian landing craft slipped on to Red Beach.

Winston Peters (centre)... at the Elections Office in Suva, Fiji

That was July 24, 2003, and days later Australian Prime Minister John Howard made a one day visit to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. Hundreds of delighted and relieved islanders, cheered, believing he had saved them from the ethnic conflict.

Australian government spin doctors came up with a warm pidgin name “Helpem Fren’’ and the new Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was painted in Pacific colours, disguising Canberra’s domination.

An Oxfam Australia and New Zealand report released last month, questions the direction RAMSI is taking.
Pointing to the April riots and arson, which destroyed Chinatown in Honiara, Oxfam warns that too much money and resources are going to reconstructing government’s institutions rather than reaching those most in need.

“Unless this issue is addressed effectively, there will remain a risk of repeated incidents of violence and dissent,’’ the report warns.

The Solomons is an unlikely nation; an archipelago with a total land area of 28,450 square kilometres with just 552,438 people, speaking 120 distinctive languages.

Over 85 percent of them live in rural areas on a subsistence lifestyle. A British colony, it was left undeveloped by London and forced into independence in 1978 with virtually no infrastructure.

Honiara had only come into existence in World War Two when Japan swept down to Guadalcanal and built an airfield. The United States Marines had landed on a piece of coastline that became an enormous camp and after the war became the capital. It attracted hundreds of men from Malaita Island across Ironbottom Sound.

The patrilineal Malaitan presence slowly festered on Guadalcanal whose indigenous society was largely matrilineal. The Solomons crashed in the June 2000 coup. Honiara became a Malaita camp and the plains and Weathercoast of Guadalcanal became battlefields.

RAMSI—led by mainly Australian and New Zealand soldiers along with Fijians and Tongans—ended the fighting but the politicians who had led the Solomons to disaster remained in power. Oxfam New Zealand’s director, Barry Coates, says the report showed RAMSI trying to create a strong central state in a Melanesian society which did not universally accept such a model.

“One of the things that is happening is RAMSI is aligning itself with the central state and is managing to alienate itself from people who do not have central services,’’ he says.

Greater input was needed from Melanesians and without it “there will be continuing dissatisfaction and a potential for conflict.’’

The report noted that just outside Honiara people lived in poverty. Less than half an hour from Honiara’s centre, people were living without running water, health care and electricity.

“These conditions contrast markedly with those in the capital, where the economy is experiencing an unsustainable artificial boom—high market prices, more cars on the road, inflated rental prices for housing and increased power shortages (one Solomon Islander suggested these are due to expatriate dependence on air conditioning, which short-circuits the national electricity grid).’’

Many young people, faced with no opportunities, were restoring to a life of home-brew, alcohol, marijuana and prostitution.

“The increase in prostitution, including that of children, appears to be a reaction to the deepening economic divide rather than purely a reaction to the influx of potential customers to the Solomon Islands.

“Islanders welcomed the rapid improvement in law and order, but had little understanding of RAMSI’s role. There was a widespread lack of confidence that economic development would benefit all. The simmering dissatisfaction evident among both rural and urban communities in the Solomon Islands indicated there is a pressing need to develop alternatives to current economic reform policies and to create initiatives that are more targeted towards reducing poverty, inequality and potential conflict and improving the quality of life for all citizens of the Solomon Islands.’’

Oxfam says in the Solomons there was uncertainty about RAMSI’s tenure and the motives behind those supporting regional intervention. And while RAMSI kept calling for accountability from the Solomon Islands Government, it lacked openness itself.

“There is a clear need for RAMSI to provide greater clarity about its objectives, provide a public timeframe for activities and acknowledge the limitations to its capacity.”

While the intervention had been dressed up as a Pacific effort, Oxfam says 94 percent of the civilian advisors came from Australia and New Zealand.

Oxfam interviewed islanders for their views on RAMSI. “Peace is more than just the returning of arms; we need peace in the homes, peace in the heart, peace in the community—you need to be able to settle into your own life—need a secure livelihood,’’ Margaret Maelaua of the Malaita Council of Women told Oxfam.

This was not happening now and things were “broken down,’’ she said.

Peace campaigner Betty Luvusia of Guadalcanal says grievances still remain. “It is not really peace. Fights still take place— people see someone they had a problem with, someone from the other side and they beat them up. The police and RAMSI have not addressed this.’’

An unnamed Malaitan told Oxfam: “The respect for and integrity of RAMSI has gone down by the day. Until the last four months, people were happy to wave to RAMSI when they drove past.

“Today, people are not interested. When RAMSI officers wave to people from their vehicles, people don’t wave back. Why? We have stopped trusting RAMSI. It’s not doing any good to our nation.”