Writing’s on the wall

Alfred Sasako
As Solomon Islands recovers from a lethal dose of “home brewed” cocktails of civil unrest which devastated the country at the beginning of the millennium, it seems the writing is on the wall for round Number 2.

Only this time, the ingredients are imported. And the authorities are worried as are members of the Solomon Islands Chinese Association.

According to sources, up to four Asian women posing as tourists arrive in Honiara from Port Moresby every week.

Whoever organised their travel is very clever. The “tourists” are advised to behave in a certain way so as not to attract attention. For example, they are not to be seen as travelling together in a group.

Instead, they are advised to act as individuals, particularly when they arrive at Honiara Airport. In reality, they are travelling in a group.

In Honiara, they simply melted into the crowd. Later, they showed up as bartenders in nightclubs, casinos or restaurants and some in selected hotels where they provided massages and more for up to SB$2500 (A$342) an hour.

Others simply reported for “work” in assigned houses which dotted Honiara’s real estate landscape.

At least four premises are known to be in use, including one dubbed the Blue House. It is owned by Chinese.

“They come from as far as Mongolia,” one individual said.

One of the houses is located at Panatina in east Honiara. There, according to sources, three Chinese women offer their ware in the world’s oldest tradeŃprostitution.

“They even have security posted 24 hours a day around the house,” the individual said.

Clients? Mostly Chinese businessmen or loggers and crew from Asian fishing boats.

As one security man told a friend recently, “you could hear the ooeeeing and oeee coming from the house all hours”.

At another location along the Tandai Highway, in west Honiara, activities there were said to be strictly restricted to night time only.

“Cars would come in around midnight and leave around three in the morning,” one observer told me. They appear to be Chinese.”

Again, the house is owned by a Chinese businessman in Honiara.

The National Council of Women (NCW)  said it is aware of the activities going on in this particular house.

“We in fact reported this to the police some time ago, but it appears nothing is being done about it,” a disappointed NCW official told me.

“We are scared. We don’t know whether there are connections,” the official said.

It is estimated that some 25 Asian women, mostly Chinese and Filipinos are engaged in the trade in Honiara today.

Their presence appears to have driven the “locals”, many of whom are young teenage girls, out into the open.

Some ended up in foreign fishing boats anchored off Point Cruz. Recently, water police arrested a number of these girls, caught frequenting the boats.

Just who is behind the recruitment of sex workers from overseas is not clear. One thing is. Whoever recruits them has a lot of dough and appears to have connections in the right places.

Insiders who have some knowledge about this are convinced it is the work of criminal gangs, in this case, the Chinese Triad, the equivalent of the Italian Mafia.

In many cases, unsuspecting young women are lured by promises of big money in overseas employment. Their entry and working papers are pre-arranged with government officials on the take.

On arrival, the women find there’s no work and are subsequently forced into prostitution so that the sponsors could recover their costs of getting them to Honiara.

Willing local hands: In Honiara, there appears to be willing local hands as well. Meet Joy [not her real name]. A Solomon Islands national, she was walking home after work one afternoon when a Solomon Islands man, a complete stranger, approached her about joining his company.

A few questions later revealed the man was a partner of a Chinese businessman.

The business involved hiring out young girls and in some cases, willing married women, to clients at SB$1000 (A$136) an hour.

The Solomon Islands man even handed out a business card of the venture.

According to the National Express newspaper, the prostitution ring has provided a convenient cover for members of the Asian Mafia to enter Solomon Islands.

Members of the Triads may have entered Solomon Islands through Papua New Guinea via a prostitution ring involving three Chinese-owned nightclubs, restaurants and one general shop in the centre of Honiara, the paper said.

The paper also said the man responsible for organising the prostitution ring is a brother of one of the restaurant owners in Honiara.

A senior Immigration official is said to be helping the Chinese businessman organise entry visas for the prostitutes.

Sources within the Asian community in Honiara say the clients of the prostitutes are mainly Malaysian loggers.

An article published in the Melbourne Age in 2005 said that mafia groups had “infiltrated and corrupted” the highest level of the Papua New Guinea police force, crippling the struggling nation’s attempts to tackle its law and order crisis and posing a potential national security threat to Australia.

The paper claimed its investigation had uncovered alleged links between 16 of PNG’s most senior police and Asian criminals implicated in people smuggling, money laundering, prostitution, illegal gambling, fraud and theft.

Australian authorities fear that PNG’s police are so compromised that the country could be used as a staging post to traffic people into Australia.

The Age’s report was based on a secret PNG police investigation: “Corruption and Illegal Activities within the Police Force” which named 15 senior officers, from inspectors to commissioners, allegedly involved with Asian crime figures.

“Chinese mafia have bought off officials throughout the system...they are operating illegal businesses, they are siphoning money out, corrupting government officials, colluding with police and making attempts to kill officials as well,” PNG’s then police minister, Ben Kimisopa said.

Fear of criminals: Australia is not alone in its fear of Asian criminals infiltrating government systems in the region.

Solomon Islands officials share such fears as are members of the Solomon Islands Chinese Association.

Repeated unsuccessful attempts to get the attention of authorities in recent years have prompted the association to write to the Chinese government in Beijing.

“The association fears that should this activity be exposed, not only will the guilty be punished, but the innocent will also suffer the consequences.

This was most evident in the April 18/19 riots (in Honiara) where a lot of innocent Asians were targeted because of the actions of a few,” the letter addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing said.

“The other concern that the association has is the potential of organised crime gaining momentum in the Solomon Islands.

“The last thing we want to see happen is Asian businesses being harassed and threatened by other Asians,” the letter dated April 3, said.

Prostitution involving Asian women began in PNG in the 90s. In subsequent years, there had been a number of violent crimes including murders. It is not clear whether these murders relate to the prostitution.

The gangland style of execution in some cases is so akin to the signature of mafia type killing.
Part of the problem for authorities in Honiara is the fact that the law enforcement agencies are ill-equipped to tackle the problem once international criminal gangs are involved.

Many of the experienced police officers have been stood down in the cleanup after the ethnic unrest which destroyed everything but the will of the ordinary Solomon Islands people to move on in life.

Australia and New Zealand have ploughed millions of dollars into training a new police force here. It will take a long time to get the sort of experience and expertise needed to crack the workings of international criminal gangs.

What is happening in the Solomon Islands today appears to confirm the fears I expressed in 2004.

I was being dropped off by the then Special Coordinator of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, Nick Warner, outside the gate of the Prime Minister’s Office in Honiara.

As his car slowed to the kerbside, I turned to Nick and said: “Tell me, Nick, if I am wrong. I believe the next wave of civil unrest in Honiara will be between the new Chinese arrivals and indigenous Solomon Islanders.”
His response was spontaneous. “Alfred, you are not wrong”.