Its a matter of ticking those boxes. Once they have all be en ticked, we will say that RAMSI is ready to go: PM Sikua

Rowan Callick




The Pacific Islands Forum has often been attacked during its 40 years for being a talking shop and a platform for aimless jetsetting.
But it has succeeded in its Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in achieving a very rare success in the whole developing world.
It has executed a new form of very direct aid, in an exceptionally challenging situation, which has seen almost every significant social and economic indicator start to improve.
The Solomon Islands is expected to vote in August, when almost half the 50 MPs are likely to be kicked out. But every major political leader and 88 percent of the 600,000 population according to a new survey, insist that RAMSI must continue.
Prime Minister Derek Sikua says: “We have worked well together as a government with RAMSI. We’re not talking about an exit strategy.”
Leading militants during the civil strife, including the notorious Jimmy “Rasta” Lusibaea, are standing for parliament.
The strong Australian role in RAMSI, to which it has given almost A$1 billion in six years, marks a stark contrast with its controversial—and costlier—aid strategy pursued in neighbouring PNG, where Australian consultants are earning up to A$500,000 a year tax-free while governance and public services are sinking, and where Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare wants to see the programme cut back.
It was the civil war on Bougainville in PNG that triggered the “tensions” in the Solomons, with firearms pouring across the porous border.
Last month, Bougainville held its elections which will frame its preparation for a referendum on independence in five years—fuelling the potential for further trouble spilling over into its neighbour.
In the Solomons, where 3,600 guns were seized early in the intervention, RAMSI keeps control of all firearms, even from the country’s own police force.
There has been a surge in the crocodile population recently, especially around Alligator Creek—named by American GIs during World War II—and people living in the area have to bring in RAMSI members, even to shoot the reptiles. But this does not appear to arouse any resentment.
Graeme Wilson, the fourth Australian to head up RAMSI, is an experienced regional diplomat.
He stresses that RAMSI is “very much a regional initiative”, which includes in its 600 strength—half of them police, the rest civilian experts—people from every islands country. There are army platoons from PNG and Tonga, as well as from New Zealand—a major contributor to the whole programme.
Wilson says although there is no exit date, RAMSI and the government have agreed on targets, with milestones on the way.
Sikua says: “It’s a matter of ticking those boxes. Once they have all been ticked, we will say that RAMSI is ready to go.”
Wilson says the military presence—now below 200, at one time reaching 2,000—remains necessary “because there are still destabilising elements in society, there is still underlying fragility, and they supply a strong deterrent role.”                           The contrast with “the tensions” is immense, however. Detective Inspector Florence Taro, with the Office of National Investigations—which has recently charged nine people, in a big arson case, with burning down the HQ of the country’s biggest single employer, a palm oil producer – says that it was humiliating for the police to receive reports of terrible crimes, but to be unable to act.
Militants had all the guns and sometimes they would point them in her face.
“Sometimes this worked, but sometimes we would all have to run and hide behind a brick wall.”
The daughter of a career police officer and the wife of a prosecutor, she said: “After the intervention came, everybody felt safe.” She helped set up the Sexual Assault Squad.
“We’re trying to rebuild confidence in the police that was lost during the tensions,” she says. 
“Before, we never had the resources to travel. Now, with RAMSI’s involvement, police are visiting areas where they haven’t been seen in decades. I went on such a visit myself to the Highlands, where we slept two nights in villages on the way.”
The restoration of law and order has helped create an environment where investment is possible, he said, boosted by a new Foreign Investment Act giving further certainty.
RAMSI advice has led to the opening up of the telecommunications sector, where new competition is expected to provide cheaper, and better service that has been seen in other Pacific countries that have done the same.
The self-contained RAMSI military and police HQ is a formidable operation, costing about A$50 million, employing directly about 150 Solomon Islanders.
The reach of RAMSI has extended beyond law and order, where it also works with the courts and prisons, into economic governance and growth, and the machinery of government, including creating anti-corruption institutions, and strengthening the beleaguered provincial governments.
Violent riots tore Honiara after the 2006 poll, leading to the razing of the city’s characterful Chinatown, the subject of famous stringband song “Wokabout long Chinatown.”
Wilson says: “The election, tentatively set for August, is going to be an important test, not just for the management of the event itself, but for the long-term future. No party leader has said he wants to remove RAMSI.”
There are no women in parliament, thus in part the strong thread of building women’s roles through RAMSI’s programmes.
“We are helping create an environment where the government can address at least some of the long-term issues.”
The economic base for doing so, remains fragile. Last year, the volume of log exports dropped by 33 percent, copra 39 percent, fish 25 percent.
George Tapo, deputy tax commissioner, says despite this, business confidence remains firm. Certainly by comparison with the tensions—when “the Finance Ministry and the Central Bank were filled with militants walking around with guns, demanding payments.
“They would force someone to write a government cheque, then to release the payment. Businesses lost confidence because their taxes were going to the militants. At one point we were collecting just $15-$20 a day. We had to skip two, three, four paydays ourselves because the government couldn’t afford it.”
Revenue collections have shot up since, however, with the budget consequently soaring by five times.
Investors are arriving, Tapo said, and are employing local people, especially recently in the manufacturing and finance sectors.
Honiara itself is dusty and dirty, but bustling with traffic jams a new phenomenon, and new stores and offices being built by developers from Taiwan, South Korea and China.
Over the last two years, 800 new businesses have been registered, says Tapo—mainly small firms. And the message has gone out—don’t try to bribe the Inland Revenue, “we’re viewed as non-corrupt today.”
This is the crucial time for RAMSI—and the new government. If the Solomons can find the key to sustainable growth and new jobs, this era of stability and better governance can be entrenched.
But the continued poverty of most people, makes them vulnerable to frustration and to false prophets. Gold miner Mark Caruso stressed that for him, the key task is “to manage expectations”.
A new survey for RAMSI, of 5,000 people, reveals a nation still in dire straits. Just 30 percent have had regular wage employment, 25 percent have a bank account, 62 percent are subsistence farmers or fishers, just 16 percent have access to main electricity, 68 percent have no access to any phone, two percent said the performance of the provincial public service is good, 83 percent said there is dishonesty among leaders in their community, five percent of the households have suffered a physical attack, and 83 percent said violence may or will return if RAMSI left.        

SIKUA NEEDS COALITION PARTIES TO SURVIVE Derek Sikua, prime minister since December 2007, reached the top on his own, in his first term in parliament. But now he needs his coalition of six parties to survive the election intact, if he is to return to power. An education official for 24 years, the last 11 of them as head of the department, he has a doctorate from Waikato University in New Zealand. He is the leader of the Liberal Party—and its only MP. The governing coalition has been discussing a non-competition pact, he says, hoping to return as a group—although he expects a turnover of 30-40 percent of MPs overall, as usual. His list of challenges is immense: education, health, infrastructure, and, of course, the economy, the need to create more jobs and improve living standards. Then more. He is pleased that militants are standing at the election. “If they’re successful, they can have a feel of what it is like to run the country from the inside rather than having grandiose ideas and thinking you can change the world once you come into government.” Manasseh Maelanga, the Provincial Affairs Minister, is an ex-combatant. “I asked him,” says Sikua, “how have your ideas stood up? He said it’s very different when you’re outside. There are 24 of us in cabinet, your idea might not be supported by the other 23. The majority rules. But I had an idea of the possibilities and limitations, after in the public service for so long” Sikua says the scope of the relationship with RAMSI hasn’t changed, but “we work now more in partnership.” A crucial element in moving on from the tensions involves the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, launched by Bishop Desmond Tutu last year, which has begun to hear grim witness accounts of their fate under “the tensions”. Sikua says: “Nothing is going to change overnight. Most of the issues have not been addressed by previous governments, they’ve been around a long time. We are serious about getting to the bottom of them. It is in our hands to go forward.” He has been very vocal about “my desire to address the issue of corruption. We want to stamp it out. Enough is enough.” The government and RAMSI have consequently beefed up the Auditor-General’s office, the Ombudsman Commission, and the new Leadership Code office. The timber industry was for decades associated with corruption in the country. He says: “Revenues from our logs will be reduced to manageable levels in the next five years or so. We’re trying to emphasise downstream processing of timber, and aggressively pursue reaforestation. “My own personal view is that the logging went too far. We gave far too much away to the loggers ripping off our virgin forests until 2006. We have seen the destruction of the majority of our rainforests.” Sikua says: “Without good infrastructure, you can forget about the economy. We need to diversify and broaden its base.” The population growth rate is “far too high, we need to cut it down to have a smaller, healthier, and better educated population rather than a very large, hungry and disgruntled one, which is a recipe for disaster.” He is tackling land reform—a problem ubiquitous in the Pacific. “We have legislation to deal with customary land, so groups can register their land, enabling them to make it available for development without dispute, enabling land to be used as security for loans.”