The Australian
THE Australian-led intervention in Solomon Islands shows no signs of ending even after six years and $1 billion spent.
The first parliamentary inquiry there into this huge program urges a re-commitment rather than a withdrawal. But a leading observer of the Pacific nation of 600,000 says that although few want the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands to end while potentially destabilising social fault lines persist, questions are being asked by islanders about the exit strategy, for which a mix of timelines and targets is being developed.
Terry Brown, an Anglican bishop from Canada who presided over the Malaita diocese from 1996 to 2008 and is now working in the capital Honiara, says: "RAMSI should claim some success, and at least begin some down-scaling. "People ask why Australian soldiers need now to wear battle gear and go fully armed in the main streets of Honiara, and why they need to travel in military vehicles. We haven't got the crime issues they still have today in Port Moresby."
RAMSI has police, prison and civilian components as well, but Brown asks why such a military presence is needed, with the big Australian base at Townsville only two to three hours' flight away in event of trouble.
One answer, he believes, is that it comprises a useful training ground for security personnel who go on to be deployed in more dangerous trouble spots, such as Afghanistan. "There's an awful lot of military testing there," he says; for example, recently there were public warnings telling people not to take canoes across a stretch of water because weapons were being tried out.
"Today, RAMSI holds all the arms -- except those still hidden, of course -- so people have to ask RAMSI for help in hunting or killing crocodiles.
"It is a little bit like a state within a state. Its personnel are immune from the laws of Solomon Islands. They encourage the rule of law, but are not themselves under the law of the land."
Of Australia's $223 million aid to the Solomons this year, 58 per cent is being spent on and by RAMSI, leaving the rest to be deployed to the more usual areas of development including health, education and infrastructure.
Australian Liberal senator Russell Trood, chairman of the Senate's Standing References Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, tabling an inquiry into challenges facing Melanesian countries last week, said: "Australia could certainly do more to ensure that our aid programs are targeted into areas that are likely to provide the best means for these countries to achieve positive, long-term economic and human development."
An inquiry by the Solomon Islands parliament into RAMSI, completed earlier this month, notes criticisms that "RAMSI has subverted the role of the Solomon Islands government and in the process compromised the [country's] sovereignty, that RAMSI has not expanded its mandate to deliver a `peace dividend' to the people of Solomon Islands such as the delivery of major new infrastructure projects, particularly in the provinces, and that the opportunity has not been taken to address some of the root causes of the ethnic tension."
However, the parliamentarians say, some of these issues are now being addressed by a new partnership framework between RAMSI, the government, and the Pacific Islands Forum under whose auspices RAMSI operates, with all 16 forum countries contributing staff.
The inquiry applauds the improvement in government transparency and accountability and the rebuilding of the courts and prisons. But, it says, restoring community trust in the police force remains a key challenge.
For the first time since the intervention in 2003, Solomon Islanders are back in the top law and justice jobs: chief justice, attorney-general, director of public prosecutions, public solicitor and correctional services commissioner. But the still beleaguered police force is headed by New Zealander Peter Marshall.
Root causes of the ethnic tension remain because the country "still lacks strong sense of national consciousness and unity", the MPs say, while welcoming the establishment of a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation commission, launched by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in mid-year. The new partnership framework says that instead of "a blanket, arbitrary exit deadline", a combination of goals and timelines would be used to assess when RAMSI can withdraw from particular activities, "as Solomon Islands' capacity grows".
RAMSI says the mission of the military contingent -- with soldiers from NZ, Papua New Guinea and Tonga as well as Australia -- is to act as a deterrent to destabilising events and support police. It says government revenues have grown by 30 per cent a year since intervention.
One of the biggest challenges, Brown says, is how to repair the privatised and corporatised bodies that operate -- or fail to operate -- Solomons' infrastructure, including postal services, water, electricity, telecommunications, commodity marketing and the national airline.
"All of them almost collapsed during the ethnic tension period" before RAMSI intervened, he says, and they suffer from large debts, inadequate technological investment and poor service delivery.
For up to half of many weeks, Honiara has no water or power. But the main RAMSI centre has its own utilities. "It is centred on a converted seaside hotel, but looks like a military base."
A soccer riot a fortnight ago indicates persisting tensions. The referee disallowed a goal scored by the Malaita team against Honiara in a Solomon Cup game, and the Malaitan fans burned down the country's football administration HQ, smashed the windows of three cars, hit three policemen with rocks, attacked a fire truck and looted a Chinatown store. Police eventually arrested 16 men.
Police chief Marshall told AAP's Ilya Gridneff afterwards: "It was a spontaneous combustion. If you can put it that way, in the overall scheme of things it could have been much worse."
A parliamentary election is due next year and is expected to provide challenges to law and order from rival groups of supporters. Elections sometimes take the form of bitter sporting contests in Melanesian countries. But the present government, led by Derek Sikua, strongly supports RAMSI. It contains MPs from both Malaita and Guadalcanal -- the island on which Honiara is located -- which were the chief combatants during the civil strife.
Many former militants are standing for parliament, including the notorious Jimmy Rasta, which Brown views as an optimistic sign.
Brown says while most MPs back RAMSI, some Solomons' political sentiment will also play out in other ways, with people demonstrating their independence by backing, for instance, the Melanesian Spearhead Group's solidarity gestures towards Fiji military ruler Frank Bainimarama, Canberra's Pacific enemy No. 1.
"As with any other large expatriate community, there is a kind of RAMSI lifestyle bubble: they are exempt from paying tax or duty, and import much of what they consume," Brown says.
"Their demand has driven up the cost of housing for everyone in Honiara. Many Solomon Islanders with houses have got bank loans to upgrade the buildings for renting to RAMSI staff, it's been a real windfall for them.
"But for growing numbers of Solomon Islanders, affordable housing is harder to find."
RAMSI's training role mainly comprises short courses, Brown says, with skills transfers made difficult by the technology gap between RAMSI and the Solomons. For instance, emergency service communications have been switched from publicly accessible radio schedules to telephones. But mobile access is limited and the 999 emergency number is often occupied by people talking to friends or relatives because it is free, or calling simply to abuse the police force.
The Australian 28 November 2009