SOLOMON ISLANDS: Band-aid Solution to ‘Save’ Country Fuels Debate

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, Australia, Jun 17 2003 (IPS) - Australia’s expected intervention in the Solomon Islands to ‘save’ the country from collapse is a necessary evil for some, but for others it addresses the symptoms rather than the causes of lawlessness, corruption and ethnic conflict in the Pacific state.

The Australian government is now waiting for the official ‘request’ from the Solomon Islands government, later this month, to send in troops and accountants to take control of its law enforcement and financial sectors.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called Canberra’s moves in the Solomon Islands "cooperative intervention". It is based on a plan drawn up by the Canberra-based Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), which will require 560 million U.S. dollars over 10 years to ‘save’ the Solomon Islands from economic collapse.

Under this plan, the Solomons would see a force of 150 international troops, including Australians, New Zealanders and Pacific islanders, being deployed to the Pacific island state and a "rehabilitation authority" set up and run by independent financial managers that could administer several government departments for about 10 years.

The author of the ASPI report, Dr Ellie Wainwright, said the country’s economic problems could not be solved until there was a solution to the law and order problems, which have been plaguing the country for years and making governance and economic activity difficult.

"It’s an absolute first priority," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. "What you have in the Solomon Islands at the moment is this climate, this broad environment of lawlessness, and it seems to us that is the root of the problems in Solomon Islands. And the economy is just not going to get back on track until the security situation there is stabilised.”

But Tim O’Conner of AIDWATCH, a non-governmental aid watchdog, questions the intervention approach – and the assumptions behind it. Both Downer and the ASPI report focus on the ‘failed states’ theory and economic management as the reason for intervention in the Solomon Islands – and this, he said, could create a dangerous precedent.

"The Solomon Islands’ sovereignty should be a primary concern and as such an Australian armed force answerable to an ‘independent’ Australian representative, as promoted by the ASPI, should never be an option," he said in an interview.

The Solomon Islands receives Australia’s largest aid packet to the South Pacific. In the 2002- 2003 financial year, 37 million Australian dollars (24 million U.S. dollars) was allocated for basic services, health projects, economic recovery planning and rehabilitation in finance, customs, land administration and forest management.

Ironically, at the same time when the ASPI report was released in Canberra this month by Downer, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza was in the Australian capital meeting Prime Minister John Howard to discuss Australian intervention in his country.

According to the Canberra-based Centre for Independent Studies, a corrupt elite in the Solomons has been sustained by a 1.3 billion Australian dollar (850 million U.S. dollar) timber sale and 1.1 billion Australian dollars (726 million US dollars) in aid and money from Taiwan for diplomatic ties.

The APSI says the rule of law is collapsing such that gun-toting militias are backed by politicians.

The island state’s economy of 500,000 people has been wrecked by ethnic conflict between the Guadalcanal and Malaita people. Resentment among the Guadalcanalese have been rising over the years toward those moving in from the neighbouring island of Malaita to work, intermarry and buy land.

Since mid-1999, Guadalcanal militants had taken control of the countryside around Honiara. Violence increased with the emergence of a Malaitan militant group, the Malaita Eagle Force, which undertook armed action on Guadalcanal.

Solomon islanders have seen their per capita incomes halve since independence from Britain in 1976, to just 330 U.S. dollars a year. According to the 2002 annual report of the Central Bank, the government has stopped servicing its debts and finds it difficult to pay the salaries of public servants in time. The country’s sole export is timber.

But even the opposition and civil society in the Solomon Islands seemed to endorse the ASPI plan. Matthew Wale from the Civil Society Network there told ‘Radio New Zealand’ that international peacekeepers were needed because "our strategies haven’t worked".

In a telephone interview from the capital Honiara, David Tuhanuku, secretary to the leader of the opposition in the Solomon Islands, said that the opposition welcomed in principle the "proposal to restore law and order and help restore the country’s troubled economy".

He added there would be no objections as long as the intervention was conducted within the country’s constitution and in line with "our national laws with the parliament giving its general consent".

Tuhanuku said the main security problem comes from the availability of illegal high-powered weapons outside the police force, and the inability of government and law enforcement authorities to disarm the gangs and militias. "The police force is not equipped to deal with this situation," he said.

He added that the opposition would prefer to see foreign intervention – with expatriate law enforcement officials using the national police – rather than resort to military means.

But critics of the intervention plan say that despite its supposedly good intentions, it was just a band-aid solution without a real cure that would strengthen the country’s governance process from within.

In the first place, Australian aid to the Solomons is also responsible for creating and funding corrupt political elites rather than alleviating poverty, said O’Conner.

"What this translates to is a situation where a dual economy develops: those that have access to the aid money and the consequent benefits of it such as education, health care, and those that do not get access, who in turn see the benefits that wealth brings and understandably want a piece of the pie," he said.

For instance, O’Conner said, Australia’s policy toward the Solomons had been one of self-interest because 70 percent of its aid comes back to Australia in terms of Australian goods and consultancy services. "Australia’s trade with Solomon Islands is heavily favoured in Canberra’s favour," he said.

O’Conner added that in 2002, the country bought 37.6 million U.S. dollars worth of goods from Australia, but Australia imported just .66 million dollars) from the Solomons. Another 37 million Australian dollars (24 million U.S. dollars) was committed as foreign aid.

He cited the example of an 11.35 million U.S. dollar contract to strengthen the law and justice situation in the Solomons, which was awarded by Australia’s aid arm, AusAid, to GRM International. This firm is owned by Australia’s richest man, Kerry Packer.