Politics
Still...No Good News From the Solomon Islands
Gloomy outlook is turning yet gloomier
A gloomy outlook for the Solomon Islands is turning yet gloomier. Near the end of October senior Australian and New Zealand government officials arrived in the capital, Honiara, on a mission aimed at averting the further decay of law and order and the crumbling state of the government.
December 5, is the date set for a general election, to elect a government to replace a caretaker administration, set up after the removal of the former one in June 2000, by the militant Malaita Eagle Force, the enemy of Guadalcanal's Isatabu Freedom Movement.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
But in Honiara, there is pessimism about prospects for a government that will be an improvement, if any, on an administration regarded by the Solomon Islands' Civil Society movement as reaching new depths of corruption, mal-administration and squandering of what little cash there is in the treasury.
A few days before the arrival of the Australian and New Zealand missions, Australia's civil aviation department said licence the financially struggling Solomon Airlines had to operate to Brisbane, would be suspended from the end of October. This is because of the government-owned airline's failure to comply with safety and other requirements.
 |
|
|
The airline turned to Air Vanuatu for help in maintaining the country¹s scheduled air connections to other countries, apart from a weekly Air Niugini flight from Port Moresby. John Lamani, publisher of the daily Solomon Star newspaper, said there was evidence of law and order breaking down in the capital, the stronghold of Malaita Island settlers, in Guadalcanal. Militants from the Malaita Eagle Force and Isatabu Freedom Movement, who fought each other in a 20-month battle over attempts by Isatabu Freedom Movement fighters to eject Malaitans back to their home island, have been recruited into a reorganised police force. Some of these are said to be responsible for continuing crime and violence.
The Isatabu Freedom Movement is said to have degenerated into squabbling squads of men who are no more than bandits.
In late September, the mutilation murder of an Isatabu local commander, brought to a halt efforts to review the October 2000 Townsville Agreement, negotiated in Australia by which Guadalcanal and Malaitan factions reached a shaky peace deal.
Police said the body of Selwyn Saki was discovered in a car park at the United States Marine War Memorial at Mt Austen, on the outskirts of Honiara, the capital. Saki had been shot several times, his throat cut and his body mutilated.
Police said he had been kidnapped from Koli village, near Honiara. He was last seen alive during talks to save a peace deal between the Solomon Islands government, the Guadalcanal and Malaita provincial governments, and the Isatabu Freedom Movement and Malaita Eagle Force.
His disappearance was reported on the fifth day of the talks. Malaitan officials told Pacific Magazine there was a risk of the talks failing because of poor attendance by Isatabu Freedom Movement officials. "They don't seem to be interested," one influential Malaitan (who didn¹t want to be named) said.
Solomon Islands field workers attached to an international observer force, told Pacific Magazine that on the previous Thursday night Saki was involved in a shooting incident, in which a vehicle was damaged.
"He was drunk and firing shots. People were scared. They don't like him any more because he is now with the criminal elements," one worker said.
Officials involved with the renewed peace talks said Saki's killing may be used by renegade Isatabu Freedom Movement militants, whom police say are now really just bandits, as an excuse for wrecking the talks.
After Saki's body was found the government condemned the killing and police evacuated all the mainly Malaitan staff and students at the Saint Joseph¹s Tenaru School, near Honiara, for fear of revenge attacks.
But both sides have breached parts of the peace agreement including, most significantly, the return of all weapons taken from police armouries.
About 3000 guns have been handed in. But at least 500 still remain in militant hands, according to Sir Peter Kenilorea, a former Solomon Islands prime minister.
While the comparatively well disciplined Malaita Eagle Force claims to have disbanded, the far less disciplined Isatabu Freedom Movement has splintered into numerous quarrelling factions. Pacific Magazine was told Saki's murder was more likely to be the work of disapproving Isatabu Freedom Movement supporters than Malaitan Eagle Force inspired.
Through September and October there were frequent civil service strikes and protests about the government¹s inability to meet paydays, while giving away millions of dollars as "compensation" prescribed in the peace settlement. This is being paid to people claiming to have suffered personal or property damage during the fighting; and also remittance of millions of dollars in duty on log exports and imports of beer, cigarettes and cars.
Civil service trade union secretary, Clement Waiwori, said it was ludicrous for one of the government ministers to negotiate pay complaints, because he owned a company that had benefitted from millions of dollars in beer and cigarette duty remittances.
Officials of Civil Society, a network of churches, business organisations, trade unions, non-government organisations and other concerned organisations, say "serious questions" have to be asked about the bona fides of many compensation claimants.
The dire condition of the Solomon Islands economy exhibits little sign of significant improvement. All its core money-making industries - oil palm, logging, tuna fishing and gold mining - are still closed or crippled.
An official of the Gold Ridge gold mine said while the Australian owner was prepared to repair and reopen it, the badly vandalised mine in central Guadalcanal remained a no-go area in terms of safety.
