Politics
Police Chief Wants To Restore Integrity
But he realises the enormity of the task
Settling into his first month as head of the badly demoralised and resource depleted Royal Solomon Islands Police, Bill Morrell, of United Kingdom, admits his real fear: suffering a heart attack from playing touch rugby.
“The biggest threat for me is having a heart attack playing touch rugby like I did the other day with some of the constables here. It wore me out. But I’m going back again.”
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Taking up a job that many brave police officers wouldn’t want to do, Morrell realises that injecting a bit of humour into his life is a healthy distraction. It is for this reason that he sometimes sheds his uniform for a game of touch rugby with his officers at the Rove Ground, just outside his office at Honiara.
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In an interview with Islands Business that was conducted over the telephone, Commissioner Morrell reveals his plans for restoring credibility and integrity in the Solomon Islands Police Force.
He spoke with Islands Business senior writer, Samisoni Pareti and here’s a summary of the interview:
Q: How would you rate the state of the police force, in terms of morale and resources?
“Very poor indeed. I think the morale is fairly low because of the situation of the coup here. There’s been quite a lot of division in the police and I think there’s a feeling of insecurity. But I think there’s also a great willingness to get the police back into an effective unit and I hope I can facilitate that process.”
Q: So what will be your priority?
“To get to know the officers and what their problems are. As I’ve already indicated, they are quite enormous. I think when police officers are put in positions when there’s a coup and troubles like that, they often do things sometimes against their conscience and I think that caused them a lot of difficulty and stress. I need to reassure them and support them in doing a normal police job. So my priority at the moment is to speak firstly to the police officers, find out what they need and require and support their efforts, speak to the community, community leaders, church leaders, chiefs and find out what their concerns are. I’ve done that to a great extent but mainly in Guadalcanal and Central Province. I certainly need to visit some of the other provinces and I’m going to be doing that in the next couple of weeks.”
Q: How do you intend to counter the wantok influence in the force?
“I think it will be difficult, but I don’t think it will be impossible. I think the wantok system is probably a very good system within small rural communities. They offer support to each other. But I think it’s not so helpful in an urban society, particularly in modern society. It’s not helpful in a police force where you want to encourage integrity. I think it is not an insurmountable issue, and I think it’s about education and getting police officers to realise their first priority is to the community as a whole and not to give favouritism towards any particular section of the community.”
Q: Lack of money has been a complaint of your predecessors. How do you intend to tackle this problem?
“One of the difficulties in the Solomon Islands is that the economy is in such a poor state. There’s little funding for the police service, very little funding for the health service and education. They are all key issues the government needs to try and address. Of course, if there can be stability in the country, there’s law and order then that helps the process and that’s what I need to focus on.”
Q: Will you also seek funds from overseas donors?
“I certainly do and again that’s partly conditional on the international community seeing positive steps taking place within the Solomon Islands to encourage them to put an investment here.”
Q: How do you intend to weed out indiscipline in the police force?
“Discipline and reverting to a more disciplined procedure is one option and I’m certain that will be required. But I think it’s also understanding the difficulties the police officers have faced and the lack of support they have gone through, and as a result the counselling they may require. So it’s trying to keep the balance between providing welfare support, which is absolutely necessary here, and also setting examples, saying there’s only one way to do things, and that’s the right way. We are a professional police service, one that is courteous, smart, has integrity and supporting that effort as well.”
Q: So the demobilisation programme is one way of countering indiscipline within the force?
“Being a special constable in the Solomon Islands is an honourable tradition. But following the Townsville Peace Agreement, a lot of special constables were recruited by the government, not entirely in line with the constitution. There was very little training, the selection procedures were very poor. That has created enormous problems for the Solomon Islands police service. So the demobilisation process is a very important step towards peace in the future.”
Q: But don’t you agree peace will remain fragile without the surrendering of all weapons?
“Peace may be fragile, but at the same time day to day life seems to go on here very much as normal. I know there are some problems, some very serious crimes being committed. But by and large it’s relatively peaceful. I feel I could move around here pretty much as I require to. So I think it’s taking little steps at a time to try and improve stability and give people the confidence that is required. I think it’s only by achieving law and order that the international community will then be prepared to come in here and want to support it in the first instant. But also to attract business and tourism, which I’m sure when there’s more stability here, tourists will flock into the place and that in itself will create jobs and solve a lot of the problems.”
Q: But the non-surrendering of weapons will still pose a problem?
“Yes, it will be a threat, but you know there are guns in all communities and I don’t want to over exaggerate that threat. I guess some people still feel they don’t have the confidence. But I think we have to be positive about that. I think people are unsure and therefore they hang onto their weapons. One of my jobs is to encourage the peace process as much as possible so people feel confident in handing in there weapons. Quite a lot of weapons have been handed in. We are just going through the demobilisation process of special constables and again I hope that will help bring stability in future and again encourage some special constables to hand in their weapons.”
Q: When you speak of reconciliation, are you speaking of an amnesty too?
“I’m not giving amnesty to any person. That’s not within my remit and certainly serious crimes would need to be investigated. The Solomon Islands doesn’t have the capacity to do that at the present time. That’s why I don’t want to focus on the past. I can’t do that, I’d rather focus on the future and my main job is to build up a professional police service in the Solomon Islands and that’s what I intend to do.”
Q: What about offering monetary rewards to help in the police investigations?
“I think there’s a place for paying informants like in any other policing organisations across the world. But I don’t think Solomon Islands has that capacity at the present time. That doesn’t remove the individual responsibility of all citizens to help and support the police in providing information and evidence when crimes are committed, so I want to keep that in perspective.
“I don’t want to encourage the community to think they can only give information if they get paid for it. That is only a general right or an expectation within society that all people should be supportive of the police. I mean we have a major stake in the future of this society, so they all need to play their role.”
Q: The Solomon Islands Visitors Bureau wants tourists to visit, is it safe ?
“I would say it is as long as people take proper precautions. They know where they are going to go when they get here. I know there’s problems in Honiara and within Guadalcanal and to some extent Malaita.
“But as far as I see and told, many other areas within the Solomon Islands are very peaceful and people are working very hard to encourage tourists to come back here. I think people here recognise the importance of attracting tourists back to help stabilise the economy and help bring money into the country which should create more jobs in the future.
“I think by and large people will get a tremendous welcome. I think like any other country or large city you visit, you just have to take simple precautions about where you go, particularly if you go wondering around late at night and things of that nature.”
Q: So it’s safe even for you and your family to live in the Solomon Islands?
“I’m still here and I think the biggest threat for me is having a heart attack playing touch rugby like I did the other day with some of the constables here. It wore me out but I’m going back again.”
Q: How would you like to leave the force at the end of your term?
“I simply want to get the force back on its feet again and doing a good a job. Nothing extraordinary, just doing a good job where police officers have the confidence in what they are doing and we’ve provided some good training for them and an investment in the leadership of the police service...so they are confident that when I leave, the Solomon Islands can get on running their own country.”
Killing Of Sir Frederick Triggers Calls For Peace
By Samisoni Pareti
“When you are trying to catch wild pigs and you narrow their escape options, they will try to jump and become more aggressive.” The explanation—believed to be a Melanesian proverb—came from a senior tourism official in the Solomon Islands, and is a ringing endorsement for the peace process in the strife torn island nation.
The official believes the cold-blooded shooting of peace councillor, Sir Frederick Soaki, in Malaita early last month could only be the act of a desperate person. Because of this, the move towards peace in the Solomon Islands must speed up, not slow down, the official said.
The official, who prefers to remain anonymous, is a key player in moves to return Solomon Islands to normality and his views reflect many others in the island nation. Leaders in the private and public sectors, including civil society representatives were singing the same chorus after Soaki’s assassination.
His death was tragic, they say, but the peace process must go on. Soaki was killed in pursuit of peace in the Solomons and the greatest legacy to his name would be to continue the process of peace.
Soaki was Solomon Islands’ first local Commissioner of Police. He replaced the last British Commissioner, John Holloway, in 1982 and remained head of the force until his retirement in 1996. He was knighted a year later. His full name was Frederick Soaki Pu Nukuanga, and was from the remote island of Tikopia, the island which bore the brunt of Cyclone Zoe early in the year.
As head of the Tikopia community in Honiara, it was Soaki who led the collection of cash and relief supplies for his own people.
The retired police chief was in Auki—capital of Malaita—in his capacity as a member of the country’s National Peace Council, an off-shot of the Townsville Peace Agreement, signed in the Australian city by representatives of key parties in the ethnic unrest two years ago. The council was helping out in the demobilisation programme of special constables of the Royal Solomon Islands Police.
These constables are former militants and were recruited under the terms of the peace agreement.
New police commissioner, Bill Morrell says almost 700 constables in Guadalcanal have been demobilised in a programme that is being funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Two UNDP officers were in the dinning room with Soaki at Auki Lodge when the killing took place. An insider who had access to the police report of the assassination told Islands Business the killer did his deed coolly and with deliberation. He walked into the dinning room, looked at each of the men seated at the table, and the last was Soaki who was nearest to the door. Once their gaze met, the man fired his pistol. He had a cloth tied over his forehead to cover his face. It seems he had done this before.
Three weeks after the killing, no one has been arrested. The UNDP recalled its two officers back to Honiara and the demobilisation programme in Malaita put on hold.
While the shooting was disturbing, the UNDP says it is not terminating the programme nor withdrawing its personnel from the country. The UN agency already has a security expert in its office in Honiara, who works in liaison with the police force. Both agencies believe the shooting was an isolated incident and was not necessarily aimed at the UNDP project. Apart from its support to the demobilisation of special constables project, the UNDP runs four other programmes in the Solomons.
The belief that the killing many not necessarily be linked to the demobilisation process stems from the favourable response shown by the constables themselves.
“I think everybody’s initial thoughts were it must be connected to the demobilisation process. But in reality, the demobilisation process has gone on relatively smoothly,” Commissioner Morrell told Islands Business.
“Certainly within Guadalcanal, there are about 740 special constables who need to be demobilised, 640 of those had already been and others are coming in on a daily basis to demobilise.”
Morrell had been in the country for two weeks when Soaki was shot. As his first major case, he wasted no time in directing police’s depleted resources to the investigations.
By the end of February, he got the New Zealand police to dispatch two detectives to Honiara. He knew the importance of delivering and living up to public expectations, given the fact that police have made no arrest in two previous shootings involving public figures.
While the killer of cabinet minister Father Augustine Geve is known, authorities remain silent over those behind the attempt in November last year on Robert Goh’s life, senior adviser to Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza. Goh is recovering in Australia.
In their investigations on the latest killing, police have to weed through numerous suspects and possible motives. They need to come up with answers to hundreds of questions. Like why two permanent secretaries and a senior police officer who were supposed to have joined Soaki in Auki didn’t turn up. The three even had their travel tickets to Malaita.
Even one of the permanent secretaries claimed to have received threats, and as a resulted opted not to travel to Auki. Why he didn’t inform the rest about the threat is a question doing the rounds in the capital.
“Another version, mostly running through the coconut wireless, says the motive for his killing is rooted in Sir Fred’s knowledge of the inner workings over the past four years of the social unrest which has plagued the nation,” writes political commentator and social activist in Honiara, Dr John Roughan.
“He knew where many of the ‘skeletons’ were buried and had warned that those leaders should face justice as well. Again such talk remains that, talk without solid substance.”
Roughan was among key Honiara residents who gave their views on the way forward for Solomon Islands in light of the brutal killing of Soaki. Here are some excepts of their thoughts:
