My Say
Britain's Foundering Legacy
Solomons Will Need Decades to Repair
Just one thing is certain about the invidious situation of the Solomon Islands. It is a country that needs a considerable amount of external sympathy and help to solve its troubles.
The immediate primary causes of those troubles are now not the officially concluded little war between some of the islanders of Guadalcanal and Malaita, or a loony murderer who has caused some havoc in a small part of Guadalcanal.
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Nor is it the unchecked thuggery and exploitation perpetrated for months in Honiara by several score gunmen masquerading as revolutionary heroes. Their hash can be settled very quickly and, with the intervention of Australian and, perhaps, some other troops with the blessing of the Solomon Islands Government, is about to be.
The real cause of the troubles of the Solomon Islands is that democratic government cannot yet work for it because the country has too few decent, capable people able to make sure that it works. Democracy simply is not yet a viable proposition for the country.
It does have many decent people and many fine and capable public servants, but together they are not yet able to muster adequate corrective force.
In 1978 the Solomon Islands was driven into independence by a colonial power, Britain, anxious to dump its perceived valueless Pacific territories as quickly as possible-and with as little cost and trouble for it as possible.
A country with a pitifully small number of competent local public servants and, as time was to prove, an even fewer number of politicians of talent and integrity was shoved off in its own seas to sink or swim. The result, 25 years on, is that as an independent sovereign state the country is foundering.
This is an indictment on Britain, but then Britain never was very interested in the Pacific Islands, a region that, the peculiarity of Pitcairn accepted, it quit with a silent sigh of relief.
What compounded the plight of the Solomon Islands from 1978 on was that western democratic practice became swamped by the powerful influence of Melanesian culture, including politics as they have been practiced by Melanesian leaders for centuries.
Reliant on the limited experience of a few educated administrators, democracy was swamped, stunted, throttled and ultimately violated by politicians, who applied Melanesian tactics to drain the national coffers dry.
They have been free of any serious risk of intercession by what has passed in the Solomon Islands as western-style law and order.
Some government ministers and their lieutenants are in daily collusion with brazen armed men, most semi-illiterate bandits who reign in the capital, Honiara.
The national management of the Solomon Islands has been a disgrace for years. The present elected government is clearly incapable of stopping the rot by itself; certain of its members actively foster it.
The government again turned to Australia in complete desperation after a first call for help in 2000 by its former Prime Minister was rejected.
Now Australia talks of a 10-year, A$850-million effort, backed up for a while by 2,000 or more troops and scores more policemen and public service advisers, to restore credibility to the sovereign state that was the Solomon Islands; was, because sovereignty will be surrendered while repairs are executed.
The economy must be rebuilt almost from scratch. Likewise the public service. What can't be done in 10 years, but perhaps in 20 or 30 years, is to lay a foundation that will guarantee that Solomon Islands political leaders won't do it all over again, ruin the country, when in 10 years they are freed from the Australian restrainers now being attached to the tottering national body politic.
Robert Keith-Reid is publisher of Islands Business. He can be reached at: Rkeith-reid@ibi.com.fj.
