Wisdom from the Solomons

Reborn from the ashes of political conflict, this tiny island nation is doing everything it can to prevent a repeat, says Neville de Silva.

The Australian media seemed to be going to town with it. One of their own, Fiji Sun publisher Russell Hunter, had been rounded up and deported from Fiji, literally in the clothes he had on his back when he was taken from his home.

It had happened a few days before I transited Brisbane on my way to the Solomon Islands to conduct a journalism training workshop for the Commonwealth Press Union in collaboration with the Commonwealth Foundation.

While the right of the media to function freely within the ambit of the law - without overt or covert government interference - is a freedom we as journalists and Commonwealth media organisations cherish and jealousy fight to protect, my visit also coincided with the arrival in the Solomon Islands of an Australian delegation headed by foreign minister Stephen Smith.

That was naturally of greater consequence to the Solomon Islanders than the eviction of an expat publisher by a country that has been suspended by the Commonwealth.

The foreign minister was in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, to attend his first meeting of the Pacific Islands Ministerial Forum's Ministerial Standing Committee on RAMSI.

RAMSI is the acronym for the Regional Assistance Mission which was sent to the Solomon Islands eight years ago to quell the ethnic violence and the consequential lawlessness that erupted there and help re-establish governance in the island group.

The Standing Committee consists of the foreign ministers of five Pacific states: Australia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Tonga.

More importantly, it is how RAMSI is perceived by the Solomon Islanders that matters. When the regional countries decided to intervene to end the ethnic violence, it established a military presence in the islands.

While the military, mainly Australian, is still there it is largely unobtrusive except for the regional police force helping the local law enforcement authorities. Its presence is seen more as a preventive to further violence though violence did break out in Honiara following the April 2006 polls in which Snyder Rini was elected prime minister.

As lawyer Charles Levo, counsel assisting the Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry into the riots in which a substantial part of China Town was torched, said in his submissions while we were there, the attempt to force the legitimately elected prime minister from office was in a broad sense a "quasi-terrorist act."

However it must be noted that there is a judicial process in motion that is trying, among other things, to address the issue of accountability and to take meaningful steps to prevent further eruptions of violence and fill gaps in political and security actions or even inaction.

Such political steps, through a transparent legal process that gives credibility to that process, is worthy of emulation by nations of the Commonwealth - some of whom find such legal scrutiny embarrassing.

While the Solomon Islands and its new government headed by Prime Minister Derek Sikua try to sort out their problems, there is a need for RAMSI to take a more proactive role in the socio-economic development of the country if it is to avoid long- term damage to its image as a benevolent interventionist. Sikua hinted at this when he addressed the ministerial forum.

The Solomon Star, the nation's leading newspaper, cited Sikua as saying that while the country acknowledges and appreciates the achievements of RAMSI, it needs to realign its activities and functions to support the development policies and priorities, in particular the rural development plans of his government.

Sikua underlined the need to keep in constant focus the salient fact that Solomon Islands is the main stakeholder in RAMSI and the perceptions that it is operating a parallel administration with its own programmes must be avoided.

Stating that his government's policy on how it will work with neighbours in the region including RAMSI is clear and simple, Sikua emphasised the contours of that relationship: "Under the policy, Solomon Islands is keen and committed to work with participating countries through dialogue, consultation and on the basis of mutual basis and understanding."

Note the words "on the basis of mutual basis and understanding." It is a clear warning that the Solomon Islands, though small and developing, will not want to be treated like a minnow by bigger powers in the neighbourhood or those with regional ambitions, like the former Australian prime minister John Howard who was ready to play deputy to George Bush's global sheriff.

Countries near and far that have large and powerful neighbours instinctively fear the real or perceived hegemonism of their larger neighbours. One could sense this growing feeling among some islanders I spoke to.

While Australia is the largest financial contributor to RAMSI, it needs to guard against any growing suspicion of overlordship.