OT : Australian intervention in Solomon Islands

[Loser]

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
What happened in Tasmania? And I assume you don't mean Tasmania, Australia?

What other Tasmania? Althought there seems to be more questions here than I was previously aware of.

[Baron Grazic]

I thought their might have been another Tasmania in the US, or somewhere else.
I've heard of stories along these lines, but I'm staggered by those figures...
Some of the claims, I would want to see their evidence before giving them another thought, but then again, I could be biased. Some of my distant relatives were sent to Tassie as convicts...

But this is a different topic again from the Solomons...

[ July 10, 2003, 01:18: Message edited by: Baron Grazic ]

[deccan]

Warning: Long post.
Warning: Serious discussion.

Whoa, I didn't mean this to be another "heated debate" on the Iraq situation. Anyway, here's a lowdown on the Solomon Islands (S.I.) since Loser asked.

Some disclaimers: I've only been in the country since early 2000, so I'm not a native. I also don't go out much (hey, I'm an SEIV-playing nerd after all, otherwise I wouldn't be posting on this board), and I've only left the capital city Honiara once to visit the provinces in all my years here (sad, huh?). I'm no historian too, so I may get some facts wrong. Also, I'm a senior executive of one of the largest logging companies operating, so my views and opinions will inevitably reflect that fact.

S.I., as its name implies, is composed of many islands. For the purpose of this discussion, we'll ignore the small ones and geographically isolated ones (Ontong Java, Rennell Islands, Makira Province etc.) The most important islands / provinces we need to consider are Guadalcanal Island (Central Province), the Malaitan islands (Malaita Province), and the various islands that make up Western Province (Vangunu Island, New Georgia etc.)

As some of the more historically inclined people may know, S.I., and more specifically Guadalcanal Island, was a very important theatre of operations during World War II (WWII). It is believed that the losses suffered here by the Japanese Navy at the hands of U.S. forces prevented Japanese reinforcements from arriving at Midway and turning the tide of the crucial battle there. WWII-related events continues to play an important role even in modern S.I. life, because every year, many war veterans, both Japanese and American, visit the country to grieve for their lost comrades.

The thing is before WWII, under the rule of the British (who set up their administrative capital at Honiara on Guadalcanal Province), the populations of the various islands more or less stayed put. However, for various reasons, when the Americans came, for some reason, they found it useful to import large numbers of Malaitan people into Guadalcanal Province to work for them. Even today, most people (me included) believe that Malaitans are more hardworking, sharper, but also more war-like and aggressive than the natives of Guadalcanal. The "Gualais" as they are known, are often thought of as being "dull", "slow" and "lazy".

When WWII ended, guess what, the Malaitan population stayed on Guadalcanal, and through the decades, completely dominated economic and political life in Honiara. They bought large tracts of land in and around Honiara from the Guadalcanal natives who subsequently felt that they were "cheated" and eventually the Malaitan population grew to such a point that Honiara became a sort of mini-Malaita.

At the end of the 1990s, the major export industries in the Solomon Islands were timber (conducted mainly by Asian, specifically, Malaysian companies) and tuna fishing (conducted by EU fishing boats, yeah, those boats sure range far don't they?, the Taiwanese and the Japanese). There was also a promising gold mining project run by an Australian company on Guadalcanal Island and funded using Asian Development Bank and World Bank money.

The thing is most of the logging and fishing were located in the resource-rich Western Province, whose natives are widely considered as shrewd as the Malaitans, though nowhere near as prone to violence. So the situation was that the export earnings of the Western Province were being funnelled to Honiara, heavily taxed by the Malaitan political elite in the capital and only meagre returns were being sent back.

This, combined, with the second-class status that many Gualais felt they were being relegated to on their own island, is naturally a recipe for disaster.

At around the end of the 1990s, large Groups of young, unemployed Gualais began harrassing and threatening Malaitan people who had bought land on Guadalcanal, asking for return of the land or monetary compensation. These Groups coalesced around a loose organization called the Guadalcanal Liberation Army (GLA, I kid you not), later renamed the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM). Eventually, these militias forced Malaitans to leave land located at the outskirts of Honiara. After a bit of this, Honiara felt like a city under siege, since no one dared to enter or leave the city by land.

In response to this, the Malaitans formed a group of their own, the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF). There wasn't really much violence at the beginning but mostly they lobbied the S.I. Government (and the Prime Minister of that time in particular, a Malaitan named Ulufalu) to compensate the displaced Malaitans. However, because the GLA/IFM's activities were mainly concentrated in the outskirts of Honiara, the expatriate population at Honiara were mostly annoyed / fearful of the bands of MEF people. Ulufalu continued to deny the Malaitans' request to compensate the displaced people using government money (good for him, I say!) Eventually rumors surfaced in Honiara that Ulufalu was secretly organizing yet another militia group of his own, code-named Seagull, to use against the MEF.

This was compounded by rumors and warnings by the GLA/IFM that people who didn't want to be hurt should leave Honiara because they would soon emerge from the jungle and "take" the city. They eventually did take over the Ross Mining facility, and helped themselves to the guns and explosives stored there. The Australians were all evacuated by helicopter. I could hear the chopper going around all day.

The MEF, angry at Ulufalu's inaction against the GLA/IFM and worried about being boxed in, decided the best defense was a good offense. In early 2000, they executed a well-planned coup d'etat, taking control of all police stations and armouries in Honiara and placing Ulufalu under house arrest.

Well, that was a pretty eventful day to say the least. I woke up expecting just a normal workday like everyone else, but it soon became clear that the whole city was eeriely quiet. There was zero traffic in the street and all telephone lines were down. Everyone was huddled in their homes and then Andrew Nori, a prominent Malaitan lawyer and politician, came on the radio, and announced that the MEF had taken effective control of the city overnight. They had also commandeered the offices and facilities of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation and the Solomon Islands Telekom Company.

At around noon, MEF people, equipped with assault rifles and grenade launchers taken from the government armories began patrolling Honiara. They also started commandeering vehicles from people (we lost two cars and never recovered them). There was sporadic gunfire at the outskirts of the city when the GLA/IFM tried to find out what was happening (I live real close to the western edge of the city so I know). At this point however, the MEF vastly outgunned the GLA/IFM, so there was no real firefight.

Another complicating factor was that at this time, three Taiwanese warships were docked at Honiara, part of their annual visit here (the S.I. government recognizes Taipei instead of Beijing, and the Taiwanese give them money in return and try to give a good military showing every year). However, the Taiwanese refused to leave their ships (to be fair to them most of the guys on the ships were young men barely past their teens doing their obligatory military service) but stayed docked. After a while, the MEF and some prominent members of the Malaitan community wrote a letter warning the Taiwanese to stay out of S.I.'s domestic problems and the Taiwanese hauled anchor and left.

During this time, nobody left their houses and those who had satellite t.v. stayed glued to CNN (who were really exaggerating the situation here). The next day, we woke up to the sound of heavy automatic gunfire. The MEF had grabbed two police patrol boats and were strafing the coastline outside Honiara with machineguns. There was also some shooting at the international airport, which resulted in the cancellation of all international flights for the foreseeable future.

That day, we decided that it would be safer to hide out in the main, expensive hotel in the centre of the city (lots of expats there) than stay where we lived. That very night, while we were gone, our compound was broken into and raided. Heh.

But it wasn't until the Australian government decided to send warships to evacuate their citizens that we really started to panic (the Ozzies are leaving? They must know something we don't. Uh-oh.)

To be continued ...

[Baron Grazic]

Thanks for the update. A few questions?
So you are still located, relatively save in the Hotel, I hope?
Thinking of pulling out yourselves?
What nationaliality are you, if I may ask, of course?
Do you see any possibility of a peaceful situation when things cool down a bit?

[deccan]

I think you've misunderstood. All of that were events in 2000. I've a while to go before I come to events in 2003. Hehe. History, you know.

[Baron Grazic]

Sorry, I thought the Last part was 2003.
I'll wait for the update...

[deccan]

Note: One reason why I'm writing this is that I hate to see incorrect statements about the current situation in S.I. and leave them uncorrected. However, to really appreciate what's going on here and thereby be qualified to give opinions and comment on the situation, you really need to understand all that's happened, to see the big picture so to speak, and that's impossible without a sort of chronology of events.

Continuing my story...

Okay, we heard it first on CNN that Canberra had just authorized warships to evacuate Australian citizens, and we watched an interview in which Alexander Downer, the Ozzie Minister of Foreign Affairs, said that the ships would also evacuate any other foreign national who needed evacuating.

As it turned out, when the ships arrived, they took people from rich world countries, i.e. Australia, New Zealand, U.K., U.S. etc. but they refused to take anyone from China, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, India etc. They did take the two dozen or so Fijian soldiers who were in S.I. as "peace monitors" under the U.N. banner. As I recall, they were among the first to board, complete in U.N. colors. I was there at the wharf. I'm Malaysian by the way, but I haven't lived in Malaysia for a long, long time. The wife of one of my colleagues, who was pregnant at that time, was really pissed about this, but I kind of expected it. Anyway, I did specifically request to be allowed to stay behind. I thought it was all great fun

At the same time, more complicating factors: we heard news that the Western Province, backed by Isabel Province and Choiseul Province were making noises about declaring themselves independent of the Solomon Islands. As I said, they had no love of the Malaitan political elite in Honiara, and gangs of people started harassing and threatened Malaitan people who were living in Gizo, the capital of Western Province. One Malaitan youth was killed when he tried to fight back and that really angered the Malaitan population in Honiara.

Another important fact: Choiseul Province is located right next to Papua New Guinea, specifically, Bougainville island of PNG. Again, history buffs will know that Bougainville has been struggling for independence from PNG on and off for the past several decades, which means that they have 1) lots of guns 2) lots of experience in guerilla warfare. Add to the fact that many people in Choiseul and Bougainville are friends / family (it's after all only an accident of history that the two islands ended up in different countries), and you realize that the Western Province suddenly has military back up from some elements of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA).

Eventually the Malaysian community here lobbied the Malaysian government hard enough to get the Royal Malaysian Air Force to send a Hercules transport plane in and get some people (including those people from Taiwan, China, India, Thailand etc. that the Australians missed) out. A couple of colleagues went and all of the expat women and children, but most of us (including me) stayed behind.

The next few weeks was mostly life as usual in the capital, except for sporadic looting and gunfire, no police and no government. The MEF deployed their people at the outskirts of the city to keep out the GLA/IFM. They even took a bulldozer, fitted it with metal plating armor, drilled holes for guns, and used it to raze a few Gualais villages, but all that was far away from the city. In the meantime, the exodus of Malaitans from Western Province continued, and boatloads of armed BRA people zipped back and forth between Western Province and Bougainville.

After a while, the GLA/IFM, being vastly outgunned, simply sort of melted apart, except for Harold Keke's gang of die-hard rebels. The Australians came back in, organized a big meeting in Townsville, Australia, and got the remnants of the GLA/IFM, except for Keke's band who refused to participate, to sign a peace agreement (the Townsville Peace Agreement, TPA) with the MEF.

Under the TPA, the various organizations were supposed to disband and all armed parties were given an amnesty period within which everyone who voluntarily gave up their weapons would not be charged for any crimes.

So what's the problem, you ask? Simple, the stupid amnesty thing wasn't working, so when its time was up, they renewed it, then extended it again, and again, and again... Just today, I heard on the radio that they are going to extend the amnesty period for one ultra-final, absolutely Last, no exceptions permitted, time.

Somehow, I'm not convinced.

To be continued...

[Geckomlis]

-delurk-
Deccan:
Thank you for sharing with us. I have been trying to follow the SI events via CNN and BBC, but it has been very confusing, not well-covered, or not covered in a balanced way. Your Posts have clarified many things for me.
Take care.
-relurk-

[Baron Grazic]

Thanks Deccan.
Some of these details are new to me (Townsville Peace Agreement) but the time frame seems to be when I was over-seas.
I hope we can all work things out peaceable, but I'm not holding my breath...
You will keep yourself out of trouble and keep us updated, won't you?

[dogscoff]

Interesting reading, Deccan. Thanks.

Once something like that happens in your country, the matter becomes a lot more complicated.

If it's so complicated, why do the US, UK and other governments think that such a simple 'solution' (kill loads of random foreigners) can be applied?