OT : Australian intervention in Solomon Islands

[deccan]

*Ahem* Just to get things a little bit back on topic.

Continuing my story...

While being held under house arrest, the Prime Minister Ulufalu was forced to resign under duress. After the TPA was signed, there was some doubt as to the legality of the resignation, but the S.I. Parliament eventually decided to name a new P.M., Sogavaere and organize new elections. This happened in 2002, and the Sogavaere government was kicked out and Allen Kamekeza was named P.M., continuing till today.

In practice, both Sogavaere and Kemakeza followed the same policy towards the militants. Where Ulufalu held firm and refused to bow to their demands, the policy of the Sogavaere and Kemakeza governments was one of appeasement. Basically, whatever the guys with guns asked for, the government gave it to them.

For example, following the TPA, the government decided to compensate the displaced Malaitans with money which the Ozzie and NZ governments rather stupidly lent to the S.I. government. Naturally, the families of the cabinet members and senior members of the supposedly defunct MEF got first priority.

Many former MEF members were also recruited into a sort of semi-legal paramilitary group called the "Special Constables" (SC). They were also offered sums of money in return for giving up their guns. They took advantage of the offer by giving up only the oldest and broken down guns, but held on to the big, bad, automatic weapons. Their excuse: Harold Keke is still somewhere out there in the jungle. Disarm him first, and then we'll disarm. All the while, the "Special Constables" (SC) make all sorts of spurious claims ("danger allowance", 'family allowance" etc.) and the government keeps paying them off. After all, it's all someone else's money.

Naturally, the government's finances are a big mess, and the wages of ordinary government employees keep being delayed for longer and longer periods of time. A couple of weeks ago, one of the judges of S.I., a pretty good guy I might add, courageously announced in the newspapers, that with the constant delays in his wage payments and the very low level of his wages, he was in real and serious danger of being bribed, and he warned of the consequences to the country should this continue. Of course, the P.M. makes sure that the wages of the SC are *never* late.

In the meantime, Harold Keke is making a nuisance of himself to the Gualais, his very own people. He doesn't dare show his face in Honiara, where the Malaitans will gun him down on sight, but out in the bush, he's king, happily raping, robbing and murdering and no one to stop him. His people supported him at first, because they thought he'd stand up for them against the Malaitans, but it turns out he's not so good against Malaitans and they hate him with a vengeance.

Pretty much the same thing in the Western Province (WP). The BRA came and then refused to leave, terrorizing the towns and villages all over the western side of S.I. The BRA thing is now under control though, which is a credit to the WP people, but that certainly isn't the doing of anyone in the federal government.

Right now, it's every man for himself in the government departments. Each Government department wants fees paid to them directly and not the Ministry of Finance. You get the idea. The idea that the government should compensate the people for any losses whatsoever that they have suffered, no matter how spurious, has filtered down to the general Malaitan populace as well, so that the Ministry of Finance building is in a constant state of siege.

The more obviously corrupt the Government becomes, the less relevant it becomes to the people of S.I. Currently, the Government has very little influence outside of the capital.

And that's about all I can say about the state of the country right now. I could go on, but then I'll have to name specific people and practices, and I could get into trouble for that.

[Thermodyne]

Deccan:

I have a question, who funds all of this?

[Baron Grazic]

From one of Deccan's comments, it looks like I could be, as an Australia tax payer...

[Thermodyne]

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
From one of Deccan's comments, it looks like I could be, as an Australia tax payer...

It does sort of have that stink that colonial interventions used to have.

The mine companies move in and then begin to suffer from local unrest. A few people die and
next thing you know, some guys in red jackets are protecting your brand new governor. All this
and more out of the kindness of the crown.

Now if there were snake eating advisors and strange companies providing un-needed services.
Then I would be looking closer to home

[deccan]

Finally, a Last section for me to express some of my personal opinions on the situation in the S.I.

On balance, I support Australia's planned intervention in S.I. But I have many reservations.

1) Obviously Australia should have intervened much, much earlier. A show of force in support of Ulufalu's refusal to negotiate with the militants would have been relatively inexpensive and very effective. But, in the real world, it took 911 and the Bali bombing to stir the Australian government into taking action.

2) The fact that the Australians delayed acting for so long means that they will now have to rebuild many institutions that were effectively destroyed during the so-called ethnic tension. This isn't a question of building physical structures, but a question of re-training and properly motivating a cadre of competent, honest civil service employees. This is an extremely difficult and time-consuming task. I am not certain that the Australians yet realize the scope of the responsibility they have chosen to shoulder and may back out at a crucial moment.

3) The very scope of the intervention that is now necessary worries me. History has proven that large numbers of highly-paid aid workers in small, poor economies do bad things to those economies. Furthermore, the scope of the intervention and the amount of money involved creates moral hazards amongst some parties. In effect, some parties will inevitably greatly benefit more than others from all of the money being spent by the Australians here and may go to great lengths to artificially prolong the intervention as much as possible. These include local politicians sucking up to the Australians, some sectors of Australian-owned businesses and even possibly some of the aid workers sent here.

4) The Australian government answers to the Australian electorate, not the S.I. electorate. Therefore, any decisions taken here (example: economic and social policy, scope and depth of the intervention etc.) will necessarily be subject to the whims of Australian voters, which may change from time to time and can be a dangerous thing for Solomon Islanders.

A couple of suggestions that I would recommend, but see no signs of the Ozzie government being keen on include:

1) Initiate and enforce a comprehensive land reform. An extremely small proportion of the land in S.I. are properly registered parcels. By far the vast majority of land, and this includes land that people build houses on, farm on, and yes, even log on, are what is known as "customary lands", i.e. land owned in custom. Disputes over customary land are resolved in an extremely complicated way that involves calling in witnesses (tribal elders and chiefs) who are familiar with the oral traditions and customs of the various tribes / clans involved and who frequently don't speak English and instead must make their pronouncements in some obscure, nearly extinct regional dialect. This is a very contentious / subjective / difficult to properly administer and document task. This makes land tenure insecure and reduces the incentive of landowners to make long terms plans / investment decisions concerning their land.

2) Government (and taxation) should be conducted at the most local level possible. This is thorny issue. Making government and taxation local would avoid the problem of revenues from resource-rich areas being leeched away to pay to solve the problems in resource-poor areas and the tensions this causes. However, it would increase the overall administrative cost of government because of the need to duplicate many institutions and infrastructure. On balance, I still think that it's a good idea. Some areas of the S.I. don't really need to be subsidized because they produce plenty of revenue already. But some areas are so poor and isolated that they might see a boat from the outside world at most once a year. Properly separating them would make the subsidies that really needed in the really poor areas more explicit.

Last question:

Baron Grazic indicated earlier that the funding for the intervention was sold to the Australian public at least partially on the premise that it would help to prevent the S.I. from becoming a breeding ground for organized crime, drug production and smuggling, terrorism etc. To be honest, I believe that this is incredibly far-fetched. If the Australian government really is selling it on that basis, they are surely lying because all of those are extremely implausible scenarios. On the other hand, if the Australian public were sold on the basis that the it is a good thing to help a faltering neighbor, then that's another thing entirely, but it would be up to the Ozzie voters and taxpayers to decide whether or not it's worth it.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

it sounds to me like if the sitution continues, it will become a breeding ground for etc.

[deccan]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
it sounds to me like if the sitution continues, it will become a breeding ground for etc.

I personally find it implausible, but I suppose it's not impossible.

1) Terrorism

What cause and what grievances? There are no fundamentalist Muslims here. There are lots of rather fundamentalist Christians, but they aren't violent, just ... wonky.

2) Organized Crime

The economy is really too small for crime organizations to bother with.

3) Drug Production

Possible, but the logistical problems are huge. S.I. doesn't export anything in any significant quantity except round logs anywhere, so ships leaving the islands are always highly visible.

[Loser]

Originally posted by deccan:
There are lots of rather fundamentalist Christians, but they aren't violent, just ... wonky.

"Wonky"?

What is this "wonky"?

You should tell us about "wonky".

[oleg]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
... You speak with the naiveté of a person who has never risked all that he had for the benefit of others.

And you are sure of that. What do you know of me to brand me a coward just because I am against the US policy ?

[Loser]

Originally posted by oleg:
What do you know of me to brand me a coward just because I am against the US policy ?

Now that's just silly. He's calling you what is he calling you because of your peacenik, or at least pacifist, rhetoric. This is clear from what was written.

[ July 11, 2003, 14:07: Message edited by: Loser ]