State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project
Working Paper 01/1
BEYOND ETHNICITY: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE GUADALCANAL CRISIS IN
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Tarcisius
Tara Kabutaulaka*
Solomon Islands has suffered tremendously from the two-year-old crisis in Guadalcanal, the largest island in the archipelago. The war which started as a result of an attempt by some indigenous Guadalcanal to displace a rapidly growing immigrant population (mostly Malaitans) on their island has now become a national crisis. It threatens national unity and further weakens the capacity of the state to address development issues. So far, most of the discussions on the crisis have highlighted ethnicity as a major factor causing the crisis. This paper argues that the crisis was, in fact triggered by successive governments’ poor policies, a flawed political system, poor leadership and other socio-economic development issues that have not been addressed. |
Introduction:
Perceptions and Strategies We
had been driving for about 30 minutes east of Honiara, into the heartland of the
Guadalcanal militants: the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) as they called
themselves. This was one of the organisations at the centre of the two-year-old
crisis on Guadalcanal, the largest island of the Solomon Islands. It
was in this oil palm plantation abandoned by the Solomon Islands Plantation
Limited (SIPL) that the IFM's "eastern troop" (as they referred to
themselves) have made their headquarters. As
we approached the check point, men armed mostly with home-made rifles appeared
from both sides of the road. But, when they recognised our vehicle the gate was
opened and a ragged-looking young man—most probably in his twenties—dressed
in an old camouflage pair of trousers and shirt and carrying a pump-action shot
gun waved us in. On his head was an old World War II US Marine helmet. In
the past two years many things have happened here. The oil palm trees were mute
witnesses to many horrifying events. In February 2000, for instance, an officer
of the Royal Solomon Islands Police, Scriven Ngatu, was killed during a shootout
with members of the IFM about 200 metres from where our vehicle came to a halt.
But, there are many more untold stories of people going missing, most probably
killed, families displaced and a country unable to deal with the enormous impact
of the crisis. So
far, the public media, government officials and commentators on the crisis have
taken the easiest choice and explained the events of the past two years as
simply a result of ethnic differences between the peoples of Guadalcanal and
Malaita. The argument is that there is something primordial about the hatred
between the peoples of these two islands. This
was a lazy shorthand explanation that divorces the crisis from contemporary
socio-economic contexts. While ethnicity, as an issue, should not be completely
disregarded, there is also a need to situate the crisis within broader socio-economic and political developments in Solomon Islands and beyond. The
crisis could, in other words, be understood as the consequence of processes of
change, rather than as merely the result of "hatred" between the
peoples of two islands. There is a need to explore beyond ethnicity and look at
the poor policies of successive governments, weak and ineffective structures and
systems of government, poorly planned large-scale resource developments,
the inequitable distribution of development benefits and the need for
institutional and constitutional changes. Ethnicity was simply the arena through
which the conflict manifested itself in overt forms; it was the avenue through
which frustrations were expressed. Alone,
the ethnic discourse is too simplistic and cannot comprehensively explain the
causes of the conflict, nor contribute effectively to its resolution. It does
not add up, for instance, to simply say that people naturally hate each other
because they belong to different ethnic groups. Furthermore, to argue that there
is a "naturalness" about the tensions between the peoples of
Guadalcanal and Malaita is to de-politicise and de-historicise the causes of the
crisis. This
paper challenges the essentialist views of the crisis and proposes a maxian,
structuralist, and political economic perspective. The paper is divided into
three parts and attempts to answer questions such as; how did ethnicity become a
prominent issue?, who constructed and perpetuated the ethnic discourse?, what
are the underlying causes of the crisis?, why have past attempts at conflict
resolution failed? First, the paper provides a brief background to the current crisis in
Guadalcanal. This is an outline of the events beginning from late 1998.
Secondly, it discusses the construction of ethnic discourses on the
crisis by exploring the role of institutions such as the media, state, churches
and schools. In particular, it examines how they construct public knowledge and
set the agendas of discussion about the crisis. There is also a discussion here
of how past academic discourses
- especially anthropological and historical
writings - have contributed to the construction of stereotypes about ethnicity
that are later taken on board and compounded by the media and state.
Thirdly, the paper discusses the socio-economic and political developments
in Solomon Islands that have contributed to the crisis. This involves an
examination of broader socio-economic issues that are regarded as underlying
causes of the crisis.
Fourthly, there is an outline of the attempts at conflict resolution and
critically discusses why they have failed to bring an immediate end to overt
confrontations and a lasting solution to the crisis.
The Crisis: a brief background In November 1998, a group of indigenous Guadalcanal men
attacked Malaita settlements in northwest Guadalcanal, destroyed properties and
chased the settlers. Although it is unclear if there was a connection, the above
events occurred following remarks made by the Premier
for Guadalcanal Province, Ezekiel Alebua, during a ceremony marking the handing
over to the province of alienated land in the Lunga area, east of Honiara. In
his speech, the Premier
demanded (amongst other things); ·
that settlers from other islands must respect their Guadalcanal hosts, ·
In March 2000 I went home to Solomon Islands. By then the crisis on the island of
Guadalcanal was tense. In reaction to an uprising by Guadalcanal militants, a
group claiming to represent Malaitans had organised itself and began making
sporadic attacks on villages around the national capital, Honiara. Because I am
from Guadalcanal, Honiara was not the safest place to be. I decided to go to the
Guadalcanal Plains.
It was late afternoon when we approached a check point. The sun was beginning to
crawl down behind the gently waving fronds of the oil palm trees. Apart from the
rattling of our vehicle's engine, there was an eerie silence that canvassed the
oil palm plantation around us—an elusive peace.
·
and compensation for Guadalcanal people murdered in Honiara.
Within months, the violence escalated and in December 1998
a Guadalcanal youth, Ishmael Pada, was shot by police at Bungana Island in the
neighbouring Ngela group. More Guadalcanal men joined an armed group referred to
by the media and government officials as "militants". A number of
names were used to refer to them: the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army (GRA), the
Isatabu Freedom Fighters (IFF), and more recently, the Isatabu Freedom Movement
(IFM). By June 1999 the tensions had escalated to a stage where at least 50
people had been killed and more than 20,000 (from all provinces, although mostly
from Malaita) were forced out of settlements in Guadalcanal, especially in areas
around Honiara.
The
government first played down the crisis. Many state officials referred to the
tension as a result of the work of a "few" disgruntled people. The
Minister of State, Alfred Sasako, for example, was reported as saying that,
"so far as I gather, there are actually two and at the most three very
small groups of perhaps a total of 50 people. Some of those arrested on arms
charges were disgruntled former police officers. Most other trouble makers
appear to be young people who do not take it seriously, but who want a bit of
fun and adventure" (Pacific
Islands Monthly, June 1999: 25). Throughout
1999 there were continuous confrontations between the Royal Solomon Islands
Police and the IFM. By April 2000 about thirteen IFM members had been killed by
the police. The movement quickly attracted supporters from all over the island
and an organisational structure was established to regulate the work of the
militants. Although this has not functioned efficiently and there are dynamics
within Guadalcanal, the general feeling throughout the island is that of
agreement with the IFM. By
the beginning of 2000 a group claiming to represent displaced Malaitan was
formed and called itself the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF). This group's concerns
centre around demands for compensation of properties damaged and destroyed by
the IFM, the killings of Malaitans and the protection of Malaitan interests in
Honiara. Since
the group's formation they have made incursions into Guadalcanal villages around
Honiara and killed a number of people, including women and children. A number of
MEF members have also been killed by the IFM, although this has never been
publicly acknowledged. By February 2000, confrontations between the IFM and MEF
had escalated, and in a number of shootouts in areas around Honiara, an
unspecified number of militants were killed. But, the militant in the crisis
became complex when in April 2000 it was revealed that another militant
organisation, the Malaita Seagull Force (MSF), had been established. It was
alleged (especially by the parliamentary opposition) that this group was closely
linked to the prime minister, Bartholomew Ulufa'alu, and established for the
purposes of destroying the MEF. This has, however, been refuted by the Prime
Minister and on 14 May 2000 a committee was established following the Auld Peace
Talks to investigate the existence of the MSF. In
the first eighteen months, about thirteen IFM members have been killed by the
police. This, however, has served as an incentive for more Guadalcanal men to
join the militants, taking the crisis far away from any hopes for resolution.
The confrontation between the two major groups, the IFM and MEF has also
resulted in the death of an unspecified number of people from both sides. On
June 5, 2000 the MEF, joined by Malaita elements within the Royal Solomon
Islands Police (RSIP) took over the state armoury
at the police headquarters in
Rove, staged a coup and forced prime minister Ulufa’alu to resign. A new
government under the prime ministership of Manasseh Sogavare was subsequently
elected under duress. In the months that followed there was intense fighting
between the IFM and MEF. From various accounts it is estimated that since the
crisis started in late 1998 at least 100 from both sides have been killed. This,
however, has not been independently verified.
The Crisis and Ethnic Representations Implicit
in these discussions is the argument that the ethnic discourse is both
historically imperative and has a "naturalness" about it; that the
crisis has a primordial origin that could be found in ethnic differences between
the peoples of Guadalcanal and Malaita. As a way of explaining the causes of the
tension, proponents of the ethnicity thesis - the essentialists - point to the
fact that the Solomon Islands nation-state is a colonial construction with
diverse cultures and ethnic groups, many of whom have been - both prior to and
after the colonial era - rivals in activities such as trade and war. Such
an argument, however, ignores the fact that Solomon Islanders have lived,
traded, befriended, intermarried, worked, worshipped and studied together for
many years both prior to and after the colonial era. These extensive
interactions point to the fact that ethnicity alone is insufficient as either an
origin or antecedent for the crisis. While it may be a source of identification
and social mobilisation for those involved in the crisis, it is insufficient as
the primary factor explaining the crisis. In
relation to the crisis in Guadalcanal, the term ethnicity has been used loosely.
There was no specific meaning attached to it and It seems that central to its
usage was the attempt to mobilise people from an island or province by making
them “believe” they are of common descent, however linguistically or
culturally distant they may have been. Ethnicity, as Fenton (2000: 24) states,
refers “to the way in which social and cultural difference, language and
ancestry combine as a dimension of social action and social organisation, and
form a socially reproduced system of classification”. It is the social
mobilisation of ethnic ties and the social significance of ancestry, language
and culture. Fenton (2000: 24) goes on to state that “we may speak of ethnic
groups - identifiable groups whose “actual” or “claimed” shared ethnic
attributes mark them off within a social system. But we should not think of
these groups concretely; they are not discrete, permanent or fixed.” In
relation to the crisis in Guadalcanal, the notion of constructing a homogenous
ethnic identity - even where there was initially none - is significant to
understanding the fluidity of the groups involved and the weakness of using
ethnicity as a means for explaining the crisis. To a certain extent the
perceived homogeneity
of the two main groups involved - Guadalcanal and Malaita
- was created during the crisis and functioned only when there was the
perception of a common enemy: those from the other island. However, when that
common enemy ceases to exist then the reason for social mobilisation also
collapses. The
IFM, for instance, forged a common ethnic identity through the name “Isatabu”;
- supposedly the name for Guadalcanal prior to European contact. Social
mobilisation, therefore, was based on the fact that the people involved belong
to the same island. Furthermore, there were attempts to create martyrdom
for
those involved, and justify as well as legitimise their participation in the
crisis. An IFM leader states that “If I
die in this war, not a single drop of my
blood will be spilled on the soil of another island. It will simply spill on my
mother, Isatabu” (Isatabu Tavuli, Vol.1, No.3, 2 March, 2000). But, not
long after the signing of the Townsville Peace Agreement (TPA) in October 2000,
differences emerged between IFM members, especially between those from Tasimauri
(the Weather Coast) and those from the northern side of the island (Tasimboko).
The reason for social mobilisation was no longer as strong as it was during the
heights of the crisis. For
Malaitans, the task of constructing a single ethnic identity was much more
difficult given their diverse language groups and intense traditional rivalries.
There was, therefore, a need to create a perception that Malaitans were the
exclusive target and victims of the Guadalcanal uprising - an argument which
ignored victims from other islands. Such a perception gave legitimacy for
mobilising Malaitans. To overcome this, some Malaitans have tried to create the
idea that the commonality of Malaitans is both primordial and divinely ordained.
Their participation in the war was, therefore, both a historical destiny and religious
duty. An undated document titled Malaita Perspective -
distributed during the heights of the crisis - argues that “the people of
Malaita are the descendants of the seven tribes of Jacob” -
the lost tribe of Israel (Malaita Perspective, undated: 3). This was obviously a desperate attempt to construct a
common ethnic identity where there was none. Inspite of this, the existence of
various groups within the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) (throughout the crisis) was
a manifestation of deep divisions between Malaitans and the difficulties of
constructing a homogenous Malaitan identity. The fighting between Malaitans -
including the burning of MEF Spokesperson, Andrew Nori’s, office - was a
further demonstration of fragility of and temporariness of Malaitan ethnic
mobilisation. To
understand how and why ethnicity became prominent, it is necessary to explore
the role of public institutions in constructing and perpetuating
ethnic
discourse. Two such institutions that played an important role in promoting the
ethnic discourse are the media and the state. The media's role as the
"gatekeeper" of information on the crisis is significant because it is
responsible for informing and setting the agendas of public discussion. The
state, on the other hand, develops policies that influence public and individual
reactions and opinions. Through the school system, for instance, the state
determines what people know and through the statements and actions of its
representatives, it influences people’s perceptions. The Media There
are three radio broadcasters in the country. The first is the government-owned
Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) which has a nation-wide coverage
and broadcasts in English and pijin (pidgin). It also broadcasts Radio
Australia (ABC) (in Melbourne) programmes such as World and Pacific News and
Pacific Beat. SIBC also operates the Wantok FM which broadcasts mostly music.
The second is Paoa FM, owned jointly by Communications Fiji Ltd. and Solomon
Star Ltd. It broadcasts almost exclusively in English and concentrates on areas
around Honiara. Its focus is on music and attracts younger listeners. The third
radio station is Zed FM which is owned by an expatriate business man. There
is no local television company. Many people around the Honiara area, however,
can catch Australia TV which is beamed locally by the Solomon Islands Telekom.
The programmes are exclusively Australian - Channel Nine. During
the heights of the crisis on Guadalcanal - June 1999, and June to October 2000 -
there was a reasonable amount of coverage by the international media, especially
those from Australia and New Zealand. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
(ABC) set up an internet website (http://www.abc.net.au/solomons/) to keep
people updated with events in the Solomons and provide and avenue for
discussion. Apart from the Australian and New Zealand media, other international
media organisations such as the BBC provided some coverage as well. Local
media coverage was, as expected, extensive. Both the print and radio media
provided news coverage and commentaries on the events. Generally,
both the local and international media reported on the crisis predominantly as
an "ethnic tension". They pushed the ethnic line to the forefront and
in the process often ignored the historical, socio-economic, and political
contexts from which the crisis developed. Ethnicity was used as a kind of a lazy
shorthand explanation of the crisis by reporters who, generally, had little
understanding of the issues involved. Because journalists were pressed by the
news room requirements to get the product out as quickly as possible, many never
researched enough to enable them to have a broad and deeper understanding of the
issues. Many of the international reporters have little knowledge about Solomon
Islands in general and more specifically the issues that underlie the crisis.
They had no local partners and rarely read and travelled widely in the country
before producing a news piece. Most of them "parachuted" into the
country around June and July of 1999 when the crisis was at its heights and many
people - mostly Malaitans
- were fleeing from areas around the capital Honiara.
Apart from the few local freelance journalists[ An
SBS Date Line team, for example, in June of 1999 put together a
programme which was centred exclusively on Honiara. They interviewed a few
people (all Malaitans), the prime minister (who was also Malaitan), and had
shots of the people struggling to get on to crowded boats plus other shots of a
seemingly chaotic Honiara. That served their purpose: it showed Malaitans as
victims, therefore, pushing the ethnic line of the crisis; a particular ethnic
group has been victimised. There were no shots of or interviews with Solomon
Islanders from other island groups such as the Western Solomons, Santa Cruz, the
Reef Islands, etc. (and even Guadalcanal people) who had also fled from areas
around Honiara at the same time. Many of the people fleeing were largely from
squatter settlements on Honiara’s periphery, settlements large enough to be
small towns, and not exclusively populated by Malaitan people. The complexity of
the identities of the people involved were never explored. Michael
Field, a New Zealand freelance journalist, found what he wanted in the words
of Gray George, a member of the IFM, who described Malaitans in a derogatory
manner (The Age, 22 June, 2000). That was then splashed in
Australian and regional tabloids and magazines implicitly as a representation of
the Guadalcanal view. No one questioned its accuracy, nor explored the fact that
most Guadalcanal people did not subscribe to that view. To push the ethnic line
further, in the cover story for the Pacific Islands Monthly (July 1999)
Field stated that two Solomon Island leaders—the Guadalcanal Provincial
Premier and a former prime minister, Rt. Hon. Ezekiel Alebua, and the late
Solomon Mamaloni, then Leader of the Opposition—had played an "ethnic
card" in the crisis. He never elaborated, however, on what was that
"ethnic card" or how it was played. He never dwelled on the substance
of the demands put forward by the Guadalcanal Province, the significance of
Malaitan grievances, and the involvement of other Solomon Islanders beyond these
two islands. Sweeping
statements about ethnicity were carried by international tabloids in news
magazines, on radio, and through TV headlines: "Behind the Ethnic Tension
and Trouble Over Honiara: Malaitans dominate jobs, business, industry" (Islands
Business, February 1999); "Cooling of Anger on Guadalcanal: But some
Malaitans Head for Home" (Islands Business, June 1999);
"Solomon's Ethnic Violence: Malaitans Flee" (Pacific Islands
Monthly, July 1999). The
Australian media, in particular, pushed the ethnic interpretation to the fore.
That is not surprising given that for a long time the Australian public,
academic and official government knowledge of Melanesia was generally dominated
by ideas of nation-states on the verge of disintegrating because of ethnic
diversity and corrupt political leadership (see, for example, Nelson, 1974;
AUSTEO Document, 1998). Australians’ experiences in Bougainville, Papua
New Guinea, contributed towards setting the ethnic agenda and conceptions of a
collapsing nation-state in Melanesia. It was, therefore, easy and
convenient for Australian journalists, in general, to follow the ethnic line of
thought. There
were of course exceptions, often among local journalists or those with local
ties, although these were few and far between. Mary-Louise O'Callaghan of The
Australian, for example, left her piece until August of 1999 when the media
euphoria on the Guadalcanal crisis had subsided a little. In her first piece she
traced the origins of the crisis in the colonial era and the rise of earlier
resistance movements. Furthermore, she placed the crisis within a historical,
political and socio-economic context of the pre- and post-independence Solomon
Islands. In another article she explored the role of the state in Solomon
Islands, stating that, "since the British granted independence in 1978, the
state has been little more than a benign, if inefficient, presence in the lives
of most Solomon Islanders, bordering, if anything on irrelevance for the fewer
than 500,000 people scattered throughout the south Pacific archipelago that
stretches between Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu" (The Weekend Australian,
February 5-6,
2000: 27). Mary-Louise was able to do this because of
her indepth knowledge of the country. She is married to a Solomon Islander and
has lived there for extended periods of time and interacted with many Solomon
Islanders. While
international journalists were pushing the narrow ethnic line, their local
Solomon Islands counterparts were not doing very differently. Both the print and
radio media in Solomon Islands pushed the Guadalcanal-against-Malaita thesis and
never attempted to explain the crisis in any indepth manner. Furthermore, in the
last eighteen months of the crisis, not a single Solomon Islander journalist had
interviewed a Guadalcanal militant. Hence, the local media's production of
public knowledge about the crisis in general and more specifically, the
"militant"—his thoughts, feelings, opinions, aspirations, etc.—was
Honiara-based and biased. The media, in other words, was constructing
knowledge—public information—about a group of people they had never met or
spoken with. One could, therefore, conclude that media construction of public
knowledge about disgruntled peoples (especially those from Guadalcanal and
Malaita) was based predominantly on hearsay and rumours. Furthermore,
most of the local journalists were Honiara-based and worked under circumstances
that were far from safe. Because Honiara was controlled by the Malaita Eagle
Force (MEF) - the Malaita militant group - they were unable to say anything
that would incriminate the MEF. A local journalist, Duran Angiki, was threatened
and he and his family had to move to Gizo in the Western Province where he
continued to report, mostly for the international media. It was a difficult time
for many local journalists. Apart
from the media, the state -or at least its officials
-is another institution
which played an important role in promoting the ethnic discourse.
The State Apart
from ethnicity, the state, especially the Prime Minister's office, described the
crisis as a result of sour politics played by the parliamentary Opposition. Pacific
Islands Monthly May 1999:
37) reported the Prime
Minister as alleging "that the
current ethnic tension in the province (Guadalcanal) is politically motivated
and some politicians are involved in trying to topple his government." A
series of documents put out by the Prime
Minister's office beginning in February
2000—"Beneath Guadalcanal"—was preoccupied with this
"Opposition Conspiracy thesis". This document took government
attention away from underlying issues referred to in the Honiara Peace Accord
and the acknowledgement of the Instead
of addressing the issues outlined in the Honiara Peace Accord, government energy
and effort was directed towards the parliamentary politics between the Office of
the Opposition and Government. That discussion served to take attention away
from the real issues of concern in relation to the crisis. Furthermore,
at the beginning of the crisis, the state was reluctant to acknowledge that
there were deeper socio-economic and political issues involved. Instead,
officers of the state made inappropriate statements on the crisis. Former Police
Commissioner, Frank Short, for example, was reported to have referred to those
propagating violence as "young people who want a bit of fun and
adventure" (Pacific Islands Monthly, July 1999:
25). Similar words
were used by the Minister for State, Alfred Sasako: "so far as I gather,
there are actually two and at the most three very small groups of perhaps a
total of 50 people. Some of those arrested on arms charges were disgruntled
former police officers. Most other trouble makers appear to be young people who
do not take it seriously, but who want a bit of fun and adventure." Such
statements were inappropriate to the situation and were thus, quickly able to be
viewed or interpreted as dismissive. Such statements dismissed the importance of
the issues involved and real grievances of Solomon Islanders from all islands.
The above statements indicate that state officials were
either uninterested in addressing the real underlying issues or were lost
on how to handle the situation. Certain
terms used by state officials quickly became prominent in both the official and
public discussions. These included terms such as "militants",
"criminals" and descriptions such as "increased criminal
activities", the "militant" group as "vague, ill-defined,
philosophy-free groups given to lawlessness" (Pacific Islands Monthly,
July 1999: 24). There were no other words that could be used to provide a
much more elaborate and substantive description of the people involved and the
activities they are engaged in. While to "outsiders" the group might
have seemed ill-defined, the IFM members had a fairly good idea of what they
were doing and why. A Guadalcanal man was reported to have said; "We are
all in this fight together, we are all militants, but this violence we do not
accept. Some injustice has been done to our people going back to colonial days
and we think some restitution needs to be done" (Islands Business, December
1999: 24). Different members might have their own reasons for being involved, but
whatever that reason might have been, most members have thought through their
reasons. The
use of terms such as "militants", "criminals", etc. pushes
discussions away from the initial socio-economic
and political, the impact is to
neutralise them and subsequently to make them secondary to the overriding claim
of group tensions based on primordial ethnicity. The following sections outline
some of the stereotypes that emerged and were used to reinforce the dismissive
actions of the government and the language of the media, before attempting to
place the crisis within a socio-economic and political perspective. Stereotypes The
Islands Business (February 1999:
18), for example, described Malaitans
as "energetic, business-minded, tough and once fiercely war-like." In
June 1999 the same magazine described Malaitans as "particularly
industrious people with sharp business acumen . . . competitive in a society in
which people from other islands tend to be less so" (Islands Business, June
1999: 9). Such descriptions are often placed in contrast to Guadalcanal people who are often
described as lazy, not business-minded, uncompetitive, - in fact, any attributes
seen as opposite to the Malaitan. The Fijian Commander of the International
Police Monitoring Group in the Solomons, Savenaca Tuivanga, in an interview with
The Sunday Times (March 12, 2000:11) of Fiji stated that "the
Guadalcanal people [have] to work equally harder like the Malaitans. They have
to send their children to school." Obviously within a few months, Tuivanga
had caught the "stereotype bug" that was influencing public knowledge
about the crisis. Implicit in that statement is the idea that Guadalcanal people
are less hardworking and not formally well educated. None
of these stereotypical generalisations, however, have been subjected to detailed
analysis or factual examination. There are
no statistics to show, for example,
that Malaitans are more hardworking or industrious than Guadalcanal people, vice
versa, or any other set of Islanders in the Solomons. There were no
acknowledgements, for example, of the fact that Guadalcanal people, just like
their counterparts from Malaita and other parts of Solomon Islands, have
participated in significant ways in both the public and private sector. For
example, some of the country's highest public offices were once (or are still
being) filled by Guadalcanal people: Governor General (Sir Badley Devesi), Prime
Minister (Rt. Hon. Ezekiel Alebua), Chief Justice (Sir John Muria), Speaker to
the National Parliament (Waeta Ben, Paul Tovua). Guadalcanal people have also
occupied prominent positions in the Public Service and have made their
contribution among professionals such as lawyers, doctors, teachers and
preachers. In
terms of industriousness and business innovation, it is worthwhile noting that
as long ago as the 1960s the first and largest locally-owned coconut and cocoa
plantations in the Solomon Islands were planted on Guadalcanal; respectively by
the Moro Movement at Makaruka, on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal, and by the
Mbirao people of Alualu under the leadership of Petero Chem in the 1970s
(Davenport and Coker 1967). Guadalcanal people have also participated in the
private sector; the transport businesses and the Aruligo Fibreglass company are
examples of such participation. In these businesses they succeeded and failed in
similar ways to other Solomon Islanders, but the Malaita/Guadalcanal stereotypes
often ignore these complexities. Despite
the ways in which both local and international media accepted, even elaborated
these mythologies, they have their origins beyond both the media industry and
the current crisis on Guadalcanal.
The process of constructing knowledge about Solomon Islanders had for a long
time, been dominated by academic discourses. Western anthropologists and
historians have contributed in the construction of knowledge about Solomon
Islands and its people. These
constructions are then imparted locally and internationally through formal
education; the schooling curricula to which the reporters were exposed
undoubtedly would have something to do with their entrenched stereotypes about
Solomon Islanders from different islands. Let us explore two examples here: (i)
the idea of Malaitan as more hardworking/industrious, and (ii) more
aggressive than
other Solomon Islanders. First,
let us examine the notion of Malaitans being more hardworking and industrious.
The origins of this could be traced to the labour recruiting days when Solomon
Islanders were taken to work in plantations overseas, especially the sugar cane
plantations in Fiji and Queensland, and around the country. There were more
Malaitans recruited, not necessarily because they were more industrious or
hardworking. Rather, it was because they had a bigger and more accessible labour
force - Malaita's population in the late 1800s was much bigger than other
islands. Malaitan labourers were more accessible to labour recruiters because of
passage-masters who assisted recruiters by recruiting their wantoks in
exchange for fees in the form of cash and goods. Although passage-masters were
found throughout Solomon Islands, they were much more aggressive on Malaita.
Even as late as the 1920s, for example, passage-masters were still active on
many parts of Malaita. Bennett (1987: 163) notes that “at anchorages such as
Kwari’ekwa and Maoa were men like Funiloge and Jonah Alisifiona, who earned
cash and goods by acting as go-betweens for recruiters and recruits, just as
many had done in the labor trade days”. By the 1930s, even with the decline in
the importance of passage-masters there was still an “increasing use of
well-known north coast saltwater Malaitans such as Sali (Charlie) Kamai and Jo
Velakona as full-time assistants on recruiting vessels . . .” (Bennett 1987:
164). Furthermore,
from 1921 to 1923 the colonial government introduced a head tax of 1 pound a
year on all able-bodied Solomon Islander males between sixteen and sixty years
of age. Bennett (1987: 151) notes that men in poor areas were compelled to seek
work on plantations for a time because of the introduction of laws to fix wages
in the employers’ favour
at the same time as a head tax. For Malaitans, because
of the absence of large plantations on Malaita, many of them had to travel to
other islands. Bennett (1987: 189) notes that “the plantation sector drew
surplus labor away from the villages, as the fact that about 10 percent of the
entire population of Malaita and about seven
percent of that of Guadalcanal were
working away from home during the period from about 1914 to 1939 attests”.
Bennett (1987: 189) notes that, This
illustrates that there were more Malaitans in plantations, not necessarily
because they were more hardworking and industrious, but because they needed
plantation-related work as a source of income. Their counterparts in the Western
Solomons, on the other hand, were able to sell products to plantation owners or
workers and were involved in local copra production. Secondly,
the myth of Malaitan aggressiveness needs to be examined as well. There is a
tendency both prior to and during the crisis to describe Malaitans as more
aggressive or "fiercely war-like" than other Solomon Islanders. In
this discussion, there is a tendency to assume that aggressiveness is
attributable only to Malaitans. This is simplistic and denies the fact that all
Solomon Islanders were capable of and had in the past committed acts of
aggression. In 1850, for example, the people of Gao in Santa Isabel raided
Basakana Island (north Malaita)
(Ivens 1930: 186).
Furthermore, for years prior to and even after European contact warriors from
New Georgia raided other islands in the group on head-hunting expeditions. They
went as far as “Santa Isabel, Choiseul, and even the Russell Islands and
Guadalcanal” (Bennett
1987: 113). In fact, throughout
history there are numerous examples of aggression by Solomon Islanders other
than Malaitans. Why
is it that today they have not been regarded as aggressive? Why is that
aggressiveness today, is attributed almost exclusively to
Malaitans, and, to a certain extent, celebrated by some of them? These questions
could be answered by looking at recent academic and media constructions of the
aggressive Malaitan. Indeed,
the notion of Malaita aggressiveness is a recent phenomenon. It came to the fore
partly as a result of the 1927 Kwaio killing of Australian tax collector William
Bell and the subsequent anthropological and historical writings which gave vivid
descriptions of the incident
(see Keesing and Corris 1980). The incident was later introduced in the secondary school curriculum as an
important event in the country’s history. Hence, it made its way into public
knowledge and became accepted as a characteristic of being Malaitan. There was
no mention in the school curricula of other incidents elsewhere in the country.
For example, there was no mention of the killing of a party of Solomon Islander
police officers in the bush (Suta) area of Guadalcanal by a man called Bili
Talaolia in 1927, a few months before the Bell Killing. There was no book, let
alone a detailed academic discussion of this incident. Bennett gave the incident
one line: “In 1927, as an outcome of resentment toward poorly supervised
police and the often harsh enforcement of the tax collector, some Mbirao bushman
of Guadalcanal murdered a police patrol”
(Bennett 1987: 211). However, because the police patrol was made up of Solomon Islanders, the
incident did not attract the kind of reprisal from Britain and Australia as did
the Kwaio incident. Furthermore, the Guadalcanal incident also did not attract
the same degree of Western anthropological and historical curiosity interest as
the events in Kwaio. It did not make it into the formal school curricula. The
number of people killed was not even mentioned. On
the contrary, the Kwaio incident received widespread and persistent media,
academic and state publication. Thus, giving birth to, perpetuating and
reiterating the myth that aggressiveness is an attribute that is exclusively
Malaitan. Over
the years, some Malaitans came to accept the stereotypes about them as being
more aggressive than other Solomon Islanders and, in turn, act that way—become
as aggressive as their stereotype described them. When confronting others they
use terms such as, "iu no save mi man long Kwaio?" (Don't you
know, I am a man from Kwaio?). This phrase is used to instil
fear as though
there is something that should naturally be feared about a Kwaio man and as
though aggressiveness is a characteristic monopolised by the Kwaio of Malaita.
Other Solomon Islanders, on the other hand, accept the stereotype of being more
passive and act in a passive way while suppressing their aggressive nature.
This, in a way, legitimises, or at least makes it seem right for Malaitans to
claim dominance in the country. Some
Malaitans have attempted to both reiterate and legitimise this myth by claiming
a Biblical origin of their aggressive characteristic. The Malaita
Perspectives document, for example, states that “In order to identify the
tribes in Malaita, see the blessings that Jacob pronounced on each of his sons
(Gen 49:3-15, Deut 33:7-21)”. These blessings have provided the sons of Jacob
with characteristics which
include, aggressiveness, pride, violence, conqueror,
scatteredness and cruelty (Mailaita
Perspective, undated: 3). As
strange as this document may sound, it was written by a prominent Malaitan who
is a Reverend in one of the dominant Christian denominations in Malaita. More
importantly, its contents are believed by many Malaitans. The important thing to
note for our purposes here is that it was written in an attempt to construct a
particular characteristic for Malaitans. It went on to say that Malaitans are
“unique” by quoting Exodus 33:16. What the author obviously did not realise
was that the characteristics described above and attributed to the seven sons of
Jacob are complex and could be found in any individual or societies any where in
the world. I
have discussed the above, not to celebrate aggressiveness or to say that a
certain group is more or less aggressive than another. Rather, this is merely to
illustrate how some stereotypes were constructed and subsequently accepted by
society, hence reiterating ethnic divisions. But,
let me shift away from the above and explore some of the issues that I see as
important in understanding the crisis. The Socio-Economic and
Political Issues At
independence on 7 July 1978, Solomon Islanders were faced with the daunting task
of forging a national sentiment out of the fragments of their diverse societies.
The enormity of the task became clear when, at the eve of independence, the
Western Solomons—one of the natural resource rich regions of the
archipelago—threatened to breakaway and either form its own nation-state or
join the neighbouring island of Bougainville which was, at that time, also
demanding secession from Papua New Guinea. The Western Breakaway Movement was
due partly to the administration's failure to meet demands for a system of
government that would enable the masses to participate in decision-making and
give them more power to determine the development of their natural resources and
benefit from its outcomes
(see Premdas, et al 1984). The
difficulty of forging a national consciousness was recognised by the country's
pioneer leaders. A former prime minister, the late Solomon Mamaloni, once
described the Solomons as a "nation conceived but never born"
(Mamaloni 1992: 14).
Writing to commemorate the tenth independence anniversary, Mamaloni
stated that "Solomon Islands or the Solomon Islands Community has never
been a nation and will never be a nation and will never become one”
(Mamaloni 1992: 10).
Christian Jourdan, an anthropologist, also acknowledges that
national-consciousness is a new phenomenon: But,
despite this, Jourdan argues that amongst the younger generation of Solomon
Islanders, especially in the urban areas, there is a new sense of national
consciousness in the making. She identifies three factors: (i) the education
system; (ii) Pijin as a common language; and (iii) popular culture—as the
"stepping stones" toward a national consciousness; elements that are
crucial in conveying to citizens of Solomon Islands a sense of shared values and
expectations, out of which a sense of common purpose in the future develops
(Jourdan 1995: 134). That
may be true. But, for many Solomon Islanders, national consciousness is often
only skin deep: peel that off and you have a person with allegiances to a
particular "wantok" or ethnic group. But, the relative weakness of national consciousness itself does not
provide an adequate explanation for the Guadalcanal crisis; it does not tell us
why there are violent tensions between groups of people who have been
interacting with each other for more than a hundred years. Indeed, it would be
naive to conclude that the tensions in Guadalcanal have arisen simply because of
ethnic differences and the weaknesses of nationalism. Apart
from issues of nationalism, the British left behind a group of islands largely
undeveloped and an economy dependent almost entirely on the exploitation of
natural resources by foreign multinational companies. Infrastructural
development was concentrated around Honiara, the national capital, located on
the northern coast of Guadalcanal and built out of the remains of a former World
War II US Air Force base. Honiara
was also where most of the formal employment opportunities are concentrated.
Statistics collected from 1971 to 1981 have indicated that the distribution of
employment opportunities between provinces did not correlate with the
distribution of population. Thus, the provinces of Santa Isabel, Makira/Ulawa,
Temotu and Malaita accounted for 49% of the country's population but only 15% of
formal sector employment; this difference was especially true of Malaita with
31% of the national population and only 7% of the employment. What is even more
significant is that this imbalance was worsening: in that decade (1971-1981)
formal sector employment in those provinces scarcely increased. Moreover, in
1981 when overall employment increased, the level of employment in both Malaita
and Santa Isabel fell. Thus, the provinces that were already better provided
with job opportunities, and generally have higher levels of development, have
experienced the most growth. In terms of job opportunities the regional
disparities since independence have worsened; one of the results has been the
greater migration to the employment centres Consequently,
between 1978 and 1986 Malaita and Temotu provinces had a considerably higher
proportion of people who moved out than moved in. This was in contrast to
Guadalcanal province which was receiving a far greater percentage of movers than
it sent. On the other hand, places such as Western, Isabel, Central and Makira/Ulawa
provinces as well as Honiara had an approximately balanced proportion of people
moving in or out Apart
from migration, by the time of independence the country's domestic income
generation was dependent almost entirely on agricultural development and the
large-scale exploitation of natural resources: the oil palm plantation, copra,
fisheries, and more recently, logging. The issue of natural resource development
and the distribution of benefits accruing from it became a contentious issue in
the decades after independence. Mamaloni in 1992 states that, "our natural
resources are rapidly being depleted, not for the welfare of those who own them
but to finance a government system that is far remote from the masses". Ironically, much of the rapid exploitation of the country's forestry resources
by Asian multinational companies took place in the 1980s and 1990s when Mamaloni
was Prime Minister for an extended period of time. The
oil palm plantation in the Guadalcanal plains attracted workers and their
families and relatives from all over the country. Established in the 1970s, the
plantation is owned by the Solomon Islands Plantation Limited (SIPL). While the
acquisition of 1,478 hectares of land took place in 1971, it was not until about
three years later that the company began operations after customary land
boundaries and trustees were included in the agreement. For the indigenous
landowners, the benefit from the plantation was marginal. They own only two per
cent share in SIPL. This compares to 68 per cent shares by the
British-registered Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) and 30 per cent by
the Solomon Islands Government. In addition to shares in the company, landowners
receive annually, SI$100 per hectare as land rental and SI$500 per hectare as
premium. Despite
persistent efforts by landowning groups to increase their benefits, the
government and CDC have in the past years, not responded positively. Instead,
more land was acquired over the years. In
1997 when the Bartholomew Ulufa'alu-led government came to power, it proposed
that as part of privatisation under the restructural adjustment program, the
government was going to sell 20 per cent of its 30 per cent share to CDC. The
remaining 10 per cent of government shares would be sold to Solomon Islanders
but managed by the Investment Corporation of Solomon Islands (ICSI), the
national government's investment agency. The Guadalcanal Provincial government,
however, demanded that instead of selling its 20 per cent share in SIPL to CDC,
the national government give it to the Guadalcanal Provincial government.[ Apart
from such large-scale resource developments, many Guadalcanal people
(predominantly males) from areas around Honiara were selling customary land to
those from other provinces. This is despite the fact that Guadalcanal is a
matrilineal society where females are regarded as the custodians of land.
Furthermore, many individuals were selling land without consulting other members
of their laen (tribe). This often caused arguments amongst landowners.
What is important to note here is that many of those who purchased land did so
legitimately either through customary procedures or through legal means. The
sale of land has, over the years, been resented by a younger generation of
Guadalcanal people who view the act as a sale of their "birth right".
Most members of the laen, especially women and the younger people, rarely
benefit from such a sale of customary land. Many land disputes emerged within
landowning groups and between them and the new "owners" of land. It
is, therefore, not surprising that members of the IFM have adopted as their
motto the words; "Land is Our Mother, Land is Our life, Land is Our
Future” (Isatabu Tavuli, vol.1, no.3, 2 March, 2000: 4). Land
has become an important issue of discussion with the Guadalcanal Province
demanding a review of the Land and Titles Act, 50 per cent in all revenue
collected by government from investments on Guadalcanal, rent for Honiara being
established on Guadalcanal, proper acquisition of Honiara's offshore area and
the return of all alienated land. Furthermore, Andrew Te'e, one of the leaders
of the IFM had expressed his attachments to the land in Guadalcanal in a series of
three articles entitled "Land is Sacred to Me" in the Isatabu
Tavuli (2 March, 2000): But
the issues of land and natural resource development are not confined to
Guadalcanal and the oil palm plantation. They are found throughout Solomon
Islands. In the Russell Islands in the Central Islands Province, for example,
the acquisition of land and the development of coconut plantations in the late
1800s by the Levers Pacific Ltd.—another British-registered company—also
contributed towards confrontations between the state and civil society. The
dispute over the land on Pavuvu Island emerged when Marving Brothers Timber
Ltd., a Malaysian-registered logging company began logging the island in 1985. Prior to that, the Levers Pacific Timber, a subsidiary of the same company was
involved in another violent confrontation in 1981 with landowners at Enoghae in
North New Georgia. The issues became especially pronounced in the 1980s and 1990s when industries
such as logging became prominent; this saw collaboration between the state
officials and multinational (mostly Asian) logging companies (see Bennett
2000). It
was also during this period that the country's deteriorating economic situation
saw the government accumulate debts well over its ability to repay. By the end
of 1997, for example, the government had accumulated SI$1.2 billion in debt,
more than double its 1998 budget (Central Bank of Solomon Islands 199 The
period also witnessed substantial fraud and theft by public servants and huge
amounts of money were given to members of parliament through the Constituency
Development Fund (CDF). In many cases the CDF money was used as
"handout" to gain and retain the political loyalty of people who, as a
result, became more dependent than before. Consequently, a majority of the
country's population suffered; a few became very rich at the expense of
nation-wide development. Another issue that aroused major discussions at the time of independence was the system
of government. There were concerns that the provincial system of government was
expensive and ineffective. These discussions, among other things, hinge on
issues of power over the development of natural resources, the benefits from it
and the desire to participate directly in decision-making processes. Many
people proposed that a federal (state) system of government would be most
appropriate for Solomon Islands. The assumption was that federalism would cater
for the devolution of power and the equitable distribution of development
benefits. This was one of the issues raised by proponents of the Western
Breakaway Movement. In the report of the 1987 Constitutional Review Committee
(CRC) set up to reconsider the 1978 constitution, one of the major
recommendations was the establishment of a federal system of government (Mamaloni
1988).
That, however, was ignored by successive governments and most of the Committee's
recommendations were never implemented. There
were other issues raised by the 1987 CRC report. One of the most important
related to the freedom of movement and settlement. Although the Solomon Islands
Constitution guarantees every person the "freedom of movement . . . [which]
. . . means the right to move freely throughout Solomon Islands, the right to
reside in any part of Solomon Islands . . . "
the CRC report contained many expressions of the need to control the movement
and settlement of people in Solomon Islands (Mamaloni 1988).
On Guadalcanal issues of migration and settlement were compounded because of the
rapid growth of Honiara and the expansion of squatter settlements in areas
around Honiara. The people of Guadalcanal had long been concerned with the
migration of other Solomon Islanders to their island. In February 1954, for
instance, when touring as Special Lands Commissioner in northeast Guadalcanal,
Colin Allan noted in his diary that “the worst fear the Tasimboko people have
is in regard to the immigration of Malaita people” (as quoted in Chapman 1992:
94). Much later, in 1987, a man from Oa Village on southeast Guadalcanal
expressed similar sentiments when presenting to a Constitution Review Committee:
“Freedom of movement should not include the freedom to settle in another
language area without permission of customary land owners, or without respect
for culture and customs of those who reside in that language area” (Mamaloni
1988: 496). Ten
years after independence, the people of Guadalcanal could no longer contain
their frustration. In 1988 Guadalcanal people went on a demonstration after the
multiple murders at Mt. Austin behind Honiara, and demanded, amongst other
things, the establishment of a federal system of government and that
"immediate steps be taken to reduce the pressure of internal migration.”[ Another
1990s phenomenon which goes a long way in explaining the Guadalcanal crisis was
the Bougainville migration due to its ten-year war for independence from Papua
New Guinea. Upwards of 9,000 Bougainvilleans fled to the Solomons with a vast
majority of them settling in Guadalcanal for long periods of time. This huge
migration of displaced people took place during most of the 1990s. Only recently
have the majority of them begun to return to their own country. While residing
in Solomon Islands for medical treatment, safety for their families and to enjoy
a bit of peace, they must have shared with the Guadalcanal people (and others)
how they (the Bougainvilleans) had driven the hated "redskins" (PNG
Highlanders) off their island. Bougainvilleans had also taken on one of the
world's largest and richest mining companies (Panguna Copper Mine) and
completely routed them off their land, rejecting the mine and all it
represented. But,
the highlight of the 1990s was the 1997 national election. For the first time in
the country's electoral history, voters dismissed more than half of the sitting
parliamentarians and elected two Chinese business men. It was the first time in
four national elections that people had dismissed so many of their highest
elected officers. The former government which had been in power for more than
seven years was soundly defeated. The election results sent a strong message to
politicians that people would no longer accept "business as usual."
They were demanding change, and quickly. The Search for Peace First,
a kastom (custom) feast ceremony was held in Honiara on 23 May 1999. The
purpose of the feast was to bring together the Big Men from Guadalcanal and
Malaita to reconcile their differences. While the feast, as a symbolic gesture
of reconciliation, was well intended and customarily appropriate, it did not
include those actually involved in perpetrating violence. Furthermore, it did
not address the underlying causes of the tensions. Hence, while the feast could
have been organised as a starting point for dialogue, it would have been naive
to expect the feast to resolve the crisis. Apart
from the feast, three major peace meetings have been sponsored by the
Commonwealth Secretariat and the Australian Government. The first was the
Honiara Peace Accord which was brokered by the Commonwealth Secretariat's
special envoy, Fiji's former Prime
Minister, Major General Sitiveni Rabuka. This
Accord was signed on June 28, 1999 and acknowledges that successive governments
since independence have ignored many issues raised in the demand by the
Guadalcanal people. It then made a commitment to address these issues,
especially those relating to land. In effect, the Honiara Peace Accord provided
a starting point for the process of conflict resolution. The
second was the Panatina Agreement signed on 12 August 1999. This restated the
commitment to implement the Honiara Peace Accord, recognising it "as the
framework for a lasting solution to the problems of ethnic unrest in
Guadalcanal." Apart from this, the only major focus of this document was: (i)
the role of the Royal Solomon Islands police and the need for an emphasis on
community policing; (ii) the need for militants to lay down arms; and (iii) the
need to disband "illegal organisations." But, again the Guadalcanal
militants were not a signatory to this document. It was signed by Major General
Sitiveni Rabuka, the Commonwealth Special Envoy, Hon. Robin Mesepitu, Minister
for Police and National Security, Hon. Patteson Oti, Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Rt. Hon. Ezekiel Alebua, Premier for Guadalcanal Province, and Mr.
Morton Siriheti, Deputy Commissioner of Police. The
third was the Buala Peace Conference held at Buala, the provincial capital of
Isabel Province. This conference, however, was affected because the Malaita
Provincial delegation and none of the militant groups attended. Their lack of
attendance was due to the fact that they demanded the government lift the
declaration of illegality placed on the organisation and that there was no set
agenda to the meeting. The Malaita Provincial Government delegation did not
attend because of threats from the MEF. Only the Central Government delegation
led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Patteson Oti and the Guadalcanal
delegation led by Premier Alebua and
some church representatives attended.
Although some important issues were discussed and decisions made, nothing
substantial came out of it. Because
of the non attendance of the MEF and the Malaita Provincial Government to the
Buala talks another talk was held at Auki, the Malaita provincial capital in the
following week. Out of this the government proposed to lift the declaration of
illegality placed on the militant groups and subsequently did so on 15 May 2000.
This was to enable the groups to attend future talks without the fear of being
reprimanded. The government, however, made the offer on the condition that the
militant groups be prepared to give up their arms. If
anything positive is going to come out of that talk, all the parties involved in
the crisis must be represented and the underlying socio-economic and political
issues must be addressed. Another
attempt to bring about peace was through the international Police Peace
Monitoring Group. Following the signing of the Honiara Peace Accord and the
Panatina Agreement, an international Police Peace Monitoring Group comprising of
50 police officers from neighbouring Vanuatu and Fiji were deployed on
Guadalcanal on I November 1999. Part of their role is to monitor the enforcement
of the issues highlighted in the two documents and to collect arms from
militants. That task is complicated by the fact that, for many of the militants
(IFM in particular), arms—guns in particular—have become their source of
power and status. There is a need to give them a "reason" to give up
their arms. There is, in other words, a need to engage the militants in an
alternative and more positive exercise that will give them the status and power.
Without that, the exercise of "handing over weapons" is unlikely to
succeed. While
the above attempts to resolve the tensions are acknowledged, there are a number
of problems that will constrain their success. First, it is obvious that the
militants are, in the above approaches, not part of the peace process. Rather,
they are regarded as its target. Related to this is the limited attempt to
understand the militants and assist them come to terms with and rationalize
their actions and its consequences. But, more generally, while both the Honiara
Peace Accord and the Panatina Agreement acknowledge the need to make people
become part of the process, so far, in practical terms, there have been no
obvious signs of that happening. This is partly due to the absence of coherent
and systematically planned programs to enable that to occur. While the
government may be committed to making policy and structural changes at the
national level, there is no program at the local community level to collect
information necessary for policy-making, help people understand the processes
towards reconciliation and facilitate them to become part of it. On
August 2, 2000 a cease-fire agreement was signed between the MEF and the IFM.
Although it was violated in less than 24 hours after the signing, it did
provided the basis for further dialogue. In October 2000, after five days of
peace talks at the Queensland city of Townsville an agreement was signed. The
Townsville Peace Agreement (TPA) managed to stop overt violence between the two
warring parties. Although peace–-in the true sense of the word–-is yet to be
achieved, the TPA provides the platform for a national discussion in the future.
Conclusion In
a way, there is legitimacy in many of the issues raised by Malaitans,
Guadalcanal and others who are involved. Ethnicity has become an avenue through
which peoples’ frustrations become manifested. We must go beyond that. There
is a need to shift away from the narrow legalistic approach to conflict
resolution to a method that would be more inclusive—a restorative justice type
of approach. So
far, the attempts at conflict resolution have not directly addressed the issues
mentioned above. They are all short term and emphasise the need to stop overt
violence. Although that is also important, there is a need for conflict
resolution strategies to address broader socio-economic
and political issues. Bibliography Bennett,
A. Judith, 2000. Pacific Forests: a history of resource control and
contest in Solomon Islands, c. 1800 -1997, UK. The White Horse Press. Bennett,
A. Judith, 1987. Wealth of the Solomons: a history of a pacific
archipelago, 1800 - 1978. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
Central
Bank of Solomon Islands, 1998, Annual Report, 1997, Honiara: Central Bank
of Solomon Islands. Chapman,
M., 1992. "Population Movement: Free or Constrained." In R. Crocornbe
and E. Tuza (ed.), Independence, Dependence, Interdependence: the first 10
years of Solomon Islands Independence, Suva and Honiara: Institute of
Pacific Studies, USP Honiara Centre and the Solomon Islands College of Higher
Education, pp. 75-97. Connell,
J., 1983, Migration, Employment and Development in the South Pacific: Country
Report No. 16, Solomon Islands, Noumea: South Pacific Commission. Corns,
P., 1968, Solomon Islanders in the Colonial Labour Trade: a preliminary
outline, Canberra: ANU, Research School of Pacific Studies. Corns,
P., 1973, Passage, Port and Plantation: a history of Solomon Islands
labour migration, 1870-1914, Canton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press. Davenport, William and Gulburn Coker, "The Moro
Movement of Ivens,
W. G., 1930, The Island Builders of the Pacific, London: Seeley, Service. Jourdan, C., 1995. “Stepping-stones to National
Consciousness: the Solomon Islands Case”. In R. J. Foster (ed.), Nation
Making: emergent identities in postcolonial Melanesia, Ann Arbor, USA:
University of Michigan Press, pp. 127 - 150. Keesing,
M., and P. Corns, 1980, Lightning Meets the West Wind: the Malaita Massacre, Melbourne:
Oxford University Press. Mamaloni,
S., 1992. "The Road to Independence." In R. Crocombe and E. Tuza
(ed.), Independence, Dependence, Interdependence: the first I D years of
Solomon Islands Independence, Suva and Honiara: Institute of Pacific
Studies, USP Honiara Centre and the Solomon Islands College of Higher Education,
pp. 7-18. Mamaloni, S. (chair), 1988. 1987
Constitutional Review Committee Report.
Vol. 1. Honiara: Government Printer.
Malaita Perspective. (The author is unknown and the document undated. It was,
however, distributed around June 2000, by people suspected to be connected to or
supporting the Malaita Eagle Force). Premdas, R. R., J. Steeves, P. Larmour 1984. “The Western
Breakaway Movement in Solomon Islands”. In Pacific Studies, vol.7,
no.2, pp. 34 - 67. [1]
There were a few local freelance journalists such as Sam Seke, Dorothy
Wickham, George Atkin and Duran Angiki who were reporting directly to or
doing stringers for a number of international media organisations. They had
a relatively better understanding of the issues underlying the crisis
compared with their overseas counterparts. [2]
Guadalcanal Province, 1999. Demand of the Fona Fide and
Indigenous People of Guadalcanal. [3]
Petition by the Indigenous People of Guadalcanal, 1988. *Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka is a Solomon Islander and is currently a
lecturer in Politics at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. He is
completing a PhD in the Department of Political and Social Change, Research
School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
Copyright Tarcisius
Tara Kabutaulaka 2001
The
local media in Solomon Islands is relatively undeveloped. The print media is
dominated by the Solomon Star
and Solomon Voice. These two publish six and three days a week respectively. They are both
privately owned and Honiara-based with little coverage of rural areas where a
majority of Solomon Islanders live. There are other newspapers and newsletters
with a much smaller circulation and some are published on an irregular basis
while others have a very short life span. Non-government organisations (NGOs)
such as the Solomon Islands Development Trust (SIDT) have their own newsletters
and often use mediums such as comics to try and reach a wider readership.
It was in the performance of official duties on behalf of the state that the term
"ethnic tension" first came to be used when referring to the
Guadalcanal crisis. The former Commissioner of Police, Frank Short, first used
the term when referring to incidents in northwest Guadalcanal in November 1998 (Solomon
Star, 28 November, 1998). Short, who had worked in South Africa, was hired
by the Ulufa’alu government to improve the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP).
His privileged position within the state perhaps assisted in making the term
“ethnic tension” quickly adopted by others. Other government officials
picked up the term and used it in subsequent references to the crisis.
failure of successive Governments to respond
satisfactorily to these demands [by Guadalcanal people] led to the formation of a
militant Guadalcanal group to press these demands by harassing Malaitans living
and working in the National Capital, Honiara and the surroundings. This has in
recent times led to the enforced return of Malaitans; some of whom have spent
all their lives in Guadalcanal, to their territory and has involved the loss of
property and tremendous amount of discomfort (Honiara Peace Accord, 28
June, 1999: 5).
Stereotypes,
both a reiteration of old ones and the production of new ones, were used as a
way of legitimising the ethnic discourse. Most were directed towards the
construction of a Malaita as opposed to a Guadalcanal identity. Little attempt
was made to deconstruct the stereotypes and explore the complexities, overlaps
and interactions between these two, apparently counterposed or oppositional
identities.
In the Malaita sample, except for catechists and pastors, all the men old enough to
have had pre-war employment had worked on plantation-related activities. Almost a
third had been away for eight
or more years, a quarter for four
to seven years, and another
quarter for two to three
years. . . . Few men did not return home at the end of each
contract, and most stayed at least a few months before going away again.
The
Solomon Islands was declared a British protectorate in 1893 partly in response
to the French expansion into the neighbouring New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and the
Germans into New Guinea. In declaring a protectorate the British were
constructing a nation-state out of one of the world's most diverse group of
islands: at present, the Solomons has a population of about 450,000 people who
speak over eighty-seven languages.
… an urban-based elite, in government and administrative circles, is trying to
promote a nationalist sentiment in the country. This projection of identity
creates tensions between the so-called nation builders—those who want to
promote the ideology of the nation—and the nation buildees—those who will be
caught up in the nationbuilding process, willingly or not, but whose
participation in, acceptance of, and, ideally, identification with the values of
the budding nation will be essential to the legitimacy of the national
enterprise (Jourdan 1995:
134).
… there is a trend occurring world wide where many indigenous and
original owners of land have been forced to shift away from 'living' life, to
just simply 'surviving' it. This shift occurs when the original owners of land
are marginalised in the name of 'development' for the benefit of the
nation-state. The shift is caused by government policies and legislation as well
as the actions of huge corporate industries that do not respect the land and
those who originally belong to it.
Since
early 1999, a number of attempts have been made to bring an end to the crisis.
These processes involved attempts to address the underlying issues of the crisis
and to deal with the demands of the various parties.
In
our search to resolve the Solomon Islands crisis there is a need to look beyond
ethnicity as the only cause of the crisis. We must explore the socio-economic
and
political issues underlying the issues raised by the various actors in the
crisis.
Asian Development Bank, 1998. Solomon Islands, 1997 Economic Report, Pacific
Studies Series, ADB, Manila.
Guadalcanal, British Solomon Islands Protectorate". In Journal
of Polynesian Society, vol.76, 1967, pp. 123 - 175.
Fenton,
S., 2000, “Ethnicity and Racism”, in Echoes, Vol.17/2000, pp. 24 -
27.
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