Editorial: Anzac forces facing peril in the jungle

New Zealand and Australia must, of course, respond to any plea for help from the Solomons Islands. There should, however, be no illusions about the potential consequence of intervention, not least the possibility of casualties. Repeated efforts to broker peace in the Solomons should have taught the Anzac partners that this is not a country to enter wearing rose-coloured spectacles. The Solomons would be an exercise in peacemaking, not the peacekeeping that was the essence of previous New Zealand and Australian interventions in the region. As such, it is a job for fully armed troops, not a police force.

In the first instance, the Anzacs' adversary would be the armed supporters of warlord Harold Keke. In 2000, Keke refused to sign the New Zealand and Australia-sponsored Townsville peace agreement, which was designed to end ethnic violence between the people of Guadalcanal and those of Malaita. Since then, he and his men have launched increasingly brutal and destructive raids from Guadalcanal's remote and inhospitable Weathercoast. At least 50 people have been killed in these raids in the past year.

Little is known of the support for Keke, who was one of the creators of the Guadalcanal Liberation Front, a militant group that sought to drive Malaitan migrants from Guadalcanal. A best-case scenario would suggest he is merely the type of fractious figure that tends to linger in the aftermath of civil wars. More realistically, perhaps, the increasing violence, and the degree of support for him in Honiara, the capital, suggests renewed ethnic tension. The Solomons are a contrived state, and no amount of effort by the British colonial government was able to erase customary fighting. Neither could the divisions be healed by the nation's flirtation with prosperity for a time after independence. On the back of years of civil war, the Solomons are now impoverished - and the forces for unity could again be in danger of being derailed.

Aside from the imponderables, what is known is that the Solomons are ideal for guerrilla fighting. Thick jungle renders orthodox military thinking useless. Special forces will be required. What is also known is that the situation is vastly different from that which greeted Anzac forces in their previous interventions, in Bougainville and East Timor. If civil war has taken its toll, it has not yet induced the state of exhaustion that prompted the sealing of peace in Bougainville. Neither, as in the case of East Timor, is one of the parties to the conflict about to withdraw. Harold Keke is increasingly active and very much a threat. If peace is to be achieved, that threat will have to be removed.

So far, the only request for help has come from the Solomons Prime Minister, Sir Allan Kemakeza. A special parliamentary sitting, which is expected to formally request intervention, has been delayed until early next month. This gives New Zealand and Australia time to assess what will be required, and to prepare accordingly. Quite correctly, both countries have made it clear they will not intervene without the endorsement of the Pacific region. That may be received at August's meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum - unless the position in the Solomons deteriorates rapidly and a special meeting needs to be arranged. Either way, the Anzac nations should ensure that other Pacific countries are involved in the intervention. Fiji, with its history of participating in United Nations peacekeeping, could be a source of military support.

If law and order can be restored and effective government established, the Solomons may yet be able to step back from the brink of economic and social disaster. If not, the underlying divisions will surely prove ruinous. The task confronting an Anzac-led force would be dangerous and difficult. Every effort must be made to ensure it is fully prepared.