Richard Prebble: About-turn of startling proportions

COMMENT

New Zealand troops, police and administrators have arrived in the Solomons to assume control of that country. It's a radical departure in our foreign policy.

Just six months ago, New Zealand and Australia were ruling out sending troops there. Australia's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, wrote: "Sending in Australian troops to occupy the Solomon Islands would be folly in the extreme. It would be difficult to justify to Australian taxpayers. And for how many years would such an occupation have to continue? And what would be the exit strategy?

"And the real show-stopper, however, is that it would not work ... Foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems affecting the Solomon Islands."

So what has changed? The thinking has changed after the publication of Our Failing Neighbours by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a taxpayer-funded think-tank.

The report, written by Dr Ellie Wainwright, concluded that the Solomons were a failing state and as such a security threat to Australia. The Solomons were "vulnerable to external influence, [such as] transnational crime and terrorism; the selling of sovereignty and, ultimately, resorting to the use of mercenaries".

While there is a report of a group of non-English-speaking Chinese arriving in Canada with Solomons passports, none of the other predictions has happened.

The report goes on to claim that "if Australia is not robustly engaged in the Solomon Islands, others may fill that space". There is not much evidence of that. The United States considers the Solomons so insignificant that it does not have an embassy there.

The Solomons recognise Taiwan, one of the few countries to do so and to promote its admission to the United Nations. In return, Taiwan gives millions of dollars in aid and for projects no other donor would consider. While this annoys China, it is hardly a strategic threat to Australia.

When in 2000 Malaita Eagle Force militants raided the police armoury in Honiara with the active help of much of the Solomons police force, New Zealand turned down the request of then Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu for police aid.

Ulufa'alu was forced to resign and the Solomons ethnic dispute became a civil war, with the Malaitian people being ethnically cleansed from Guadalcanal.

Australia and New Zealand did intervene through the Townsville peace agreement, whereby most militant groups agreed to a ceasefire.

An international peace-maintaining group was sent, with a mission to collect guns, estimated at more than 1500. The mission had no peacekeeping role and was only a partial success.

The militants, except for Harold Keke's group in the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal, have honoured the peace but not surrendered their guns. Keke has continued to murder. Refugees from villages he has burned are now in Honiara.

The Solomons Government's plan to restore peace was always going to fail. Its first part was to offer compensation to those who had lost relatives, a Melanesian concept of justice, and for those who lost property. Taiwan financed the project. But there was no judicial process to determine the validity of claims. Just politicians.

The present Prime Minister received one of the largest settlements; most people got nothing - a source of great resentment.

The Government's solution to assist more than 2000 former militants was to make them special constables. It was bribing them to remain peaceful.

The payment bankrupted the Government. Every time it tried to stop paying these "allowances", the Cabinet was threatened. So schoolteachers, nurses and other civil servants have been unpaid.

The latest request for assistance from the Prime Minister, Sir Allan Kemakeza, comes after the Cabinet received a demand for $300 million in allowances from the militants.

I have just returned from the Solomons. There is no lawlessness on the streets. I felt safer than I do in parts of Auckland. The security problem is that it is the police who have colluded in the looting of the Treasury. The new intervention force needs to shock and awe the police if progress is to be made. In the meantime, Keke's rebels may already have fled to Bougainville.

So why have New Zealand and Australia changed tack so radically?

Part of the reason must be Iraq, and the US Government's view that the international community is entitled to intervene in the affairs of rogue states. The Solomons were on the agenda when John Howard met George W. Bush in May.

New Zealand opposed the US policy in Iraq but appears to have changed its stance with the Solomons.

There are significant differences between Iraq and the Solomons. The Solomons Parliament has unanimously voted to empower and authorise the intervention, something Saddam Hussein certainly did not do. Solomons MPs did express concern over the loss of sovereignty, but also felt that the Solomons could not resolve the issues without external help.

They were not so concerned about foreign police, but that under the proposal Australian administrators will take effective control of the Treasury, Customs and the national provident fund. A New Zealander will take over the central bank.

The MPs agreed to the proposal because the Solomons is bankrupt. Australia is offering the prospect of $800 million in aid over 10 years. MPs know that. Perhaps half of the aid money will not reach the people. The MPs I spoke to who were most concerned are among those who are receiving money.

I have advised the previous Government and this one that our Solomons policies were not working, and that what was needed were expatriate police.

Ethnic tensions are so strong and the "one tak" family commitment so strong that a local police force is always compromised. A foreigner is seen as unbiased. But unless we acknowledge that restoring law and order is the easy part, this new policy will also fail.

The Anglican Bishop of Malaita, Terry Brown, has suggested a 10-point plan to restore the economic and political situation, beginning with land reform. Disputes over customary land started the tensions. Establishing a credible register of who owns what would be a start.

New Zealand needs an exit strategy. It is not acceptable to have 30 New Zealand police in the Solomons indefinitely when there are critical police shortages here.

Why not finance 30 expatriate police recruited from Britain as permanent members of the Royal Solomons police? That's more police than Britain had when the Solomons was a colony. It is cheaper than sending our police. We could recruit them now and aim to have our police home by Christmas - the exit target date.

Why not also fund some expat judges, then leave it to the people of the Solomons? Dependency is not good for either individuals or nations. Being sovereign means taking responsibility for one's own future.

* Richard Prebble is leader of the Act Party.