Options for Solomon Islands help debated

By HELEN TUNNAH

New Zealand will decide over the coming days whether to help the Solomon Islands mainly through aid or troops as unease grows over the survival of the Government there.

Cabinet ministers and officials will this week finalise the Government's preferred options for any intervention in the Solomon Islands' domestic affairs ahead of an urgent meeting of Pacific Island foreign ministers in Sydney on Monday.

As well as sending armed police and troops to restore law and order in the strife-torn islands, options include significantly boosting aid to stabilise government services and drive long-term economic recovery.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza has asked for an intervention team to help the virtually bankrupt and lawless nation. Australia favours a regional force of soldiers and police, probably from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

But sources told the Herald yesterday that the prospect of an international intervention force would place intense pressure on Sir Allan's Government from criminal leaders opposed to any clean-up of the corruption-plagued state.

Any bid to topple his Government would complicate efforts to send troops because it could be seen as a precedent for military intervention in another nation's political affairs.

Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Tonga and, to a lesser extent, Fiji are thought to be sensitive to the scope of any intervention in the Solomons.

Neither Prime Minister Helen Clark nor Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff would discuss details of a Solomons rescue package after yesterday's Cabinet briefing.

"It's a question of what should be done to support the Solomon Islands, and that's something that will need to be further discussed within the next week among Pacific Island Forum ministers," Helen Clark said.

"We'll be discussing over the next couple of days what brief we give Mr Goff to take to those meetings."

Mr Goff will meet his Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, in Canberra this week before Monday's talks.

Any decisions from the foreign ministers would need to be referred to the 16 Forum leaders to be signed off , probably at the full meeting in Auckland in August. New Zealand's aid budget for the Solomon Islands is $8 million, but its delivery to projects is complex because of corruption.

The Solomons has been wracked by violence since the outbreak of ethnic unrest in 1999, and the recent dominance of armed criminals.