Australia losing patience with island nations

John Howard

CANBERRA - Australia is further tightening the screws on Pacific Island states, fuelled by frustration over the refusal of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to hand over a former high official facing child-sex charges.

Former Solomons Attorney-General Julian Moti faces immigration charges in the tiny embattled state after escaping detention in Papua New Guinea with the apparent complicity of PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare.

Moti, 41, is an Australian lawyer of Fijian-Indian extraction, until recently an adjunct professor at Bond University on the Gold Coast.

The affair has blown into a crisis, with the Solomons threatening to expel Australian troops and police, and Australia retaliating against PNG's support for Moti by placing visa restrictions on Somare and other senior politicians.

Canberra has also given blunt warnings that the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid earmarked for the two countries is at risk.

The toughening of Canberra's stance towards the Solomons and PNG is a deepening of Australia's impatience and frustration at corruption and inefficiency in Pacific states receiving its aid.

Canberra is already tying aid to good governance, a policy that will be clearly spelled out by Prime Minister John Howard at next week's meeting of the South Pacific Forum in Fiji.

"If you want Australian aid, you've got to reduce corruption," Howard said this week. "We have every right to attach provisions to our aid."

Canberra believes the Pacific has to clean up its act not only for its own sake, but also to head off fears that island states could become havens for transnational crime and terrorism.

Howard justified a large planned increase in the size of the Army by pointing to the likelihood of failed states and more interventions such as in East Timor and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI).

Pacific anger at Canberra's attitude boiled over when Australia last month sought the arrest and extradition of Moti on charges alleging serial sex offences involving the 13-year-old daughter of a business associate in Vanuatu in 1996. Child-sex offences committed abroad are crimes under Australian law.

Moti had faced court in Vanuatu in 1999, but was cleared by the islands' Court of Appeal on technicalities, and by a later court hearing.

Australia interviewed the alleged victim in June when Moti, a close associate of Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, was advising on the establishment of an inquiry into last April's Honiara riots.

The commission has turned into a crisis of its own, with Canberra claiming it had been tailored to clear two MPs accused of inciting the violence.

In response, Sogavare expelled Australian High Commissioner Patrick Cole and accused Canberra of pursuing Moti for political reasons - and warned that Australians would be ordered out if Australia continued to push for extradition.

Canberra has rejected any political motives, saying the charges against Moti were purely a legal issue.

The Australian Federal Police have also defended the seven-year gap between the alleged offences and their action by saying they had to wait until the Vanuatu legal process ran its full course in 2004.

But Australia's insistence on Moti's extradition, its retaliation and its thinly veiled threats on aid have only stiffened resentment in Honiara and Port Moresby.

PNG police originally arrested Moti in Port Moresby last month at Australia's request, despite the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries.

Moti was later granted bail, and fled to the sanctuary of the Solomons' High Commission, where he stayed for a week while Somare stonewalled Canberra.

His position as Attorney-General has since been revoked.

Moti flew to a remote airstrip in the Solomons aboard a PNG military aircraft made available, local media say, on documentation from Somare's office. A PNG Government inquiry is under way.

On his arrival Moti, whose Australian passport was cancelled, was arrested for entering the country illegally and was remanded in custody for 14 days on immigration and passport charges.

In the latest twist to a deepening row, lawyers on Monday argued that Moti should be set free because he had been given a document signed by Immigration Minister Peter Shanel exempting him from normal entry formalities. But Solicitor-General Glen Nathan has opposed the move, claiming the document had been falsified.

At the centre of a diplomatic storm

Julian Moti

The man: 41-year-old Australian lawyer and suspended Solomon Islands Attorney-General. Close associate of Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

The complaint: Subject of a sexual assault complaint by a girl, now 21, who alleges she lived with Moti for six months when she was 13. She claims Moti raped her and forced her to have an abortion. Moti was charged and cleared of unlawful sexual intercourse and indecent assault in Vanuatu. Australian police brought new child sexual assault charges for the same alleged offences against Moti this year and sought his arrest in, and extradition from, Papua New Guinea.

The fallout: PNG refused and flew him on a military aircraft to the Solomons, where he was arrested on immigration charges. The affair has further inflamed tensions between Australia, the Solomons and PNG, breaking into a full-blown diplomatic crisis.