Georgina Newman: Solomons a volatile cocktail mix

It has been two years since Australian and New Zealand troops arrived in Honiara, the war-torn capital of the Solomon Islands, to restore peace and order.

The intervention was the biggest military operation in the South Pacific since World War II.

Tension ignited in 1998 on Guadalcanal, which is home to the Solomon Islands capital, Honiara. The Isatabus on Guadalcanal accused migrants from the neighbouring island of Malaita of taking land and jobs.

More than 100 lives were lost in this scrappy but brutal conflict. About 20,000 people fled the island or sought sanctuary in displacement camps. Law and order collapsed, businesses and schools closed, homes were torched and large swathes of land became no-go areas.

In this small island nation of 500,000, it is not hard to find people directly affected by the tension. The home of my guide from Unicef's operations team, Craig Pelu, was razed and he had to go into hiding.

"If I had been driving down this road two years ago I would have been killed," he says. "I'm from Guadalcanal, so the town was very dangerous for me. But then the outskirts of town were very dangerous for Malaitans," he shrugs.

Today the dusty capital bears little resemblance to the bandit-ridden city it was 24 months ago. Within days of the peacekeeping force arriving those responsible for the carnage were captured, the thriving trade in extortion dissolved, and the roaming gangs disappeared from the streets.

Scenes of normal life have returned to the capital. The central market brims with green orbs of ripe watermelon, and freshly caught fish splay out on old freezer chests.

A market trader tells me, "There was trouble with gangs, stabbings, throwing stones, homemade explosives. Girls could not walk about and people lost their jobs. Now it is better, we are seeing positive things for the nation".

But this positivity may well be premature. The civil war brought an already impoverished country to its knees.

The economy is in ruins. Foreign investment has dried up. Fifteen years of savings were wiped out and confidence lost. Foreign business has been slow to return.

The Solomon Islands are endowed with timber and gold, the waters teem with tuna and offer some of the best diving in the world. Yet the economy is no better today than it was 10 years ago.

Ethnic tensions have often been blamed for the economic regression, but deeper problems have also eroded the country's economy.

Seventy per cent of the population is under 30 and the majority are unemployed. The school dropout rate is alarmingly high. Squabbling over land rights has stunted the development of tourism - several hotel ventures have been torched.

The commodity market is fraught with problems. Palm oil, fish, kernels and copra are all logistically problematic, which in turn means they are expensive.

South and Central American producers have all but wiped out the Solomons' potential coffee market. Asian loggers have moved in, savaging the country's precious tree wealth at a fraction of its real market value.

Some commentators believe the tension was over efforts to get more aid from donor countries.

Ian Young, an Australian aid worker living in Honiara, says: "The conflict was over-emphasised. [That's] not to say the events were not personally tragic on an individual level, but only 100 people were killed over a three-year period. It was an evening of tribal scores.

"Twenty thousand people were displaced, but the majority went back to locations they knew, where they had roots. In the global scheme of things it was nothing compared to other conflicts. It's a card being played."

The country is still being propped up by donor governments, namely Australia and to a lesser degree New Zealand. The decline in government services means a dependence on development assistance for running its schools and health centres.

The Under-Secretary for Health in the Solomons, Dr George Malefoasi, laments these problems. Even though he is a top civil servant he still performs health checks and treats injuries.

"There are not enough trained doctors, nor enough funds for medicines. We have a very low-income-earning population.

"Malaria is a big problem, maternal deaths, kids dying at an early age, mostly from malnutrition.

"We have to maintain surveillance on TB and leprosy - it doesn't kill in mass numbers but it continues to cost lives.

"Malaria is still the biggest problem, claiming 11 per cent of the total death rate.

"There are suicides which were never on the monitor before. A lot of accidental deaths from Chloroquine overdose. It's a malaria drug they abuse and is fairly easily available. Even small amounts can be fatal".

Dr Malefoasi rummages through tilting stacks of paperwork and pulls out this year's health budget. He has S$80 million ($16.4 million). He says the real cost of health care this year will be around S$190 million - a shortfall of S$110 million.

Unicef NZ, one of the agencies helping to prop up social welfare systems for the children of the Solomons, has helped to finance child-immunisation programmes. The Solomons is now polio-free, and no measles cases have been confirmed in four years.

But in terms of what the Solomons need, the aid is just the tip of the iceberg.

Unicef NZ is also financing a three-year pilot project to set up Child Friendly Schools. These are centred on activity-based learning, colourful classes and equal participation of girls.

The idea is to quell the soaring dropout rates and improve teachers' motivation.

However, education is still not free, despite the Government claiming that it will be. It costs about S$1000 a year to send a child to school, plus expenses for uniforms and equipment.

When the average yearly adult income is S$4355, school costs are impossible for most families.

A further problem is the gap between education and livelihoods. For those who do manage some form of education, few jobs are available after graduation.

A solution must be found - a country with a large young, disillusioned and jobless population is an explosive cocktail.

Luke Memu, 30, who co-ordinates youth activities for the Church of Melanesia in Honiara, lists a depressing catalogue of social ills he is trying to tackle - unemployment, teenage pregnancy, and substance abuse including the potent home brew Kwso.

He lays the blame for many of the problems squarely on the Government.

"We realise there is corruption in the Government and in the church. Thank God for the tension because now we know.

"When the young people see this they lose respect for the elders in society. Their attitude is, 'If they are steeling then why cant I?'

"I have written five letters to the Government about promises that have failed to materialise. They have let me down and they have let my people down. Money makes decisions here, not good brains."

Despite the country's seemingly insurmountable problems, he remains buoyant about the future.

"We are a country of young people, the future is in our hands. We are doing positive things and creating leaders for tomorrow. We are making plans. We saw the aggression and violence and don't want to repeat those."

Mr Memu has established the Winds of Change, a group of young people who will monitor elections to make sure they are clean.

He has also mobilised hundreds of unemployed youth to clean up the capital. They collect rubbish and glass as part of an income-generation scheme, and painted the international terminal.

He smiles broadly: "We want to be proud of our home, and if we don't do it then no one will."

* Georgina Newman is communications manager for Unicef NZ.