Fear stalking Solomon Islands

The murder of diplomat Bridget Nichols has brought the lawless state of Solomon Islands into the headlines. CATHERINE MASTERS reports on a Pacific paradise lost.

Bridget Nichols was apprehensive about returning to Solomon Islands.

She was not usually afraid in her postings as a New Zealand diplomat overseas. This was a woman who had travelled many times to Israel and the West Bank to see the Palestinian uprising for herself during her postings to Turkey.

But she told friends she was concerned about what she might find in the Solomons when she returned to Honiara as deputy high commissioner after a 10-year absence.

She knew where she was heading - to a country where the structures of government no longer exist in some areas after a murderous civil war.

Fluent in Solomon Islands pidgin, Nichols worked for Volunteer Service Abroad in Honiara from 1988 to 1991 in what now seems like the good years of peace.

On Sunday, the raw violence of daily living in the Solomons claimed her life.

She was the second New Zealander to die there in a month. Kevin O'Brien, who loved the Solomons and married a local woman, was killed after arguing with a local employee about shoddy work at the new Finance Ministry his employer, Fletcher Construction, is building.

Now, the Pacific country with which New Zealand has had a relationship since Bishop Selwyn founded the Melanesian Mission in the 1850s is in the spotlight again.

Fear is so prevalent that almost everyone the Herald spoke to requested anonymity.

Why? "Because I'll be killed," said one New Zealander.

Outside the main cities, people live in grass huts known as leaf huts, but the main street of Honiara consists of Western buildings.

But everything is falling apart, including the hospital.

"There's Australians and New Zealanders over there that have been beaten up and robbed and their wives threatened to be raped and all sorts of hideous things," said an expatriate.

But they stay because they have businesses, started to take advantage of the rich resources of gold, copper, lime for making cement, copra and oil palms.

"They've got two choices - walk away from it or stay there and risk dying," said the expatriate.

"I've spoken to quite a few of them, and most are locked into it and have got everything there and can't get away from it."

It was not always so in the chain of seven major and hundreds of minor islands known as the "Happy Isles". Their beauty and lushness attracted scuba divers and adventurous tourists only a few years ago.

But the Happy Isles have attracted few tourists since civil war broke out between the rival islands of Malaita and Guadalcanal in the late 1990s. Although the war has officially ended, the violence shows no signs of going away.

In a coup in 2000, the Malaitans seized power and robbed Government armouries. Many are still roaming around with guns.

But despite Nichols' death, former high commissioner Nick Hurley says New Zealand cannot pull out and abandon a relationship with the people of Solomon Islands which goes back more than 150 years.

Many of the people are not involved in the violence, he says.

The New Zealand Government set up its High Commission in 1978 when the islands became independent from Great Britain and now gives about $8 million a year in aid, the fifth-highest amount behind Japan, Australia, the European Union and Taiwan.

Hurley was there during times of great violence, from January 1999 to mid-December last year, and believes New Zealand has a moral obligation to the people.

He says the country's presence is aimed at pursuing New Zealand's broader interests, and among those is trying to help the Solomons become a stable and prosperous Pacific country.

"That helps New Zealand, it's an investment to mutual advantage. If you have a decent country in the Pacific that's prosperous and well run, we gain. Apart from that stability and security sense, you're able to improve your mutual markets."

But New Zealand has little investment in the Solomons and is really being "neighbourly", says Hurley.

"The broader goal of New Zealand in the Pacific is you've got a number of countries with broad economic and political capacity and our interests are in helping these countries to become, ideally, a Singapore. But obviously that's a long-term goal.

"At the end of the day, only Australia and New Zealand have, I suppose, the political commitment to be able to help them sort it out.

"I mean, one could go for the option of saying, 'Leave them to it and we'll withdraw', but apart from the signals it sends to the bulk of the population who are not taking part in any of this conflict, it would undermine the regional cohesion and the way we relate to the other countries."

About 120 New Zealanders live in Solomon Islands as part of a total expatriate population of around 1000.

The relationship with most of the expatriates is positive, Mr Hurley says.

"The problems are in the criminals who see the expatriates as being the wealthy ones and therefore target them."

He believes New Zealand will have to assist with law and order.

The Solomons Government cannot control crime, and has asked New Zealand and Australia for help.

Until law and order are sorted out, the development and investment needed to create the jobs the islanders need cannot be talked about, says Hurley.

"In one sense, there is no option. The only other choice is abandonment. At the end of the day, it's part of our international and citizen credentials, we need to be involved, this is our area."

New Zealand's involvement with Solomon Islands is long-standing.

Associate Professor Hugh Laracy of Auckland University says the Solomons are New Zealand's oldest traditional ally in the Pacific.

Bishop Selwyn organised his Melanesian Mission from Auckland in the 1850s, trying to take Christianity to the islands north of New Zealand.

Since then, there has been a constant stream of New Zealanders to the Solomons, and Solomon Islanders to New Zealand, says Laracy, an expert on the islands.

In 1893, Britain took over and set up law and order in a colonial manner - "by rather severe police action. You told people not to kill each other, and when they did you hanged them."

After World War II, a significant nationalist movement began, centred on the island of Malaita. It lasted for about eight years.

In response, the British gradually delegated authority to the locals. In 1978 it withdrew and the Solomons became independent. For 20 years the country managed to govern itself fairly smoothly.

But in the past 10 years the economy has declined. A prosperous oil palm industry on Guadalcanal was damaged by a hurricane, says Laracy.

Proceeds from fishing have not been good and logging has been carried out "irresponsibly" by Taiwanese, Koreans and other outsiders. Very little profit has flowed back to the people, causing enormous bitterness.

"So what you're seeing is social disintegration."

The breakdown of law and order is due to the rivalry between Malaita and the main island of Guadalcanal.

Imbedded in it is traditional and cultural animosity.

"You can see your four-wheel drive being driven by someone else. You can go and report it, but the problem is this runs the risk of precipitating reactions from those people or their supporters.

"And if you are a Malaita police official, you're going to be very reluctant to go and arrest a Malaita criminal because there could be some payback at home to you, your family, your relatives.

"You are just breaking solidarity, and in other words these loyalties tend to be pronouncedly sectional and self-interest runs right through the regime."

However, a Solomon Islander who again would not be named told the Herald people on the streets of Honiara were "very, very disturbed" by the killing of Bridget Nichols.

"Everyone is really shocked about what has happened. They are calling for justice and an arrest."

But he also wants New Zealand to help restore law and order to the Solomons by sending over police.

"I think New Zealand should put a very, very heavy sanction on to our country here, and on the other hand I think they should bring their own forces here to try and sort out this justice to be done.

"If they are going to spend a lot of money in this country just giving out advice, I think it's useless. I think the most useful thing would be to have somebody here who can really get into action."