Help from the big-gun neighbours

By GREG ANSLEY

In the opulence of Sydney's Four Seasons Hotel, where the nations of the Pacific have just decided the immediate fate of his country, Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Laurie Chan is suddenly lost for words.

Soon after the Pacific Island Forum agreed to end three chaotic and frightening years by sending police and soldiers to restore law and order, he said the people of the islands now had reason to feel safe.

But asked what would prevent yet another spiral into anarchy after the peacekeepers left, Mr Chan stumbles: "Um, you're talking about something I ... you know ... I wouldn't be able to tell you. I can't tell you about that. That's quite a hard question to answer."

This is the essence of the intervention that New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and the other states of the 16-member forum will be making in a group of islands that have collapsed into chaos.

Previous attempts to restore order through a limited international police presence have failed.

The tiny nation's treasury has been stripped, the home of the Prime Minister came under fire, a police chief was assassinated, and the Cabinet had to meet in secret.

On the remote jungled Weathercoast on the main island of Guadalcanal, warlord Harold Keke leads a militia armed with weapons that include automatic firearms, and is a potentially lethal challenge to any attempt to restore peace and security.

Now, shaken by the rise of violence, corruption and intimidation, even among senior officials, the islands will need a long and extensive programme for survival, starting with a force of perhaps 2000 soldiers and police to put down crime and rebellion.

In many ways this is the easy part. Australian defence planners, who will lead the expedition, say it should take a few months at most.

In the capital, Honiara, and other areas where young men with guns have taken advantage of economic collapse and endemic unemployment, the military expects little serious resistance.

Mr Chan agrees: "If they've got military peacekeepers backing them up, I'm pretty sure it would be quite safe for the police to do their duty."

On the Weathercoast, which those who know the area say will be a difficult terrain to take from a determined opponent, Keke and his thugs remain a more dangerous imponderable.

But even Keke would find it hard to resist an assault by professional soldiers, possibly including special forces if they were considered necessary.

The real challenge is putting the Solomons back together again, rebuilding the Government and its institutions, restoring community organisations, schools and social order and - above all - establishing a working economy and the jobs this would create.

"Economic recovery is about jobs," Mr Chan said. "That's really it - jobs.

"Jobs are very important for us. With our population growth of 3 to 4 per cent a year, we'll encounter problems for employment."

This is the Pacific's problem now, and it will be a significant item on the budgets of New Zealand and Australia for years to come.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer talks of an initial cost of hundreds of millions of dollars and, with a grin and a glance at New Zealand counterpart Phil Goff, says Canberra will be looking for generous help from Wellington.

Mr Goff, grinning back, complains about tight-fisted treasurers.

But the brief, humorous, give and take underlines the reality that the neighbourhood will have to look after itself, albeit with significant financial aid from the former and present colonial powers - Britain, France and the United States - and the European Union.

The Solomons twice asked the United Nations to send peacekeepers, but was rejected. With China offside because the Solomons recognised Taiwan in return for aid, the politics would not work.

International approval has been sought. Australia raised the prospect of intervention with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Mr Goff said the proposal had the approval of the UN's Department of Political Affairs and Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon.

Regional sensitivities have also been carefully addressed.

Monday's forum meeting was attended by the Prime Ministers of Samoa, Tonga and Cook Islands, the President of Nauru and the Premier of Niue, as well as foreign and other senior ministers from Melanesia and the Pacific Islands.

The emphasis was on unanimity, consensus and the Pacific way, the guiding principles of the Bitekawa Declaration that lays down the rules for intervention in the internal affairs of member states and which is facing its first real test.

Said summit chairman and Fijian Foreign Minister Kaliopate Tavola: "We have a situation that all members of the Pacific Islands Forum have agreed to the proposal for an intervention into the Solomons, given the severity of the nature of the economy and the country at large ... We were careful in trying to come up with an outcome that would be right for the region and would give a good impression not only to the region as a whole, but also to the global community."

This is a particular concern for Canberra, and to a lesser extent Wellington, which are anxious to avoid any impression that the two big boys of the Pacific are back to their old Anglo tricks.

Mr Downer last week spoke of the need to build a regional coalition to blunt any accusations of aggression or hegemony, although the enthusiasm of the local media for an Australian-led operation has relegated all other players, including New Zealand, to bit parts.

Mr Downer has also raised some worried eyebrows with comments suggesting UN impotence would promote more Coalitions of the Willing, the nom-de-guerre for the American-led invasion of Iraq.

But Mr Goff rejects any comparison with Iraq.

"We have here a case of a sovereign nation seeking from its neighbours and fellow members of the Pacific Islands Forum assistance under Solomon Islands law and under the Solomon Islands constitution.

"You have a decision today not by New Zealand and Australia, but a consensus decision by all of the forum countries ...

"If I ask the question 'who is against this assistance being given', the only people who could conceivably be against this assistance are the criminals who would lose the power they have exercised in place of the Solomon Islands Government, the power that they have usurped from the properly elected representatives of the people."

Mr Goff also dismissed suggestions that intervention to solve the internal problems of the Solomon Islands could set a precedent for other troubled states.

"The only precedent there could possibly be is a group of people coming collectively together as members of the forum to respond positively to a legitimate request from a member country.

"It that's a precedent, we welcome that.

"I don't think it's realistic or proper for New Zealand, Australia or anybody else to say 'we can solve the problems of the world on our own, acting unilaterally' ...

"There are no implications for the future because this is a response to the request from a legitimately elected Government unable to govern because people with guns are standing between them and the responsibility they have to their people."

Added Mr Downer:

"There is unanimous support from within the family of the Pacific for an intervention and ... that intervention will be able to take place before too much longer."

And the final word from Mr Chan: "I'm absolutely happy, and my country's very happy."