Keke lives to tell his tale

By MARY-LOUISE O'CALLAGHAN

The sand was still fresh from the early-morning tide when the New Zealand army Iroquois helicopter touched down at Mbiti beach on Solomon Islands' remote Weathercoast last Wednesday.

Less than a kilometre away, more than 300 people were clustered quietly on the beach, among them a tall, gaunt man in his thirties.

Dressed simply with only thongs on his feet, and without a weapon in sight, Harold Keke waited patiently. The so-called notorious warlord of Guadalcanal had decided to end his war.

It had been a war, it seems, as much with his own demons as with those who demonised him.

Just recently, amid all the killings, burnings, raids and rapes something bigger, stronger and more powerful than all of Keke's enemies - real and imagined - appeared on the horizon: a regional intervention force.

Now the "three big-bosses" - as Solomon Islanders are calling them - of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) were unfurling themselves from the Iroquois: the sparkly-eyed Ben McDevitt, in his other life an assistant commissioner of the Australian Federal Police but now acting police commissioner of Solomon Islands, the lanky Lieutenant-Colonel John Frewen, commander of the intervention's 1500-strong military contingent and the civilian leader and overall co-ordinator, veteran Australian diplomat Nick Warner.

It was into these three men's hands that Keke, now walking slowly towards them, was putting his trust. And his life.

"Of all the words spoken in the past week during our meetings on the Weathercoast, trust was the one most often heard," says McDevitt, an expert in hostage negotiations, who drafted his first letter to Keke before he'd even alighted on Solomon shores, during the planning stages of the Solomons operation at the AFP's peacekeeping headquarters in Majura just outside Canberra.

In fact all three men who have worked as a tight team co-ordinating the tactical, military and policing aspects of the Keke surrender agree that this was the key to persuading the man - allegedly prepared to execute his own member of Parliament, the Catholic priest Augustine Geve, order the death of seven Anglican brothers as well as some of his own blood relatives - to give himself up without any deals, amnesties or special conditions.

"In my first letter I explained to him that we were here to restore law and order and that there were outstanding warrants for his arrest. But if he agreed to surrender to me I would guarantee his safety and security," McDevitt told the Herald this week.

Building on communications already established by the Solomon Islands' new police Commissioner, Bill Morrell, McDevitt had his letter sent as soon as he arrived in Solomon Islands on July 24.

It was couriered by a trusted runner from one side of Guadalcanal to the other where Keke remained holed up on the Weathercoast.

"It was delivered to him the following day, the 25th," McDevitt says with some pride. Less than a week later, he received a reply written on July 31. McDevitt saw at once that the firm but respectful tone of trust and reassurance he'd chosen was beginning to work.

"I have received your letter, therefore looking forward to working together to bring back peace," Keke had written under the letterhead of the Guadalcanal Liberation Front. "You are invited to attend a meeting with GLF delegates on 7th August."

McDevitt, in his next letter confirming arrangements for their meeting, sought to reinforce this good start. He carefully described the planned use of helicopters, the Australian warship HMAS Manoora and heavily armed escorts. "I ask you not to be alarmed by this military activity. I give you my word that we will not attack you. It is all for ensuring that our meeting can take place.

"I see this process as an important opportunity for you to present your case as I know that some crimes for which you and your followers have been blamed have not been committed by you, but rather other people," he wrote.

That meeting, however, did not come off. Earlier the previous day, the Manoora had sailed around to 3.2km offshore but the Weathercoast does not have that name for nothing and much of the time the seas were too rough for the ship to anchor, complicating the sealifts needed to move the RAMSI team on to and offshore.

A full dress-rehearsal by all elements of the RAMSI forces was held, in part to co-ordinate the 100 combat troops that were now on board in case of trouble, as well as an extra chopper full of troops, which was to fly overhead.

Keke, perhaps spooked by the sudden display of military hardware despite McDevitt's letters, sent a delegation to the meeting instead.

Aboard the Manoora, Warner, McDevitt and Frewen decided they needed to pull no punches and a delegation of their own was dispatched with a letter expressing their disappointment he hadn't attended and requesting the meeting take place the following day. They demanded an answer by 5.30pm.

Returning to Honiara, Warner, a former executive of his department's public affairs, who has embraced the media as a player in the Solomon operation shaping the perceptions of both the Solomons' public but also his political masters back home, suddenly flicked the switch. He announced only that the two delegations had met, and declared a news blackout.

But by following day he had more news - good and bad. The meeting with Keke had gone ahead, he'd agreed to hand in his weapons and allow an intervention post to be established on his territory.

But when asked to release the remaining six Melanesian Brothers he had been holding hostage, Keke admitted that all six men, captured in April, were dead.

A special male order of the Anglican Church of Melanesia, who have played an extraordinary role in the early days of the Solomons conflict, stepping in to insert themselves - literally -between Malaitan and Guadalcanal militants, the brothers in their distinct black shirts and sulus, had been dispatched to recover the body of a fellow brother murdered in March.

Stories that Keke's men had accused them of spying, interrogated and eventually killed them had already surfaced, adding another layer of claims and counter claims to the misery and mystery that Keke appears to generate in equal quantities.

So while the news did not come as a complete surprise to the RAMSI leadership, it complicated how their meeting might look both in Solomons and overseas.

But Warner, on his return that afternoon and not wanting to jeopardise their arrangements, decided to speak only of discussions with Keke about "his future". What he couldn't tell the world just yet was that the rebel leader himself had had enough.

Faced with a very indefinite future if he tried to resist the intervention forces, he had agreed to surrender on Wednesday, knowing that within a matter of minutes he would be arrested.

"I think what Keke has shown with this action, is that he is a man of his word," says McDevitt, who personally made the arrest soon after Keke's party of 10 had boarded the Manoora.



While acknowledging that Keke's capture in itself will not solve all of Solomons' problems, the RAMSI leaders are acutely conscious of the strategic and symbolic significance of this week's events. For one, it removes the excuse that many of Keke's enemies have been using for holding on to their arms.

But there are also many who believe that Keke has the answers as to who was really behind the ethnic crisis that overtook what was once, essentially, a peace-loving nation .

"It's difficult to speculate on who may want Keke dead," McDevitt said this week. "I think it would be fair to assume that there are people out in the community who would probably like to see Harold Keke forever silenced."

McDevitt, in persuading Keke, who has already been remanded into the protective custody of the RAMSI police, to surrender, has ensured that he will live to tell his tale.