The seizure of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu
on June 5 by armed militants of the Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF) demanding
his resignation triggered a deluge of simplistic commentary in the capitalist
media arguing for intervention by Australian police or troops.
An Australian military intervention cannot begin to solve problems
that are the legacy of more than a century of imperialist economic and
political domination and the inability of the capitalist economic system
to develop poor Pacific island societies in a socially just and democratic
way. Rather, the motive of such an intervention by the Australian government
would be to safeguard the system that has robbed and divided the people
of the Solomons (see editorial on page 3).
The Solomon Islands has a population of more than 400,000 and a gross
domestic product of US$400 million. Its per capita GDP was US$900 in 1997.
Australia is the principal source of the Solomons' imports -- mainly
fuel, manufactured goods and processed foods -- accounting for almost 42%
of all imports (worth A$98 million in 1998-99). The Solomons' exports to
Australia amount to just $4 million a year (1.7% of total exports) -- mainly
timber, seafood and gold.
The Australian-owned Gold Ridge goldmine, opened in 1998, will boost
the value of exports to Australia. It is already generating an estimated
30% of the Solomons' GDP. The Solomons' key export market is Japan, the
destination for nearly 60% of exports (overwhelmingly raw materials). Britain
accounts for 7.8% and Germany 3.9%.
As these figures illustrate, the Solomons' relationship with the rich
industrialised world leaves little scope for genuine development. This
is not a recent state of affairs.
Underdevelopment
Tarcisius Tara Kabutaulaka, lecturer in history and politics at Suva's
University of the South Pacific, writing in the May
Pacific News Bulletin,
explains that when Britain granted the Solomon Islands independence in
1978, it was a group of largely undeveloped islands with an economy dependent
almost entirely on the exploitation of natural resources for the world
market by foreign multinational companies.
The two main population centres in the Solomons are the mountainous
island of Malaita (with a population of 100,000) and the main island of
Guadalcanal. Due to its extensive areas of flat land, Guadalcanal was chosen
by the colonists as the location for large plantations. From the early
20th century, thousands of Malaitans were brought to Guadalcanal to work
the plantations.
There are an estimated 60,000 people of Malaitan descent on Guadalcanal
-- around one-third of the island's current population. Many Malaitan families
have lived on Guadalcanal for generations.
After the Japanese imperialist army invaded the Solomons, an airfield
was built in 1942 on the Guadalcanal plains. The US seized it in one the
most terrible battles in history. The airfield became the main US military
base in the Pacific for the remainder of World War II.
Unlike the local Guadalcanal people, who owned and worked the land in
common, the Malaitan plantation labourers were not tied to the land. As
a result, the US military employed mostly Malaitans for its civilian labour
force.
Uneven development
The US military base at Henderson Field, now the Solomons' international
airport, soon became the cradle of Honiara. After the war, development
in the Solomons continued to concentrate around Honiara.
Kabutaulaka points out that, as a result, Honiara was where job opportunities
were concentrated: “Between 1971 and 1981, while Isabel, Makira/Ulawa,
Temotu and Malaita provinces accounted for 49% of the country's population,
they had only 15% of formal sector employment. This difference was especially
true of Malaita with 31% of the national population and only 7% of the
employment. This imbalance was worsening and in the subsequent decade formal
sector employment in those provinces scarcely increased.
“In 1981, when overall employment increased, the level of employment
in both Malaita and Santa Isabel fell. Thus, the provinces that were already
better provided with job opportunities and generally have higher levels
of development have experienced the most growth. In terms of job opportunities
the regional disparities since independence have worsened; one of the results
has been the greater migration to employment centres such as Honiara.”
In the early 1970s, notes Hugh Laracy of the University of Auckland,
writing in the June 6 New Zealand Herald, new foreign-owned large
palm oil plantations on the plains east of Honiara also recruited more
Malaitans.
The seeds of the conflict between the Guadalcanal customary landowners
and Malaitan settlers were sown by the British colonial administration,
which annexed the Solomons in 1893, and the Western capitalists. The private
ownership of the land, upon which capitalist “development” of the Solomons
was based, is in stark contradiction to the communal land ownership system
still practised by the Guadalcanal people.
As Laracy notes: “Traditionally Solomon Islanders lived in small, self-reliant
communities. Their loyalties did not extend beyond people of the same language
group (of which there are 70) or from the same island. There were no overarching
structures of unity.”
Marginalisation
Capitalist development resulted in the uneven breakdown of traditional
structures. Because of their traditional ties to the land, the Guadalcanal
people did not benefit much from the expanding employment on their island
home.
A small layer of Malaitans and other settlers came to dominate the professions,
the political class and local business. It was this emerging elite that
the British groomed to take over the reins at independence. Non-Guadalcanalans
are also the majority of civil servants and the police force.
The landowners on whose land the city of Honiara and the plantations
were sited felt particularly aggrieved. Kabutaulaka described Solomon Islands
Plantation Limited (SIPL) on the Guadalcanal plains as “a classic example”:
“Established in 1971 ... for the indigenous landowners, the benefit from
the plantation was marginal. They own only a 2% share in SIPL, compared
to 68% share by the British-registered Commonwealth Development Corporation
(CDC) and 30% by the Solomon Islands government. In addition to shares,
landowners receive SI$100 [A$35] per hectare per annum as land rental and
SI$500 per hectare as premium.
“In 1997, when the government led by Bartholomew Ulufa'alu came to power,
it proposed to sell two-thirds of the government's 30% share to CDC. The
remaining 10% would be sold to Solomon Islanders but managed by the Investment
Corporation of Solomon Islands, the national government's investment agency.
“The Guadalcanal Provincial government, however, demanded that instead
of selling its shares to CDC, the national government should give it to
the Guadalcanal Provincial government. But, pressed by the need for quick
finance -- prior to the crisis SIPL was contributing 20% of the country's
GDP -- the Ulufa'alu government did not respond positively to this request.”
Landowners near the Gold Ridge goldmine, who were not consulted or compensated
over the mine's use of the waters of the Manepono River, last year launched
legal action against its Australian owners to prevent pollution of their
vital water supply.
In the aftermath of the 1998 Asian economic crisis, under pressure from
Western “donors”, the Ulufa'alu government cut government spending and
reduced jobs. Conflict over the remaining jobs and increased pressure for
land as unemployed Guadalcanalans returned to the countryside heightened
tensions.
Unfortunately, the Guadalcanal people have increasingly reacted to their
economic and political marginalisation by directing their anger, not at
the tiny Honiara elite, but at all Solomon Islanders of Malaitan descent.
Opportunist politicians have not been slow to exploit this ethnic chauvinism.
Militias formed
At the beginning of 1998, ethnic communalism took a dangerous turn when
militant Guadalcanal youth, calling themselves the Isatabu Freedom Movement
(IFM), began arming themselves with World War II-vintage rifles and home-made
guns. The IFM openly set about driving Malaitans from Guadalcanal.
In November 1998, Guadalcanal Province Premier Ezekiel Alebua fuelled
the growing chauvinist fire with a speech that demanded “respect” from
Honiarans for their Guadalcanal “hosts”, that rent for Honiara be paid
to the province and compensation for Guadalcanal people murdered in the
capital. Soon after, Malaita settlers west of Honiara were attacked by
the IFM.
By late 1999, at least 50 people had been killed in clashes between
the IFM and police and in IFM attacks on non-Guadalcanalans. More than
20,000 Malaitans, especially from near Honiara, had been forced to flee.
According to Kabutaulaka, the IFM “has support from all over the island
and an organisational structure was established to regulate the work of
the militants. Although this has not functioned efficiently ... the general
feeling throughout the island is that of agreement with the IFM.”
At the beginning of this year, the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) was formed
to defend the residents of Honiara from IFM attacks and to demand that
the Ulufa'alu government provide compensation for displaced Malaitans'
property losses and do more to protect the lives and property of Malaitans.
The MEF is led by lawyer Andrew Nori, a former MP defeated at the 1997
general election. Nori is an unlikely “freedom fighter”. He was first elected
to the national parliament in 1984, was home affairs and provincial government
minister between 1984-88, and leader of the opposition in the early 1990s.
Nori resigned as finance minister in 1994 after A$70,000 from an overseas
source was discovered to have been deposited in his personal bank account.
As finance minister, Nori implemented economic policies dictated by the
International Monetary Fund and the Australian government. Such policies
reduced resources available for development that could have helped prevent
the latest conflict.
In early June, MEF militants raided the police armoury, took control
of Honiara and seized Ulufa'alu (who is Malaitan). The MEF demanded he
resign because he had failed to meet its demands. The majority of the Royal
Solomon Islands Police (including the crews of the Solomons Islands' two
Australian-supplied patrol boats) defected to the MEF.
Around 500 armed MEF fighters drove the heavily outgunned IFM from Honiara
after several days fighting, reportedly inflicting heavy casualties. The
IFM still controls much of the rest of Guadalcanal. A shaky truce is now
in effect.
Ulufa'alu resigned on June 14. Ulufa'alu also announced that a committee
of six opposition and six government MPs, to be chaired by the Solomons
governor-general, would meet with MEF and IFM leaders to try to negotiate
a peace settlement. The Solomons parliament will meet within a fortnight
to elect a new PM.
BY NORM DIXON
