On September 14, PM John Howard threatened to end Canberra’s $85 million per year “aid” package to the Solomon Islands, upon which the Solomons’ government is dependent to meet its budget. Howard’s threat came shortly after Canberra imposed visa restrictions on visiting Solomons MPs after Solomons PM Manasseh Sogavare ordered the expulsion of Australian high commissioner Patrick Cole.
Sogavare became PM in the wake of riots on April 18-19 sparked by the parliament’s election of Snyder Rini as PM. Rini had been deputy PM in a coalition government that was defeated in elections held earlier that month. Opposition MPs accused Rini of using funds provided by the country’s ethnic Chinese business elite to bribe MPs to vote for him.
The Sogavare government has accused Cole of interfering in the country’s political affairs. Cole has publicly agitated against a planned government-appointed judicial commission of inquiry into the April riots. He has also been accused of courting MPs to back a vote of no confidence in Sogavare’s government.
Following the April riots, then-opposition MPs, who are now part of Sogavare’s ruling coalition, accused the Australian Federal Police and the AFP-commanded Royal Solomon Islands Police of provoking the riots by attacking peaceful anti-Rini protesters.
Responding to Howard’s threat, Solomons government spokesperson Alfred Maesulia said that Australia “is trying to control what the Solomon Islands, especially the government, should do”.
This has long been the case. Since 2003, Australia has led a Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) that, under the pretext of combatting corruption, has taken over the running of the country’s police, court and prison system. The colonial-style RAMSI operation was approved by the Solomons parliament in July 2003, after Canberra cut off all aid to the country the year before and the Solomons’ economy, already hard hit by the 1997-98 Asian economic crisis, collapsed.
In June 2003, the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute issued Our Failing Neighbour: Australia and the Future of the Solomon Islands — the blueprint for RAMSI. Calling the Solomons a “failed state”, the document stated that the breakdown of “law and order” in the Solomons was “depriving Australia of business and investment opportunities that, though not huge, are potentially valuable”.
Around 400 Australian troops were sent to Honiara immediately after this year’s April riots to protect RAMSI’s 300 AFP officers and 180 Australian and New Zealand civilian “advisers”. Two opposition MPs were arrested by RAMSI and denied bail by an Australian magistrate.
Following his election as PM, Sogavare told radio listeners on May 8: “Australia seemed to have used the provisions of the current partnership as a licence to infiltrate almost all sectors of the public sector. By their high-level engagement in senior posts within the government we have a situation where foreign nationals have direct and unrestricted access to the nerve centre of Solomon Islands public administration, security and leadership. This is an unhealthy situation.”
When Sogavare appointed the two arrested MPs to his cabinet, Canberra threatened to cut off its funding, leading Sogavare to back down in early June.
A few weeks later, the Solomons parliament approved a new foreign investment law, drawn up by RAMSI, that cuts the number of sectors protected from foreign investment from 83 to 14 and reduces the deadline for approving foreign investment applications from three months to just five days. The new law, proposed by Canberra and the World Bank in 2004, will facilitate Australian corporate control over the Solomons’ gold and other mineral resources, fisheries, plantations, forests and tourism projects.
This latest incident highlights the need for Canberra’s colonial-style operation to end. Australian troops and police should leave, and the Howard government should boost its measly humanitarian assistance, without strings attached, to one of the region’s poorest countries. This is the only way for the Solomons to regain its national sovereignty.
