Solomon Islands

     An earlier memo dealt with the violence on two of the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal (where the capital Honiara is located) and neighboring Malaita. Margaret MacKenzie obtained this information from a friend there:
     The problems in the Solomon Islands have a number of causes. First, there is tension between the people of Guadalcanal and the Malaitans who settled there beginning in the 1950s. There was a migration from Malaita to Guadalcanal, with people buying property, building homes, and intending to stay permanently. The Malaitans did well, and currently hold most of the government posts and civil service jobs. The current PM is a Malaitan. You are apparently a Malaitan, even if you and your family have lived on Guadalcanal for 50 years.
     For several years there has been increasing pressure from Guadalcanal people for the Malaitans to return to their island and leave the property they bought on Guadalcanal. This came to a head about a year ago and was "settled" by the payment of compensation. However, a number of Guadalcanal people, the "radicals" as they are called, were not satisfied and continued to put pressure on Malaitans to go back to their home island. This erupted in violence in June, with an organization called the GRA (Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army) determined to drive Malaitans out. They started in the rural areas, threatening to burn out Malaitans if they didn't leave. As things got worse, they were joined by another group called the Island Freedom Fighters (IFF), made up of thugs and rascals whose main interest is in making mischief. As the violence grew, the GRA began to expand their "cleansing" to include all non-Guadalcanal residents -- people from the Western Provinces, from the Polynesian outliers, etc. People fled the rural areas to Honiara for police protection and, at one point, there were several thousand refugees from the outer villages crowded into China Town where they were living without food, shelter, clean water, sanitary facilities, etc.
     A second element in this confusion is caused by some of the large multi-national logging companies, which want to destabilize the current government because it passed tough laws regarding logging.
     Another element is a minority of Malaitans who are opposed to the current government leaders -- also Malaitans. I've read several reports that these disgruntled Malaitans were with the GRA.
     In June the SI government agreed to pay a large sum of money (around 2 2/1 million SI dollars) in compensation to the people of Guadalcanal. This had two results. People in other provinces decided to throw out their settlers and demand compensation (behaviour that is rewarded gets repeated, doesn't it?). The money did not go to the radicals, so they continued the violence and escalated their demands. Rambuka, from Fiji, went in to try to moderate between the government and the assorted factions and achieved a cease fire, at least temporarily
     My comment: We get so little information about the South Pacific that this report is most welcome. Be sure to look at a map of the area while trying to make sense (?) of the squabble. It is not clear to me if the people are of the same ethnicity and language. The ethnic picture in that whole area is very confused.

Ronald Hilton - 07/12/99