[R-G] Solomon Islands’ foreign minister condemns Australian occupation at UN General Assembly

[Anthony Fenton]

Solomon Islands’ foreign minister condemns Australian occupation at  
UN General Assembly
By Patrick O’Connor, Socialist Equality Party candidate for Grayndler
11 October 2007

http://wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/solo-o11.shtml

The protracted conflict between the Solomon Islands and Australian  
governments escalated earlier this month when the Pacific country’s  
foreign minister Patteson Oti denounced Australia’s “occupation”  
before the UN General Assembly. Oti’s strident speech marked a  
significant ramping up of the increasingly hostile exchanges between  
the two countries.

Tensions have been building for more than a year, as the Australian  
government of Prime Minister John Howard has attempted to destabilise  
and overthrow the Solomons’ administration led by Prime Minister  
Manasseh Sogavare.

Oti’s characterisation of Australia’s presence in the Solomons as an  
occupation force is entirely accurate. In 2003, more than 2,000  
soldiers and police were deployed under the banner of the Regional  
Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Scores of Australian  
bureaucrats, legal officials, and other personnel effectively took  
control of the country’s state apparatus, including its police,  
prisons, judicial system, public service, and finance department.

The neo-colonial operation is of indefinite duration and the Howard  
government has made clear that it will brook no interference from the  
Solomon Islands’ government. Responding to Oti’s speech, Australian  
foreign minister Alexander Downer accused the Sogavare government of  
trying to destroy RAMSI. The media has effectively buried the story,  
while the Labor Party and the Greens have kept their mouths tightly  
shut.

This silence—after a senior representative of a neighbouring  
government has issued an extraordinary denunciation of Australia’s  
intervention into the region before a major forum of world leaders— 
provides a revealing demonstration of the support extended to the  
Howard government’s Solomons operation by the entire political and  
media establishment.

The drive to forcibly assert Canberra’s direct control, in violation  
of international law and the democratic right of ordinary Pacific  
Islanders to determine their own future, will be one of the great  
unmentionables in the upcoming election campaign. Irrespective of  
which party wins office, the filthy manoeuvres and dirty tricks that  
have characterised the Howard government’s operations in the region  
will continue unabated.

On October 1, Oti addressed the UN General Assembly, declaring that  
“our sovereign right to determine the terms on which the government  
of Solomon Islands will permit our continued occupation by the  
visiting contingent cannot be undermined by any member of the United  
Nations.” He continued, “however dressed and rationalised,  
intervention and occupation allow ‘assisting’ nations to spend and  
earn substantial revenue for their supporting businesses and  
industries. Mine is too nationalistic a government to become captive  
to the fortunes which justify our perpetual retention under siege.”

Sogavare and his supporters represent a layer of the Solomons’elite  
which, while having no principled opposition to the Howard  
government’s intervention, is seeking to manoeuvre between rival  
powers and pressure Canberra to recast RAMSI’s mission on a new basis  
more favourable to its interests. After coming to power in May last  
year, the Sogavare government attempted to reduce RAMSI’s control  
over the country’s finance department and end its effective veto over  
public spending. The prime minister has repeatedly insisted that he  
is not seeking to expel RAMSI and that he wants an accommodation with  
the Howard government.

Oti’s speech before the UN included an appeal for the international  
body to act as a counterweight to Canberra. Greater UN involvement,  
however, would alter nothing. In East Timor, to take just one  
example, the international body has rubber-stamped the Australian- 
dominated intervention force and said nothing as Canberra conspired  
to oust the Fretilin government of Mari Alkatiri.

The Solomons’ government nevertheless hopes to win support from other  
powers to pressure the Howard government. So far, Canberra has  
refused to compromise. Sogavare and his senior ministers have been  
targeted, along with attorney-general Julian Moti, who is still being  
pursued on a trumped up extradition request relating to statutory  
rape allegations that were thrown out of a Vanuatu court in 1999. On  
August 4 the Sogavare government formally rejected the extradition  
request, describing the attempted prosecution as “nothing more than a  
political witchhunt”.

The Howard government’s effort to politically destroy Moti has been  
especially driven by its determination to derail a Commission of  
Inquiry into the causes of the April 2006 riots, which destroyed much  
of the Solomons’ capital, Honiara. Substantial evidence indicates  
that RAMSI police and troops were deliberately stood down to  
facilitate the destruction triggered by widely anticipated post- 
election unrest.

Foreign Minister Oti referred to Canberra’s efforts to halt the  
inquiry in his UN address, noting that the investigation “finally  
became functional this year after the failure of externally- 
orchestrated manoeuvres to derail it”. He insisted that “my  
government is determined to delve deeper into the historic causes of  
the friction between our peoples”.

Solomons’ parliament prepares RAMSI review

The Solomons operation forms the lynchpin of Canberra’s strategic  
ambitions in the South Pacific. Great power rivalries are  
intensifying as Beijing’s economic and diplomatic influence  
increases. The Howard government’s expenditure of more than one  
billion dollars on RAMSI since 2003 is regarded as a critical long- 
term investment, with the operation hailed as a model for potential  
takeovers of other Pacific states. A setback would have far reaching  
consequences.

The Howard government is particularly concerned by the Solomons’  
parliament August 26 decision to review the 2003 Facilitation of  
International Assistance Act. It drafted this legislation and forced  
its ratification ahead of the initial intervention. The Facilitation  
Act grants Australian personnel sweeping powers, including complete  
immunity from local law and exemption from all immigration and visa  
controls. It also exempts foreign corporations connected to RAMSI  
from many business registration and tax obligations.

Attorney-general Moti drew up a memorandum detailing the dubious  
character of the Facilitation Act in relation to both international  
law and the Solomon Islands constitution. Moti noted that the so- 
called regional assistance mission, RAMSI, is not even mentioned in  
the Act. This leaves unclear the “precise nature of its legal  
personality”. The Act similarly includes no reference to the Pacific  
Islands Forum or any other regional or international organisation,  
making a mockery of the Howard government’s efforts to cloak its  
takeover as a multilateral and regional operation.

Moti also raised a number of questions regarding Section 24 of the  
Facilitation Act, which prevents the Solomons parliament from passing  
subsequent legislation “amending or repealing, or otherwise altering  
the effect or operation of, this Act or subsidiary legislation made  
under this Act”. This proviso, which contradicts long established  
constitutional and parliamentary norms, was meant to ensure that the  
parliament remained a toothless facade for the Australian occupying  
authorities.

RAMSI chief Tim George last month called a press conference in  
Honiara to denounce the pending review. Without attempting any  
specific rebuttal of Moti’s legal analysis of the Facilitation Act,  
George described the attorney-general’s memorandum as “a very flawed  
and muddled document” which “reveals a negative mindset towards RAMSI”.

George’s outburst underscores Canberra’s entrenched opposition to any  
modification of the terms of the operation. The insistence that  
Australian police, soldiers, and bureaucrats remain unaccountable and  
above the law exposes the fraudulent character of the Howard  
government’s claims that RAMSI is a “humanitarian” operation. RAMSI  
wants legal immunity to allow it to operate without restraint in  
defence of Australian corporate interests. It will certainly  
ferociously repress any oppositional movement that develops within  
the local population.

The Solomons remains among the most impoverished countries in the  
world. Virtually no Australian aid money has been spent on health and  
education, while the presence of hundreds of highly paid RAMSI  
personnel has inflated rental rates and other costs of living. Amid  
growing resentment and frustration, particularly among unemployed  
youth living in Honiara’s squatter settlements, a social time bomb is  
ticking.

The Howard government continues to insist that RAMSI enjoys the  
support of the vast majority, and has effectively claimed the right  
to disregard the Solomons parliament and government on the basis of a  
popular “mandate”. A RAMSI-sponsored survey released last month  
purported to show that 90 percent of the population supported RAMSI’s  
presence and a majority thought that communal violence would re- 
emerge if foreign forces were forced out. Predictably, Downer and  
George seized upon the conveniently-timed release of the survey  
findings and claimed vindication.

Serious questions have been raised, however, about the survey.  
Finance Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo has ordered a criminal  
investigation into the alleged secret payment of $SI100,000  
($A16,000) to statisticians in the finance and treasury ministry, who  
used publicly owned resources and information for the RAMSI survey.  
“These officials are paid salaries to work for government,” Lilo  
declared. “They are supposed to safeguard our national intelligence  
information and not sell it for their private gain.... This is  
probably just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what else is going on  
in this country without our knowledge or approval?”

Authorised by N. Beams, 40 Raymond Street, Bankstown, NSW