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| A socialist newsweekly published in the interests of working people Vol. 64/No. 25  June 26, 2000
Canberra, Wellington intervene in Solomons BY DOUG COOPER SYDNEY, Australia--Long-simmering unrest in the Solomon Islands boiled over June 5 when Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu and others were put under house arrest for two days by members of the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), who also occupied key installations throughout Honiara, the country's main town and capital. As the Militant goes to press, the MEF still controls the capital while its more lightly armed opponent, the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM), reportedly has the town surrounded. The Australian and New Zealand governments moved rapidly to assert their right to decide what happens in the South Pacific, the region they arrogantly consider to be their "backyard." The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) amphibious landing ship HMAS Manoora, with more than 200 troops and three Black Hawk attack helicopters on board, arrived off Honiara June 12. Australian SAS commandos were reported June 10 to already be on Guadalcanal, the island where the capital is located, to conduct "reconnaissance." Meanwhile, the transport ship HMAS Tobruk arrived June 8 in Honiara under the pretext of evacuating Australian, New Zealand, and other nationals. The Tobruk left June 10 with 480 evacuees after standing by until the New Zealand warship HMNZS Te Mana arrived. Others were put on two Royal New Zealand Air Force planes on June 11. More flights have followed. While neither side in the armed conflict has made threats against foreign nationals, their presence provides an ongoing pretext for imperialist intervention, either in the form of evacuation or protection for "helpless civilians." Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer, who was in Honiara June 10–11 with his New Zealand and Botswanan counterparts and a top Malaysian official to demand a cease-fire under the rubric of the Commonwealth, ruled out immediate Australian "peacekeeping" intervention. However, an unnamed RAN spokesperson noted June 12 that the presence of the warship Manoora "provides options for the government." The conflict between the MEF and the IFM is widely described in the big-business media as an "ethnic" conflict between "immigrants" from Malaita island and "indigenous" people on Guadalcanal. But there are no "ethnic" differences between people from Malaita and Guadalcanal as such. Family, clan, and tribal social relations still predominate among the 400,000 people throughout the seven large and numerous smaller islands and outlying atolls. While English and Pijin are widely used, more than 60 local languages are still spoken. The Solomon Islands is a former British colony that won independence only in 1978. The country faces imperialist oppression and exploitation, especially through gold mining and logging, but modern classes are only now just coming into being and a national consciousness is still awakening.
MEF leader Andrew Nori, one of the first Solomon Islanders to become a lawyer, is a longtime politician and opponent of Prime Minister Ulufa'alu, who is himself from central Malaita. The IFM has pushed the politics of resentment against those from Malaita who have settled on Guadalcanal and calls for their expulsion. Over the last 18 months what is now called the IFM has waged a terror campaign centered in the villages, with some 60 killed and 20,000 people displaced to Honiara. Nori and the MEF took action in the face of what they call the government's inability to maintain law and order. On June 5, IFM fighters attacked the Gold Ridge gold mine. The two-year-old Australian-owned mine now provides more than 50 percent of the country's GDP. Its workforce includes people from both Malaita and Guadalcanal along with foreign nationals. Ulufa'alu declared a draconian state of emergency in mid-1999, severely restricting all democratic rights and vastly strengthening police powers. Unlike Fiji, the Solomon Islands has no standing army. Under the impact of the ongoing tensions, the police force has largely disintegrated, with many defecting to the MEF in recent weeks and providing it with access to automatic rifles and other weaponry. Unconfirmed reports say that hundreds may have been killed in initial fighting, which lasted two days. Representatives from all sides have called for armed "peacekeeping" intervention, but some say they oppose unilateral intervention by Australia. In the wake of recent events in Indonesia, East Timor, Fiji, and the Solomons, Canberra and Wellington--the imperialist powers with the most direct stake--are deeply worried by what pundits are now calling the "arc of instability" in the Pacific. Doug Cooper is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia.
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