The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flew 13 flights of Hercules transport planes to Honiara’s airport to get the imperialist troops there. The troopship and helicopter-carrier HMAS Manoora also arrived the same day, establishing an army base at Red Beach some 20 kilometers out of town.

A few days later the Manoora moved to Honiara harbor in a further show of force. Troops and cops from Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji were part of the initial deployment. Small units from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Samoa are also slated to join the intervention, which has been dubbed “Operation Helpem Fren” (Operation Help a Friend in Pidjin, the common language in the Solomons).

“This is our patch [turf],” Australian prime minister John Howard declared July 23. “We do have a special responsibility here, and we’re doing it in a very careful, deliberate, cooperative fashion.”

Asserting that the Solomon Islands were sliding into “anarchy” and becoming a “haven for evildoers,” he stated that “a failure to do something …would send the wrong signal to those people who are endeavoring to maintain a stable situation in other parts of the Pacific, including PNG,” that is, Papua New Guinea.

The stated goal of the intervention is to re-establish “law and order” and rebuild the government apparatus. Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer has announced A$25 million (US$1 = A$1.5) in “aid” to build a new prison.

“Should criminals seek to sabotage our assistance efforts, endanger public safety, or prevent the police from doing their duty, the military will not hesitate to act,” warned Nicholas Warner, the Australian diplomat heading the intervention force, upon his arrival there July 24.

The governments of Australia and New Zealand, the two imperialist powers in the region, dominate the South Pacific Forum, a grouping that includes the Solomon Islands and 13 other semicolonial countries.  
 
Two-year civil war
Between 1998 and 2000 a civil war between rival militias from the islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita broke out in the Solomons, the product of two decades of depression conditions. Some 20,000 Malaitan living on Guadalcanal were forced to flee their settlements, while the Malaitan militias, with close connections in the civil service and police, staged a coup, seizing control of the government in Honiara. Many from the Malaitan militias were later drafted as “special constables.”

The Australian and New Zealand governments intervened with gunboat diplomacy in mid-2000 to broker a peace settlement that froze this situation in place. Substantial funds were doled out, through the Solomon Islands government, as “compensation” for lost property and turned-in weapons. As trade and investment continued to spiral downwards, the Australian and New Zealand governments decided to intervene more directly to shore up their interests.

With Australia providing the bulk of the forces, the New Zealand government is sending 4 helicopters, 35 cops, and 105 military personnel, with another 125 infantry being kept in reserve for possible deployment. The New Zealand government is to appoint the deputy head of the intervention force, and has assigned a senior officer, Wing Commander Shaun Clarke, with “red card” powers to refuse the participation of New Zealand forces in particular tasks.

Following a meeting of the South Pacific Forum, which endorsed the Australia-led intervention in Sydney, June 30, Vanuatu’s foreign minister Serge Vohor objected to Australia’s regional ambitions.

He declared, “We don’t want to be recolonized.” We have been “fighting for our independence, [to be] free from colonization… and we like to be free. We don’t want to have someone who [will] exploit us again.” Vanuatu, a South Pacific nation, was a joint colony of France and Britain until winning independence in 1980.

In the first days of the intervention Warner and other officials moved to establish contact with several rival militias to negotiate “weapons surrender.” The top Australian cop in the intervention force, Benjamin McDevitt, was sworn in as a deputy commissioner of the Solomon Islands police force July 28. A 21-day gun amnesty was declared July 31. “Illegal weapons” held by sections of the Solomon Islands police are also being targeted in the attempted disarmament of the population.

Warner and McDevitt met with Harold Keke August 8, who, according to reports, agreed to allow the establishment of an outpost of the intervention force in the region of southern Guadalcanal where his group operates, and to hand over his weapons. Two rival militia groups had earlier agreed to similar proposals. Keke’s group, which refused to be part of the peace settlement brokered in 2000, has been billed as a central target of the intervention.

“The government blames me for everything but I am only defending my people’s land,” Keke declared as the intervention began. “We are not raskols [gangsters], we are fighting for independence. I am not the main problem for the Solomon Islands; it is corrupt politicians and a police force that is beyond the law.”  
 
Intervention in the region
Royal Australian Navy warships are to patrol the sea border between the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, off Bougainville, to block “weapons smuggling.” Bougainvilleans, who have close clan relationships with many in the Solomon Islands, fought a 10-year war for independence from Papua New Guinea 1988---97. The war, which cost some 5,000 dead, closed down production at the giant Australian-owned Panguna copper mine on Bougainville. Despite the backing of the Australian government, it ended in a military defeat for the Papua New Guinea army.

A New Zealand government-brokered truce in 1997 saw the arrival of “peace monitors” from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Vanuatu, who oversaw “peace ceremonies” and worked to disarm the local population over the following years. The political settlement brokered called for greater autonomy for Bougainville within Papua New Guinea, with a vote on independence in the future. The last of the “peace monitors” were withdrawn from Bougainville June 30, with civilian advisors due to arrive from Australia and New Zealand to “assist” in setting up the provincial government. Some 2,000 Australian troops and 300 civilians did a stint as “unarmed peace monitors” in Bougainville over the last five years. Warner played a central role in re-establishing “stability” in Bougainville as the Australian High Commissioner in Papua New Guinea during much of this period.

Despite the closure of Panguna, mining remains central to Australian imperialist interests in Papua New Guinea, its former colony, with gold, silver, and copper mines, and undeveloped deposits, alongside newly developed oil and gas fields.

The Australian government is also expanding its intervention elsewhere in the region, which it describes as an “arc of instability”—from Indonesia, through East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and into the South Pacific. It is supporting the Indonesian government’s wars against the independence movements in Aceh, northern Sumatra, and West Papua. Since the bombing of the Marriott Hotel in central Jakarta August 5, the Australian government has bolstered its intervention in Indonesian affairs, sending more cops in addition to those it dispatched following the Oct. 12, 2002, bombing in Bali’s tourist district.

Australian prime minister Howard declared June 19 that Australian troops would remain in East Timor “for years.” The Australian newsweekly The Bulletin reported that the Australian government “has placed half a dozen advisers in Fiji’s volatile military, is set to place a further half dozen in the crumbling criminal justice system and will provide Fiji with a new police commissioner.” Australia “is now indisputably the No.1 foreign power in Fiji,” the newsweekly bragged.  
 
 
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