Impact of price rises on rural families

Fascinating piece from Solomon Star News. Although many people in urban areas have limited access to a cash income, people in rural areas have even more limited access, and their limited ability to participate in the cash economy is compounded by the expense of travelling to Honiara, or having goods shipped to rural areas. In other words, they are more vulnerable to price rises than are those in Honiara.

Zaka identifies something that Wei and I have not to date - the damage caused to Chinese business could perhaps open up opportunities for Solomon Islanders that were not previously there. It will be interested to watch Solomon Islands' economy in the coming months and years to see what the long-term impacts of the rioting are (if any).

Price crisis affects rural families

Submitted by Arthur Wate on 25 April, 2006 - 3:44pm. Headlines

THE price crisis expects to severely affect rural-based subsistence farmers and fishermen, a shop-owner said.

“Our struggling families back in rural areas would be the worst affected consumers.

“The prices of goods, which have been unnecessarily increased, would be doubled or tripled the current rates,” said the shop-owner Samuel Zaka.

He called on shop-owners to have pity on the rural people who are struggling to make ends meet.

As citizens of this country, he said, everyone should have concern for the people.

“We should not allow the unfortunate situation to sever our mutual relationship that bonds us together.

“Be fair and honest with our prices,” he told Solomon Star yesterday.

Zaka said the increase of prices of some consumable goods such as rice, cigarette and tobacco and canned food is unwarranted because the supply is still there.

Although demand is high, he said, the main supply has not been affected.

The major retail and wholesalers may be destroyed but there is still a channel to get supplies, he said.

The shop-owner said the problem currently experience in the capital can be viewed as a test of ‘our credibility as business people.”

Seeing the Chinese friends who major suppliers have been cut off through the destruction of their businesses, it is time the local people take up the opportunity, he said.

“We should now face the challenge of starting a business and help our own people.

“The problem should be our stepping stone to self-reliance.

“We should not take advantage of it to punish fellow citizens,” he said.

We don't need a larger army - we need a better understanding of local circumstances

Regrettably, Greg Sheridan simplifies the issues here and suggests that it was simply "the Chinese" that were targeted. While the Chinese and Solomon Islanders have coexisted for a long time, Sheridan should know that in many respects, last week's riots have been coming for a long time. On my very first trip to the Solomon Islands I learnt of the tensions between the Chinese and Solomon Islanders, I witnessed what one correspondent referred to as 'the Missus sitting on her high chair barking orders to the Solomon Islander'. That this underlying tension should escalate to the point of violence is entirely unsurprising when one considers how this cultural difference interacts with livelihood insecurity in a transitional economy (which we've written about here)

Both Terry Brown (in Malaita) and Wei Choong (from her correspondence with people in SI) have observed that the rioters distinguished between 'old' and 'new' Chinese buildings, between the 'old' Chinese who have been there for generations and the 'new' who are perceived as having no real interest in SI, but are merely using it as a stepping stone to New Zealand or Australia. Of course, the 'old' Chinese were not immune from being targetted, but they did not suffer to the extent that the 'new' did, and in some cases their buildings were clearly spared.

Wei Choong writes, 'It's an indication that SI's distinguish the differences, and it's something that RAMSI and others need to understand. There are so many smaller details that are now quite important to highlight.' Unfortunately Sheridan fails to do that, but only furthers the construction of Solomon Islanders as primitive and in need of rescuing by RAMSI.


Neighbour trouble
It's back to nation-building for Australia in its nearby region, reports foreign editor Greg Sheridan
The Australian, April 22, 2006

WHEN Snyder Rini was unexpectedly elected Prime Minister of Solomon Islands by his parliamentary colleagues in Honiara last Wednesday, an Australian official sent a text message to a senior colleague in Canberra telling him the news. The official received a two-word response: "Oh god."

Rini's election was even less popular with the crowd outside the parliament building. It tried to storm parliament and Rini had to flee under the protection of Australian Federal Police. Rini was secretly sworn in as Prime Minister at the Governor-General's residence the next day and now faces a no-confidence motion at Monday's first parliamentary sitting.

Close observers expect a serious effort next week to resolve the immediate Solomons crisis through a political manoeuvre, either Rini's resignation, which is considered quite likely, or Rini appointing a compromise cabinet, giving his opponents key portfolios. When the Australian police took Rini out of the parliament building on Wednesday, the crowd gathered there turned from being raucous to being viciously violent.

As the world now knows, two days of rioting and looting followed. It was a catastrophic breakdown in law and order. Much of Honiara was burned to the ground.

Rini's opponents accused him of being backed by Chinese, specifically Taiwanese, money, which they said had swayed some parliamentarians' votes, and the crowd rampaged through Honiara's Chinatown. Almost every Chinese shop and business was destroyed. Then the crowd burned down the Pacific Casino Hotel, the pride of Honiara's waterfront. The hotel was owned by a local Chinese businessman.

The Howard Government responded quickly. On Thursday it sent 110 soldiers and 70 police. New Zealand and Fiji also sent smaller forces.

On Thursday night a series of telephone conversations took place involving Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, James Batley, the head of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands,, and Shane Castles, the Australian who is the Solomons police commissioner.

The results were quick. On Friday, another 110 Australian soldiers were dispatched. The crowd's violence caught everyone unawares even though Rini was a central player in the previous government, which was widely accused of corruption. Allegations of corruption also swirl around Rini.

The rage against the Chinese, allegedly on the pretext that some of them may have backed Rini, is particularly surprising. For years the key fault line of Solomons politics was ethnic hostility between the natives of the main island, Guadalcanal, and those of the second island, Malaita.

But this week's violence had no discernible Guadalcanal-Malaita dynamic. There was fury over what was seen as the perpetuation of the same corrupt crowd in office. And there is underlying jealousy of the success of Chinese businessmen. But none of this could remotely justify the rampage of destruction, which miraculously - and partly because of heroic emergency interventions by Australian police - claimed no lives.

The incident shows the Australian operation, RAMSI, which entered the Solomons almost three years ago, has been unsuccessful at three levels. It has not rooted out the corruption that is endemic in Solomon Islands. It has not convinced Solomons citizens to prosecute their grievances through the political system and the institutions of government. And it has not removed the ready recourse, in substantial sections of the population, to savage violence.

But the message from Howard and Downer in response has been consistent. Australia will stay the course. The commitment to the Solomons is long-term. There is no alternative to deep Australian involvement in the Solomons or more broadly throughout the crisis-hit Melanesian world and across the South Pacific.

As Howard told talkback radio on Thursday: "No country in the world has a bigger role to play than Australia and what we have to remind ourselves again is that in our own part of the world, the rest of the world expects Australia to shoulder most of the burden."

Howard strengthened the message yesterday: "We could from time to time have a significant military presence in different parts of the Pacific. It's one of the reasons I have been saying for years this country will have to continue spending increasing amounts of money on defence because this is our patch. Nobody else can be expected to shoulder this burden.

"We can't ask the Americans or the Europeans or anybody else. They'll say, well this is the Pacific, it's next door to Australia, and Australia is a strong, wealthy, prosperous country and it's got to shoulder its burden. And I think that's a fair thing for the rest of the world to say. I don't complain about that."

But the tragedy of the Solomons is also Australia's tragedy. In 2003, Canberra changed policy fundamentally on the South Pacific and the immediate cause was the Solomons, though the wider background was the simmering crisis of governance throughout the Melanesian arc that stretches from Papua New Guinea through the Solomons and down to Vanuatu and Fiji.

For decades the orthodoxy had been that Canberra treated the South Pacific nations as small but perfectly formed independent states. It wanted to be helpful but not too deeply involved. Above all it did not want to be accused of neo-colonialism, of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

The Solomons changed all that. Even by Melanesian standards the Solomons, with a population a little less than 600,000 and growing rapidly, had always been notably corrupt. It achieved independence in 1978 and, as with many Melanesian nations, developed little sense of nationhood. Different tribes had little contact with each other and not much interaction with the institutions of government. The East Asian crisis of 1997 hit it hard, as its main foreign investors were from the crisis-hit Asian countries. Ethnic tensions developed between the people of Guadalcanal and the Malaitans, who had migrated there and taken up land.

In 2000 the Solomons' then prime minister, Bart Ulufa'alu, requested that Canberra send 50 policemen to help him keep order. He was turned down. Subsequently he was forced from office in a virtual coup as rival ethnic gangs tore apart the Solomons.

Canberra was not inactive in this period. It tried hard to broker a settlement between the different ethnic groups and achieved this, notionally, with the Townsville Peace Agreement in late 2000. But the agreement never stuck. By early 2003 the Solomons was in full-blown crisis and again on the edge of civil war.

But the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade clung doggedly to the doctrine of non-interference. Writing in The Australian in January that year, Downer gave expression to the official view. He wrote: "Sending in Australian troops to occupy Solomon Islands would be folly in the extreme. It would be widely resented in the Pacific region. It would be very difficult to justify to Australian taxpayers. And for how many years would such an occupation have to continue? And what would be the exit strategy? The real show stopper, however, is that it would not work, no matter how it was dressed up, whether as an Australian or a Commonwealth or a Pacific Forum initiative. The fundamental problem is that foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems afflicting Solomon Islands."

But it is a great strength of Downer that he is willing to change his mind. The Honiara Government kept asking for help.

In the international environment of the war on terror, Howard and Downer gradually came to a much deeper appreciation of the dangers of failed and failing states. As Howard said this week: "Failed states create vacuums." And vacuums are intensely dangerous.

And so, in the middle of 2003, Australia created RAMSI, which took nearly 2500 Australian and regional soldiers and police, the vast bulk of them Australian, into the Solomons. Everyone involved in the operation believes that this huge show of force was a key to RAMSI's early success in restoring order. Not to put too fine a point on it, the ethnic militias were scared of the Australian army, and rightly so.

RAMSI quickly re-established order. The police were there to do the policing, not the soldiers. The soldiers were there to protect the police if necessary. This Australian "shock and awe" worked. In short order, the worst of the militia leaders, Harold Keke, was in custody. Several thousand guns were destroyed in a weapons amnesty. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty points out that had this gun amnesty not worked, this week's rioters, armed with rifles instead of clubs and machetes, may have killed scores of people.

Under RAMSI, even economic growth returned to the Solomons, although its economy had shrunk by a full quarter between 1998 and 2002. Indeed, the Solomons has gone very far backwards. The International Monetary Fund estimates it would need 40 years of better than 4 per cent annual economic growth merely to reach the living standards of the mid-'90s.

This week's riots, in scaring away Chinese businessmen, destroying Honiara's infrastructure and deterring foreign investment, make that much more difficult to achieve. It is a pitiable, nearly insane situation.

Howard and Downer have foreshadowed that the Australian commitment in Solomon Islands is long term, and they have received the support of Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and the Labor Party.

A minor theme in all of this is the contest between China and Taiwan for South Pacific diplomatic support. The Solomons is one of few nations to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and this attracts Taiwanese aid and some investment. The Chinese find this infuriating. But it would be absurd to blame the Chinese, either the Chinese resident in the Solomons or any other Chinese, for this week's crisis. Melanesia is a mess all over. Polynesia is doing a bit better.

Downer this week enhanced significant Australian support for law-enforcement capabilities in Samoa and Tonga. Vanuatu is doing the best of the Melanesian states, with the economy growing a little faster than the population, a rare occurrence in Melanesia. In PNG, Australia has been prevented from its most ambitious scheme to provide Australian police for front-line duties. But Australia does have some police in PNG, improving training and fighting corruption. Fiji faces a possibly explosive election in three weeks.

There are many lessons from this week's tragedy. One is that Australia desperately needs a larger army. As Neil James of the Australian Defence Association points out, the horror scenario is a crisis in PNG which the Australian army is not big enough to deal with. One way or another, the Australian military, police and broader institutional involvement in the South Pacific is bound to increase. It won't be easy.

Who chose that headine?!

Comments??

Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 22-23 April 2006

Asians Fuel Discontent

Corruption lies behind this week’s events in the Solomons, writes Clive Moore

Waku is the Solomon Islands Pijin English name for the increasingly diverse local Asian community, who play a crucial role in the Solomon Islands economy. They are involved in corruption and have been behind the scenes in the political process since the late 1980s.

The devastation that has occurred in Honaira, the capital city of the Solomon Islands, has been targeted at the Chinese, but the underlying tension is much wider, and included large-scale corrupt business practices by Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Malaysian companies as well as the local Chinese.

The April national election and Waku manipulations threw fuel on smouldering resentment that predates Independence in 1978. The result has been explosive and far worse in its intensity than the original ‘tension’ of 1998-2003.

The first Chinese settlers arrived as tradesmen during the 1920s, and then set up ‘Chinatown’ commercial settlements at Tulagi, Honiara and Gizo.

They still control much of the retail trade in the country, and remain quite dominant in Honiara and in the main provincial towns.

The Chinese community began to integrate into colonial society in the 1950s and 1960s, adopting Christianity, establishing a Chinese-language school, taking out British citizenship and deliberately becoming part of Solomon Islands society.

The years around Independence were a period of uncertainty about their future welcome but many families stuck it out and have prospered, becoming leading hoteliers and owning a wide range of businesses.

Then, during the 1990s a significant number of new Chinese settled in the Solomon Islands, adding to the already established Chinese community.

The old Waku families are well-established and integrated into urban society; many have married indigenous Solomon Islanders while still maintaining their cultural core and networks.

Only two old Waku families have gone into politics: the Chan family of Chinese origin, and the Sato family, of Japanese origin. A Chinese accountant, Robert Goh, has had considerable influence as an adviser to the government of Sir Alan Kemakeza government (2001-06).

The destruction and torching of the Chinese-owned Pacific Casino hotel on Honiara’s foreshore may well have been partly because Robert Goh had his office there. His house was also burnt down in the riots.

These old Chinese families form a bridge between the established Asian community, indigenous Solomon Islanders and the new Waku, mainland Chinese and Malaysian Chinese who by dint of hard work and subterfuge rapidly incorporated themselves into the economy and grafted themselves onto the old Waku community.

The full extent of illegal Waku practices beyond formal business dealings is unclear. Over the previous twenty years an unhealthy relationship has developed between the Waku and various Governments, particularly those connected to Solomon Mamaloni.

In October 2005 two audit reports were presented to Parliament, one on forestry and one on fishing, both major industries. The total domestic revenue in 2004 was S$497 million, 36.3 per cent higher than in 2003, largely because of greater taxation compliance. The two audit reports estimate that at the very least over S$80 million that should have ended up in Consolidated Revenue during the early 2000s has been skimmed off by corrupt Solomon Islanders or has been not been paid by the foreign companies concerned. The companies names are participating in the corrupt practices are all Asian, mainly Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Malaysian.

The reports are not comprehensive and it seems likely that even more money is involved, and while the two Departments are important, there are many more, plus the provinces, yet to be audited, and then there are the lucrative exemptions to excise duty and aid money skimmed off over the last five years. The real dollar value of the corrupt practices is hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Regional Assistance Mission (RAMSI) has the unenviable task of guiding a suitable reform process for the nation. The Regional Mission has restored law and order and was dealing with prosecutions of the ‘big fish’ while strengthening the public service and the economy. No one saw the events of this week coming.

There are valid criticisms of the method and rationale of RAMSI, which has concentrated on institutional strengthening. Development issues have not been tackled directly enough, as they were seen as the business of the Government.

All that the election achieved was a changing of the seats of the leaders, placing the Deputy Prime Minister, tainted from his years as Minister for Finance, into the role of Prime Minister, backed by Chinese money.

Clive Moore is an associate professor with the School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland and the President of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies. He is the author of Happy Isles in Crisis: The Historical Causes for a Failing State in Solomon Islands, 1998-2004

Observations from Malaita

A few reflections and bits of news from Terry Brown, Bishop of Malaita (thanks Terry!)...

Note that these are not necessarily the opinions of the blog owners, as we haven't been there on the ground - we simply find Terry's commentary very interesting!!

(1) A contingent of 10 RAMSI military (New Zealanders for sure, possibly others) have arrived in Auki. Yesterday they patrolled the streets of downtown Auki in full battle gear, fully armed. Obviously the full show of force is to make people think twice about causing any disturbance, especially at night. The last two nights have been quiet. In the end up to 16 were arrested in the Auki disturbance on Wednesday night. One Chinese shop (the one I mentioned in a previous update) was broken into and goods stolen. The owner and some of our other "new" Chinese fled to Honiara on Thursday morning. All the Chinese stores remain closed, although we are urging them to re-open as soon as possible. Of course, they are affected by events in Honiara. My impression is that the Honiara rioters distinguished between "old" and "new" Chinese buildings (QQQ in Chinatown was untouched), so our "old" Chinese stores in Auki may be in better shape than others. Long term though, Langa Langa vs. Chinese business rivalry in Auki will continue, and there will always be some in the former community who would like the latter simply to disappear. But Auki and Malaita are a big market, and there should be enough room for everyone. Banks finally re-opened and what little rice is still available has taken a big leap in price. Today's Saturday morning market is going ahead full force as though nothing had happened (no RAMSI presence). The only difference is that the two or three large ships that usually come from Honiara Friday night have not arrived -- obviously stopped by the police/RAMSI to prevent loot flowing out to the provinces (one load arrived yesterday) and gawkers and would-be rioters flowing into Honiara. As rural Malaitans have had their ears to the radio all last week (the FM station used its "call in" system to report the location of the mob and their arson and looting, while SIBC reported very little), many have come to Auki hoping to go to Honiara today to see the sights.

The Asian road workers on the Asian Development Bank-funded Kitano Malaita road-building project were also evacuated. It remains unclear to me why the ADB/Kitano has imported road workers from Cambodia and the Philippines to rebuild Malaita's roads (some sort of internal Asian agenda, I suppose), as though we don't have people in Malaita who can build roads. This is part of the feeling that everyone but Solomon Islanders are somehow making a profit out of our troubles (including, of course, all the NGOs, RAMSI advisors, consultants, volunteers, etc.).

(2) As far as Honiara events are concerned, the "spark" that sent the rioters into central Honiara from Parliament, the use of tear gas by the Australian RAMSI contingent against the crowd around Parliament who were becoming rowdy after the announcement of Snyder Rini's election, needs to be investigated. The Speaker of Parliament and leaders of the parties were apparently preparing to address the crowd and calm them down (the exact same rowdiness developed after the announcement of Allan Kemakeza's election as PM five years ago but was dissipated) when, apparently unannounced and without warning, the RAMSI tear gas hit. Sir Peter has complained about this on the Australian media and others have picked it up. It is cited as an example of Australian RAMSI's over-reaction to events that look like they might turn violent. All through the riots, the use of tear gas only inflamed and increased the crowds.

(3) The rioting and looting crowds were made up of people from all provinces, including some women and children. While Robert Wale, the leader of the so-called "People Power" movement is from Malaita (Langa Langa), participation was from all provinces and it would be wrong to see the rioting as some sort of continuation of a Malaita Eagle Force plot. The rumors that Edmund Sae, for example, is in Honiara leading the troops are, I am fairly certain, untrue. (I am afraid he has acquired a Jon Frum-like persona in these kinds of events.) Robert Wale, it should be said, is not exactly a Corazon Aquino. He is a former member of the Honiara Town Council and his record there was not especially clean. I am sure that he must have lost out in some of the land deals that saw so much of Honiara's prime sea front land sold to the Chinese by dubious means. I would think Wale would/should be arrested down the line, for incitement to riot. His media pronouncements are taking a high moral road but his record does not especially justify it.

(4) Honiara people have never liked the Australian RAMSI contingent. Most people distinguish between the Australian RAMSI (whom they don't like) and the New Zealand and Pacific Islands RAMSI (whom they do like). The general feeling is that the RAMSI motto "Helpim fren" doesn’t hold much water when the Australian RAMSI are so sullen and hostile, won't even say hello, speed up and down the streets without regard for the other traffic, won't allow the use of RAMSI helicopters and planes for humanitarian purposes, and hang out at all the expensive Chinese restaurants (some of them now destroyed, such as the Fortune Restaurant in the Pacific Casino Hotel complex) and the Green Mango and won't go near local eateries or the central market. (I heard a story yesterday that, indeed, RAMSI assisted financially Patrick Leong in the completion of the construction of the Pacific Casino Hotel, to house its personnel. It certainly has never attracted overseas tourists the way the hotels with casinos do in Vanuatu. The story needs to be checked out. There are also lots of stories about PCH being a centre of prostitution, which may well have involved RAMSI personnel. The "evacuation" of the Pacific Casino Hotel's "guests" by boat may well have been simply the evacuation of RAMSI personnel from the hotel.) I have always wondered if there was any money laundrying involved in all the new Chinese developments.)

So, for many reasons, the alliance of the (1) Kemekeza/Rini (corrupt) government, (2) the extensive and expensive Chinese commercial developments in Honiara, from before "ethnic tension", then interrupted, then resumed, while ordinary local Honiara people get poorer and poorer as the prices at the Chinese shops go up and up, and (3) RAMSI, friend of the Kemakeza/Rini government and the Chinese, (perceived as) hostile to Malaitans, unfriendly Australians, etc, etc. -- all united together in the riots. I have heard that 15 RAMSI vehicles were destroyed, not to mention the Pacific Casinos' entire rent-a-car fleet, 20 RAMSI injured (one sent back to Australia for serious jaw injuries from a stone). I am told that Reef Islanders can shoot a RAMSI helicopter with a stone. There were some failures of RAMSI intelligence -- half of Solomon Islanders are saltwater people and it is a bit inconceivable that the sea side of the Pacific Casino Hotel was left unprotected.

The properties (commercial, offices, residences) of the Kemekeza/Rini government's Chinese advisors and backers (for example, Tommy Chan, Robert Goh, Patrick Leong) were particularly targeted for destruction. The Honiara Hotel (Tommy Chan) has its own security and has survived, though there were rumours of an attack from over the hill behind the hotel. There were also rumours that the Mendana Hotel was on the hit list.

None of what I have written above is intended to condone or support the rioting. It is tragic, both for the individuals involved (on all sides) and for the country. For the Solomons claiming to be a "Christian country", it is a travesty of the Easter message, as church leaders have pointed out in pastoral statements. But legitimate frustrations are there and people explode. Alas, we are now producing refugees, with 400 Chinese living at the Police Club at Rove under police/RAMSI security.

(5) The new Prime Minister's media statements that the rioting had no political motivation and was simply criminal activity rather boggle the mind, although obviously those with non-political motives joined in for the free loot.

Despite the demands of Robert Wale and the "People Power" movement, I think the considered view of all members of Parliament, premiers, church leaders, diplomatic community, is that Parliament should meet and that any attempt to oust Rini as Prime Minister should be done constitutionally. In many respects, the announced cabinet contains some very good people, such as Fred Fono, the Deputy Prime Minister. Forcing a PM to resign by public protests, when he has been constitutionally elected (despite corruption), sets rather a bad precedent, such that every future election will face the same problem and the same hope by the losing party. If there were substantial bribes made (whether accepted or not) by the Rini camp and Tommy Chan, as Opposition leader Billy Hilly maintains, then the matter should be reported to the police; but whether the police and RAMSI have the wherewithal and will to follow up on and investigate these claims remains to be seen.

One issue in all of this is the extent to which Australia has interfered in the parliamentary process in the Solomons. For example, Fred Fono, the well-respected Malaita MP who for several years was a strong member of the Opposition, crossed over to the Kemekeza government a couple years ago to everyone's surprise. When accosted by his supporters about this, he maintained that he was asked to do this by the British and Australian High Commissions to give financial and administrative stability to the Kemakeza government to enable EC STABEX funds to be transferred. He is now the new Deputy Prime Minister, set to take over if Rini is dumped. If this story is true, it is another example of the diplomatic community's short-, rather than long-term thinking. Between this kind of interference and RAMSI, the SI risk becoming an Australian puppet state (at least that is the perception, though, of course, Australia and RAMSI strongly deny it) -- but, as last week's events show, it is hard to control all the people who feel that they are part of a puppet state (whether it is a puppet state or not), especially as the conditions of their economic life go down and down, and those perceived as pulling the strings and their helpers seem to get richer and richer.

(5) The arrival of a PNG police contingent begs many questions. I wonder if it is even in Australia's best interest, as PNG RAMSI personnel are well known for complaining about Australia, and only help to fan anti-Australian sentiment within RSIP and the communities where they serve. I am told that one of the first lots of PNG RAMSI personnel (when RAMSI first arrived) were sent home fast after they set up a prostitution ring. But PNG RAMSI personnel are liked much more than Australian RAMSI; they are fellow Pacific Islanders.

(6) To RAMSI's credit, there has been no firing on crowds, though I am sure many would have liked to have, given the barrage of stones. Had this been many other parts of the world, there would have been deaths. Unfortunately, the crowds also probably took advantage of the knowledge that RAMSI would not shoot *at* them. However, a core question remains why a multinational intervention force and the local police force it is supposed to be training and advising, led by a nation with high technology and unlimited financial resources, good communication and transport, and numerous advisors and consultants, were not able to anticipate and control (and, indeed, may have provoked) a small demonstration that got out of hand, not bringing in reinforcements very early (as RAMSI said they could when most military personnel left the country), not containing the demonstrators very early, not acting decisively in any way -- resulting eventually in a scale of damage, personal and material, immensely beyond anything that resulted from the "ethnic tension" crisis. "Helpim fren" has turned into "Spoilim fren". Is RAMSI only "rapid response" (late) after crisis, quick withdrawal, self-satisfaction, confusion when a new crisis comes, then another (late) "rapid response"? Of course, it is easy to criticize after the fact. Even veteran ABC reporter Sean Dorney had left for Australia after covering the elections and did not anticipate such events. Nor can I say I anticipated them, though I have long thought and said that anti-Chinese riots were always a possibility. I think most people anticipated that the "Grand Coalition of Parties" had enough votes to win and did not realize the capacity of the two "old" groupings usually in opposition to one another to band together to defeat it.

I think the road ahead will continue to be rocky. Australia and RAMSI need independently to assess where they now are, and not just uncritically back the elected government, whose mandate is weak indeed. (Such a consultation and assessment should be done with real Solomon Islands organizations on the ground -- such as churches and community groups, rather than by highly paid outside advisors. Even RAMSI's own consultation has been defective, very short and rushed visits and a quick exit when the difficult questions begin to be asked.) One only wishes that RAMSI could get away from its constant defensiveness -- that it is always right and does nothing wrong -- and admit to its mistakes, and not engage in constant self-promotion, which has now royally backfired. I think all would do well to back off a bit, rather than constant tinkering and interference -- courting favourite members of the government or opposition, insisting on an Australian Police Commissioner, producing an ever-creasing number of advisors (also travelling by helicopter), etc. The riots are a reassertion of Solomon Islands sovereignty, which has been significantly eroded in the past few years, though, unfortunately, it apparently takes a common enemy to unite all Solomon Islanders. On the other hand, the RAMSI presence is still needed, I would say -- particularly if parliamentary government is to continue -- as the alternatives (as last week's events show) are also not very attractive. But the future economic effects on the country of last week's events, at least short term, are grave and it will take much effort to keep things on a steady keel.