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Solomon Islands government ousted through parliamentary vote

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World Socialist Website - Dec 14, 2007
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/soga-d14.shtml


Solomon Islands government ousted through parliamentary vote

By Patrick O'Connor

The Solomon Islands government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was
ousted yesterday after a no-confidence motion won the backing of 25
parliamentarians, against 22 on the government side. Sogavare remains
caretaker prime minister pending a parliamentary vote, which is expected
next week, to elect his successor. Opposition leader Fred Fono is one of
several candidates vying for the job. Two former government ministers
who were among those who defected to the opposition last month, Derek
Sikua and Gordon Darcy Lilo, are also expected to nominate.

Sogavare's removal from power marks the culmination of a protracted
destabilisation campaign, orchestrated in Canberra, aimed at installing
a more pliant administration. Soon after he came to power in May last
year, Sogavare was identified by the previous Australian government of
Prime Minister John Howard as a threat to the ongoing occupation by the
Australian-dominated Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands
(RAMSI). Sogavare's 20-month term in office was dominated by a
succession of provocations mounted by RAMSI and the Australian
government.

The RAMSI operation in July 2003 involved the dispatch of more than
2,000 soldiers, police and officials to take control over the Solomons'
state apparatus, including police, prisons, judiciary, public service,
treasury and central bank. While launched under the pretext of a
humanitarian intervention, the neo-colonial operation was driven by a
concern to protect Australian corporate and strategic interests.
Developments in the South Pacific, which Howard characterised as
Australia's "special patch", have become increasingly bound up with
escalating great power rivalries. RAMSI marked a shift within the
Canberra foreign policy establishment toward the more open use of
military force to maintain Australian regional hegemony. The operation
was hailed as a forerunner for potential interventions in other Pacific
states, most notably the resource-rich former Australian colony, Papua
New Guinea.

The ferocity with which Canberra responded to Sogavare's limited moves
to reduce RAMSI's control over public finance and economic policy can
only be understood within this context. The Howard government's
campaign was one of two regional "regime change" operations initiated
in 2006. More than a thousand Australian troops were deployed to East
Timor in May last year as part of a concerted campaign to oust the
elected Fretilin administration of Mari Alkatiri. Fretilin fell foul of
the Howard government after resisting its demands for most of the
multi-billion oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, as well as for
cultivating relations with Australia's rivals, particularly Portugal
and China.

There a number of significant differences between East Timor and Solomon
Islands; the Solomons, for example, formally recognises Taiwan and has
no diplomatic ties with Beijing. Canberra's drive against both the
Sogavare government and the Fretilin administration, however, were
driven by the same imperative-namely the exclusion of rival powers from
its declared sphere of influence.

Sogavare's ousting demonstrates that this central strategy remains
unchanged under the new Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The Labor Party fully endorsed the RAMSI intervention when it was first
announced in 2003. Rudd and his colleagues similarly backed the Howard
government throughout its campaign against Sogavare. Following Labor's
election win, however, Rudd and his parliamentary secretary for the
Pacific, Duncan Kerr, made noises about establishing better relations
with Pacific governments by dealing with them in a less abrasive
fashion.

The Labor government nevertheless gave the green light for the Solomons'
opposition and RAMSI authorities to continue their campaign against
Sogavare. A clear signal was its refusal to respond to the Solomons'
prime minister's public invitation for Rudd and Kerr to visit Honiara.
It was not an accidental omission. Earlier this week, Rudd's office
refused to return calls from the World Socialist Web Site enquiring
about his attitude, while a spokesman for Kerr said he had not received
a formal notification from the Solomons' government and insisted that
it would be "inappropriate" to respond to Sogavare's public invitation.

RAMSI intervenes against Sogavare government

While the full extent of the Australian authorities' behind-the-scenes
involvement in the manoeuvres against Sogavare in the lead-up to the
no-confidence motion is not known, there is no doubt that RAMSI played a
central role.

Three former RAMSI leaders-Ben McDevitt, Nick Warner, and James
Batley-were instrumental in ensuring that former prime minister Allen
Kemakeza avoided being stripped of his parliamentary seat and sent to
jail, despite being convicted on December 6 of serious charges,
including intimidation and larceny. After receiving character
statements from the three, the Australian magistrate adjudicating the
case sentenced Kemakeza to just two months jail and granted bail
pending an appeal. Kemakeza had refused to commit to either the
government or opposition side. After declaring himself to be happy with
the court's "fair judgment", the former prime minister cast his vote
against Sogavare in yesterday's no-confidence vote.

The court's decision proved crucial, as Kemakeza ended up holding the
balance of power. Had he supported the government, Sogavare may have
been able to claim 24 parliamentary votes against 24 for the
opposition, thereby blocking the no-confidence motion. (The final vote
of 25 to 22 reflected the absence of one government member who failed
to attend parliament due to health reasons and has since died.)

After securing Kemakeza's support, RAMSI officials launched an
extraordinary police and military operation in Honiara. Scores of
heavily-armed Australian and New Zealand soldiers, along with
Australian Federal Police officers, were deployed around Honiara on
Tuesday. Australian troops in full camouflage gear remained on guard
outside the Honiara Hotel, where opposition parliamentarians had
gathered. While supposedly a security operation aimed at preventing
violence, the show of force was clearly aimed at bolstering the
opposition and stifling any protest. Government MPs, who received no
similar protection, accused Australian forces of helping to isolate
opposition parliamentarians so they would not have a chance to cross
over to the government's side.

"Such a display of arms rather openly to members of the public is
uncalled for and questions the very issue of RAMSI's independence and
impartiality in dealing with law and order in this country," a
government statement issued just before the no-confidence vote
declared. "Now it is becoming very clear that RAMSI is working in
tandem with Asian loggers who are alleged to have been providing
financial support to the opposition in a conspiracy to oust the
[Sogavare] government."

Rudd responded to the no-confidence vote by stressing his determination
to see the Solomon Islands' attorney-general Julian Moti extradited to
Australia. "This individual is the subject of criminal charges," he
declared. "We have activated our extradition arrangements with the
government of the Solomon Islands. Nothing has changed on that score."

Moti, a respected legal academic and practitioner specialising in
constitutional and international law, became the subject of a vicious
witchhunt orchestrated by the former Howard government. Moti was
instrumental in establishing the Commission of Inquiry into the April
2006 riots in Honiara, which threatened to expose RAMSI's complicity in
the violence. He further assisted a parliamentary review that
threatened to strip RAMSI personnel of their blanket legal immunity
from Solomons' law. Moti also threatened to challenge the legality of
the entire RAMSI intervention before the International Court of
Justice. In response to this threat, the Howard government mounted a
bogus campaign for his extradition, based on trumped-up statutory rape
allegations that had been thrown out of a Vanuatu court in 1998. The
central aim was to undermine Moti through constant vilification in the
Australian and Pacific press as a "child sex" perpetrator.

For Rudd to again solidarise himself with this vile campaign-even after
Sogavare has lost power-speaks volumes about Labor's fundamental
agreement with the former Howard government's agenda in the Solomons.
What happens next with Moti remains unclear, although Fred Fono has
declared that the "first act" of the next government will be to have
him arrested and extradited to Australia.

Corrupt old guard returns

Yesterday's no-confidence vote effectively subverts the outcome of the
April 2006 national elections. The elections were a massive repudiation
of the Kemakeza government, which had been in power since 2001 and
presided over the entry of RAMSI forces in 2003. Popular hostility
toward the entrenched corruption of the prime minister and his
colleagues combined with growing dissatisfaction and outright
opposition toward RAMSI. Half of all parliamentarians lost their seats,
including 9 of Kemakeza's 20 ministers.

Despite the result, horse-trading between the different factions and
politicians saw all 11 surviving government ministers stay in power as
part of a coalition government headed by Snyder Rini, Kemakeza's former
deputy. The announcement of Rini's government sparked widespread
outrage, which culminated in a two-day riot that was sparked by a clash
outside the parliament between RAMSI police and demonstrators. Sogavare
came to power soon after Rini was forced to resign.

The old guard of the former Kemakeza government is now back in the
saddle. Kemakeza and Rini are likely to take up prominent positions in
the new government, as is Laurie Chan. Chan's father, Tommy Chan, is a
Honiara businessman who was alleged to have been involved in
vote-buying deals that are widely believed to have been behind Rini's
installation as prime minister in April 2006.

The defeat of the Sogavare government has not seen any protests or
violence, though authorities remain on alert and RAMSI soldiers and
police continue to patrol Honiara. Whatever the immediate outcome of
the political crisis, the return of the old Kemakeza government forces
will exacerbate tensions throughout the Solomon Islands.

The new government inherits a social crisis, marked by escalating
poverty and social inequality throughout the country, for which it has
no solution. The RAMSI intervention has involved the investment of
considerable sums into the Pacific country's state apparatus,
especially the prison system, police and judiciary, while a negligible
amount has spent on health, education and other basic social services.
The influx of hundreds of highly-paid foreign personnel working with
RAMSI has led to a boom in the provision of luxury and high-cost
products and services but has delivered nothing for ordinary Honiara
residents except sharply rising prices, particularly for food and
housing. Thousands of people, particularly frustrated young men, remain
without work or decent housing in squalid squatter camps in the capital.

The situation will only worsen if the new government in Honiara
delivers on its pledges to advance the "free market" economic reform
agenda promoted by Canberra.


See Also:

[12 December 2007]
Solomon Islands government in crisis after parliamentarians join
opposition http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/dec2007/solo-d12.shtml

[21 November 2007] 
Labor, Liberal and the revival of colonialism in the South Pacific
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/solo-n21.shtml

[11 October 2007]
Solomon Islands' foreign minister condemns Australian occupation at UN
General Assembly
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/oct2007/solo-o11.shtml

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