The following articles were published in "The Guardian", newspaper of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday, June 14th, 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills. Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795. CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au> Subscription rates on request. ******************************** The Solomon Islands conflict The same problems of land ownership and forms of government underlie the conflict of the two opposing "freedom" fighter groups which has erupted into fighting in the Solomon Islands and led to the coup in Fiji. Because the economic and political processes are similar in other Pacific Islands, including Papua New Guinea (PNG), similar conflicts can be expected in the future across the region which constitutes Australia's near north. The Solomon Islands was formerly a British colonial possession. It won its political (but not its economic) independence in 1978. The island of Bougainville, where a long struggle for independence is taking place, forms a natural part of the Solomon Islands group. But Bougainville was thrown in as part of Papua New Guinea by the imperialist powers as they withdrew from direct rule. Colonialism disrupted the former patterns of land ownership and forms of government. Land ownership resided in tribal groups passed down from generation to generation through the matrilineal (or in some cases patrilineal) line. The land was effectively communally owned and cultivated. The colonial powers introduced a cash economy and imposed a Westminister style of bourgeois democracy, thereby contesting with the former system of chiefs which had administered tribal matters. Factors Another factor in the Solomon Islands was the movement of people from the island of Malaita to the nearby island of Guadalcanal during WW2 when US armed forces occupied the Solomon Islands during the war against Japan. The Malaitans began to take up residence in Guadalcanal and gradually took up land there. Towns sprang up, together with shops, the provision of goods for sale, etc. Some became workers in these shops and in the mines which were operated by big mining corporations. Logging by foreign corporations in the Solomon Islands and in PNG also provided work but ripped out the natural wealth of the small and economically weak Island states. The Solomon Islands has a gold mine which is now owned by Delta Gold. This mine could become a focal point of contest in the same manner that Bougainville Copper was closed by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army but this does not yet appear to have become an issue in the Solomon Islands. The population of the Solomon Islands has grown to the point where the existing economy no longer provides a livelihood and work for all. Land ownership This has led to further migration and the occupation of traditional lands belonging to others. This is the essence of the conflict in the Solomon Islands. The Isatabu Freedom Movement from the island of Guadalcanal on which the capital city of Honiara is situated, and the Malaita Eagle Force from the adjoining island of Malaita represent the two contending groups. The Malaita Eagle Force took control of the capital, Honiara, and deposed the elected Prime Minister. At the very moment that there was talk of Australian "peacekeepers" being sent to the Solomon Islands a number of regional peace monitors made up of unarmed police from Fiji and Vanuatu pulled out last week following the take-over by the Malaita Eagle Force. A mission from the Commonwealth ministerial action group made up of Australia's Foreign Minister and the Foreign Ministers of Botswana and Malaysia (Malaysia has extensive commercial logging interests in the Solomons) attempted to negotiate a settlement. One suggestion was that the dispossessed landowners be provided with some monetary compensation presumably provided by Australia. However, this seems to be no more than a short-term solution and will not meet the longer-term problems which have disrupted the traditional economic and political lives of the Solomon Islands people, whether they come from Malaita or Guadalcanal. As far back as 1994 when Gordon Bilney was the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs in the then Labor Government, he said: "The lack of economic development, when combined with high population growth rates, unsustainable exploitation of natural resources and rapidly rising community expectations has led to a growing range of social and economic problems, including permanent environmental degradation." Having correctly presented the problems his solution was "public sector reform and private sector development". He said: "We believe that a confident and growing private sector is one of the keys to the success of any trade and investment strategy." Disastrous consequences It is this approach that Australian Governments have been attempting to foist on all Pacific Island nations with disastrous consequences. If Australian forces, in whatever guise, are sent to "keep the peace" in the Solomons or any other of the Pacific Islands, it is this policy that they would be charged with upholding. The Pacific Islands are rich in natural resources of timber, fish, minerals and as tourist destinations. But the people of these islands cannot gain the benefits of these resources while they are ripped-off by Delta Gold, Bougainville Copper, BHP or other big corporations. The same situation confronts Fiji, PNG, West Papua, East Timor and other small island states. It is as well that the urgings of the gung-ho Labor leader, Kim Beazley, who wants to rush in Australian "peace-keepers" should not be acted on. They may achieve a short-term peace but will only exacerbate the problems in the long run. While it is not possible to return to the conditions which existed before colonialism, the struggle by the indigenous people of these states is directed, at present, against the consequences of colonialism and the effects of private enterprise economic policies on their countries. But within these struggles there are elements of a return to communal and collective ownership of land, grassroots democracy as against bourgeois democratic forms, and control over their natural resources. The struggle to achieve real independence and the establishment of a social and economic system that will make them the owners of their land and its resources and in which all will be able to share collectively, rather than have the wealth of their states creamed off by largely foreign enterprises, will take many years. However, all progressive organisations and individuals can help these former colonial people who continue to suffer the consequences of private enterprise exploitation and a type of neo-colonialism. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
