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Long‑Term Engagement: the Future of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 51

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Long‑Term Engagement: the Future of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 51 STRATEGIC INSIGHTS Long‑term engagement: The future of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 51 Matthew Allen Overview the comparative economic stability of the past seven years, has underpinned a growing Support for the gradual withdrawal of the confidence that RAMSI can be gradually Australian‑led Regional Assistance Mission drawn down and that many of its functions to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) has been can be ‘transitioned’ to the Solomon Islands building both in Australia and in Solomon Government (SIG), to Australia’s bilateral Islands since 2007. The relative peace and aid program, and to other bilateral and security enjoyed by Solomon Islands since multilateral donor programs. the post‑election riots of 2006, coupled with An aerial view shows the damage caused by post‑election riots in Honiara’s Chinatown in April 2006. © Reuters/STR New/Picture Media March 2011 2 Long‑term engagement: The future of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands That said, opinions differ about timeframes, and exacerbate existing socioeconomic especially within Solomon Islands. While grievances, thereby partly recreating surveys suggest that the vast majority of conditions that contributed to the original Solomon Islanders continue to support the outbreak of violence in the late 1990s. presence of RAMSI, some of their elected Moreover, medium‑term economic political leaders have expressed strong development is expected to be based on opposition to the mission. In February 2011 urbanisation and enclave development, RAMSI was again at the centre of a diplomatic especially mining, which will further entrench furore, with unsupported allegations historical patterns of inequality. Even with emanating from Prime Minister Danny Philip’s careful management, the advent of large‑scale office that the Australian Government is mining will be likely to spawn new patterns of unhappy with his five‑year exit timetable for rent‑seeking and local‑level resource conflict, as RAMSI, and instead prefers an open‑ended it’s done in neighbouring Papua New Guinea. commitment. These agendas are clearly driven by short‑term parochial interests and Given this scenario, one must weigh the political expediency. However, they highlight cost of maintaining a small ongoing security the difficulties involved in developing credible presence against the potentially much policy options for the future of RAMSI. greater cost of having to redeploy a larger contingent if lawlessness returns to the country following a precipitate withdrawal It’s argued here that a complete of the RAMSI security guarantee. Recent transition of Australian support from security incidents—including the mini‑riot the very particular vehicle that is following the custodial sentence handed down to North Malaita MP Jimmy Lusibaea RAMSI isn’t a credible option. in November 2010 and the discharging of a firearm in an apparent act of political It’s argued here that a complete transition of intimidation in January 2011—point to the Australian support from the very particular ongoing spectre of political violence. vehicle that is RAMSI isn’t a credible If it’s accepted that an external security option. While Australian assistance can be guarantee will need to be maintained for progressively and significantly ‘desecuritised’, at least the next ten to fifteen years, the the historical relationships between political critical question then becomes: what sort economy and conflict in Solomon Islands of mechanism or vehicle will underwrite it? indicate that the country is entering into a A complete dismantling of RAMSI’s enabling high‑risk period for conflict. This means that architecture could make it difficult, even an external ‘security guarantee’ will need to impossible, to provide a credible deterrent be maintained, and RAMSI provides a useful effect and rapid response capability. If it’s to vehicle for doing so. be dismantled, an alternative, perhaps more The expected collapse of the logging industry streamlined, mechanism will be required to by 2015, magnified by the impact of the global take its place. economic crisis, will present a set of severe The transition of some of RAMSI’s functions economic challenges for Solomon Islands. to the bilateral aid program also provides an In addition to lost jobs and falling government important opportunity to think strategically revenue, the decline of log exports is likely to about the most effective way for Australia place pressure on local patronage networks to deliver development assistance to Strategic Insights 3 Solomon Islands. This question is timely, given The looming economic crisis will exacerbate the Australian Government’s commitment already high levels of youth unemployment. to double the aid program by 2015 and Most of the 10,000 or so young Solomon the recently commissioned review of aid Islanders who enter the workforce each year effectiveness. won’t be able to find employment. Therefore, there’s an urgent need for Solomon Islanders The dire economic forecasts and high to be able to access Australian labour markets. population growth of around 2.3% mean that SIG revenue will continue to be insufficient to The nexus of internal migration, development meet the costs of governing, and significant and conflict in Solomon Islands, and the donor support will, therefore, be required ultimate cost that it can bring to bear on for the foreseeable future. The way official Australia, supports a case for Solomon development assistance is delivered needs to Islanders to be granted preferential access to change to better reflect the reality that aid Australian labour markets, even if that means will play a central role in the Solomon Islands competing with Australians. The Australian economy over the long term. policy debate about Pacific labour mobility needs to be expanded from a narrow focus It’s recommended that aid funds be on Australia’s domestic economy to include progressively channelled through SIG explicit consideration of the development and systems—as those systems improve—in line stability of our Melanesian neighbours. with SIG priorities and policies. Such an approach would bring improved predictability By restoring law and order, disarming and stability to aid transfers, while also ex‑militants and police and stabilising maximising the potential for the local private the economy, the RAMSI intervention has sector to benefit from official development been instrumental in creating the right assistance. Recent achievements in the environment for indigenous peace‑building education and health sectors have been to occur. However, criticisms that the underpinned by precisely this sort of approach intervention initially ‘crowded out’ such local to aid delivery, and current AusAID‑funded agendas also seem reasonable.1 Rather than work on the cost of service delivery could consigning these questions to the realm better inform future budgetary support. of ‘lessons learned’, ongoing assistance to Solomon Islands should take more seriously the need to move forward with local The Australian policy debate about agendas for peace and reconciliation, and Pacific labour mobility needs to be constitutional change, by supporting them in expanded from a narrow focus on whatever way possible. Australia’s domestic economy... Background: Why RAMSI? RAMSI came about in response to the History tells us that for many Solomon low‑level conflict and deterioration in Islanders the only way to participate in the governance that began in Solomon Islands cash economy has been by selling their labour with an uprising and subsequent ‘ethnic away from home. This is particularly true for tensions’ on the island of Guadalcanal in people from Malaita Province, who account 1998 (see Box 1). Perceptions that Solomon for a third of the total population and have a Islands was on the brink of ‘state failure’, long and proud history of labour migration. and the threat that this could pose to 4 Long‑term engagement: The future of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands Australia’s national interests, provided the alluded to Solomon Islands in a National Press primary rationale for the deployment of the Club address in late June 2003. Australian‑led intervention mission in 2003 On the eve of the deployment of RAMSI, an (RAMSI is described in detail in Box 2). ASPI publication titled Our failing neighbour There’s been much speculation as to why the appealed to this new strategic thinking by Australian Government didn’t intervene in evoking the metaphor of Solomon Islands Solomon Islands earlier than it did, despite a becoming a ‘petri dish’ for the incubation number of requests for assistance made by of ‘transnational and non‑state security successive Solomon Islands governments. threats’.3 The paper advocated a police‑led As late as January 2003, only six months peacekeeping effort to be followed by a before RAMSI was deployed, Foreign Minister long‑term state‑building exercise. Situating Alexander Downer dismissed the option of the intervention within a larger strategic armed intervention as ‘folly in the extreme’. frame arguably made it more palatable to an Australian constituency with very limited interest in the affairs of Pacific island The intervention represented a strong micro‑states. departure from Australia’s previous The mission’s governance arrangements reluctance to interfere directly in the have changed and evolved in recent years, affairs of its closest neighbours in the facilitated by the improvement in the Western Pacific. bilateral relationship
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