The Solomon Islands government is looking into establishing a defence force which would make it the fourth Pacific nation to have a military.

Some parliamentarians support the idea, while others are pointing to the country’s history of violent unrest.

National Security Minister Jimson Tanagada said the government was in the early stages of exploring whether to form a defence force.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands security reports

“Sir, let me emphasise that this is not an attempt to militarise our nation, but the other a long term nation-building effort aimed at enhancing Solomon Islands, resilience, sovereignty and self-reliance,” Jimson Tanagada said in Parliament last week.

He said the government was taking a prudent approach but also told Parliament the country must not ignore escalating geopolitical tension in the region.

“There’s no fixed time frame but the urgency is there given the evolving security challenges,” Tanagada said.

The country’s police force used to have a paramilitary unit but after a civil conflict at the turn of the century, during which guns from the police armoury were used on civilians, there was a complete ban on firearms.

Restoring public trust
And it took over a decade to restore enough public trust to start rearming the police.

Helpem Fren – Rebuilding a Pacific Nation. Video produced in 2013.

Leader of Opposition Matthew Wale respects the process so far, but says the government should heed lessons from the past.

“We must learn from our own civil conflict,” Wale said.

“And you know, in Fiji, of course, there’s been a number of coups where the military was directly involved in.

“And in [Papua] New Guinea when they did not pay them [soldiers] their allowance they took their guns and went to the Parliament.

“So all these things, the police must address. How do we make sure this would never happen?”

Wale said one way to ensure control of the military was for parliamentarians from across the political divide to be involved

“This issue is so critical that us as representatives must help to together, inform it, influence it, mould it, shape it. Right from the word go,” he said.

Melanesia focused
Former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said the formation of a Solomon Islands military must be Melanesia focused.

“I heard Papua New Guinea is brokering, of course, the peace [sic] treaty with America already.

“And the treaty is so wide, Mr Speaker, that it’s allowing military assets of America to land at anytime without any permission,” Manasseh Sogavare said.

“And those are serious matters that we need to discuss about the security of the region,” he said.

It was Sogavare who first suggested the country form a defence force after a trip to China in 2023 while prime minister.

He agreed government control of any armed force was of the utmost importance.

“We can understand the cautious approach that we take on that matter before we go seriously into establishing a defence force that the sovereign government wont have control over it,” Sogavare said.

Control issue important
“I think the control issue will be very important here. That the government must have control over the military force.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said a Solomon Islands military could also assist in subregional crises.

He also says it would be beneficial if a Melanesian Military Force was ever created — a concept still being discussed among members of the sub-regional bloc.

“Papua, New Guinea and Fiji, of course, they have defence forces.

“Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu does not (sic) So that is also the gap in terms of the discussions,” Manele said.

But cost is a major prohibitor and Manele said any resources for a military must not take away from the needs of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force which is currently in charge of national defence and security.

“I think that cautious approach is important. It’s not only about the numbers but also the cost in terms of sustaining these arrangements,” Manele said.

Overall, MPs supporting the establishment of a Solomon Islands military said it would benefit the country and wider region.

However, it remains to be seen whether their constituents agree.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The first prime ministerial candidate has been announced in Solomon Islands and it is not Manasseh Sogavare.

The man of the hour is Jeremiah Manele, the MP for Hograno/Kia/Havulei constituency in Isabel Province, who served as minister of foreign affairs in the last government.

Manele’s candidacy was announced by caretaker Prime Minister Sogavare in a news conference in Honiara on Monday night.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon islands election reports

Sogavare downplayed not putting his hat in the ring this time, saying it was a collective decision.

He said he was “deeply honoured” to be handing over the reins to a highly capable leader.

“Jeremiah Manele is no stranger,” Sogavare said.

“Manele was a career public servant rising up through the ranks of the public service and was once upon a time secretary to the prime minister before assuming elected office.

“He last held the senior position of minister of foreign affairs and external trade in the last government.

“He has been groomed for this position.”

In accepting the nomination, Manele called for unity and said stability was the key to transforming Solomon Islands.

“I am able and willing to carry this awesome responsibility in leading our nation forward,” he said.

“I am well aware of the challenges and I know that at times it can be burdensome and lonely; but I am confident that I am comforted by the sound policies that we have and the solidarity in our coalition.”

If Manele is successfully elected, he will be the country’s first prime minister from Isabel Province.

Explainer – entering the final straight
Nominations for prime minister will close at 4pm today. The election of the prime minister is scheduled to take place at 9.30am local time on Thursday, May 2, at Parliament House.

However, even after prime ministerial nominations close, there is still a high chance of more movements of MPs to and from the established coalitions.

And if history is anything to go by, there could even be a breakaway coalition formed ahead of the prime ministerial election on Thursday.

This is partly enabled by Solomon Islands’ weak political party legislation which does not prescribe any penalties or restrictions for MPs wanting to resign from or join political parties.

This means MPs who want to play both sides for political or personal gain can switch back and forth multiple times with impunity.

But another underlying driver for this behaviour — and the reason prime ministerial elections are such fraught affair in Solomon Islands — is the huge disparity in both income and benefits between MPs who end up in government compared to those who end up in opposition.

There is also one more variable to consider which is that, besides the government and the opposition, the Solomon Islands constitution provides a space for independent MPs who do not want to be affiliated with either side of the house.

It is unclear at this stage what bearing such a grouping could have on the election of the prime minister. However, in 2019 when Sogavare came to power, 15 MPs abstained from voting in the prime ministerial election.

How voting in the prime ministerial election is conducted
According to the constitution, the election of the prime minister will be presided over by the Governor General and conducted by secret ballot.

If at any point a candidate receives an absolute majority of votes they shall be elected prime minister.

Should no candidate receive an absolute majority of votes at the first ballot, a further ballot shall be held with the candidate receiving the least number of votes in the first round being eliminated.

If there are several candidates who were tied for last place in the first round then the Governor General shall decide by lot which one of those candidates shall be eliminated.

This process is repeated until all candidates bar two have been eliminated at which point only one further ballot shall be conducted to decide the election between these two candidates.

At this ballot, the candidate with the most votes shall be elected prime minister.

If they are again tied only one more ballot will be conducted and if the result is the same the Governor General will countermand the election and the election procedure will begin anew.

Analysis – the players
Manele is the prime ministerial candidate for one of two major coalition groupings in Honiara lobbying to form the next government of Solomon Islands.

The make-up of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation (CNUT) Manele now heads, which claimed to have the support of 28 out of the 50 MPs in Parliament, is pretty much identical to the composition of the former government.

It includes:

• Our Party, which despite losing half of its former members of parliament at the polls, still emerged as the single largest political party in parliament with 15 MPs. Interestingly, Sogavare, in his remarks to the press, said they now had only 12 MPs, which if true, indicated they have suffered some resignations in the past week.
• The People’s First Party, which secured three seats in the election, included among its ranks multi-millionare businessman Chachabule Rebi Amoi. The party now claim to have recruited three additional MPs which would bring up their total number of MPs to six.
• And the Kandere Party, whose sole MP, Jamie Lency Vokia, made a return to parliament this year having stood his wife Ethel Lency Vokia as a proxy in the last parliament, after he lost his North East Guadalcanal seat in 2020 when he was found guilty of bribing voters in an election petition.

Manele’s coalition also has a powerful independent lobby group spearheaded by the West Honiara MP and casino owner Namson Tran, making it quite a formidable opponent.

The other coalition of parties loosely resembles the former opposition group in Parliament, but has yet to settle on its own name, let alone announce its prime ministerial candidate.

However, based on the political party leadership, the three most likely to be nominated are:

• The former opposition leader Mathew Wale, whose Democratic Party emerged from the election with 11 MPs.
• Populist MP Peter Kenilorea Jr, the son of Solomon Islands’ first prime minister, whose United Party secured six seats in the election.
• And former prime minister Rick Hou, whose Democratic Alliance Party is one of two minor parties in this coalition each with a single MP in the current parliament.

The other minor party was the Umi for Change Party, represented by first time MP Daniel Suilea Waneoroa, whose election victory was one of the David and Goliath stories of the 2024 election — given he not only unseated the incumbent (now former) North Malaita MP Senly Filualea, but also staved off the likes of another former MP, Jimmy Lusibaea.

In a statement marking the signing of their coalition agreement over the weekend, the parties called on independent MPs, 11 of whom made it into parliament, to join them and help bring in a new government.

“We appeal to all newly elected independent MPs voted on a mandate for change to join us. Let us take back Solomon Islands,” the statement said.

At the time the statement was released, this yet-to-be-named coalition claimed to have the support of 20 MPs.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

With only four more seats in the 50-member Parliament yet to be officially declared, there is no outright winner in the Solomon Islands elections.

As of Monday, the two largest blocs in the winner’s circle, independents and the incumbent Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s Our Party, were tied with 12 MPs each.

It is a significant result, given at the last election in 2019 Our Party did not even exist going into the polls, but was created by Sogavare with the sole intention of pulling together the large number of independent MPs that emerged from the election that year.

RNZ Pacific investigations have identified the location of some of the lobbying camps in the capital.

The Honiara Hotel camp in Chinatown was set up by former prime minister Gordon Darcy Lilo’s Solomon Islands Party for Rural Advancement a week before polling even began.

Sogavare’s Our Party, the largest grouping in the last Parliament, has a well-documented affiliation to the Cowboy’s Grill in the eastern side of town.

The former opposition leader Mathew Wale, who gambled in setting up the country’s first ever publicly announced pre-election coalition “CARE”, is understood to be holed up at the Heritage Park Hotel in the CBD.

Prediction impossible
At this stage, it is next to impossible to predict the final form of the coalition government because MPs are not legally bound to political parties and can move freely between the different camps.

In Solomon Islands, there is a stark disparity in both pay and benefits between government, opposition and independent MPs, which ups the stakes significantly and has been fingered by political experts as one of the root causes of political instability in the country.

Meanwhile, losing candidates around the country are already preparing election petitions ahead of a 30-day window for submissions which opens once all the election results are in.

In 2019, more than half of the MPs had election petitions filed against them but the majority where dismissed due to a lack of sufficient evidence.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islands’ incumbent prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has been re-elected in the East Choiseul constituency.

It is the opening move in the political chess match to form the country’s next government.

Returning officer Christopher Makoni made the declaration late last night after a day of counting, according to the national broadcaster SIBC.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands’ elections reports

Counting continues today in provincial centres across the country.

So far at least four members of Sogavare’s former cabinet have been re-elected.

But it is still early days as the first upset of the election also took place overnight, with George Tema unseating Silas Tausinga in the West New Georgia-Vona Vona constituency.

According to the Electoral Commission’s political party breakdown of the election results received so far, Sogavare’s Our Party was leading with 34 percent of votes counted on Saturday morning, followed by former opposition leader Matthew Wale’s Solomon Islands Democratic Party which had 26 percent.

Independent election candidates rounded out the top three with 23.4 percent of the votes counted so far. There was then a sharp drop-off to the fourth-placed People’s First Party on 8 percent.

Once all 50 members of Parliament have been officially elected, they will be whisked back from the provinces to the capital, Honiara, where lobbying camps are already being set up in hotels.

One political party leader and election candidate, whose result has yet to be declared, told RNZ Pacific the first of those camps would be at the Honiara Hotel, and that coalition talks were already underway.

Fewer women MPs
There are also likely to be less women in Parliament after another incumbent woman MP, Lillian Maefai, was ousted by Franklyn Derek Wasi in the East Makira Constituency.

Two other incumbent women MPs, Lanelle Tananganda and Ethel Vokia, did not re-contest their seats in this election, making way instead for their husbands — who had formerly lost the seats because of corruption convictions — to stand.

That left Freda Soria Comua, as the last of the four women MPs in the former parliament, still with a chance to make it back into the house.

There are 20 women among the 334 candidates contesting this election.

It is very rare for women to be elected in Solomon Islands’ male-dominated political sphere. Three out of the four women in the last parliament came into the house as proxies for their husbands.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Polls have opened today in Solomon Islands.

“Today is polling day. Polling Station opens at 7 am and closes at 4 pm. Be at the correct polling station and be in the voting line before 4 pm,” a text message from the Solomon Islands Electoral Commission alerting voters said this morning.

But even before the first ballot was cast a political party president and election candidate told RNZ Pacific on the eve of the election that coalition negotiations were already taking place and the first political lobbying camp is being set up at the Honiara Hotel.

• READ MORE: Calm before the storm – Solomon Islanders prepare to go to the polls
• Other Solomon Islands election reports

The polls which opened at 7am will close at 4pm and more than 400,000 Solomon Islanders are expected to exercise their democratic right and vote to elect their national and provincial representatives.

According to the Electoral Commission, there are 334 election candidates in the running for the 50 available seats in the national election and only 20 of them are women.

There are 219 candidates contesting under parties and 115 as independents.

In the provincial assembly elections, there are 816 candidates contesting – 781 are men and 35 are women.

Out of this lot, 724 are contesting as independents and 92 under political party banners.

Independents outnumber party lists
In both the national and provincial elections — which are being conducted simultaneously for the first time this year — independent candidates far outnumber the candidates fielded by any single political party.

Historically, independent candidates have always played a big part in the formation of coalition governments in Solomon Islands as king makers.

In fact, at the last election in 2019, the caretaker prime minister Manasseh Sogavare actually contested the election as an independent candidate, who formally registered his Our Party after the polls, and then proceeded to sign up most of the independent MPs to create what was the largest party in the last house.

The party president who told RNZ Pacific that coalition negotiations were already well underway said that the same strategy, or a variation of it, may again be employed in this election.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has adopted a “fresh approach” in addressing the longstanding and sensitive West Papuan issue, claims Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

Upon his return yesterday from the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last week, he clarified to local media about why he had left out the West Papuan issue from his discussions at the UN.

“We have agreed during our last MSG meeting in Port Vila not to pursue independence for West Papua,” he said.

• READ MORE: Release of Victor Yeimo from Indonesian prison rekindles West Papuan fight against racism
• Other West Papua reports

“Pursuing independence at the MSG level has historically led to unnecessary human rights violations against the people of West Papua, as it becomes closely linked to the independence movement.”

His statement drew criticism from Opposition Leader Matthew Wale over the “about face” over West Papua, likening Sogavare to the betrayal of “Judas the Iscariot”.

Sogavare highlighted that MSG’s new strategy was involving the initiation of a dialogue with the Indonesian government.

The focus was on treating the people of West Papua as part of Melanesia and urging the government of Indonesia to respect them accordingly.

‘Domestic matter’
“The issue of independence and self-determination is a domestic matter that West Papua needs to address internally,” he said.

“The United Nations (C-24) has established a process allowing them the right to determine their self-determination.”

The United Nations C-24, known as the Special Committee on Decolonisation, was established in 1961 to address decolonisation issues.

This committee, a subsidiary of the UN General Assembly, is dedicated to matters related to granting independence to colonised countries and peoples.

Prime Minister Sogavare’s statements underscore the MSG’s commitment to a diplomatic approach and dialogue with Indonesia, aiming for a respectful and inclusive resolution to the West Papuan issue.

However, Opposition leader Wale expressed his disappointment with Sogavare’s statement on the right to self determination at the UN.

Sogavare had stated that Solomon Islands reaffirmed the right to self-determination as enshrined under the UN Charter.

New Caledonia, Polynesia highlighted
But while New Caledonia and French Polynesia were highlighted, Wale said it was sad that the plight of West Papua had not been included.

The opposition leader said both the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) and West Papuans were Melanesian peoples and both desired independence.

He said West Papua had been under very oppressive “schematic and systematic Indonesian colonial rule” — far worse than anything New Caledonia had suffered.

“We are Melanesians and we should always stand hand in hand with our brothers and sisters in West Papua,” he said.

Wale said diplomacy and geopolitics should never cloud “solidarity with our Melanesian people of West Papua”.

The opposition leader said it was sad that Sogavare, who had used to be a strong supporter of the West Papuan cause, had changed face.

‘Changed face’
“The Prime Minister was once a strong supporter of West Papua, a very vocal leader against the human rights atrocities, even at the UNGA and international forums in the past.

“For sure, he has been bought for 30 pieces of silver and has clearly changed face,” Wale said.

He also reiterated his call to MSG leaders to rethink their stand on West Papua.

“The Prime Minister should have maintained Solomon Islands stand on West Papua like he used to,” Wale said.

“Sogavare is no different to Judas the Iscariot.”

Charley Piringi is editor of In-Depth Solomons. Republished with permission.

The New Zealand government has rejected claims by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that it has withheld financial support promised to the country.

On Monday, soon after landing back in Honiara from his official visit to Beijing, Sogavare told local media the Australian and New Zealand governments had promised budget support but “changed their position and delayed their assistance”.

Sogavare, as first reported by ABC, said the decision of its “traditional donors” to pull funding support had pushed Solomon Islands to lean on China, who agreed to “fill the gap”.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands and China reports

“Some of our donor partners who have committed to providing budget support to us this year have since changed their position and delayed their assistance for us and we are struggling to finance the 2023 budget,” he said.

“This has left this country and people in a predicament. But I am delighted to announce, the People’s Republic of China has really stepped up to provide this budget support needed for 2023.”

Australia had promised $12 million while and New Zealand promised $15 million in budget support, according to Sogavare.

When asked later in the media conference to expand on this statement, he responded in Solomon Islands Pidgin saying that prior to his departure to Beijing cabinet had heard that budgetary funding expected this year from several donor partners including New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the World Bank had been delayed for various reasons.

‘That is how it is’
“So, we have analysed that in different ways. But that is how it is,” he said.

“It is their money; we respect them and their taxpayers if they want to help us or not help us that is how it is. But because of that it has put a little bit of pressure on the budget especially our priority to fund the Pacific Games.”

The prime minister eventually conceded that some of this funding was expected to arrive in government coffers this month.

But he insisted his country would need all the help it could get to deliver on its main priority for this year which is to deliver the Pacific Games in Honiara in November.

“We need to have enough resources there in terms of our revenue. I am sure it will pick up already,” he said.

“Maybe the money that our friends have mentioned probably it has already come because they said it would be by mid-July or towards the end of July it should come. Once it comes that is great. We really need to have some resources there to successfully host the Pacific Games.”

‘NZ has honoured its commitments’
However, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) spokesperson told RNZ Pacific: “We have not withheld or delayed any budget support to Solomon Islands.”

“Aotearoa New Zealand remains committed to our development partnership, and over the past year has provided around NZ$10.1 million budget support to Solomon Islands including for education, economic reform and Pacific Games support,” the spokesperson said.

“Our development partnership with Solomon Islands is one of our most significant by breadth, depth and value — now at approximately NZ$150m for 2021-2024. This includes budget support as well as funding for specific activities.

“The New Zealand High Commissioner in Honiara has been tasked to set the record straight with the Solomon Islands government, confirming New Zealand has honoured its budget support commitments.”

The Australian government had earlier told ABC it had not backtracked on any formal commitments.

“Australia has delivered on our budget support commitments to Solomon Islands this year,” a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) spokesperson told ABC.

“This support has been provided across numerous sectors in Solomon Islands including health, education and elections,” they said.

“We continue to discuss development and budget support needs with the Solomon Islands government.”

‘Unneighbourly claim
Sogavare has also questioned the “unneighbourly” and “coercive diplomatic approach” of targeting China-Solomon Islands relations and labelled it as “foreign interference” into the internal affairs of Solomon Islands.

He has also hinted at Solomon Islands intentions of establishing its own military due to the limited capacity of the Solomon Islands Police Force.

Sogavare said he had had this conversation with the Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles earlier this year.

The New Zealand government did not respond to RNZ’s question on whether it had had any conversations about such intentions at any time this year, and if it would support such plans of the Solomon Islands government.

RNZ Pacific’s attempts to get comments from Sogavare have been unsuccessful so far.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Former Vanuatu Prime Minister Joe Natuman says allowing Indonesia — by former Prime Minister Sato Kilman — into the Melanesian Spearhead Group was a mistake.

“We (Melanesians) have a moral obligation to support West Papua’s struggle in line with our forefathers’ call, including first former Prime Minister Father Walter Lini, Chief Bongmatur, and others,” he said.

“Vanuatu has cut its canoe over 40 years ago and successfully sailed into the Ocean of Independence and in the same spirit, we must help our brothers and sisters in the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) to cut their canoe, raise the sail and also help them sail into the same future for the Promised Land.”

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

The former prime minister graced the West Papua lobby team on its appointment with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jotham Napat, this week when he agreed to an interview to confirm his support for the West Papua struggle as above and admitted the mistake.

During their discussions with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Natuman thanked the Minister and Minister for Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu and Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau for their united stand for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to achieve full membership into the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

“When we created MSG, it was a political organisation before economic and other interests were added,” he said.

“After our independence on July 30 of 1980, heads of different political parties in New Caledonia started visiting Port Vila to learn how to stand up strong to challenge France for their freedom.

Political umbrella
“I joined the team this week because I was involved under then Prime Minister Father Walter Lini. We advised the political leaders of New Caledonia at the time to form one political umbrella organisation to argue their case, and they formed the FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front).

“We created ULMWP in 2014 here in Port Vila, to become your political umbrella organisation. After the child that we helped to create, we must continue to work with it to develop it towards its destiny.”

Like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Natuman challenged both the government and the lobby team to continue to press for ULMWP victory with all MSG leaders unanimously voting West Papua in as the latest full member of MSG.

“But now that Indonesia is inside, it is not interested in the ULMWP issue but its own interests. So we must be careful here.

“We have passed resolutions regarding human rights and the United Nations have agreed for the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit West Papua to report on the situation on the ground and Jakarta has blocked the visit,” he said.

Natuman challenged the government over whether to allow Indonesia to continue to behave towards MSG by ignoring the ULMWP demands.

Meanwhile, then Prime Minister Kilman had the same reasoning for allowing Indonesia into the MSG believing that the occupier would sit on the same table to be allowed to discuss the West Papua dilemma.

However, it did not work out.

Hopes for Fiji
In the latest development, Natuman thinks new Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is not going to govern in the same manner as former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama, now that he had ordered the revival of Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs which his predecessor had revoked.

“I also think Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (of the Solomon Islands) still stands in support of ULMWP. I think the Foreign Affairs Minister of Papua New Guinea has to talk to Prime Minister James Marape,” he added.

In his opinion, based on Vanuatu Foreign Minister Napat’s briefing to the lobby team this week, the MSG Secretariat seemed to “follow every line to the book” regarding the ULMWP application for full membership of MSG.

“There is no need for the Committee of Officials to control the processes towards a positive outcome to the ULMWP Application. I suggest that you recommend to the Prime Minister to revisit the process,” Natuman suggested.

“At the Leaders’ Summit, it is the (MSG) Leaders who decide what to talk about in their meeting and do not allow ‘smol-smol man’ to dictate to you what or how you should talk about in your meeting.”

In addition, he said he was a member of an Eminent Group made up of Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola of Fiji, Roch Wamytan of FLNKS of New Caledonia and Solomons Prime Minister Sogavare who produced an MSG Report.

“In the report we suggested that it was good that Indonesia came in and I personally recommended a Melanesian Nakamal Concept which in Polynesia and Fiji, it is called Talanoa (process),” Natuman continued.

Independent chair
“This would allow Indonesia to sit down within a Melanesian umbrella to discuss their issues. Such a session should be chaired by an independent person such as a church leader or chief.

“The report is there and it should allow Indonesia to talk about their human right issues. Indonesia could use the avenue to hear ULMWP’s view on their proposed autonomy in West Papua.”

Indonesia could also bring in their other supporters to place their issues on the table for discussion.

Foreign Affairs Minister Napat recommended his “top to the bottom” approach instead of from a bottom up approach, allowing the ‘smol-smol man’ to dictate to the leaders how to make their decisions.

Len Garae is a Vanuatu Daily Post journalist. Republished with permission.

Washington has announced plans to reopen the United States Embassy in Solomon Islands.

Inside the Games reports that the move is a bid to counter China’s increasing assertiveness in the region, which has seen Beijing fund infrastructure for this year’s Pacific Games which take place later this year.

The US Department of State has informed Congress that it plans to establish an interim embassy in Honiara on the site of a former consular property.

• READ MORE: Other China-Solomon Islands geopolitics reports
• Fiji recalling all ambassadors and global staff

It said it would at first be staffed by two American diplomats and five local employees at a cost of US$1.8 million a year.

A more permanent facility with larger staffing will be established eventually.

The US closed its embassy in Honiara in 1993 as part of a post-Cold War global reduction in diplomatic posts and priorities.

The State Department warned in February 2022 that China’s growing influence in the region made reopening the embassy in the Solomon Islands a priority.

In October 2020, the Solomons and China signed an agreement for China to help build venues for the Pacific Games.

Last year, Honiara and Beijing signed a security pact after Chinese President Xi Jinping upgraded relations for a second time following a meeting with Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

The agreement could allow Solomon Islands to request China send police and military personnel if required, while China could deploy forces to protect “Chinese personnel and major projects”.

Sogavare has assured the US and other Western allies that he would not allow China to establish a naval base in his country, but concern about Chinese intentions has not eased.

Solomons and Chinese police visit Games stadium
Representatives from the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force have met with Chinese officials and police to visit the 2023 Pacific Games stadium which is still under construction.

The stadium is being built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, while a dorm at the National University is being built by JiangSu Provincial Construction.

The police force acknowledged the work of the companies in providing employment opportunities to local residents.

Assistant Commissioner Simpson Pogeava said police assistance would be reaffirmed, instructing Central police and Guadalcanal police to provide security support to keep the projects safe.

• The Games are scheduled to take place from November 19 to December 2.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ. 

The Solomon Islands government has threatened to ban or deport foreign journalists “disrespectful” of the country’s relationship with China, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office this week.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned this “grave infringement on press freedom” and has called on Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to ensure all journalists remain free to report on the Solomon Islands.

The ABC has soundly condemned the Solomon Islands Office of the Prime Minister for a series of “factual errors” in a statement released which criticised the Four Corners investigative report Pacific Capture: How Chinese money is buying the Solomons.

In a rare statement defending its independent journalism, it said today the ABC “stood by the accuracy and integrity” of the reporting in this programme.

• READ MORE: The ABC defence
• The Solomon Islands government criticism
• ABC 4 Corners: The documentary
• Other China in the Solomon Islands reports

It said about the programme broadcast on August 4:

The ABC wishes to correct the following factual errors in the press release issued by the Solomon Islands Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet regarding the Four Corners report Pacific Capture, which examined the impact of China’s growing presence across Solomon Islands.

At no point did the program rely on “misinformation and distribution of pre-conceived prejudicial information”.

It was not our intention to “cause division between the governments of Australia and Solomon Islands”, rather to highlight issues of concern to all Solomon Islanders.

We completely reject the offensive notion of “racial profiling that is bordering racism and race stereotyping”. In fact, we were determined to tell the story from the perspective of Solomon Islanders and the program reflected their concerns. Its main interviews were with two eminent Solomon Islanders, rather than relying on “foreign experts” as is often the case. The ABC rejects the idea that we were “putting words into the mouths of the interviewees” and sees this as insulting to the Solomon Islanders who appeared in the program.

On the issue of Kolombangara, the ABC did not say that the “shareholders have made a decision to sell off the company to a Chinese firm”. Rather, the program accurately reported that the issue had been discussed at board level and that the Australian directors were so concerned about a potential sale to a Chinese state-owned company that they twice wrote to the Federal Government expressing concerns that the purchase could be used by Beijing to establish a base under the cover of a commercial enterprise. Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s office confirmed it was aware of the issue. Her office has also not ruled out intervening. The ABC also notes that the plantation on Kolombangara is owned 85 per cent by the Nien Family of Taiwan and 15 percent by the government of the Solomon Islands, not the 60/40 split claimed in the press release.

It is incorrect to claim that the program did not acknowledge that Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare “repeatedly reaffirmed to Solomon Islanders and the Pacific region that there will be no military or naval base in Solomon Islands”.

The program said: “At a meeting in Fiji, Sogavare assured the new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that Beijing won’t be allowed to establish a military base in the Solomons.” It went on to say that one of the main concerns was that a commercial enterprise controlled by Beijing could one day be used to house military assets.

The ABC stands by the accuracy and integrity of the reporting in this program.

The head of the Solomon Islands state-owned broadcaster has defended its role in the face of the government tightening control — a move that critics say is squarely aimed at controlling and censoring the news.

The government said last Friday that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) would retain editorial control and that government officials would not censor or restrain the outlet.

Earlier in the week, the government had lashed out at the broadcaster, accusing it of a “lack of ethics and professionalism” and saying the government had a duty to “protect our people from lies and misinformation” it claimed was propagated by the SIBC.

• READ MORE: Other media freedom in the Solomon Islands reports

In an interview published by the VOA News, Johnson Honimae, the SIBC chief executive, said he was proud of the broadcaster’s award-winning journalism.

He said it was business as usual for the broadcaster and there were no government censors vetting stories before they were broadcast, contrary to what was reported by some news outlets.

The government’s move came at a politically tumultuous time in the Solomon Islands.

There were riots in the capital of Honiara last November, followed by a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare in December, which he survived.

Security pact with China
Then in April, Sogavare signed a security pact with China that has caused deep alarm in the Pacific and around the world.

The SIBC has reported those developments and has included the views of Sogavare’s opponents.

The broadcaster, which began as the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Service, has been a fixture for 70 years in the Solomon Islands.

Employing about 50 people and operating under the slogan “Voice of the nation,” the broadcaster is the main source of radio and television news for the nation’s 700,000 people and is listened to and watched from the capital to the smallest village.

In late June, the government moved to delist the SIBC as a state-owned enterprise and take more direct control, saying the broadcaster had failed to make a profit, something that had been expected of such state-owned businesses.

Opposition Leader Matthew Wale said the delisting was a scheme orchestrated by Sogavare as “a clear attempt to directly control and censor the news content of SIBC”.

“This will hijack well-entrenched principles of law on defamation and freedom-of-speech, thus depriving the public using SIBC to freely express their views, or accessing information on government activities,” Wale said.

Critical government calls
Honimae said the broadcaster took critical calls from Sogavare’s office in recent months.

“They believe we’ve been running too many stories from the opposition side, causing too much disunity,” Honimae said.

Honimae said the broadcaster and its staff won several journalism awards this year from the Media Association of Solomon Islands, including newsroom of the year and journalist of the year.

He also said the broadcaster plays the national anthem when broadcasts begin each morning at 6 am and again when they finish at 11 pm.

“We believe we are a great force for unity and peace in this country,” Honimae said.

Honimae added that the broadcaster needed to “balance our stories more” and leave no opportunity for criticism.

He said Sogavare — who is also the government’s Broadcasting Minister– had said in Parliament that the government would not tamper with the broadcaster’s editorial independence.

“There is no censorship at the moment,” Honimae said. “We operate as professional journalists.”

The Solomon Islands government has prompted anger by ordering the censorship of the national broadcaster.

The government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has forbidden it from publishing material critical of the government, which will vet all stories before broadcast.

The Guardian reports that on Monday the government announced that the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), a public service broadcaster established in 1976 by an Act of Parliament, would be brought under government control.

• READ MORE: Outrage as Solomon Islands government orders vetting of stories on national broadcaster
• Censoring SIBC an ‘assault on media freedom’ in Solomons, says IFJ
• Solomon Islands orders national broadcaster SIBC to ‘self-censor news’
• Campaign over Solomons media freedom ‘misguided’, claims PM’s office
• Other Solomon islands media freedom reports

The broadcaster, which airs radio programmes, TV bulletins and online news, is the only way to receive immediate news for people in many remote areas of the country and plays a vital role in natural disaster management.

Staff at SIBC confirmed to media that as of Monday, all news and programmes would be vetted by a government representative before broadcast.

The development has prompted outrage and raised concerns about freedom of the press.

“It’s very sad that media has been curtailed, this means we are moving away from democratic principles,” said Julian Maka, the Premier for Makira/Ulawa province, and formerly the programmes manager and current affairs head at SIBC.

“It is not healthy for the country, especially for people in the rural areas who need to have balanced views available to them.”

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has also condemned the move.

“The censoring of the Solomon Islands’ national broadcaster is an assault on press freedom and an unacceptable development for journalists, the public, and the democratic political process. The IFJ calls for the immediate reinstatement of independent broadcasting arrangements in the Solomon Islands.”

Claims of bias
The restrictions follow what Sogavare has called biased reporting and news causing “disunity”.

The opposition leader, Matthew Wale, has requested a meeting with the executive of the Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI) to discuss the situation.

The Guardian reports there have been growing concerns about press freedom in Solomon Islands, particularly in the wake of the signing of the controversial security deal with China in May.

During the marathon tour of the Pacific conducted by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, Pacific journalists were not permitted to ask him questions and in some cases reported being blocked from events, having Chinese officials block their camera shots, and having media accreditation revoked for no reason.

At Wang’s first stop in Solomon Islands, MASI boycotted coverage of the visit because many journalists were blocked from attending his press conference. Covid-19 restrictions were cited as the reason.

Sogavare’s office was contacted by the newspaper for comment.

Mounting pressure on SIBC ‘disturbing’
In Auckland, Professor David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and convenor of Pacific Media Watch, described the mounting pressure on the public broadcaster Solomon islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) as “disturbing” and an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of public radio in the country.

“It is extremely disappointing to see the Prime Minister’s Office effectively gagging the most important news service in reaching remote rural areas,” he said.

• The Solomon Islands is not yet ranked on the Reporters Without Borders World Media Freedom Index.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the censoring of the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) as an “assault on press freedom” and an “unacceptable development” amid mounting concern over China’s influence on the media and security.

“The censoring of the Solomon Island’s national broadcaster is an assault on press freedom and an unacceptable development for journalists, the public, and the democratic political process,” the IFJ said in a statement.

“The IFJ calls for the immediate reinstatement of independent broadcasting arrangements in the Solomon Islands.”

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands orders national broadcaster SIBC to ‘self-censor news’
• Campaign over Solomons media freedom ‘misguided’, claims PM’s office
• Other Solomon islands media freedom reports

The government of the Solomon Islands on August 1 ordered the national radio and television broadcaster SIBC to censor its programmes of anti-government voices.

The Prime Minister and Cabinet Office of the Solomon Islands mandated the SIBC to censor its programmes of perspectives critical of the incumbent government.

According to SIBC staff, the acting chairman of the board, William Parairato, outlined the new guidelines on July 29.

Both news and paid programmes are to be vetted in line with government regulations, as the government attempts to crack down on “disunity”.

SIBC now beholden
Special Secretary to the Prime Minister Albert Kabui indicated that the SIBC would now be beholden to a government-appointed board of directors, who would be appointed solely from the Prime Ministerial office.

The SIBC, which has moved from a state-owned enterprise to receiving all funding from the ruling government, had previously allowed paid programmes to broadcast criticism of the government.

The broadcaster also provided full live coverage of Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong’s visit to Honiara in June, with coverage funded by the Australian High Commission.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavere has been unavailable for comment, as reported by several news organisations.

In recent months the Solomon Islands has further developed existing links to China, which the Australian Broadcaster Corporation argues is indicative of “authoritarian and anti-journalist” developments in Solomon Islands’ leadership.

The IFJ raised concerns surrounding press freedoms in the Solomon Islands during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to the Pacific in May.

Wang Yi’s press tour of the Solomon Islands featured heavily restricted press conferences, with local journalists collectively confined to one question for the nation’s Foreign Minister.

Sourced from an IFJ dispatch.

The Solomon Islands government has ordered the country’s national broadcaster to self-censor its news and other paid programmes and only allow content that portrays the nation’s government in a positive light.

Staff at Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) confirmed to the ABC that acting chairman of the board William Parairato met with them last Friday to outline the new requirements.

They include vetting news and talkback shows to ensure they did not “create disunity”.

• READ MORE: Campaign over Solomons media freedom ‘misguided’, claims PM’s office
• China in the Pacific and media

Parairato had earlier attended a meeting with the Prime Minister’s office, the SIBC journalists said.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has become increasingly critical of the public broadcaster, accusing SIBC of publishing stories that have not been verified or balanced with government responses.

Last month, SIBC was removed as a state-owned enterprise (SOE) and became fully funded by the government, raising concerns over the broadcaster’s independence.

The government defended the reclassification, saying it had a duty to protect its citizens from “lies and misinformation”.

It is unclear whether SIBC — which plays a vital role as a government watchdog — will be able to publish any news or statements from the opposition under the new regime.

Critics are concerned the new rules resemble media policies adopted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and could essentially make SIBC a mouthpiece for the government.

The ABC Four Corners investigative journalism report on China and the Solomon Islands this week.

Media Association of Solomon Islands (MASI) president Georgina Kekea said there were growing fears the government would be influenced by its “new partner”, referring to the security pact recently signed between Solomon Islands and China.

“It really doesn’t come as a surprise,” she told the ABC.

“This is one of the things which we are fearful of for the past month or so now.

“We’ve been vocal on this issue, especially when it comes to freedom of the press and media doing its expected role.”

What impact will it have?
Honiara-based Melanesian News Network editor Dorothy Wickham said it was unclear how the development would play out.

Dorothy Wickham says she is not surprised by the move, given the government’s ongoing criticism of the media.

“We haven’t seen this happen before,” she said.

“If the opposition gets on SIBC and starts criticising government policies, which every opposition does … would the government disallow SIBC to air that story or that interview? That is the question that we’re asking.”

Officials have denied taking full control of SIBC’s editorial policy, saying it just wants the broadcaster to be more responsible because it is a government entity.

But University of South Pacific journalism associate professor Shailendra Singh said the government’s intentions were clear.

“There seems to be no doubt that the government is determined to take control of the national broadcaster, editorially and financially,” he told ABC’s The World.

“I don’t think there’s any way the government can be stopped.

“This latest move by the government, what it has done with the SIBC, is bring it closer to media in a communist system than in a democracy.”

Press freedoms dwindling
Local media have been vocal about increased government secrecy, the closing of doors and controlled dissemination of information from the prime minister’s office.

Wickham said the media did not have issues with governments in the past, adding that since the security pact had been signed with China, the government had been making life harder for the press.

“I don’t think this government actually restricts us, I think it’s controlling their information more than they used to,” Wickham told ABC’s The World.

“The government has been concerned that the negativity expressed by a lot of Solomon Islanders is affecting how the government is trying to roll out its policies.”

When China’s foreign minister toured the country in May, Solomon Islands local media boycotted a press conference because they were collectively only allowed to ask one question — to their own Foreign Minister.

They also struggled to get information about the timing of the visit and agreements being signed between the two countries.

Last month, the ABC was also shunned after being promised an interview with Sogavare after his national independence day speech, in which he thanked China for being a “worthy partner” in the country’s development.

Instead, his minders escorted him to a nearby vehicle, with police blocking reporters from getting close to the Prime Minister.

Dr Singh warned that the country’s democracy would suffer as a result of less media freedom.

“Media is the last line of defence, so if the media are captured, who will sound the alarm? It’s happening right before our eyes. It’s a major, major concern,” he said.

‘A wake-up call’
Kekea said SIBC staff should be able to do their job freely without fear and intimidation.

But the best thing the media can do is uphold the principles of journalism, stressing that “we must do our jobs properly”.

“It’s a wake-up call for SIBC to really look at how they have gone over the years, how they format their programs, the quality control they have in place,” Kekea said.

“It’s really a wake up call for every one of us.”

She said the media landscape had changed over the years and standards had been dropping, but the government also needed to respect the role of journalist and be more open to requests for information.

The Prime Minister had repeatedly said he was available for questions and calls, but local media complained they were continuously left unanswered, she said.

“They do not have the courtesy to respond to our emails. Even if we want to have an exclusive it gets rejected,” Kekea said.

“So it’s time governments should also walk the talk when it comes to responding to the media when they ask questions.”

The ABC has contacted Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister’s office and SIBC for comment.

• The Solomon Islands is not yet ranked on the Reporters Without Borders World Media Freedom Index.

Annika Burgess is a reporter for ABC Pacific Beat. Republished with the permission of Pacific Beat.

Reporter Dorothy Wickham tells The World it is still unclear what the SIBC move means for the public broadcaster.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong was no doubt expecting a cooler reception than her three previous visits to the Pacific when she touched down in Honiara last Friday.

The Solomon Islands government website had not even listed the Australian minister’s visit — but it did note the first visit of a Saudi Arabian tourism minister, happening the same day.

With this visit, Wong walked a diplomatic tightrope that no senior minister in the previous government appeared willing to.

• READ MORE: Saying China ‘bought’ a military base in the Solomons is simplistic and shows how little Australia understands power in the Pacific
• On the Pacific, the new government must be bold and go big. Here’s how the repair work could begin

Solomon Islands leaders have had a very crowded schedule of late, as highlighted by the Solomon Star newspaper. It said Wong was the latest foreign figure to arrive on Solomon Island shores after a number of “high-level visits from USA, Japan and China recently, before and after the signing of the security pact”.

ABC News on Wong’s visit to Solomon Islands. Video: ABC

The security pact in question is the one signed on April 20 between China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, and Solomon Islands’ foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare explained the riots of November 2021 left his government with “no option” but to enter into such a security agreement to “plug the gaps that exist in our security agreement with Australia”. What these “gaps” are, he did not say.

Since that signing, the entire Pacific has shifted in myriad ways. Wong has been very busy in her first month in office trying to reduce its impact.

She has had some wins with Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Also, Australia assisted with the rapprochement at the Pacific Islands Forum, which has emerged reinvigorated after the stress test of the past year, when one-third of the members threatened to leave.

This was averted with a special meeting in Suva on June 7, with Micronesian leaders transported to it on Australian aircraft.

The biggest win so far, for which Wong can take some credit, was for her work in advance of the Pacific Islands Forum meeting on May 30. Here, the ten nations that recognise China did not collectively sign on to become “China-Pacific Island countries”. (Federated States of Micronesia President David Panuleo rallied the region with a stirring letter that instantly became a classic text.)

A whirlwind multi-nation visit by Wang before and after the May 30 meeting added inducements for working more closely with China through numerous bilateral agreements.

Wang spent the most time on his trip in the Solomon Islands. The effect of his effusive welcome by Sogavare, encapsulated in the photograph of the pair linking arms, denoted the “iron-clad” ties the two leaders were cementing between their nations.

In addition to the game-changing Framework Security Agreement, the Solomon Islands and China “achieved eight-point consensus” during Wang’s visit.

This is a template agreement Wang has already shopped around Asia in 2021, tweaked for national specificities and concerns. In the case of the Solomon Islands, it mentions working together on “climate change” and “marine protection”.

Given all that China has offered Sogavare and his political allies — to the great detriment of the nation according to Opposition Leader Matthew Wale, who has charged the security deal is “a personal deal to protect the prime minister” — what could Penny Wong offer?

On her visits to Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, not being a member of the Morrison government that clung to its coal power and climate policies gave Wong a lot of mileage. This is the most important issue facing the region, recently reiterated in an impassioned speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue by Fiji’s minister for defence and policing, Inia Bakikoto Seruiratu.

The Solomon Islands is no exception.

That said, not being a Morrison government minister did not get Wong very far in Honiara. As she had signalled she would, Wong announced more vaccines donations and an expansion of the very popular (and desperately needed) labour scheme, the topic on which she got the most questions at her press conference.

She also visited a school and lunched with women leaders, who would have raised the dire need for improved medical facilities. Notably, it seems Wong did not meet Wale and other Sogavare opponents.

Very subtly, Wong presented an alternative to the China path. Unlike Wang’s visit, which greatly restricted press coverage, Wong encouraged it, no doubt hoping word would spread as it reportedly had in other parts of the Pacific.

A little story about Penny Wong’s recent visit to Fiji.
I was sitting on remote Kavewa Island, six cups of kava deep, and one of the men taps me on the shoulder.
He says “Nicki” (they were calling me Nicki) “your lady minister came here yeah?”
“Penny Wong?” I said. “She did” 1/

— Nick Sas (@Sasbites) June 15, 2022

But what about “our shared security interests”, as Wong termed it? This got little traction in Honiara as Sogavare will not walk back from the China-Solomon Islands agreement.

On the election campaign trail, Wong described the pact as “the worst foreign policy blunder since World War Two”.

Many anticipate China will build a naval base, as appears to be happening in Cambodia. However, Sogavare has assured Wong, and others, this will not occur.

What may happen is that maritime militias appearing as fishing vessels, which China has used to great effect in the South China Sea, will slowly build a China military presence if there is not a change of leadership and direction in the Solomon Islands.

The recent “dangerous” confrontation between a Chinese fighter jet and an Australian airforce plane in the South China Sea on May 26, the day Wong began her visit to Fiji, is another sobering instance of tactics that might move south.

While Wong’s visit did not deliver big wins, it did not make things worse.

She got reassurances, but given what Sogavare has signed onto with China of late, there is a clear lack of connection between words and deeds. What Wong did do is signal another way forward for Sogavare’s considerable opposition.

In the coming week, a multilateral Pacific Islands effort will be announced in Washington DC that involves the US, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and France.

Given this, it is almost certain that the tempo of visits to the Solomon Islands and other Pacific nations is going to rise.

Dr Patricia A. O’Brien is a faculty member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; visiting fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University; adjunct fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC., Georgetown University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

With the Australian general election largely done and dusted, and with a clear (if still-to-be-quantified) mandate, Anthony Albanese faces greater and more immediate international challenges than any Australian Prime Minister since the Cold War began.

Between climate change and an increasingly truculent — not to say belligerent — China, Pacific island countries are searching for reassurance, safety and support. Reassurance that we are valued and respected, and that a rules based order has the same rules for everyone else as it has for us.

Safety, from the increasingly violent buffeting of climate change, and from the risk of losing our balance in the increasingly straitened geopolitical space we occupy. And support for our own self-determination, territorial integrity and survival.

• READ MORE: Other Village Explainer reports at Asia Pacific Report
• Other Australian election reports

Each if these will have significant impacts on the Albanese government’s domestic policies.

Each will have lasting impact on the Pacific islands region.

Let’s hope they’ve got a plan in place. They do not have the luxury of time.

Part of this fight will have to happen while they’re still strapping on the gloves. We’ve already looked at some of the challenges Penny Wong is likely to face when she (almost certainly) becomes Foreign Minister.

In this issue, we’ll enumerate some of the immediate challenges faced by Wong and her cabinet colleagues.

PIF Secretariat in shambles
The Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat is in a shambles right now, in no small part because of Australia’s call for a vote during the selection of its most recent Secretary-General, rather than enduring more painstaking but traditional method of consensus-building our leaders learned in the village meeting house.

The voting split the membership, and the Micronesian contingent still have not reconciled themselves completely.

There is little Australia can do to fix that. But they can offer unconditional support to the body itself, and for the idea it embodies. They can formally uphold the Boe Declaration, which lists climate change as the single greatest security threat faced by the Pacific islands region, by re-basing (sorry) their security stance on this premise.

They can fund and support the Blue Pacific strategy. They can fund the Secretariat’s climate indemnity scheme. They can show our reluctant leaders that the PIF is worth being part of.

More importantly, they can promote our voices in Washington and at the UN. Our plight on the world stage resembles the challenges women have faced since… forever. Ignored, subverted, explained to, denied agency over our own body politic. We don’t need people to speak for us. We need people to listen when we speak for ourselves.

Endorsement and sponsorship for voices like those of our esteemed Pacific Elders would go a long way to achieving that.

Even more ambitiously: Is a Pacific COP possible? I’d be pleasantly surprised if this Labor government proved willing to spend the time and effort reaching a landmark such as this.

Immense time, resources needed
The time and resources required would be immense, and would compete with dozens of looming challenges in the foreign relations/defence space.

Despite the massive victory it could bring, the opportunity costs are immense. If a COP were achieved, it would build a legacy that could be relied on for years to come, but as we’ve stated before, all this would have to be achieved with a lethargic, hidebound DFAT bureaucracy.

It’s sadly much easier to imagine Australia lurching from crisis to crisis, as it has for decades.

In terms of bilateral relations, the stakes are even higher. It is clear now that China intends to build on its perceived momentum in the Pacific, and to test Labor’s mettle from the very start.

Wang Yi’s tour of four (or five?) Pacific island nations is only days away. His diplomats have been working hard to replicate the success they achieved with Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare, who signed an unprecedented security agreement that would allow personnel to be stationed in-country and ships to visit and re-victual.

It doesn’t appear that Wang will get what he wants. The pressure is on in Kiribati, but the government there has paid a hefty political price for its whole-throated support of China.

Since 2020, it’s been feeling much more phlegmatic than it was in the past.

Chinese base in Kiribati a worry
Good thing, too. A Chinese base in Kiribati is one that even I worry about. Having AA/AD capabilities just a hop, skip and a jump from Honolulu would force a fundamental re-evaluation of the US Navy’s Pacific stance.

I’ve pooh-poohed talk of bases in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands in the past. I worry about Kiribati.

Vanuatu, at least, has managed to keep dancing on the head of an increasingly pointy pin. Resisting pressure at the highest level to include an overt security component in Wang Yi’s gift bag, it has instead signed on to a massive upgrade for its Luganville airport, which will allow wide-body aircraft to fly there directly from Asia.

The island of Espiritu Santo has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. An upgrade to its international airport is part of Vanuatu’s 2018 tourism development strategy.

Yes, it’s undeniably true that any airport that can handle an A330 NEO can also handle a C17 or a Xi’an Y-20. But Vanuatu has — for the moment, at least — avoided explicitly allowing any such flights, except possibly for humanitarian reasons.

Vanuatu’s example is illuminating. They appear to have translated a high-stakes geopolitical gambit into an economic development gain that fits the country’s plans, and which will provide a massive economic boost to its moribund tourist industry.

But they are faced with increased stridency from all sides, and if they lose the space to manoeuvre, either through rising geopolitical tensions or because climate change pushes us past the point of resilience, then we will be more at risk ourselves, and more of a risk to our neighbours.

A precarious truth in the Pacific
This precarious truth applies even more so in Solomon Islands, in PNG, in Fiji … in fact everywhere in the region. Security begins with stability and predictability. We need to know we’ll be around in a generation’s time before we make any other promises.

And we need to know that Australia’s promises will be kept this time, rather than sacrificed at the altar of domestic politics, as they have under every Liberal and Labor government since the millennium began.

Can Penny Wong unilaterally undo these all tensions? No. But she can fight for a foreign policy that changes Australia’s trajectory, rather than one that attempts to change ours.

Rather than trying to align us to Australia, she can fight to align Australia to confront our common existential threats, to listen to how we expect to address them, and then to be a proper friend, and act on our words.

The Village Explainer by Dan McGarry is a semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics. Republished with permission.

The Solomon Islands prime minister is adamant a security co-operation agreement his government has signed with China will not undermine regional security.

In Parliament yesterday, Manasseh Sogavare confirmed the controversial security agreement with China had been signed despite strong opposition to the deal from the other side of the house.

The pact, a draft of which was first leaked online last month, raised domestic and regional anxieties about Beijing’s increasing influence in the South Pacific.

• READ MORE: China-Solomon Islands security pact: A Pacific stuff up?
• Other China-Solomon islands security pact reports

It is feared that it could open the door to China’s military presence in Honiara — a claim rejected both by China and Solomon Islands.

Sogavare has defended the intention behind the move, saying its aim is for the nation to diversify its security ties “to improve the quality of lives” of its people and to “address soft and hard security threats facing the country”.

“I ask all our neighbours, friends and partners to respect the sovereign interests of Solomon Islands on the assurance that the decision will not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region,” Sogavare said.

In response, opposition leader Matthew Wale called on Sogavare to make the signed document public “to allay any regional fears of any hidden parts of it”.

‘Disclosure of the agreement’
“And now that the agreement has been signed whether the Prime Minister will allow a disclosure of the agreement so that members may have a perusal of it,” Wale said.

Wale’s sentiments were echoed by another opposition MP, the chairman of the foreign relations committee, Peter Kenilorea Jr.

Kenilorea Jr said Sogavare’s decision to strike a military cooperation deal with China lacked transparency and he believed whatever efforts partners were putting in from the region were not going to make a difference.

But he also expressed concern, now that the two countries have made the agreement official, that it could become the source for domestic tensions.

“It will just further inflame emotions and tensions and again underscores the mistrust that people have on the government,” Peter Kenilorea Jr said.

“It is cause for concern for many Solomon Islanders, but definitely a certain segment of the society will now feel even more concerned and might want to start to take certain action which is not in the best interest of Solomon Islands in our own unity as a country.”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had raised “serious concerns” about the security pact when the news initially broke two weeks ago.

‘No need’, says Ardern
And following the announcement on Wednesday that the deal was done, Ardern reiterated her concerns.

“We see no need for this agreement,” Ardern said.

“We’re concerned about the militarisation of the Pacific and we continue to call on the Solomons to work with the Pacific with any concerns around their security they may have.”

The Solomon Islands prime minister is adamant a security cooperation agreement his government has signed with China will not undermine regional security. https://t.co/SxP21e1lKu

— RNZ Pacific (@RNZPacific) April 20, 2022

RNZ Pacific’s Honiara-based correspondent Georgina Kekea said the issue had divided public opinion in the country.

Kekea said people were already anticipating the signing of the pact.

“From what we’ve seen there are some who are with the signing, there some who are not. Some who are a bit sceptical about what the future will be like in the Solomon Islands with such an agreement being signed with China,” she said.

“So, there’s mixed feelings I would say on the ground, especially with the signing.”

US officials confer with Honiara
Meanwhile, senior US officials are meeting with Solomon Islands government this week with the security deal expected to be a major point of discussions.

Writing on his Village Explainer website in an article entitled “Pacific stuff up?”, Vanuatu columnist Dan McGarry writes that “if the coming election goes to Australia’s Labor party, Penny Wong is very likely to become Foreign Minister. So when she speaks, people across the region prick up their ears.

“Without the least disrespect to her recent forebears, she could be one of the most acute, incisive and insightful FMs in recent history.

“Whether she’ll be any more effective than them is another matter.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A senior Solomon Islands opposition MP has warned that the controversial security agreement with China could result in action among local opponents of the deal.

The government in Honiara signed a controversial security agreement with China despite concern from local political figures, as well as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

There are regional concerns the deal could open the door for Beijing to base its military in Honiara, but Prime Minister Manasseh Sovagare denies that that is the purpose of the security pact.

• READ MORE: Other China-Solomon Islands security pact reports

Solomon Islands parliamentarian and chair of the Foreign Relations Committee Peter Kenilorea Jr said Sogavare’s decision to seal the deal — despite significant opposition — could lead to domestic ramifications.

He said certain sections of the nation’s population have been strongly against China since the diplomatic switch from Taiwan in 2019.

Kenilorea said some people would not take this lightly and it was going to cause further tensions that were already at play locally.

“It will just further inflame emotions and tensions. And again underscores the mistrust that people have in the government,” he said.

‘A cause for concern’
“And it is cause for concern for many Solomon Islanders, but definitely a certain segment of the society will now feel even more concerned and might want to start to take certain action which is not in the best interest of Solomon Islands in our own unity as a country.”

Kenilorea said the government needed to make the security document signed with China available to the public.

“It is that important that it should be made public. We have a security treaty with Australia, and that can be accessed online.

“So why couldn’t this be and I will be calling for that signed copy to be made available so that all Solomon Islanders as well as a region can see what is in there,” he said.

Opposition Leader Matthew Wale made that a formal request in Parliament “to allay any regional fears” and received a non-commital response from Sogavare.

Australia’s disappointment with Honiara
The Australian federal government has declared it is “deeply disappointed” that Solomon Islands has pressed ahead and signed the security pact with China.

The announcement came just days after Australia’s Minister for the Pacific Zed Seselja travelled to Honiara and met Sogavare in a last-ditch effort to dissuade him from going ahead with the deal.

Senator Seselja and Foreign Minister Marise Payne said the government was “disappointed” by the agreement and that it was not reached in a transparent way.

“Ultimately, this is a sovereign decision of the government of Solomon Islands and we absolutely recognise that, but … declarations and these engagements on security issues have been dealt with in a Pacific-wide manner,” Payne said.

“That is the traditional approach for these issues and it’s why some Pacific partners have also raised concerns.”

Senator Payne said the government’s position was still that Pacific neighbours were the best to delivery security in the region and said it was an “unfair characterisation” to say the region had become less secure while Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been in power.

The ministers said while Solomon Islands had the right to make sovereign decisions about national security, Australia still believed the “Pacific family” was best placed to provide security guarantees.

In Washington, the White House, which is sending a high-level US delegation to Honiara this week, said it was concerned about “the lack of transparency and unspecified nature” of the pact.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fourteen officers of the Royal Solomon Island Police Force (RSIPF) have completed the first public order management (POM) training conducted by Chinese instructors.

During the two week course, the Police Response Team (PRT) and Operational Safety Training (OST) officers were trained in unarmed combat skills, advanced use of long sticks, round shields, tactical batons, T-shaped batons, handcuffs, basic rifle tactics and crowd control.

They were trained by the Chinese Police Liaison Team (CPLT) at Rove Police Headquarters.

• READ MORE: Beijing-Honiara pact leaked by ‘lunatics and agents of foreign regimes’ says Sogavare
• Other China security pact reports

All the training was “relevant and practical” aimed at increasing the capability of RSIPF officers to respond to different kinds of emergencies, a statement said amid controversy over a leak of a security pact between China and Solomon Islands.

At the end of the training last Friday, the instructors from CPLT and RSIPF assessed all 14 officers.

A second POM training course will be conducted for Central Response Unit (CRU) and Provincial Response Unit (PRU) officers from May 2-15.

Deputy Commissioner (National Security and Operation Support) Ian Vaevaso said he was “extremely happy” that the RSIPF was receiving such policing capacity development training.

This would help boost the capability of police officers to handle various situations during public disorder, he said.

Deputy Commissioner Vaevaso thanked the Chinese instructors for the commitment and dedication in making making the first training a success.

Robert Iroga is publisher and editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.

China pact leaked by ‘lunatics’ and ‘agents of foreign regimes’
RNZ Pacific reports that Solomon Islands Prime Minister Mannasseh Sogavare says the leak of a draft security pact between Beijing and Honiara was done by “lunatics and agents of foreign regimes” with “no regard for secrecy”.

The Pacific country has drawn criticism from Australia and New Zealand after a draft copy of the security agreement being brokered with China was leaked.

In a parliamentary statement today, Sogavare brushed off accusations that a new China-Solomon Islands security treaty would diminish the role of its traditional security partners in the region.

Sogavare said his country’s relationship with allies in Australia and New Zealand will “always remain important”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has denied allowing the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to establish a military base in the Solomon Islands in a security treaty that he confirmed today as having already been finalised.

“We denied it totally. We don’t know where it came from,” Sogavare said when responding to a question in Parliament today.

Sogavare took about 30 minutes to defend the security treaty with China which was leaked on social media and has caused waves of concern, especially in Australia and New Zealand.

• READ MORE: NZ PM says Honiara’s growing China relationship is ‘gravely concerning’
• Other China security pact reports

Among the concern is a claim that the treaty allows China to establish a military base in Solomon Islands.

Sogavare said the Australian media had focused on Solomon Islands being pressured by China to build a military base in Solomon Islands, which was only 2000km away from the northern coast of Australia.

“Where does the nonsense come from?” he asked.

Sogavare said the security treaty was pursued at the request of Solomon Islands and “we are not pressured. We are not pressured in any way by our new friends”.

Sogavare said: “There is no intention whatsoever to ask China to build a military base in Solomon Islands.

“We are insulted by such an unfounded stories and comments.”

Meanwhile, he said the treaty has already been finalised and approved by cabinet.

Robert Iroga is publisher and editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has appealed to his fellow Solomon Islanders at the western border not to allow Bougainvilleans into the country.

In his nation’s address last Friday, Sogavare recapped the country’s first covid-19 case recorded from a Shortland islander, dropped off by four Bougainvilleans in Shortland, who was automatically tested positive and is still in a 14-day quarantine with his seven family members who also tested positive.

The four Bougainvilleans returned home the same day and are back in their respective villages.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Island reports

Sogavare singled out the New Year delta and omicron cases recorded in Solomon Islands which were brought in by citizens returning from outside Honiara.

“The western border continues to be an area of priority for health,” he said.

“For the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force and other border force agencies, it represents a potential source of covid-19 incursion into the country.

“For example, on New Year’s Day, a man from the Shortlands travelled with four Bougainville nationals from Bougainville to Shortland.

“The four Bougainvilleans returned straight after dropping off the man.

In quarantine facility at Nila
“The man is now held at the quarantine facility in Nila along with seven of his family members with whom he had made close contact.

“They will undergo 14 days of quarantine and only released if all tests results are returned negative.

“Five who had been held at the Nila isolation ward at Shortlands will be released after serving 14 days if their results return negative.

“These five individuals have made close contact with people from Bougainville.

“My good people, living along the western border, I ask you to refrain from going across the border to Bougainville.

“I also ask you to not allow any visitors from Bougainville to your villages during the period of the State of Emergency. Please continue to be vigilant to prevent the entry of covid-19 through our western border.”

ABG health chief ‘not aware’
Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) Health Secretary Dr Clement Totavun told the Post-Courier they were not aware of the incident singled out by Sogavare but also said the border had been closed since 2020 when the covid initial measures were released and PNG Immigration and other border offices had ordered immediate closure.

“There is currently a ban on traditional border crossing,” he said.

“The border is closed.

“The Border Protection Authority is supposed to man the border but surveillance at the moment is not effective.”

He said he would communicate with National Pandemic Controller David Manning on this issue.

Gorethy Kenneth is a senior PNG Post-Courier journalist. Republished with permission.

• READ MORE: ‘Under attack’: Report says repression of rights persists in Asia
• Other reports on people power under attack

An open rating means people are free to form associations, demonstrate in public spaces, and share information without fear of reprisals.

Concern in the report highlighted those civic rights are not respected across the region; Fiji, Nauru and Papua New Guinea remain in the “obstructed” category, meaning that restrictions of freedoms of expression, association and assembly have been raised by civil society in these countries.

Restrictions relating to media freedoms, access to information and the right to protest led to the Solomon Islands downgrade. Freedom of expression is of particular concern — in early 2021 the cabinet threatened to ban Facebook over worries about posts with “inflammatory critiques of the government”.

The government eventually backtracked after condemnation from civil society and the opposition.

Public Emergency extended
Freedom of assembly have been documented in the Solomon Islands. In July, the State of Public Emergency was extended for another four months in response to covid-19, even though there were only 20 reported cases in the country.

A march in Honiara to deliver a petition to the government by people from the Malaita province was disrupted and dispersed by the police.

Accessing information is not available to the media in the pandemic as Solomon Islands does not have freedom of information legislation. Additionally, the environment towards civil society groups is becoming more hostile in the country.

For example, in late 2019 the office of the Prime Minister called for an investigation into a number of civil society groups after they called for the prime minister to step down.

“Excessive restrictions on civic freedoms imposed by the government under the guise of preventing covid-19 led to the downgrade of the Solomon Islands. Constant threats to ban Facebook and attempts to vilify civil society have also resulted in the failure of the Solomon Islands to retain a top spot in our global rights rankings,” said Josef Benedict, Asia-Pacific civic space researcher at CIVICUS.

The use of excessive restrictions against activists and critics was the leading violation in 2021 with at least seven countries having been found to have transgressed in the report.

Target on Fiji journalists, activists and critics
In Fiji, provisions relating to sedition in the Public Order (Amendment) Act 2014 have been used to target journalists, activists, and government critics, while other sections of the act have been used to arbitrarily restrict peaceful protests.

The Fiji Trade Unions Congress (FTUC) was denied a permit to hold a rally in Suva, on International Labour Day, 1 May 2021 — no reason, written or verbal for the rejection was given.

The use of restrictive laws is a concern across the Pacific. New criminal defamation laws passed in Vanuatu and Tonga cast a chilling blow to freedom of expression.

In Australia, the government continues to hound whistleblowers through the courts, as seen in the case of Bernard Collaery, the lawyer of an ex-spy, who was charged with allegedly exposing Australia’s bugging of Timor-Leste.

In 2019, Australia was downgraded by the CIVICUS Monitor due to attempts to silence whistleblowers who reveal government wrongdoing, among other concerns.

New Zealand and Australia, which was downgraded in 2019, did not get off scot-free. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association said the pandemic was not reason enough to quell peaceful assembly of protesters.

Indeed, protesters to the lockdown rules were detained this year for violating covid-19 rules.

Intimidation of Pacific activists
Other civic rights violations highlighted by the CIVICUS Monitor include the harassment or intimidation of activists and critics across the Pacific, as documented in Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea.

Fijian surgeon Dr Jone Hawea was detained for questioning after criticising the government’s response to covid-19 in his Facebook live videos, while Papua New Guinean lawyer Laken Lepatu Aigilo was allegedly detained and assaulted by police in April 2021 after lodging an official complaint against a politician.

“The state of civic space in the Pacific may seem relatively positive. However, over the year we have seen restrictive laws being used in several countries, including criminal defamation laws. Protests have also been denied or disrupted under the pretext of handling the pandemic, while activists have faced harassment and intimidation,” said Benedict.

However, there have been some positive developments this year. After strong civil society pressure, Tongan authorities moved swiftly to charge the alleged murderer of leading LGBTQI+ activist Polikalepo “Poli” Kefu, after his body was found on a beach near Tongatapu, Tonga’s main island

More than 20 organisations collaborate on the CIVICUS Monitor to provide an evidence base for action to improve civic space on all continents.

The Monitor has posted more than 500 civic space updates in the last year, which are analysed in People Power Under Attack 2020.

Civic space in 196 countries is categorised as either closed, repressed, obstructed, narrowed or open, based on a methodology which combines several sources of data on the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression.

Malaita province in Solomon Islands is planning to poll people on self-determination.

It comes two weeks after a Malaitan-led protest against the national government in Honiara degenerated into a violent riot.

The Malaita Premier, Daniel Suidani, said he was seeking the help of the United Nations in the referendum, which he hoped to have completed by the end of January.

• READ MORE:  Solomon Islands political battle ends with Sogavare winning confidence vote
• Solomon Islands PM survives no-confidence vote after unrest
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

Suidani said the UN was involved in drawing up the Townsville Peace Agreement in 2000, which was an attempt to resolve prolonged ethnic violence on Guadalcanal.

He said nothing had come from that agreement’s commitment to self-determination.

“The issue of independence or maybe a referendum is quite important because we need to find out whether that idea is still in the minds of the people of Malaita. That is why I am announcing this referendum to be carried out as soon as possible,” he said.

Earlier this week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare defeated a motion of no confidence in him by 32 votes to 15 with two abstentions.

It was moved by opposition leader Matthew Wale after major political unrest in the capital last month saw three days of rioting, looting and burning of businesses and properties in Honiara.

Sogavare said he would defend the principles of democracy and the rule of law no matter the cost.

In his first public statement since the vote, Sogavare said the Solomon Islands was a democratic country with a democratically-elected government and he did not resign because that would only bring the wrong message to future generations.

Where is the legislation?
The government is also being criticised for only passing one new law this year.

Opposition MP and member for East ‘Are’are Peter Kenilorea Jr said the only law the government had passed in Parliament this year was an amendment to the Telecommunications Act.

He said the government could not use the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse for not doing its job.

“Just this year Fiji passed 34 Acts. They had community transmission. They worked,” he said.

“Papua New Guinea had 15, and 43 last year. We cannot just leave our jobs just because of covid-19. We don’t even have community transmission.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

After a day of political showdown that at times involved shouting battles and personal clashes, the much anticipated motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was defeated by 32 votes to 15 with two abstentions.

With the capital city Honiara virtually closed for business yesterday, attention turned to Vavaya Ridge where Parliament was debating the motion.

The motion came on the back of social unrest that saw the looting and burning of some 56 buildings across the city and the re-engagement of foreign forces in Honiara to arrest the situation two weeks ago and restore law and order.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM survives no-confidence vote after unrest
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

In moving the motion, opposition leader Matthew Wale admitted that he had been conflicted by the need for this motion at this hour in “our history”.

“On the one hand we are dealing with it today because there is need for a political solution to the causes of the tragic events of two weeks ago,” he said.

“On the other, I am conscious that what we say in ventilating this motion may further add to what are already high levels of anger in certain quarters of our society.”

Wale said that as a result of the tragic events that caused so much loss and destruction and even cost lives he had called on the Prime Minister to resign.

‘Eruption of anger’
“I did not make that call out of malice toward him personally. I made that call in recognition of the fact that the tragic events were not isolated events, nor were they purely criminal, but were the eruption of anger based on political issues and decisions for which the PM must bear the primary responsibility,” he said.

“It is democratic for a Prime Minister to be called upon to resign, there is nothing undemocratic about the call. And if he chose to resign that too would be democratic.

“As is the case, the Prime Minister refused to resign, and therefore has necessitated this motion,” he said while moving the motion.

“Although [the people] are resource rich, yet they are cash poor. They have hopes that their children will have access to better opportunities than they did.”

— Opposition leader Matthew Wale

In arguing his case, Wale stated several issues.

On the economy, the MP for Aoke/Langalana said the vast majority of “our people live on the margins of our economy”.

“Although they are resource rich, yet they are cash poor. They have hopes that their children will have access to better opportunities than they did.

“They work hard to afford the high cost of education, though many children leave school because of lack of school fees. Our people are angry that education is so expensive, and that only those that can afford it are able to educate all their kids to a high level of education,” Wale said.

Access to healthcare challenging
“On health, Wale said the vast majority of our people lived where access to healthcare was challenging at best.

He said basic medicines and supplies are often not adequate to meet their health care needs adding that the state of the hospitals are perpetually in crisis management.

The opposition leader pointed out that at the National Referral Hospital Emergency Department patients were sleeping on the floor.

“Why is this the case? Who is responsible? Our people are angry about this,” he asked in Parliament.

Wale also highlighted logging companies disregard of tribal and community concerns, that drive conflict and disputes within tribes and communities. He said the government stood with the logging companies.

He also accused Sogavare of the use of the People’s Republic of China’s National Development Fund (NDF) money to prop up the Prime Minister as another of those issues that was undermining and compromising the sovereignty of the country.

He said the PM was dependent on that money to maintain his political strength.

Chinese funding influence
“How is he then supposed to make decisions that are wholly only in the interests of Solomon Islands untainted or undiluted by considerations for the PRC funds,” he asked.

“You see public anger has been built up over many years by all this bad governance. No serious efforts have been taken to address these serious issues. Provincial governments have increasingly over the past several years repeated their desire that they be given the constitutional mandate to manage their own affairs. Honiara has been consuming almost all the wealth that has been generated from resources exploited from the provinces,” Wale said.

He stated that the provinces had lost trust in Honiara.

“Erratic, poor, mercenary, and politically expedient decision making makes what is already a bad situation worse.

Wale said this was the situation specifically with Malaita.

“Malaita has stood on principle that a PM that lies to the country and Parliament does not have moral authority and legitimacy. Malaita would not accept it.

“Because of that principled position, this PM has not ceased to scheme and plot the consistent and persistent persecution of Malaita.

Malaita sought peaceful protest
“Malaitans have sought to petition the PM, twice, but were ignored and brushed aside in a rather juvenile manner. Malaita asked to stage peaceful protests, but these were denied.

“Malaitans sought an audience with the PM, but they were summarily dismissed. So what are they then supposed to do to get the PM’s attention? The PM consistently refused to visit Auki,” Wale said.

“We never received any formal log of issues from them so that the government sits with them and dialogue over it,” he said.

He stressed that the government runs on rules and protocols on how they deal with each other.

Regarding the motion, Sogavare said it should never be brought to the floor of Parliament.

He accused Wale and his cohorts for driving the interests of a few people.

Willing to face justice
Sogavare said the majority of peace loving Malaitans condemned with utter disgust what had happened.

On corruption allegations, that the foreign forces were helping to protect his government, Sogavare said he was willing to face justice.

“I am very willing and if the leader of opposition can prove the allegations he has against me. This is the easiest way to remove the Prime Minister—that is to send him to jail,” he said.

On the lack of government support in terms of development on Malaita, Sogavare argued that despite the current economic environment his government had performed very well.

In that regard, he said the government did not fail the people of the country, including Malaita province, in the implementation of the twin objective of his government’s policy re-direction.

He said that the government had done so much for Malaita — as a matter of fact more than what some provinces that contributed so much to the country’s economy were getting.

Eight MPs including the PM spoke on the motion.

Robert Iroga is editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.

The Solomon Islands prime minister came in for searing criticism when he faced a confidence vote in Parliament today.

A motion of no confidence against Manasseh Sogavare was debated amid tight security in the capital Honiara, where hundreds of regional security forces have deployed following major political unrest less than two weeks ago.

About 250 defence force and police personnel from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Zealand were on high alert in anticipation of potential unrest around the outcome of the vote.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands PM survives no-confidence vote after unrest
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

As expected, the pro-China prime minister survived the no confidence vote with the support of 32 MPs, while 15 voted against him.

Local media reported that numerous local families departed from Honiara aboard interisland ferries to return to home villages to avoid potential unrest in the capital, where many shops and schools had also closed.

The motion was tabled by opposition leader Matthew Wale, who has accused Sogavare of allowing corruption to fester, and of treating the people of Malaita province with contempt.

Malaitans played a central role in the late November protest that sparked the unrest, which left extensive destruction in Honiara, prompting Sogavare’s request for regional security help.

Suidani denies instigation claims
Malaita’s provincial Premier Daniel Suidani, whose administration has fallen out with the national government, especially over the country’s move to switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China, has denied claims by the coalition that he instigated the unrest.

Wale told Parliament that the actions of the rioters should not obscure the real issue behind the unrest.

“We must condemn all the criminality in the strongest terms, but it pales, Mr Speaker, in comparison to the looting happening at the top,” he said.

Speaking in favour of the motion, former prime minister Rick Hounipwela described Sogavare as the ultimate opportunist whose accession to prime minister over four stints “has always been under abnormal circumstances”.

Blaming the prime minister for negligent management of the country’s finances, Hounipwela said the country’s corruption problem had deepened under Sogavare’s rule.

“We’ve experienced huge tax exemptions worth millions of dollars given to the people who least needed it, usually the loggers and mining operators.”

In today’s debate on the motion, Sogavare said the motion had been filed against the backdrop of an illegal attempted coup.

‘Stand up to tyranny’
“When we are under attack from forces of evil, we must stand up for what is right, we must stand up to this tyranny. We cannot entertain violence being used to tear down a democratically elected government.”

Sogavare rejected the opposition’s accusation of corruption against him.

Hounipwela, the MP for Small Malaita, accused the prime minister of using the pandemic State of Emergency to give himself authoritarian powers.

He also claimed Sogavare had used police to repress public criticism of his leadership, and of directing foreign embassies and high commissions in the country to notify the government of their moves around the provinces.

“To vote against [the motion], members would be aiding and abetting his zeal for power and to rule this country with an iron fist. That’s what we see as a track record,” Hounipwela said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The latest members of New Zealand’s Defence Force and police contingent have arrived in Honiara after days of unrest in the Solomon Islands capital.

They are part of a regional peacekeeping force that also includes teams from Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.

Two flights landed in Honiara yesterday afternoon from Ōhakea and Auckland Air Force bases.

• READ MORE:  Solomon Islands police arrest 217 riot suspects, but no ‘instigators’ so far
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

They have been sent in response to a request for support from the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.

The Air Force Boeing 757 and a Hercules transported Defence Force and police personnel, vehicles and other equipment.

An advance party of New Zealand Defence Force and police personnel arrived in Honiara on Thursday — a week after violent rioting rocked the city for days leaving Chinatown and parts of eastern Honiara severely damaged.

Earlier this week Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta said the personnel would maintain peace rather than get involved in domestic politics.

She said a looming vote of no-confidence in Sogavare could trigger more violence.

The New Zealand deployment is expected to be in the Solomon Islands for up to a month.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Opposition leader Matthew Wale has rejected the prime minister’s claim that he and other opposition members were behind last week’s rioting in the Solomon Islands capital of Honiara.

Wale claimed that the false statements were aimed towards diverting the public’s attention from Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s “own failures” in dealing with the crisis.

Wale said Sogavare “must recognise his role in this tragedy”.

• READ MORE: Solomons faces a ‘rapidly worsening’ humanitarian crisis
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

“These recent events are the culmination of the prime minister’s leadership style which stretch back throughout his tenure,” the opposition leader said.

Wale said he had repeatedly made calls for the prime minister to initiate dialogue with the restless province Malaita.

“I have stated on several occasions the need for the prime minister to have constructive dialogue with Malaita,” he said.

“In light of the deteriorating relationship between the province and national government, I specifically urged the prime minister last year to lead a delegation to Malaita to deal with their issues’.

Sogavare had failed to do this.

‘Negative attitude’
“His negative attitude to deal with these issues is also reflected in the recent events when he ran away and refused to engage in dialogue with the people who marched to Parliament.”

Reflecting on the damage from the rioting, Wale said that what had happened in the last few days was truly a tragedy.

“As a leader, I lament with the people who have suffered losses and condemn what has happened.

“Because of the large damage that has occurred these past days, the public’s impulse to blame someone is understandable.”

The Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) estimated the loss to the local economy at $US28 million. Three people died in the Chinatown fires.

The prime minister must not take advantage of this and divert the public’s attention from his actions and omissions which had directly contributed to the problem, Wale said.

The opposition leader called on the prime minister to “stop blaming others” for his own failures and “take responsibility as a true leader”.

NZ peacekeepers
RNZ Pacific reports that the New Zealand government is deploying dozens of Defence Force and police personnel to Honiara in the coming days “to help restore peace and stability”

Since rioting and looting started in the Solomon Islands last week, Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have sent about 200 troops and police to help keep the peace there.

Robert Iroga is editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.

The New Zealand government is deploying dozens of Defence Force and police personnel to Honiara in the coming days “to help restore peace and stability”.

Since rioting and looting started in the Solomon Islands last week, Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have sent troops to help keep the peace there.

An initial NZDF team of 15 will join them tomorrow, followed by a larger group of 50 at the weekend.

• READ MORE: Pacific regional response to Solomons post-riots crisis takes shape
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the response was short-term and to help restore peace and stability.

“New Zealand is committed to its responsibilities and playing its part in upholding regional security.

“We are deeply concerned by the recent civil unrest and rioting in Honiara, and following yesterday’s request of the Solomon Islands government, we have moved quickly to provide urgent assistance.

Samoan police are also on standby to send personnel to assist peacekeeping forces.

Unrest stemmed from protest
The unrest stemmed from a protest calling for the removal of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that spilled over into rioting and left major destruction in the capital.

Earlier today, it was reported that the Solomon Islands government had warned that instigators were planning what it called “another evil plan” to decimate the whole of Honiara.

A government statement said the destruction of local businesses was done by “heartless people with selfish agendas”.

It warned that instigators were planning a next phase of unrest, including the declaration of Malaita province as an independent state.

Malaita’s provincial Premier Daniel Suidani, whose administration has fallen out with the national government, denies claims that he instigated the unrest.

Malaitans played a central role in last week’s protest before opportunists and looters co-opted the mobilisation into major unrest.

Ringleader statements on Facebook
The government statement said it was aware of reports that ringleaders behind the unrest were openly stating on Facebook that “in order to build a new house, the old house must be first destroyed”.

“Such statements are not helping the volatile situation we are currently experiencing in Honiara,” the statement said.

“To the peace loving and right minded Malaitans, we should ask ourselves whether we are comfortable with the violent advocators to lead our people to an independent state.”

However, the national government said it was encouraged by “the wisdom of the majority of our citizens not to employ violence, looting or threatening tactics to impose one’s evil plan of decimating Honiara city, the capital of Solomon Islands”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Fiji is the latest regional country to announce it is sending security forces to Solomon Islands where major unrest rocked the capital.

Days of rioting in Honiara by mobs who torched buildings and looted shops prompted the government to call for outside help.

In what’s shaping up as a Pacific regional response, Fiji yesterday deployed 50 soldiers to help keep the peace in Honiara, with 120 more troops on standby.

• READ MORE: Other Honiara crisis reports

They follow last week’s deployment of more than 100 Australian defence force and police personnel, as well as 37 Papua New Guinea police and correctional service forces.

Canberra has been playing a co-ordinating role with the other Pacific nations. New Zealand is also part of the conversation, although its role appears minimal at this stage.

Signs from both Australia and PNG indicate that, provisionally, their forces are expected to be in Solomon Islands no longer than a month.

The Fiji military unit is deploying as part of a reinforcement platoon embedded with the Australian contingent in Honiara.

120 troops on standby
According to the Fiji government, another 120 Fijian troops are on standby if required.

Over three days last week, many buildings were torched in Honiara’s east, particularly its Chinatown area — leaving at least three people dead.

The unrest had spiralled from a protest against Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare last Wednesday.

By the weekend, law and order was largely restored in Honiara due to the reinforcement of local police capabilities due to the peacekeepers from Australia and Papua New Guinea.

On Monday, the Solomons Parliament met briefly — amid tight security — to pass two motions. One was for the routine extension of the State of Public Emergency in place since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

The other was to authorise expenditure for the massive loss and damage caused by the riots — estimated at US$28 million.

Despite the resignation of four government MPs last week, and calls for him to stand down to restore control in the country, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare still commands a clear majority in the House.

‘Melting pot of the country’
The MP for Central Guadalcanal, Peter Shanel Agovaka, who is also Communications and Aviation Minister, said each time a group of people from outer provinces who were unhappy with the government, they tended to come to Honiara and destroy local business houses.

“I think people from other provinces should respect that as hosts of this capital we allow people of all provinces, and all denominations and all races, to come here.

“This is the melting pot of the country, and to see it in ruins like this is really very sad.”

According to Shanel, a lot of households had been affected.

“Eighty to 90 percent of Chinatown is burnt down. This is really sad, because these are innocent people,” he said.

“The way to remove a prime minister is through the parliamentary process. It’s not through the burning of businesses or private properties and looting them.”

Capital’s schools close
All schools in the Solomon Islands capital have been ordered to close early as a result of the widespread destruction caused by last week’s unrest in Honiara.

Education Secretary Dr Franco Rodie said the decision was reached after consultation with the heads of various schools and taking into consideration parents concerns for the safety of their children.

Dr Rodie said thankfully most major exit examinations had already been conducted and in class assessments will have to be taken into consideration for everyone else.

State of emergency
Forty-one out of 49 members of Parliament on Monday yesterday voted in favour of the four-month-extension, as proclaimed by the Governer-General, Sir David Vunagi.

Opposition leader Matthew Wale asked for clarification on the covid status of emergency personnel from Australia and Papua New Guinea brought in because of last week’s riots.

Health Minister Culwick Togamana said all foreign security personnel were double vaxxed and tested negative for covid-19 upon departure and again on arrival in the country.

Togamana also expressed disappointment in the poor uptake of vaccines with less than 20 percent of the population fully vaccinated.

Clean-up underway
The clean-up in Honiara is underway and church and community groups are turning up to clear the wreckage from last week’s rioting.

However, the riots have created a shortage of food and RNZ Pacific correspondent Elisabeth Osifelo said there had been long queues for the shops that were open, as well as for petrol and at ATMs while banks remain closed.

“The prices have sllightly gone up with rice and so it just depends on where the shop is,” she explained.

“I found out towards the eastern parts of Honiara because I think the shops are very limited that the prices have gone up and varying on different items as well.”

Solomon Islands police have confirmed the identity of the three bodies recovered from a building burnt in Chinatown during the violence — an adult and two children.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A contingent of 50 Republic of Fiji Military Forces troops flew to Honiara today to help restore security and stability in the Solomon Islands after three days of rioting last week.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama had pledged Fijian support for his Solomon Islands counterpart Manasseh Sogavare.

The request was accepted and Fiji’s troops were prepared, the RFMF said today in a statement.

• READ MORE: PNG’s police deployment in Honiara ‘vital’ for regional security
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

The Fijian soldiers departed for Honiara on a Royal Australian Air Force C-130 transport plane about 12 noon. They are joining about 150 Australian and Papua New Guinea troops and police in Solomon Islands.

Commander Major-General Jone Kalouniwai said in his farewell speech to the troops at the Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva: “We are here, heeding the call of our nation through the Prime Minister after his discussion with the Solomon Islands Prime Minister to assist our fellow Melanesian family in the Solomons.”

“We are all placing our trust on you that you will go out there and perform to the best of your ability to help bring peace and stability in the Solomons,” said General Kalouniwai.

Contingent Commander Lieutenant-Colonel Asaeli Toanikeve thanked the RFMF leadership for their trust in his leadership.

‘We will bravely stand’
“I would also like to assure you that we will bravely stand and heed the call of the military and the nation for we believe this is God calling on our lives to assist the people of the Solomon Islands in their time of need,” Lieutenant-Colonel Toanikeve said.

Assigned to prepare the contingent, the commanding officer 3rd Battalion Fiji Infantry Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel Penioni Naliva, said the troops had been briefed on what to expect.

“More importantly, they are there to assist law enforcement agencies in the Solomon Islands bring back peace and stability to their country,” Colonel Naliva said.

Naliva added that the deploying contingent, which has been made up of men from all units of the RFMF, would be specifically tasked with ensuring a stable environment for future operations in case more troops were needed.

Just four years into his military career and going on his first deployment, Legal Officer Captain Aisea Paka said he was excited when it was conveyed to him that he was going on this tour.

“I had a feeling that the time would come for it. However, mindful of the work we are to partake in, there are a lot of legal matters to deal with apart from operations. I want to thank the leadership for this opportunity,” said the Rotuman officer.

Akanisi Vakanawa, wife of a deploying soldier, said that while the news of the sudden deployment came as a surprise it was something she had always expected.

Almost 80 years after Fiji troops first landed in the Solomons during the Second World War and 15 years since their last deployment with the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Pacific nation, Fijian soldiers are returning.

One of the key characteristics of Melanesian politics is its ability to remain formless and chaotic right up until the point where, after a strange and often obscure catalysing moment, it abruptly transforms itself.

More than a few people will attribute Solomon Islands’ recent tragic political confrontation to Manasseh Sogavare, his decision to end diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and his intolerance in the face of Malaitan grievance.

Sogavare has a reputation for intransigence. He can be downright pugnacious when confronted. More than a few people have laid at least part of the blame for the 2000 coup at his feet.

• READ MORE: Protests rock Solomon Islands: Here’s what’s behind the unrest
• Solomon Islands riots push nation into slippery slide of self-implosion
• Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

But that misunderstands who he is, and how he’s managed to remain one of the most enduring characters on the Solomon Islands political scene.

Sogavare began his career as a tea boy smartly saluting the White-socked British administrators. He is extremely proud to have become the one they salute.

The diplomatic switch
Those who insist on seeing the current crisis in geopolitical terms misunderstand his role in the diplomatic switch, and his approach to politics.

Sogavare is two things:

• He is headstrong. His rise to power is punctuated by confrontation and inflexibility. He entered politics because the PM of the day sacked him from his role as Permanent Secretary of Finance. His first term as Prime Minister was fraught with violence and hatred.
• He is a technocrat. He will seek pragmatic solutions that are conspicuously absent of ideology, or even consistency, when circumstances dictate.

When Solomon Islands held the chair of the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2015, he played a decisive role in brokering the awkward compromise that saw the MSG simultaneously elevate Indonesia’s status in the organisation and welcome the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, or ULMWP, into the fold.

If he had allowed it, the matter of membership would have gone to a vote, and the vote would have split the organisation irrevocably. Instead he found a consensus solution, albeit one that defies an intellectually consistent explanation.

This is precisely the pitfall that, if backchannel accounts are accurate, Australia led the Pacific Islands Forum into when they called for the selection of the next secretary-general to be put to a vote.

Always an outsider
Born in Papua New Guinea to missionary parents from Choiseul province, he’s always been an outsider and an individualist. His lack of constituency has become his stock in trade. It’s precisely because he’s not burdened by party or policy that he continually bobs to the top of the Solomon Islands political elite.

If you had asked anyone about his stance toward China in the lead-up to the diplomatic split from Taiwan, you would likely have heard that he opposed recognition of China. But that didn’t stop him from unreservedly attacking Taiwan for its failure to address his country’s development needs.

The critique wasn’t unmerited. For decades, Taiwan elevated its ties to the political elite over its role as a development partner. The much-maligned Constituency Development Funds that have gained outsized influence over national politics were seeded by Taiwan.

CDFs are one of the key drivers of electoral corruption in the country. A close observer of Solomon Islands politics recently told me that to get elected in Solomon Islands now, you have to be either rich, or an MP.

Incumbency rates increased markedly since the CDFs were made a core component in the budget process.

It took Taiwan years to begin unhitching itself from this albatross. When they did, they left an opening for China to fill. And, in spite of their own reluctance to become stuck in the same corruption and mire that Taiwan had only just emerged from, the prize was too big to forego.

Claiming that Sogavare drove this process ignores the power of Parliament. He knew which way they were going, and he knew what he had to do if he was going to keep his hand on the wheel.

And that’s why he did what he did.

Distrust of Malaitan politicians
His distrust of senior Malaitan politicians, and his apparent willingness to use dirty tricks to remove them, are well known. It’s hard to defend many of the decisions he’s made along the way.

But it is possible to understand and explain them.

Manasseh Sogavare is a party of one. He retains his hold on the highest office not in spite of this, but because of it. He presents no ideological or policy threat to any of the other MPs.

It’s precisely because of his mechanistic, arguably amoral approach to politics that he remains one of the most enduring faces on the Solomon Islands political scene.

That hardly raises him above criticism. But it should serve as a caution to anyone who naively thinks that removing him will solve the nation’s problems — or that the nation’s political problems can be solved by a policy, a party or a single man.

The question is not who can salve this wound afflicting Solomons society, but how these peoples can heal themselves.

The divisions that have fuelled this most recent rupture are deep. They span decades. To think that a bit of parliamentary musical chairs will be sufficient to fix it is folly. To think that some other smart, independent man of deep conviction is going to be able to put things to rights is to ignore the evidence right in front of our eyes.

How will history judge Sogavare? I’ll leave the last words to him. When I asked him back in 2015 about the prospect for continued violence and unrest, he said:

“We’ve been through this three times now. And if I haven’t learned anything from 2006, then… I have myself to blame.”

Dan McGarry was previously media director at Vanuatu Daily Post/Buzz FM96. The Village Explainer is his semi-regular newsletter containing analysis and insight focusing on under-reported aspects of Pacific societies, politics and economics. His articles are republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

With no plans to evacuate their citizens from Honiara, the international community is closely monitoring the situation in the Solomon Islands following a week of political unrest.

There was an air of calm across Honiara this weekend.

Resident Claire Percel puts it down to the arrival of Australian and Papua New Guinea defence forces to help the local police.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands crisis reports

She said the reinforcements had “really helped the situation but we’re still nervous”.

“Roadblocks now set up in key locations and I’ve seen them check vehicles. Local businesses have started cleaning up the streets and removing the burnt vehicles.

“I managed to get out of the house today for a grocery shop and visit some family. It was a really good change of scenery. I took my kids with me, it was a very difficult conversation trying to explain why this happened,” Percel said.

There was rioting and looting across the capital following a protest at Parliament on Wednesday calling for the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to stand down.

Protesters angry over China
The protesters are angry at their government’s move to establish diplomatic ties with China, after decades of relations with Taiwan. Sogavare has refused to resign.

The tension escalated on Friday when more than 100 protesters reached Sogavare’s residence, throwing rocks while police with riot shields fired tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Australia and Papua New Guinea have deployed their defence force personnel to help the local police control rioting anti-government protesters.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Solomons reached out to his government for help. But he added Canberra was monitoring the situation in Honiara.

New Zealand officials are in contact with their citizens in Honiara and are aware that the travel plans of some have been disrupted.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the government had not yet received a formal request for assistance from the Solomon Islands government.

“We are not activating evacuation plans at this stage but remain in contact with relevant partners on the ground and are monitoring events closely.

“The New Zealand High Commission is providing Safe Travel advice to New Zealanders in Solomon Islands, including to follow the instructions of local authorities.

“New Zealanders in Solomon Islands should not rely on New Zealand government-assisted departures in an emergency,” the MFAT spokesperson said.

Fijians safe, government says
Fiji’s government said its citizens in Honiara were safe.

Fiji’s consul-general to the Solomon Islands, Atueta Balekana, assured family members of the 400 Fijians living in Honiara their loved ones were safe.

The only unfortunate incident for the Fijian community in Honiara, he said, was the torching of one of its members’ shops.

Balekana also said a former Fijian soldier working as a caretaker at one of Honiara’s biggest hotels was confronted by rioters.

However, the couple who own Oceanic Marine Equipment Ltd are safe and the security officer had sought the aid of hotel employees that were loyal to the Honiara-based Malaitans to protect the property.

“We have issued an advisory for all Fijians in the Honiara vicinity not to get involved in the rioting and to leave them as they are,” Balekana said.

No evacuation plan
“We have not come up with an evacuation plan as yet, but if things escalate we would have to resort to one.

“At this stage, we do not expect the situation to escalate any further as security forces have stepped in to control the situation.”

Balekana said the Fijian community’s contribution to the Solomon Islands’ development is widely respected and “we do not think that we are under any threat”.

“The Solomon islanders treasure our relations but it is good to always approach these situations with caution.”

Balekana said more than 45 Fijian citizens worked in Honiara, while there were more than 300 Fijians married to Solomon islanders.

Unrest forces workers home
Rotuman Kaitu Aisake arrived in Honiara in 2019.

Aisake said he immediately adjusted well to life in the Solomon Islands. He welcomed the locals and the lifestyle.

The recent events in the city took Aisake by surprise. He grew up in Fiji and had experienced political unrest.

Aisake said his office was among several businesses torched and looted by angry protesters on Friday.

Employees have been told to remain at home until further notice.

“The riots have always been politically motivated and they’ve always been targeting the township and industrial areas,” he said.

“The advice has always been consistent: just stay home. We will not return to work until the security situation can be confirmed that it is okay.”

Plunged into ‘darkness’
Aisake warned that the political unrest in the Solomons has plunged the country further into “darkness”.

“This already had a huge impact without the lockdown. Our communities have already been deeply impacted. Unemployment, crime rates have gone up so socially everything is dysfunctional.

“The bright side is that we’ve managed to keep covid out of our borders but now with this, this rioting – whichever way you try to look at it, the impact is really bad though.”

Aisake hopes the arrival of security forces from Australia and Papua New Guinea helps stabilise the volatile situation in Honiara.

Tough times ahead, says ex-NZ resident
Former New Zealand resident John Wopereis said it had been a “tough week for everyone”.

He moved from Nelson to the Solomon Islands four years ago.

Wopereis said the events that took place in Honiara took his family and friends by surprise.

“This all happened so suddenly. We didn’t have anytime to prepare our families with food or gas – with businesses being burned, there’s a bank branch that got burned too.

“Hundreds of Solomon Islanders unemployed. Where are they going to get their money to feed their families? In a couple of weeks, it’s going to get very bad because there’s going to be a shortage of everything. There’s nothing left.”

He said the unrest may have started as “something political but spiralled out of control”.

Wopereis said people were taking advantage of the conflict with majority of them violating the laws.

‘Totally out of control’
“People are not respecting what is being asked of them so whether or not we did have a lockdown or not, I think it’s just gone totally out of control. It’s very sad because it’s not only men, it’s children too. I’ve seen kids walking around with batteries, with cartons of soft drinks. It’s total chaos,” he said.

“I do feel that the Solomon Islands will bounce back from this. The events that unfolded really exposed a lot of underlying societal issues in the country that the nation can learn from and build back better.”

Meanwhile, an Air Kiribati crew are stranded in Honiara after arriving hours before the conflict started on Wednesday.

Pilot Captain Salote Mataitini said she was concerned at the escalating unrest in the country.

Mataitini and a colleague had only arrived in Honiara from Tarawa when the protests began.

She said their flight to Brisbane later that day was cancelled but they are now both safe in a hotel.

“I guess as a pilot you are really calm in stressful situations, I guess once I get back to Tarawa I will think about this experience.”

The Air Kiribati crew will leave Honiara in two weeks.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Solomon Islands opposition leader Matthew Wale has announced that he is filing a notice of a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare after three days of rioting has rocked the capital Honiara.

Wale said today he still did not have enough numbers for such a motion to pass, after only three resignations from Sogavare’s government so far.

The confirmed resignations are Member for West New Georgia/Vona Vona Silas Tausinga, Member for North Malaita Levi Senley Filualea, and  Member for Malaita Outer Islands Martin Kealoe.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands riot reports

At least 11 more MPs would need to resign for the motion to succeed.

However, Wale said he had sought a political solution to the current situation as the Prime Minister’s “lack of humility” had resulted in great loss and suffering for Solomon Islands, especially in the capital Honiara.

“No one in Honiara is spared the suffering and loss caused by the tragic events of these past few days,” he said in a statement.

“Now we have been informed there has been a tragic loss of lives.”

Leaders ‘must decide’
Wale said that without a political solution this tragic situation would remain, even with foreign forces supporting the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force (RSIPF) to regain control and maintain order in Honiara.

“The leaders must make a decision, they cannot avoid it or postpone it. This is the moment for leaders to stand up, and not run away and hide,” Wale said.

“The level of anger in the public has reached levels worse than in 2006, and if leaders are deaf and insensitive to it, they will condemn us to more trouble.

“The anger is still here.”

Wale said he has reached out to as many MPs as he can to seek dialogue on ways forward.

He said he had decided that in the search for a political solution he had lodging the notice of the motion of no confidence so that MPs would have to decide which side they are on.

“This is a crucial motion as it calls on all Members of Parliament to do what is in the best interest of our country and people,” he said.

Plea for no more violence
Wale also called on protesters who had engaged in violence and looting to stop.

“Let us now allow the political process to resolve the situation in our search for a solution,” he said.

Wale called on the people of Solomon Islands to call on their MPs to resign from Prime Minister Sogavare’s government.

The opposition leader also expressed “great dismay” at the burning of the Prime Minister’s private residence at Lunga.

Wale said that even if people were angry with the Prime Minister, they must respect him and his family and their properties.

This level of violence not seen before was unacceptable.

Three dead bodies
Three dead bodies have been discovered in one of the burnt out buildings in Chinatown, but two have yet to be removed, SBM Online reported earlier.

The RSIPF Media Unit confirmed to SBMOnline today that the discovery was made yesterday and fire officers were called to assist clearing the building that allowed police to locate the dead bodies.

However, because of debris in the razed shop only one was removed, two others will be moved today.

Police said they were not able to identify the bodies.

Robert Iroga is editor of SBM Online. Republished with permission.

The Governor General of Solomon Islands has declared a nightly curfew in the troubled capital Honiara, after a third day of looting and destruction.

Sir David Vunagi said the curfew, which started last night, will go from 7pm to 6am and be repeated every day until it is revoked.

Sir David said it was a necessary measure for the preservation of public security.

• READ MORE: Other Solomon Islands riot reports

Only authorised officers are allowed to move within the city during curfew hours and anyone found breaching the restrictions will be prosecuted.

Rioting continued in Honiara yesterday, with reports protesters had set a building on fire behind the Prime Minister’s residence.

A protest on Wednesday calling for the Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to stand down has lapsed into major unrest which local police have been unable to contain.

Dozens of Australian police have arrived in Honiara to help local forces. More forces including Australian Defence Force personnel were due to arrive.

PNG security forces arrive
Papua New Guinea security force personnel have also touched down in Honiara to support local police.

PNG’s Police Commissioner David Manning is leading the PNG security contingent of 35 police and corrections officers.

Its been a long 3 days. How our days were, is captured by Channel 9 News.. now feeling exhausted Sorry if i don’t respond to your messages yet pic.twitter.com/DU2pqbafqO

— Georgina Kekea (@ginakekea) November 26, 2021

An Australian Navy vessel is also enroute to Solomon Islands.

Tension is high in front of Sogavare’s residence where more than a hundred protestors have been throwing rocks while police with riot shields fire tear gas.

Australia’s Federal police officers are also visible in front of the Prime Minister’s residence.

RNZ Pacific correspondent Elizabeth Osifelo reported earlier that there were checkpoints set up around the city where the eastern part had been in flames.

“There’s a lot of tension still and especially a few metres around the prime minister’s residence. There’s a group of protesters and people around there,” she said.

“The police are still trying to push people back and there’s been tear gas fired.”

There is no confirmation where Prime Minister Sogavare is at this time.

Food shortages
Elizabeth Osifelo add that households in the capital were facing likely food shortages after looting during the ongoing unrest.

She said the destruction was focused on the city’s east where many businesses have gone up in flames or been emptied.

“But as of yesterday, a lot of these little canteens that are located in the residential areas have also gone out of stock so a lot of families will definitely be affected if this holds up for another day or two.”

Earlier today at the Honiara Central Market, mothers are stranded here. No warm food since yesterday. They only had fruits pic.twitter.com/RdCka9h1Gd

— Georgina Kekea (@ginakekea) November 25, 2021

Meanwhile, the opposition leader, Matthew Wale, is reiterating his call for the prime minister to stand down.

Wale said the basis for the unrest is a political problem, so it requires a political solution.

He categorically denies accusations that he has played a part in inciting the unrest, and is calling for MPs in the government to leave Sogavare’s coalition

“MPs should listen to what the people are saying and not allow more destruction. The violence, of course I don’t condone it. But at the same time, leaders have decisions to make,” he said.

The prime minister has said that he was elected on the floor of Parliament and can only be removed on the floor of Parliament.

Democracy ‘paralysed’
But Wale said that the country’s democratic processes were paralysed by the control of numbers in Parliament.

He said the Sogavare government’s move to switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China in 2019 had played a part.

“Sogavare controls those numbers because he attracts a lot of funding from loggers and — now it’s very clear — from China. So China is interferring in our domestic politics. It’s very, very clear.”

According to Wale, people are angry because the country’s system of government has become capitive to vested interests of logging and mining companies, as well as China.

“And so the interests of the people are sidelined or totally ignored and neglected, and that’s why they feel they have to take it up themselves.

“It’s a really tragic situation, it’s an unfortunate situation that people lose trust in the democratic processes.”

Wale said the national government’s persistent persecution of Malaita province had brought things to a head.

New Zealand response
New Zealand’s acting Foreign Minister, David Parker, said Aotearoa New Zealand was deeply concerned at the events unfolding in Solomon Islands.

He said New Zealand was a long-standing partner of the Solomons, and there were deep and enduring connections between the two countries.

Parker said New Zealand’s engagement in the Solomons was guided by the principle of tātou tātou — everyone acting together for the common good.

He said New Zealand stood with the government and people of Solomon Islands.

Parker said New Zealand would remain in close contact with its Solomons counterparts and international partners, though there had not yet been a request for assistance.

New Zealand police were currently providing advice and support to their counterparts in the Solomons.

The High Commission in Honiara was providing SafeTravel advice to New Zealanders in the country.

Only six buildings still standing in Honiara’s Chinatown
RNZ Pacific correspondent in Honiara, Georgina Kekea, said there were only six buildings still standing in Honiara’s Chinatown after two days of rioting.

Chinatown in Honiara, where some buildings still are burning Photo: Georgina Kekea

She said there are also unconfirmed reports that one or more of the looters were trapped in burning buildings and lost their lives.

Kekea said there was no longer an air of tension but scavenging was continuing, though there was little left for people to steal from the destroyed businesses.

“Only six of the buildings were OK because they had locals minding the buildings, otherwise most of the buildings in Chinatown have been burnt down, scavengers now coming in and getting whatever they can and going back to their homes with it. There is nothing much left from the buildings anyway,” she said.

Georgina Kekea said the police focus was entirely on ensuring there was no more rioting, so looters were being ignored.

She said some buildings were still on fire.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

A defiant Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has vowed tonight that he will not resign and will defend Solomon Islands democracy with his life.

After two-days of looting with Honiara’s Chinatown in ruins and calls for him to step down, Sogavare declared he was not resigning.

“If I am removed as Prime Minister, it will be on the floor of Parliament,” he said.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islands riots push nation into slippery slide of self-implosion
• Solomon Islands PM calls for calm after looting and protests
• Other Solomon Islands riot reports

“I have faith and respect in our democratic process, and I will defend it with my life. I say this with deepest conviction.

“Our people need to and must understand that our actions in defending democracy is not merely a lip service. It is conviction in the principles and values that underpins our democracy and all democracies around the world.”

Sogavare said in a radio broadcast to the nation the past 36 hours had seen the country, especially, Honiara brought to its knees.

“I have been asked to step down and while I acknowledge that call I must also respect our democracy. I am elected as the Prime Minister of our beloved country by 35 members of Parliament who represent their people.

Politicians’ ‘hunger for power’
“The call for me to step down is premised on the hunger for power by certain politicians who do not have any respect for the principles of democracy and due process,” he said.

Sogavare said that in 2006 a precedent had been set when the then Prime Minister was asked to resign after a riot in Honiara.

“That event is the precedent for our current situation. If I am to step down, what message would that send to our people, children and generations to come?” he asked.

“Some of us are of the opinion that if I step down the protests and riots will stop. This is the easiest decision to make.

“However, the effect of this decision is what weighs heavy in my heart. Are we saying to our young children and youths that whenever we are not happy with those in authority we take the laws into our own hands?

“If we do this, it is a very dangerous message to our people and future generations.

“We are effectively saying to our children, take the law into your hands if [and] whenever you are not happy. This must never be the message we send nor the conviction we instill in our citizens if we are to progress as a peaceful democracy.”

Following the 2 day escalation of riots in Honiara, the #SolomonIslands Prime Minister, Hon. Manasseh Sogavare released an audio (voice) message on state broadcaster @NewsSibc.

His message was clear, he will not step down as PM esp. at the risk of setting a dangerous precedent. pic.twitter.com/9GisPuN9dv

— Jone Tuiipelehaki (@tuiipelehaki) November 25, 2021

‘Return to your homes’
Sogavare said in his appeal: “I call on all our people to please return to your homes. Our city has already been ransacked with properties burnt to the ground. It will take a lot of effort and money to rebuild it.

“I appeal to you all to respect our city, public and private properties and the safety of innocent civilians.

“Destruction, looting and violence is not how we address our grievances but instead through dialogue and consultation which the government has been advancing despite misinformation being circulated by certain individuals and leaders who have no regard for the collateral and irreversible damage caused by such unwarranted actions,” he said.

Sogavare asked the the churches to pray for the country and people.

Sogavare also urged all ministers and members of Parliament to “defend our democracy”.

He said the government had not been idle with its efforts to protect the country from covid-19, sustain the economy and progress crucial reforms in the best interests of the nation as a whole.

Regional support
“I have been in contact with the government of Australia and Papua New Guinea seeking their assistance to assist our country which is forthcoming. We cannot allow our country, people and our future to be held at ransom by very few people representing their own narrow interests,” he said.

“I am extremely saddened that people have been misled by politicians for their own agenda. Our unsuspecting people have continuously been misled and are victims in this sad and unfortunate situation.

“I do not blame the people who are protesting and rioting, they are citizens of our country, and unfortunately they have been used by certain politicians and individuals to further their own selfish and narrow agendas.”

Robert Iroga is editor of Solomon Business Magazine. This article is republished with permission.

The burning of Chinatown is moving westward one building at a time. View from my quarantine hotel. #Chinatown #Riot #Honiara #SolomonIslands pic.twitter.com/ejyglnSjxE

— mytagimoucia (@mytagimoucia) November 25, 2021

The Solomon Islands government has kicked off its full rollout of its nationwide covid vaccination strategy.

Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said in his nationwide address that with the increasing threat from the highly transmissible delta variant of covid-19, the government had decided to implement a full rollout of vaccination in all provinces for all adults aged over 18.

“We have now reached the stage where we must roll-out our covid-19 vaccination throughout the nation for all adults that are 18 years of age and over,” he said.

Sogavare said the strategy was to vaccinate all eligible adults in the country to ensure that the risk of widespread community transmission was minimised if the delta variant entered the country.

The Prime Minister said the level of risk had also been raised and that every person travelling to Solomon Islands from high-risk countries or countries with community transmission of covid-19 must be fully vaccinated before they would be allowed into the country.

Prime Minister Sogavare said more than 100,000 doses of AstraZeneca and Sinopharm vaccines were available with development partners committed to supply more doses.

He said the Ministry of Health had recently conducted a “training of trainers” workshop’ for all provincial health directors, doctors, nurses, data, and registration officers in the past weeks as the national covid-19 vaccination rollout commences.

Further training
“The trained provincial teams will conduct further training for provincial health workers in their respective provinces throughout this month of July to support their provincial covid-19 vaccination roll out,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare said that as part of the nationwide strategy, 131 newly registered nurses had also been trained in covid-19 treatment, including vaccination.

He said many of them would be deployed to the provinces to support the provincial teams in rolling out the vaccination.

“I thank the Ministry of Health senior executive for their leadership in coordinating the national vaccination roll-out plan with all the provincial health directors and their teams,” he said.

Prime Minister Sogavare also acknowledged the lord mayor and his executive for taking the lead in the national covid-19 vaccination rollout in Honiara last week.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has reiterated his call for all adults 18 years and over living in and around Honiara to get their vaccinations at the Central Field Hospital and other outreach vaccination centers.

The national covid-19 vaccination rollout programme for Guadalcanal province also started last week at Malanago ward.

Several “outreach vaccination sites” had been set up in Malanago ward in Central Guadalcanal.

The mobile vaccination team would travel to other wards after the rollout programme in Malanago ward was completed.

Republished with permission.

The Solomon Islands cabinet has agreed to ban the world’s biggest social networking platform Facebook in the country.

The submission for the ban on Facebook was said to be brought to cabinet by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Communication and Civil Aviation Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka.

Minister Agovaka told the Solomon Times Online that this ban was made because of the controversial issues raised via Facebook.

• READ MORE: Samoa government looking to ban Facebook

“Abusive language against ministers, the Prime Minister, character assassination, defamation of character, all these are issues of concern,” Agovaka said.

He said there were concerns that there were also no laws or regulations covering Facebook so such a ban was needed.

“The use of the internet now in Solomon Islands needs to be properly regulated to safeguard our young people from harmful content,” he said.

“At the moment there is no legislation to govern the use of the internet and even young kids can download harmful stuff from the internet.”

Controversial issues raised
Agovaka said this was in addition to the controversial issues raised via Facebook.

However, he said the media should not have any cause for concern as there was still “freedom of the press”.

He said media organisations would continue to operate as normal except for the closure of Facebook.

Most media organisations in Solomon Islands currently use Facebook to also disseminate information to the public. The office of the Prime Minister also does a live video stream of his national address via Facebook to reach a wider audience.

“The government is still in discussion with the operators to work out how this can be done. The operators shall need to establish a firewall to block Facebook,” Agovaka said.

It is anticipated that a ban on Facebook would greatly affect much needed revenue for the media.

As of October 2020, NapoleonCat, a social media management tool, said there were 120,000 Facebook users in Solomon Islands. People aged 18 to 24 were said to be the largest user group (45,000).

2.4 billion users
Facebook has 2.4 billion users.

Solomon Islands is not the only country in the Pacific considering a ban on Facebook.

In July 2020, the Samoan government was seriously looking at banning Facebook.

In 2018, the Papua New Guinea government sought to ban Facebook for a month while in the following year Tonga considered banning Facebook.

Only four countries in the world have banned Facebook – China, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

Other countries have only imposed bans on Facebook temporarily in the past.

‘Reflection of people’s frustration’
The outspoken Premier of Malaita Province, Daniel Suidani, was among the first to blast the government, saying the proposed plan to ban Facebook was not the answer to peoples’ frustrations, reports Solomons Business Magazine.

“What will the government achieve by banning Facebook from the country? So many people, including myself, cannot see any better reason to ban the world’s most popular social network from Solomon Islands,” he said in a statement today.

“It should be plain and clear to the national government and the cabinet that complaints seen on Facebook are a reflection of people’s frustration towards the government. Especially on how the government is running the affairs of the country.

It is simple [that] one cannot be his own judge,” said Suidani.

He said the cabinet needed not to go to Pluto or to the Moon to see why people made their criticisms on social media like Facebook.

Police in Solomon Islands called for calm today after rioting broke out in the capital of Honiara over the election of Manasseh Sogavare as the new prime minister.

Sogavare’s win – his fourth term as prime minister – represents a continuation of the last government and those protesting are purportedly people who had been wanting a change in government

Videos and pictures posted on social media show large crowds of mostly young men walking and running through the streets, yelling and throwing stones at buildings, and breaking in and damaging some private properties.

READ MORE: Protests erupt in Solomon Islands as Sogavare elected for fourth time

Police riot squads have been trying to disperse the more rowdy groups with tear gas.

One group caused substantial damage to the Pacific Casino Hotel complex at Kukum where Sogavare and the members of his Democratic Coalition for Advancement had been based

The situation in Honiara remains tense with most shops and businesses having closed.

Police said they would continue high visibility patrols throughout the night and are urging people to stay away from the city centre.

Meanwhile, Sogavare has been sworn in at Government House and is now officially the prime minister of Solomon Islands.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

• Earlier story

https://www.facebook.com/dan.danzo.92/videos/2601340249894084/

Manasseh Sogavare has been voted in as the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands for the fourth time, polling 34 votes over his rival Matthew Wale in the 50-seat Parliament.

This will be Sogavare’s fourth prime ministership, his previous stints being in 2000, 2006 and most recently in 2014.

Two out of his last three terms as Prime Minister were cut short by no-confidence motions.

READ MORE: ‘We won’t be intimidated over West Papua’ –  Sogavare

Sogavare has served consecutive terms as the MP for North East since he was first elected in 1997 he has held various ministerial roles over the years including in finance and commerce.

He has a background in economics and throughout his career has advocated for the decentralisation of development in the Solomon Islands.

He has also been an vocal supporter of West Papua, calling on the UN to support self-determination for the annexed state.

He was nominated for the Prime Minister’s post by the Democratic Coalition for Advancement a group of four political parties made up mostly of MPs from the last government, bolstered by newly elected independents.

Controversy
The election of the Prime Minister today was not without controversy as a court injunction was delivered to Parliament just before the election began, calling for the process to be postponed.

No reason was given for the injunction but it is believed to have been applied for by the rival candidate Matthew Wale and his coalition, who in the lead up to the vote raised questions about the eligibility of the Prime Minister-elect Manasseh Sogavare to contest for the top job.

However, Governor-General Sir Frank Kabui chose to go ahead with the election despite the court order.

His staff had explained that his decision to go ahead was based on the constitution of the Solomon Islands which they said granted the Governor-General immunity from the courts when conducting the election of the Prime Minister.

In protest of the Governor-General’s decision to continue, Wale and the MPs supporting his candidacy walked out of the Parliament chamber refusing to participate in the vote.

In the end, only 35 ballots were cast, 34 were in favour of Sogavare, one ballot was incorrectly marked.

In total 15 MPs abstained from voting.

Manasseh Sogavare was due to be sworn in as Prime Minister this afternoon at Government House.

This article is republished under the Pacific Media Centre’s content partnership with Radio New Zealand.

MP for Central Honiara John Moffat Fugui will go head-to-head with Small Malaita MP Rick Houenipwela for the position on Wednesday morning.

Solomon Star News reports Fugui and Houenipwela were the only two candidates, nominated by the Honiara Hotel camp (opposition) and Heritage Park Hotel camp (caretaker government) respectively.

SIBC reports Houenipwela is considered the better candidate by the public.

In government for seven years, Houenipwela’s top priorities if elected are political and fiscal stability.

He told Solomon Star News these were the fundamental reasons the Democratic Alliance Party switched from the opposition to the caretaker government.

Houenipwela also told SIBC the DAP made the move in an effort to form a new coalition which would provide the nation with desperately needed political stability.

‘Never accepted’ money
“Political and fiscal stability underpin the general stability of any nation and these were the fundamental reasons for switching sides.

“We did not join the caretaker government in search of positions or in search of money. We were never offered any money because everyone in Parliament knows that when we were offered money, we never accepted them,” Houenipwela said.

Houenipwela’s DAP walked away from the opposition due to a lack of consultation over a proposed cabinet line-up, he said.

The DAP’s move comes amidst a three week period which has been marked by changed allegiances and moves to consolidate power.

Solomon Star News reports the Heritage Park Hotel camp is now comprised of the Kadere Party, People’s Alliance Party, People’s First Party and the DAP, bringing their numbers up from 23 to 30.

Houenipwela confirmed the caretaker government coalition partners consist of the two political parties that formerly made up the opposition and three political parties of the former Sogavare-led Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG).

The opposition’s numbers have dwindled to 20 MPs, reports Solomon Fresh Beat Online.

Fugui announces policies
Opposition candidate for prime minister, Fugui, told SIBC the value leaders placed on their duty to the nation was more important than setting political and fiscal stability as priorities, as good governance and a stable economy result from leaders valuing their role.

Fugui’s policies included greater support of rural people and beefing up the country’s foreign reserves, SIBC reports.

The group which nominated Houenipwela included former Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who was ousted last week following a 27 to 23 no-confidence vote, after initially refusing to resign.

During the nine hour debate in parliament, Sogavare defended his strong stance on West Papua, following criticism from Fugui, Solomon Star News reports.

Fugui said Sogavare should withdraw support of the Indonesian-ruled region and not waste the Solomon Islands time, as Papua New Guinea had not been advocating for West Papua.

Sogavare hit-back in his rebuttal and said the government’s position must be consistent with its position on New Caledonia’s independence, French Polynesia’s decolonisation agenda and Taiwan’s bid for United Nations membership.

He added the Solomon Islands must stand beside its Melanesian brothers and sisters, as they did not enjoy the same basic rights.

Sogavare survived a no-confidence motion in October 2006 despite deteriorating relations with Australia, but did not survive a vote of no-confidence in December 2007.

The election of Houenipwela or Fugui to the top post of prime minister takes place on Wednesday, November 15 at 9.30am.

• Sogavare voted out as no confidence motion passes after ‘fierce’ debate
• Sogavare appoints eight new ministers in effort to consolidate government
• Government in Solomon Islands ‘collapsing’ as MPs change allegiance
• More Solomon Islands stories 

It means a new government – and almost certainly a new Prime Minister – is set to take control of the country following a frantic lobbying period which expected following today’s vote.

A vote on the new Prime Minister will eventually take place after the Governor-General is notified by Sogavare. No specific time frame has been set, however.

Independent group leader and member for Northeast Guadalcanal Dr Derek Sikua was singled out – by Sogavare himself, who accused him of treachery – as the potential next Prime Minister, however as many as five names have been thrown into the mix.

An emotional Sogavare said he would walk out with his head up “because I have done nothing wrong against the people of this country”.

The motion passed 27-23 following a vitriolic session of Parliament today, where fierce debate centred on the integrity of projects, and accusations of corruption were flung across the floor.

Accusations of kickbacks involving projects such as the Tina River Hydro Scheme, the Skyline Housing project, the fibre optic cable were central to the debate.

PM integrity questioned 
The integrity of the now deposed Prime Minister was questioned multiple times during the session, and Sogavare, referring to himself in the third person as “the Prime Minister” throughout his speech, addressed almost all of them in a sprawling 90 minute oration.

Sogavare said he had been targeted by a group motivated by “deliberate lies” to “assassinate” his leadership.

He singled out Dr Sikua, and accused him of wanting to become the next Prime Minister.

“It is sad that innocent members of Parliament have become hopeless victims in this plan,” he said.

Sogavare also accused MPs of knowingly misleading the public about their intentions surrounding the anti-corruption bill, and its delay, and using it as a tactic to undermine him.

“My only mistake is that I stood up against corruption and corrupt leaders.

“A vote for yes is a vote for corruption,” he said.

Sogavare hits back
He said concerns over the issue of hiring his nephew as chief of staff screamed of hypocrisy, and questioned why it was an issue that would trigger the move on his leadership.

“We need to clean up our own backyard before we start pointing the finger.

“If you vote “I” you vote with a guilty conscience, because it’s not right,” Sogavare said.

In response Dr Sikua said he was not simply opportunistic and was doing it for the right reasons.

He said all he needed was the numbers.

The marathon session ended at 6.45pm after Parliament opened at 9.30am.

The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) reports Sogavare refused to resign this morning after being asked by Dr Sikua on the floor of Parliament.

Consolidation efforts fail
The motion of no-confidence was received on Sunday, October 29, following the sudden resignations of several MPs and backbenchers who switched allegiance to the Opposition.

The successful motion comes despite efforts last week by Sogavare to consolidate his power and the return of MPs Moses Garu and Dickson Mua to the ranks of the Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG).

• Sogavare refuses to resign in face of no-confidence motion
• Sogavare appoints eight new ministers in effort to consolidate government 
• Government in Solomon Islands ‘collapsing’ as MPs change allegiance 
• More Solomon Islands stories

The Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) reports Sogavare has sworn in eight new ministers.

Ishmael Avui, Minister for Development, Planning and Aid Coordination; Augustine Auga, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development; Nestor Ghiro, Minister for Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening; Bradley Tovosia, Minister for Forestry and Research; Moses Garu, Minister for Home Affairs; Jimson Fiau Tanagada, Minister for Police, National Security and Correctional Services; Dickson Mua, Minister for Mines, Energy and Rural Electrification; and Duddley Kopu, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development took their oaths Wednesday afternoon.

Sogavare’s assistant press secretary, Alex Akwai, said the government is trying to maintain stability in the current political situation.

He told SIBC: “Political stability is one important thing for the government in terms of progress and development.”

Among those who resigned last weekend, Garu and Mua told Solomon Star News they returned to the ranks of the Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG) coalition as joining the Opposition to remove Sogavare would make no positive difference to national development.

Mua added there was no justified reason for removing Sogavare as it would only cause uncertainty and was not in the national interest.

Sogavare hits out
Sogavare has hit-out at the ministers who resigned and the motion of no confidence against him, stating the defectors were apprehensive about the country’s anti-corruption bill, which is to be introduced in parliament on Monday.

“Some of these resignations come as no surprise based on the fact that some of these same Ministers were responsible for undermining the progress of the ACB and the Opposition and Independent Parliamentary Groups have inadvertently aligned themselves with this agenda,” a statement from the prime minister’s office said Sunday.

Sogavare said that despite the ministers provoking political instability, the DCCG remained “confident” the national interest would prevail over personal agendas.

Sogavare added the return of Garu and Mua was a testament to this.

However, former deputy prime minister Manasseh Maelanga has rejected such accusations concerning the ACB, labelling them a cheap attack strategy, SIBC reports.

Maelanga said the ministers and backbenchers resigned due to personal convictions and on individual grounds.

“When we resigned, it shows that there is no trust and confidence in the Prime Minister, and that is why we resigned,” he said.

Continued ACB work
Maelanga stated both himself and those who had resigned would continue and complete the work to get the ACB through parliament, which he had initiated as acting prime minister following a petition by civil society representatives to have it brought back.

“It’s a clear picture that it is not the anti-corruption bill that we resigned from.”

• Government in Solomon Islands ‘collapsing’ as MPs change allegiance
• More Solomon Islands stories

The saga unfolded on Saturday following the resignation of seven cabinet ministers, including Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Home Affairs Manasseh Maelanga.

Other ministers include Minister for National Planning and Aid Coordination Danny Philip, Snyder Rini, Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, Minister of Forestry and Research Chris Laore, Moses Garu, Minister of Police, National Security and Correctional Services, Minister of Public Service Moffat Fugui and Elijah Doromuala, Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs.

Deputy private secretary to the Governor-General, Rawcliffe Ziza, revealed the ministers resigned after losing confidence in Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, Solomon Star News reports, prompting the newspaper to headline the move as ‘Government collapsing’.

The drama continued Sunday as two more ministers resigned from the Democratic Coalition for Change Government (DCCG), bringing the total number of resignations to nine, the Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC) reports.

The ministers were Minister of Provincial Government and Institutional Strengthening David Tome and Minister of Peace, National Unity and Reconciliation Samson Maneka.

Several backbenchers have also resigned, Solomon Star News reports, meaning 18 MPs have deserted Sogavare since Saturday.

MPs join Opposition
They have since joined the Opposition and Independents in a show of solidarity at the Honiara Hotel and again in parliament.

The move brought the ‘Honiara Hotel Camp’ to 29 members on Sunday, Solomon Star News reports.

The SIBC also reports Sogavare will face a motion of no confidence when parliament resumes on Monday, November 6.

Speaker of Parliament Ajilon Jasper Nasiu received the motion from the leader of the Parliamentary Independent Group Dr Derek Sikua on Sunday.

According to an MP who wished to remain anonymous, a new prime minister will be elected within two weeks, the Solomon Star News reports.

“Members of the DCCG have totally lost all trust and confidence in the leadership of Sogavare.

“Sogavare has allowed his controversial nephew Robson Djokovic to control government affairs,” the MP said.

Government remains intact
It is believed Sogavare’s major cabinet shakeup – embarked on since early August – which saw several ministers reassigned and two terminated, upset the United Democratic Party, the major coalition partner of the DCCG.

A government issued statement said the government remains intact despite the walkout of nine ministers.

• More Solomon Islands stories