The Manipulation of Custom: From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands.

• Author: Capie, David
• Position: Book Review

THE MANIPULATION OF CUSTOM: From Uprising to Intervention in the Solomon Islands

Author: Jon Fraenkel

Published by: Pandalus Press, Canberra, 2004, 262pp, $34.95.

When militants belonging to the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army launched a campaign of violence against migrant settlers from the island of Malaita in 1998, local observers, diplomats and the foreign media struggled for an explanation. Amidst the confusion, the violence was quickly dubbed an 'ethnic conflict' and the forced relocation of tens of thousands of people from the plains outside Honiara was described as 'ethnic cleansing'. The implication was clear. This was a dispute with ancient origins. A clash between primordial identities was not something governments elsewhere in the region would want to get caught up in. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said as much when in January 2003 he announced that it would be 'folly in the extreme' to send troops to restore order.

Yet within months more than 2250 soldiers and police officers were being dispatched to the Solomons to end the violence. The Regional Assistance Mission for the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) marked the biggest military intervention in the South Pacific since the Second World War and signaled a remarkable shift in Australian government policy. How did this set of circumstances come about? What sparked the outbreak of violence? Why were successive governments unable to end the conflict? And what led Australia to change its mind and lead such a large intervention force?

Jon Fraenkel's The Manipulation of Custom--the first book-length account of the 1998-2003 crisis--answers these questions. It describes the series of events that led from a small low-level rural uprising to a huge military intervention and in doing so debunks many of the myths surrounding the conflict. The book opens with a chapter providing an overview of the history of the Solomon Islands and the background to the conflict. It paints a picture of the immense political and economic challenges faced by successive governments since the country achieved independence in 1978. Twelve chapters follow, falling roughly into two parts. The first section deals with the period of crisis from 1998 through to the signing of the ill-fated Townsville Peace Agreement in October 2000. Fraenkel is critical of the agreement and the haste with which it was constructed, describing it as 'a militants' charter ... fraught with loopholes'.

The second part of the book...