The Solomon Islands: the limits of intervention: Binoy Kampmark criticises the basis of Australia's new strategic thinking for the Pacific region.

• Author: Kampmark, Binoy

The intervention by Australian-led forces in the Solomon Islands under Operation Helpem Fren in July 2003 represents, in the words of international relations commentators, a 'paradigm shift' in Canberra's strategic thinking for the Pacific region. This particular shift has been enunciated in the key policy document from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute titled Our Failing Neighbour: Australia and the Future of the Solomons. But this intervention poses potential risks to Australia's defence capabilities, exposing them to the prospect of overstretch, while signalling a growing tendency of some powers to undermine multi-lateralism and sovereignty. Significantly, the interventionist posture adopted towards the Solomons has to be read within the aegis of post-11 September sovereignty, which seems to be an inherently unstable concept. This instability has been largely due to the muddled conceptual thinking of the 'war on terror' that can be gathered from present approaches to the entire issue of regional instability.

Canberra's words before the Solomons intervention were those of a political doctor assessing a patient. The ailments seemed numerous, the symptoms malevolent. The ASPI diagnosed the Solomon Islands as a 'failing state': 'The country has virtually ceased to function as a sovereign state, and on its present trajectory there is a high risk that its land and people will become effectively ungoverned'. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer suggested in a press statement that the Solomons was 'on the verge of becoming a Alexander Do failed state'. (1)

A failed state conjures up nightmares of instability, even if far away from home. In the words of Our Failing Neighbour, 'The reality is that in the absence of effective government, our neighbour risks reverting, not to a pre-modern tropical paradise, but to a kind of post-modern badlands, ruled by criminals and governed by violence'. Post-modern badlands are also relevent to Australia's post-11 September fears. 'Perhaps even terrorism: the weakness of security institutions means that Solomon Islands' capacity to monitor people movements is poor'.

But what is the definition of a 'failed state'? By no means has a case for instability been clearly made out. It is true that the militant Harold Keke, now in custody, caused considerable problems for Honiara in the Weathercoast region, creating a stream of refugees and causing the deaths of up to fifty individuals, most notably six missionaries his forces took hostage. The Bishop of Malaita qualified the bald assessment of 'instability' in the Australian Financial Review, arguing that, 'As someone who has lived safely in the Solomons for the last seven years, including through the worst period of "ethnic tension", and who has known the country for almost 30 years, I would say that the Solomon Islands have serious economic and security problems but they are not in a state of anarchy and chaos.' (2) The problem, argues Brown, is centred on 'outside' perceptions of the state, which, in Western political discourses, is central. Thus, Brown argued that, whilst the civil state has proven unreliable, the church and 'traditional culture' has often supplied the deficiency within such Islands settings as the Solomons. Any intervention had to be framed around suggestions of registering land tenures, held in customary title through tribal collectives.

Failed response

A second problem about the whole notion of state failure in Solomons is Australia's own role in the fiasco. Such an outcome has to be read, argue some observers, as a general failure of Australian foreign policy towards the islands, notably that leading to the Townsville Peace Agreement (2000), signed by the various disputing parties representing the interests of Malaita and Guadalcanal. Amongst the aims of the agreement was the surrender of all weapons by the respective parties, funding for a professional Solomon Islands Police Force and some...