Problems and Purpose

The Solomon Islands have an extensive history of ethnic tension, however, serious conflict between the years 1998 and 2003 became colloquially known as the Tensions. Civil unrest – including kidnapping, beatings, looting, rape, and torture – during this period primarily occurred among different ethnic militant groups, leaving many people in the Solomon Islands internally displaced.

Many indigenous people from Guadalcanal resented the influence of settlers from other islands – mostly Malaita – who occupied undeveloped land. The Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army began to inflict intimidation and violence upon Malaitan settlers, which, in 1999, the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) responded to. Later that year, the government declared a state of emergency, but the violence and unrest escalated [1].

In June 2000, members of the MEF kidnapped Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa’alu on the premises of failing to protect the interests of Malaitan people [2]. In October, the MEF, the Istabu Freedom Movement, and the Solomon Islands Government signed the Townsville Peace Agreement, which was closely followed by the Marau Peace Agreement of February 2001 [3]. However, Harold Keke, a Guale militant leader, refused to sign the agreement which further divided other Guale groups. Over the next two years, the conflict escalated further [4]. “Lawlessness, widespread extortion, and ineffective police” led the Government to seek external assistance, which resulted in the creation of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands [5]. 

In 2008, the Government legislated to establish a TRC, which began its activities in January 2010.

Background History and Context

On November 19, 1567, two ships, the Capitana and the Almiranta, carrying a fleet of between 170 and 180 men departed from Peru in search of Terra Australis, or the “Southern Continent.” After eighty days at sea, the expedition had found the islands of Santa Ysabel, San Cristobal (now Makira), and Guadalcanal, which they named the Solomon Islands [6].

Over 200 years later, European explorers began their “discovery” of the South Pacific region. In search of new colonies, minerals, spices, and trade, European “pioneers of global capitalism” arrived in the Solomon Islands and made contact with its Indigenous population [7].

In 1870, traders began to settle in the Solomon Islands, and by the early twentieth century, approximately 30,000 Solomon Islanders were providing labour to the British sugar industry [8]. Additionally, European settlers brought Christianity to the Solomon Islands, which remains to be its prominent religion today [9].

The Solomon Islands were declared a British Protectorate in 1893, which marked the beginning of large-scale land alienation for commercial plantations and remained to be the case until 1978 [10]. By 1913, indigenous Solomon Islanders had lost 163,000 hectares of land to European foreigners, and, by 1920, the colonial government and traders possessed 22,720 acres of land in Guadalcanal alone [11].

To coerce Solomon Islanders to work in plantations, in 1921, a head tax on adult males was introduced to bolster support for the colonial state [12]. In 1927, a group of Kwaio men – Indigenous Solomon Islanders – killed a government party over resentment due to harsh enforcement by tax collectors. Two weeks later, a government force of fifty Australian soldiers, twenty-eight white civilians, and fifty Malaitan police officers and volunteers killed approximately sixty people and committed a series of atrocities, which the Kwaio people are still seeking compensation for today [13].

Malaitans were forced to participate in the coercive labour system until the Second World War, when plantations were closed down and Guadalcanal became the site of some of the most brutal battles between the American and Japanese troops in 1942 [14]. Following WWII, the Solomon Islands were faced with the challenge of building a functional independent state and a nation. Unlike other British colonies, the Islands faced obstacles that obstructed its anti-colonial movement, such as geographical distance, socio-cultural diversity, historical resentment between “districts,” and political fragmentation [15]. As such, the Islands experienced difficulty in establishing their autonomy, which was still infiltrated by British influence. The Solomon Islands’ political system was adapted from the British Westminster model, and the Queen of England is still the head of the state [16].

At the time of the Commission, more than thirty years after independence, there was still debate over the system of government most suitable for the Solomon Islands. Beginning in 2000, the country began the process of constitutional reform, which continued until 2012.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

The TRC’s five Commissioners were appointed by a National Selection Committee chaired by the Chief Justice [17]. Three Commissioners were required to be Solomon Islands nationals and the other two to be non-nationals, and all were required to have integrity, credibility, be impartial, and have a high standing in professions such as law, medicine, social sciences, church ministry, or other areas relevant to the activities and objectives of the Commission [18].

Methods and Tools Used

The TRC sought to investigate the causes of the Tensions with a focus on human rights and international humanitarian law, the destruction of property, and deprivation of rights to own property [19]. This was completed through public hearings, which provided opportunities for both victims and perpetrators to share their experiences, and statement-taking. Both public hearings and statement-taking intended to promote social healing and the rehabilitation of victims through public recognition and societal education [20]. As such, public hearings were open to the media to help initiate and facilitate the process of public reconciliation [21].

Statement-taking provided sound data for the final report, honoured the individual’s experience, and promoted healing and reconciliation [22]. In short, statement-taking sought to: [23]

• Estimate the number of victims;
• Assess the responsibility of the armed actors in the conflict;
• Reconstruct patterns and structure of human rights violations;
• Identify the victims’ profiles;
• Identify individual victims and specific events of violence

The Commissioners attended weekly meetings to perform TRC procedures, which included: [24]

• Undertaking research into key events, causes, patterns of abuse or violations, and the parties responsible;
• Holding public hearings to hear victims and perpetrators and others about violations or abuses or closed hearings in special circumstances;
• Taking individual statements and gathering additional information;
• In agreement with the Director for Public Prosecutions and other relevant authorities, exhume the bodies of missing persons

Exhumations served the purpose of gathering evidence pertaining to causes of death, returning bodies to their respective families, promoting respect, and education [25].

At the end of its procedures, the Commission was required to submit a report of its work to the Prime Minister with listed findings and recommendations for peace-making.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

Over a period of three years, the Commission collected 2,362 individual statements, held 11 public and 102 closed hearings, and considered hundreds of submissions [26].

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

In the Solomon Islands, the media has largely ignored the TRC report as a result of Government suppression and legal issues incited by the Report’s informal digital release in 2013 [27]. Additionally, limited access to the Internet in the Solomon Islands has made the report difficult to obtain, partly because it is quite long and thus expensive to distribute physically [28]. Since its completion, successive Solomon Islands governments have failed to upload the Report online and implement its recommendations. Scholars Renée Jeffery and Caitlin Mollica attribute this to a lack of political will combined with the state’s limited economic capacity, and a fear of reigniting tensions [29]. 

As of 2017, there has not been any official indication about the future of TRC recommendation implementation. Government inaction has become a source of further tension in the Solomon Islands and has thus provoked criticism from civil society groups and local community leaders [30].

Analysis and Lessons Learned

A history of ethnic tension in the Solomon Islands, and, more notably, conflict between the years 1998 and 2003 that became known as the Tensions, resulted in mass human rights violations including kidnapping, beatings, looting, rape, and torture. As such, a TRC was established in 2010, however, its Recommendations are still yet to be implemented by the Solomon Islands Government, which scholars such as Jeffery and Mollica have suggested raises questions about the benefits of TRCs and the possibility of re-traumatization [31].

As a result, victims and their relatives continue to suffer from trauma, land misallocation, a lack of understanding of the conflict, and numerous other obstacles that are yet to be effectively resolved.

See Also

"Truth Commission: Solomon Islands." United States Institute of Peace, 2009: https://www.usip.org/publications/2009/04/truth-commission-solomon-islands

References

Renée Jeffery and Caitlin Mollica, "The Unfinished Business of the Solomon Islands TRC: Closing the Implementation Gap," The Pacific Review, 30:4 (2017), 531-548.

Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report. Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Vol. 1. Honaira, Solomon Islands, February 2012. https://truthcommissions.humanities.mcmaster.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Solomon-Islands-Truth-and-Reconciliation-Commission_TRC_Final-Report_Vol1.pdf

"The Solomon Islands 'Ethnic Tension' Conflict and the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Personal Reflection," reconciliationtim.ca (2019). https://reconciliationtim.ca/solomons/the-solomon-islands-ethnic-tension-conflict-and-the-solomon-islands-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-a-personal-reflection/

"The Tensions," The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). https://www.ramsi.org/the-tensions/

External Links

"The Solomon Islands 'Ethnic Tension' Conflict and the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Personal Reflection," reconciliationtim.ca (2019). https://reconciliationtim.ca/solomons/the-solomon-islands-ethnic-tension-conflict-and-the-solomon-islands-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-a-personal-reflection/

"The Tensions," The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). https://www.ramsi.org/the-tensions/

Notes

[1] "The Tensions," The Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI). https://www.ramsi.org/the-tensions/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report, Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Vol. 1 (Honaira, Solomon Islands, February 2012), 28.

[7] Ibid., 29.

[8] Ibid., 30.

[9] Ibid., 31-32.

[10] Ibid., 37.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid., 38.

[13] Ibid., 38-39.

[14] Ibid., 39.

[15] Ibid., 41; Ibid., 40.

[16] Ibid., 42.

[17] Ibid., 10.

[18] Ibid., 11.

[19] Ibid., 17.

[20] Ibid., 18.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 21.

[23] Ibid., 22.

[24] Ibid., 14.

[25] Ibid., 24-25.

[26] J and M 532

[27] "The Solomon Islands 'Ethnic Tension' Conflict and the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission: A Personal Reflection," reconciliationtim.ca (2019). https://reconciliationtim.ca/solomons/the-solomon-islands-ethnic-tension-conflict-and-the-solomon-islands-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-a-personal-reflection/

[28] Ibid.

[29] Renée Jeffery and Caitlin Mollica, "The Unfinished Business of the Solomon Islands TRC: Closing the Implementation Gap," The Pacific Review, 30:4 (2017): 531; 539.

[30] Ibid., 539.

[31] Ibid., 531-532.

The first version of this case entry was written by Sarah Slasor, McMaster University.