Inducting Parliamentarians

UNDP's new Parliamentary strengthening project in the Solomons is having its first big trot out this week. An induction course is being carried out, using regional resources persons - big names from politics, law and various academies.

PNG's Dame Carol Kidu has already thrown a welcome curve ball into what might otherwise be predictable pontification on good governance and the institutions to ensure it. She has pointed out the role of high expectations and misplaced expectations, on the part of electors, in escalating already heavy pressures on MPs. The good Dame pointed out that constituents expect MPS to be "responsible for delivering services" and that "Voters expect cash... ...they want you to solve all their personal difficulties". She also called for a "people's code" setting out expectations of people, of their MPs. This would enable MPs to get on with being legislators.

While this is welcome news for overburdened MPs, it de-emphasises a rather important reality: 2 months ago, almost all Solomon new MPs were campaigning, not as legislators, not even as leaders, but as the best development worker/service deliverer/personal difficulty-solver in the race. Indeed, the candidacy trail for many often starts as a scheme to leverage something out of a would-be candidate (see "Candidacy Solomon Style" at honiara-life). Constituents expect this of MPs, firstly because there are no other accessible sources for this sort of help, and secondly, because MPs leverage their entire campaigns on outlandish promises of this sort of assistance.

The MPs sitting in the induction course know this. In fact, servicing the debt on their leveraged wins is likely what they are thinking of, not making new laws. Around goes the cycle....see you in the 2010 general elections!

RAMSI criticism - building accountability or assisting terrorism?

The specifics of domestic Australian anti-terror legislation are not usually a cause for direct concern in the Solomons.

This in spite of the fervent belief of many Australian commentators that failed Melanesian states are at risk of becoming hives of Islamist terror. And have therefore become the subject of military interventions to prop them up as a first line of defence against the international terror.

But a recent interview on abc's "The World Today" with the President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, Professor David Weisbrot, highlighted the slipperiness of the slope:

SIMON LAUDER: The Federal Government passed the Anti Terrorism Act late last year, making it an offence to urge people to "assist" an enemy at war with Australia.

But the President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, Professor David Weisbrot, says the definition of "assistance" under the legislation is too vague.

DAVID WEISBROT: So many people put to us the idea that if I criticise, for example, Australia's intervention in Afghanistan or in Iraq, or even in the Solomon Islands for example, that that may be giving aid and comfort to the opponents of Australian intervention and therefore constitute assisting.

Weisbrot goes on to point out that mere criticism is unlikely to meet the standards of "assistance" envisioned in the legislation.

Nonetheless, it remains jarring to see RAMSI criticism juxtaposed with say, planning a chemical attack on the ARL final. Particularly since there is an important role for public criticism in the performance appraisal of massively expensive security-development interventions such as RAMSI.

A culture of accountability is a key feature in Australian government rhetoric both on aid and the war on terror:

We cannot – indeed, must not – shirk our shared responsibility to openness, transparency and accountability in the Asia Pacific region - in government, in business, and in the wider community. (Foreign Minister Downer's speech to ASEAN in 2002 on "Terrorism and Stability in the Region")

Improved political accountability can only be achieved through demand for reform from within a country. (AusAID's strategy on fragile states)

At the most basic level, "fair comment" criticism in the Australian media, of multibillion dollar Pacific regional interventions is no different from criticism of any other publicly funded policy. Does robust criticism of health, labour or superannuation schemes attract a potential charge of sedition?

At another level, critical analysis from within an intervened country is good (some would say the best) guidance to policymakers and the Australian public that ultimately funds them. Finally, healthy, even pointed criticism may be the most convincing first fruits of a blossoming culture of public accountability in the intervened countries.

Or perhaps not, according to the current Australian Anti Terrorism Act.

Cuban help for the Solomons

Cuba has just this week invited the Solomons to talks on the use of its doctors in the Solomons. As connecting with Cuba and the USSR was once a PI ploy to wring more attention from Canberra and Washington, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Certainly there is a desperate need for good doctors in the Solomons. Even the National Referral Hospital is short of anaesathetists and surgeons.

Logging - the real firestorm

While corruption in high places and Chinatown burning captured international media attention, the real story was somewhere else, in the dark green mountains of the Solomons.

The corruption associated with commercial logging is legion in Solomon Islands, but it works ceaselessly in the background, not itself erupting into internationally visible luridity, yet all the while underwriting violence such as last month's Black Tuesday and the 1998-2003 'Tensions'.

It does so in rural communities by opening rifts between and within kin groups, undercutting the basics of life (agriculture, reefs and water), damaging social harmony. The money which both flows from logging, and precedes it, oils the wheels of bribery and deception in the public service. And the multi-million dollar profits anchor logging interests in every parliament (and government) elected.

It is the one constant battle in recent SI policymaking, and one this government seems to be willing to take on.

technorati tags: logging, solomons, chinatown, corruption, solomon, islands, honiara

testing flock

technorati tags: flock

RAMSI Tuesday?

The sack of Chinatown and other parts of Honiara in April went by a variety of names, mostly descriptive. The terrible events and the pall of smoke, hence 'Black'. The seeming madness that descended in the form of the looting crowds - hence 'Karange'.

In this story, Mike Wheatley, formerly of the Australian Army and the SI Police, is naming the day by who he thinks should shoulder the blame for the policing failure - RAMSI.

‘RAMSI Tuesday’ Wasn’t Due To Intelligence Failure
By: Mike Wheatley
Wednesday 24 May 2006

‘The stranger’s eyes are wide open, but he does not see anything’
- Supyire Proverb

On Tuesday, 18 April 2006, the democratically elected Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands was stoned by an angry mob on the steps of Parliament, tear gas was tossed around, a large chunk of the national capital, Honiara, was burnt to the ground, livelihoods were lost and lives seriously threatened.

How can such a thing happen on RAMSI’s watch — with the region’s pocket superpower, Australia, in charge? Where’s the stench of burning reputations to match the stench of burning Chinese stores?

Read more >>