The Solomon Islands government has begun the next stage of its national reconciliation process by launching a task force to resolve the grievances between the central government and Guadalcanal province. The task force, formed after consultation with local leaders, will combine several functions. It will serve a truth commission to bring closure to such events as the 1999 shooting of villagers by a government gunboat, but will also consult with the local population on future remedial measures:
The taskforce was formed to fulfil the resolutions of the Guadalcanal Leaders Summit early this year which called for the Solomon Islands Government to reconcile with the people of Guadalcanal to ensure lasting peace and harmony is felt nation wide [...] “The establishment of this taskforce is seen by the Guadalcanal Province Government as a positive step towards achieving some of the long outstanding issues of the ethnic unrest,” [provincial premier] Panga, who is the taskforce’s interim chairman, said.
He said the taskforce would work together with the Guadalcanal Reconciliation subcommittees, chiefs, church leaders and others to organise and facilitate reconciliations between conflicting parties. He said it would also identify venue and time for reconciliation, establish costs for such ceremonies and awareness about the proposed reconciliation between SIG and GP.
In regards to rehabilitation, Mr Panga said the taskforce would inform the national government of its priority rehabilitation packages to the worst affected areas in Guadalcanal. The taskforce committee will also assist in the province’s rehabilitation programme, decide and recommend the form of reconciliation in affected areas and secure funding for human rehabilitation.
This task force is the latest of the commissions formed to carry out the Townsville Peace Agreement between the national government and the Malaita Eagle Force. The aftermath of that agreement led, among other things, to the formation of the Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation and Peace as well as a National Peace Council (whose mandate was recently renewed). The initial intent was for these bodies to coordinate a national peace process, but it quickly became apparent that the Solomons conflict was more than the dispute between the national government and Malaitan migrant workers. Instead, it was a multi-faceted conflict pitting ethnic groups and islands against each other as well as the authorities in Honiara, and involving issues of land rights and development. As such, the Solomons needed not one peace process but several.
To its credit, the Solomons government has recognized this need, and has also recognized that the process itself cannot be dictated from above. The government has consulted with local leaders not only on the substantive requirements for peace but on the type of process that should be undertaken in each region. In addition, it has recognized that reconciliation is not exclusively a governmental affair and that part of the function of a peace process is to assist individual parties to the conflict in settling their own differences. The Solomons' nation-building effort may not ultimately be successful, but it's certainly a conscientious and innovative one, and one worth studying.
[Crossposted to The Head Heeb]
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