Regional Assistance Mission To Solomon Islands Research Articles

‘Let’s not be afraid to sort them out’: analysing Australia’s carceral representations of RAMSI

ABSTRACT The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was an Australian-led and largely Australian-funded state-building project, which included the strengthening of the police force and state bureaucracy and which took place over a 14-year window from 24 July 2003 to 30 June 2017. A few months beforehand, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer argued that the deployment of Australian troops to the Solomon Islands would be unjustifiable to Australian taxpayers and likely resented in the region. In this article, I argue that RAMSI became thinkable and legitimate through representations of Solomon Islands in Australian political discourse and media during the mission’s early years (2003–2007) which depended on carceral and colonial logics of containment, control and intervention. The credibility of RAMSI depended on the existence of a perpetrator of violence to be contained and innocents to be saved. These representations reproduce colonial constructs of the dangerous, racialised Other and depend on the carceral assumption that criminality is an individual aberration or failure, rather than one which is socially, culturally and historically produced. These discourses have carceral effects as they contribute to the naturalisation of policing and (neo)colonial control as solutions to social and economic problems.

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI): Did It Help or Harm a Friend? (Review Essay)

Helpem Fren, Michael Wesley’s diplomatic history of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), the Australian-led multilateral intervention in Solomon Islands from 2003–2017, is a near definitive study of the intervention from an Australian perspective. As such, it shares some of the failures of RAMSI itself, such as overconfidence in its success. The reviewer, based on his experience of living in the Solomons during many years of the RAMSI intervention, examines both the strengths and weaknesses of RAMSI and this volume, its semi-official history. These include RAMSI’s early success in peacemaking and its more problematic long-term exercise in state building, including its inflexible entrenchment in law and justice, finance, and governance sectors to the exclusion of support for sustainable human development. The reviewer notes areas not dealt with in the book, including RAMSI’s cost and its relations with the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the churches. While Helpem Fren is an essential study for understanding the Australian role in RAMSI, its strictly Australian perspective calls for further critical study of RAMSI.

Long live RAMSI? Peace‐building, anti‐corruption and political will in Solomon Islands

AbstractDonor‐led post‐conflict interventions often involve the transfer of anti‐corruption institutions and approaches. However, some question the sustainability of these efforts. This article examines the sustainability of anti‐corruption funding during and after the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) intervention (2003–2017), an international peace‐ and state‐building mission. It focuses on allocations for and spending on Solomon Islands anti‐corruption organisations during and after the RAMSI‐led intervention for the period 2010 to 2020. It shows that while political elites have occasionally resisted anti‐corruption reforms, post‐RAMSI governments have maintained levels of funding to key anti‐corruption agencies above that of its nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, while passing new anti‐corruption legislation. The article argues that while concerns about corruption remain, political elites have, initially at least, maintained their commitment to anti‐corruption policy transfer in the post‐RAMSI era. The findings have implications for evaluating donor‐led anti‐corruption efforts in Solomon Islands and other post‐conflict situations.

Reassessing the 2003–17 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands

The 2003–17 Australian and New Zealand-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is widely considered to be a comparatively successful peacebuilding mission. Jon Fraenkel argues that a fuller assessment of RAMSI needs to consider the low intensity of the preceding conflict, and the way that conflict changed over 2001–03 in ways that encouraged a law and order focus. Within Oceania, RAMSI is usually seen as fairly successful in achieving its short-term security objectives, but less effective in reaching its more ambitious state-building goals, though without much attention to the reasons for that contrast. There has been little appreciation of the longer-run ramifications of the 2006–07 crisis in relations between Australian authorities and the Solomon Islands government.

Introduction to the Special Issue

Introduction to the Special Issue

The Teleology and Romance of State-building in Solomon Islands

ABSTRACTThe 2003–13 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is widely depicted as an ambitious ‘state-building’ project in the mould of contemporary interventions in Bosnia, Iraq, East Timor and Kosovo. Yet no new constitution was put in place in Solomon Islands, and, in practice, the core Australian policing components of the mission were largely substituted for their local counterparts. Unlike most state-building missions, RAMSI did not assume executive authority, and the critical relationship with the Indigenous government soon deteriorated, particularly after the election-related riots of April 2006. The teleological framing of RAMSI as a ‘state-building’ operation largely draws on heroic claims about future intentions made during the early phase of the mission, whereas, after the crises of 2006–07, RAMSI officials were engaged mostly in playing down expectations, narrowing the mission's objectives and preparing an exit strategy.

Solomon Islands in Transition?

ABSTRACTThe notion of ‘transition’ as used to describe the recent drawdown of the decade-long Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) provides an obvious departure point for considering what other transformations – social, political and economic – are under way in the archipelagic nation. Yet the contributions to this special issue collectively reject the teleological language of transition and transformation deployed by many development actors in favour of a more nuanced and historically informed understanding of the central dialect between change and continuity, with change in Solomon Islands occurring slowly and in distinctly non-linear ways. This dialectic is traced and interrogated in various ways by the contributors to this issue. One broad theme concerns the contested narratives of changing state–society relations and, in particular, those between the central government and the rural localities where most Solomon Islanders continue to reside. Another is the changing social relations around land and natural resources engendered by ongoing processes of globalisation and persistent patterns of demographic change, migration and urbanisation. These and other processes of historical change, including state formation and capital accumulation, are also shaped by the enduring realities of scale and distance integral to Solomon Islands archipelagic geography. In this essay we explore these themes of change and continuity in Solomon Islands, positioning the individual contributions within this larger trajectory of slow-paced and distinctly non-linear change. Drawing heuristically on RAMSI's genesis in the state-building moment that dominated international relations during the first decade of this century, we also examine the distinction between ‘state-building’ and ‘state formation’ in the Solomon Islands context and, in doing so, contrast the tropes of state failure, weakness and fragility against narratives of resilience, tenacity, innovation and experimentation.

Continuing drivers of violence in Honiara: making friends and influencing people

The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) has provided a relative decline of violence in Honiara for over a decade. However, the combination of customary cultural practices utilised in negotiating status and power in Solomon Islands society with ongoing demographic and economic processes exacerbated by the period of foreign intervention has perpetuated underlying drivers of violence that are likely to reignite once RAMSI fully departs. The use of practices of social reciprocity and compensation in order to gain and effectively wield key resources such as cash, access to jobs and access to land is ongoing in Honiara, where new opportunities provide new pathways to utilising these practices by growing cohorts of youth. This article examines the use of these forms of negotiation in Honiara and argues that three ongoing processes are likely to drive future outbreaks of violence in the capital once RAMSI departs: a rapidly expanding urba; ongoing contestation over access to land; and the effects of international investment and presence of urban foreign enclaves.

From Intervention to Partnership—Prospects for Development Partnership in Solomon Islands after the RAMSI

AbstractThis article considers prospects for effective development partnership in Solomon Islands following the transition of development assistance from the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) to bilateral donors in 2013. It focuses on the shifting nature of Australian aid that has transitioned from an interventionary approach under RAMSI to a partnership‐based approach under the bilateral program. Prospects for partnership in Solomon Islands are complicated by issues of state fragility, political instability and aid dependency that undermine local ownership and alignment. While the rhetoric of partnership guided RAMSI transition, Australia's post‐RAMSI aid responds to these challenges through a hybrid approach incorporating partnership and interventionary modalities. This hybrid approach reflects Australia's role in the co‐production of sovereignty in Solomon Islands. Recognition of the hybrid nature of Australian aid, and, by implication, Australia's ‘ownership’ of development problems in Solomon Islands, will be important to the effectiveness of future support.

‘Add women and stir’: the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and Australia's implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325

With the changing nature of warfare and the increasing awareness of the specific gender dimensions of war and peace, the international legal framework has been expanded to address the particular challenges faced by women in conflict and post-conflict contexts. This process culminated in 2000 with the first United Nations document to explicitly address the role and needs of women in peace processes: United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 on women, peace and security. Thirteen years on, this article assesses the extent to which Australia's stated commitment to women, peace and security principles at the level of the international norm has translated into meaningful action on the ground in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). The analysis shows that despite it being an ideal context for a mission informed by UNSCR 1325, and Australia being strongly committed to the resolution's principles and implementation, the mission did not unfold in a manner that fulfilled Australia's obligations under UNSCR 1325. The RAMSI case highlights the difficulty in getting new security issues afforded adequate attention in the traditional security sphere, suggesting that while an overarching policy framework would be beneficial, it may not address all the challenges inherent in implementing resolutions such as UNSCR 1325.

Aid for education in post-conflict Solomon Islands

Between 1998 and 2003, conflict, violent crime, and a severe economic downturn pushed the Solomon Islands state to the brink of failure, exacerbating the problems of an already struggling education sector. Most schools on Guadalcanal were seriously disrupted; some were burned down or vandalized, others closed as teachers and students fled violence, and those that remained open struggled to accommodate the large displaced student population. The collapse of state finances stripped any remaining funding from the education sector; teachers were paid irregularly, if at all, while many schools lacked basic teaching materials and proper sanitation. In 2003, intervention by the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) quickly restored security and stabilized government finances. RAMSI provided significant budget support to the education sector and opened the door for donors to reengage. Schools re-opened, new facilities were built, and teachers were paid, allowing the government and donors to focus on longer-term issues, including school fees. Government expenditure on education is high, but financed almost entirely by donors. Solomon Islands is now one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries and remains vulnerable to external shocks and natural disasters. Weak economic forecasts suggest the need for additional external budget support to protect social spending, including on education.

Peacebuilding, gender and policing in Solomon Islands

AbstractUN Security Council Resolution 1325 calls for a gender perspective to be integrated into the resolution of conflicts. This responsibility manifests itself in a number of more specific proposals, some easily assessable, others less so. In this paper, we begin by considering the success of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) – the poster child for peacebuilding efforts – at meeting these specific proposals. In light of this, we then go on to suggest ways in which RAMSI might meet greater success in fully integrating gender considerations in Solomon Islands by blending sensitivity to gender‐based considerations together with a deeper sensitivity to cultural considerations, including cultural understandings of core notions such as ‘policing’ and ‘justice’.

The power of friends

This article analyzes the power and legitimacy of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), explaining why local actors chose to comply and cooperate with the operation in its crucial first year. It argues that, to be effective, peace operations require the compliance of local populations, and finds that RAMSI’s ability to shape the attitudes, incentives and interests of local actors was determined by the relationship between its three currencies of power: coercion, inducement and legitimacy. Focused on the exercise of power by RAMSI, this article enables much-needed analysis of the local dimensions of peace operations and affords serious consideration to processes of local legitimation. Within the local realm, the case of Solomon Islands provides three important insights on the power and legitimacy of peace operations. First, the design and implementation of RAMSI’s communications strategies were central to its ability to exercise coercive and inducive power and, crucially, to legitimize its power relationship with local populations. Second, the manner in which RAMSI exercised authority affected local perceptions about its legitimacy, independent of the operation’s outcomes. Third, the quality of treatment people received from RAMSI was influential in their decisions to comply and cooperate with the operation. This suggests that carefully examining the way that peace operations and local people interact can help to identify the determinants of an operation’s effectiveness.

Evaluating Police Reform in Post‐Conflict Nations: A Solomon Islands Case Study

The process of post‐conflict police reform has been the subject of serious scholarly attention, principally driven by the sense that police institutional rebuilding cannot be achieved quickly and that the police are only one part of the wider justice sector. However, police reform is a complicated process, and the cultural, institutional, and political challenges to effective development are immense. The process of reform is further complicated through the inherent difficulty in evaluating the impact of a development programme on police performance. This study uses an outcomes‐ or evidence‐based police measurement system called ‘Police Reform Indicators and Measurement Evaluation’ (PRIME) to assess the performance of the police capacity‐building programme and other improvement projects that have commenced since the deployment of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) in July 2003. The application of the process to the Royal Solomon Islands Police (RSIP) identified that, although there are a number of areas that are still to be strengthened or rebuilt, the Participating Police Force (PPF) has been able to implement capacity development programmes that have resulted in the advancement of the RSIP towards a professional police service. The application of PRIME to the RSIP and the intervening police mission demonstrates that it could be used as a tool to evaluate police reform efforts in similar post‐conflict nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Managing risk within international society: hierarchical governance in the Asia-Pacific

Several recent works have emphasised new relations of hierarchy within international society, primarily involving the claim by certain Western states of the authority to intervene in particular territories in order to build state capacity and the institutions of sound liberal democratic governance. While several scholars have identified these new hierarchies, few have provided a satisfactory account of what informs their formation and reproduction. This article investigates why new hierarchies have emerged within international society, arguing that they are underpinned by a ‘liberal social logic of risk’, which simultaneously constructs liberal democracies as inherently peaceful and prosperous and non-liberal or weak states as inherently risky and dangerous. Confronted by new forms of debounded security risks, Western societies have sought to manage these risks via interventions in identified ‘risky zones’ aimed at building liberal political and economic institutions. This argument is illustrated by the example of Australia's new interventionist development agenda in the Asia-Pacific, notably its leading role in the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). This interventionist agenda is, in effect, a new mechanism of regional risk management that informs new modes of hierarchical governance in the Asia-Pacific.

Resisting RAMSI: Intervention, Identity and Symbolism in Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT The Australian‐led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) continues to enjoy high levels of approval amongst Solomon Islanders. However, this approval belies the existence of a minority, but nevertheless important, dissenting perspective, one which has mostly emanated from Malaitan quarters. How are we to interpret Malaitan expressions of opposition to RAMSI? While these dissenting voices can, in part, be seen through a lens of legal and economic rationality, Malaitan opposition to RAMSI must be properly located within a deeper tradition of Malaitan resistance to the imposition of alien and centralised authority. Malaitans have responded to the RAMSI intervention by invoking kastom as a symbol of difference, unity and resistance, just as they have done in the past. It is argued that resistance to RAMSI must be (re)interpreted as having fundamentally cultural and historical underpinnings. Resisting RAMSI is as much about asserting culture and identity as it is about money and power. This argument is drawn out through an historically contextualised analysis of contemporary articulations of Malaitan resistance. The voices examined come from the public statements of prominent Malaitans, the published manifesto of the Malaita Ma'asina Forum, and interviews with former members of the Malaita Eagle Force.

The Crisis of State in Solomon Islands

In mid‐2003, Australia abandoned its longstanding position of non‐intervention in the affairs of neighboring states and agreed to lead a Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). The ...

Strongyloidiasis in personnel of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI)

To investigate the first reported cases of strongyloidiasis in the Solomon Islands, and to establish whether this disease poses a risk to personnel of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). Retrospective review of the pathology database of the RAMSI Medical Facility in Honiara, Solomon Islands, for the period 1 July 2006-30 September 2007. Number and clinical features of confirmed cases of Strongyloides stercoralis infestation, as diagnosed by serological tests or faecal microscopy. Fourteen confirmed cases of strongyloidiasis in previously healthy RAMSI participants were identified. Of 13 patients with notes available, symptoms documented at presentation included epigastric pain (10 patients), diarrhoea (7) and urticaria (4). Clinical disease in all patients responded to oral antihelminthic therapy (albendazole or ivermectin). Strongyloidiasis is endemic in the Solomon Islands and a risk for RAMSI personnel. Australian medical professionals should be aware of this potentially fatal and lifelong infestation, particularly the importance of an occupation history, appropriate diagnostic tests, effective treatment and adequate follow-up to document cure. We recommend implementation of a postdeployment screening program for strongyloidiasis.

Antipodean Statebuilding: The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and Australian Intervention in the South Pacific

This essay analyses Australian-led statebuilding efforts in Solomon Islands, through the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). RAMSI has often been offered as a successful example of statebuilding worthy of international consideration. Here, some of the limitations of the RAMSI mission and its progress in rebuilding the ‘failed’ South Pacific state will be carefully assessed. Despite significant short-term statebuilding successes in restoring security and stabilizing the economy, RAMSI faces long-term challenges centred on the complex politics of political community-building. As an example of ‘best practice’ statebuilding, RAMSI highlights the complexities involved with the two-level game of international intervention: the (conflicting) challenge of reconciling the need to respect sovereign sensitivities with the need to undertake robust political engagement.

Helpem Fren:

In its first three years (2003–06), the Pacific Islands Forum-sponsored and Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was successful in stopping violence, confiscating weapons and restoring peace. But RAMSI must now tackle difficult questions concerning its role and the underlying challenges of national development in Solomon Islands. Concurrently, relations have deteriorated between Australia and RAMSI on the one hand and, on the other, a new Solomon Islands Government under Manassah Sogavare. This Introduction offers a review and analysis of recent events and ‘opens windows’ onto the five articles and final comment that follow. As indicated by the title of this Special Issue, ‘Tingting baek, lukluk raon: Solomon Islands, History and Predicament’, these papers collectively look back on the past, survey the present, and look forward to the future.