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Happy anniversary RAMSI

By Gaurav Sodhi

Posted July 24, 2008 08:50:00
Updated July 24, 2008 08:55:00

Five years ago today, Australia embarked on one of its most ambitious foreign policy exercises in recent years when it led the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands.

RAMSI, comprising of 15 countries from the region, was conceived as a new model for foreign intervention. The aims of the mission were not only to take back control of a country rapidly descending into civil war, but also to remain in a 'nation building' role to rebuild government and the economy.

This was ambitious new territory for Australia and a new model for foreign interventions worldwide. But how successful has RAMSI been in meeting its military and civil objectives?

From a military point of view, RAMSI has been an unqualified success. In 2003 when the first troops were deployed, the Solomon Islands was on the brink of becoming the region's first failed state. The population of the capital halved in a matter of months as people fled the arbitrary violence of roaming militiamen.

The economic collapse was no less dramatic. It is estimated that exports more than halved from their pre-conflict levels and business all over Honiara shut virtually over night. The Gold Ridge gold mine was closed and ransacked, the main palm oil plantation uprooted and the tuna cannery was shut down. Logging was severely affected. The Reserve Bank of the Solomon Islands ran out of money at the height of the conflict and the electricity generator could not operate for a lack of funds. Dark times indeed.

Within weeks of being deployed, RAMSI was able to restore civil stability to the Solomon Islands. More than 6,000 militiamen have been arrested, over 9,000 charges have been laid and over 3,000 firearms have been confiscated. The Solomon Islands police force has been purged of 160 rogue officers. Peace has returned to the Solomon Islands.

The economy has also recovered, albeit from a low base. But at current growth rates, it will still take the Solomon Islands more than a decade to return to pre conflict levels.

RAMSI has managed a return to macroeconomic stability, an essential base for future growth. The tax system has improved with government revenues increasing. Other efforts have focused on reducing regulatory hurdles to beginning formal businesses and easing restrictions on hiring and firing. Government slush funds are less common now that audits are regularly conducted and accounting systems in place.

But these changes do nothing to address the constraints on development in the Solomon Islands. Over 85 per cent of the population is dependent on subsistence agriculture while the formal economy is composed mostly of the public service. Industrial production is dominated by one large palm oil plantation and a goldmine no longer producing gold. Logs dominate exports while production of non-timber agriculture is negligible.

Living standards in the Solomon Islands haven't improved much since independence. Hundreds of reports by dozens of organisations have already documented that the key constraints to development are land tenure and a lack of infrastructure, including education. But little progress has been made in easing these constraints.

Traditional land ownership was appropriate to subsistence farming, with the areas of land being worked changing with family needs, but a move to cash production entails property rights in land. Property rights are also essential to the commercial development of manufacturing, tourism and other service industries. All these potential employment generating industries are constrained because there is no system of allocating available land. A necessary first step is to complete a land survey. As a large, technical and expensive job, it is ideal for RAMSI to tackle.

Infrastructure, particularly roads and schools are also needed. Some of the roads damaged in the civil conflict have been restored, but much more investment is needed to link producers and consumers. The education system has seen little improvement in 30 years.

RAMSI's leadership claims it has no mandate to execute important reform programs that would ease these key constraints. Yet the mission's security and nation building objectives are both intimately tied to economic success, and the government in Honiara has been calling for more involvement by RAMSI in economic development.

It is time for RAMSI to stop buck-passing and take greater responsibility for economic development.

Five years after landing in Honiara, the city is still filled with idle young men with no jobs and nothing to do but watch busy expatriates hurry about their city. These young men are harbingers of future instability. Without more involvement in reforms that will promote economic development, RAMSI risks becoming little more than one of the countless organisations that in the past has promised the Solomon Islands so much but delivered little.

Gaurav Sodhi is an economist at the Centre for Independent Studies.

Tags: defence-and-national-security, defence-forces, government-and-politics, foreign-affairs, world-politics, australia, solomon-islands

Comments (30)

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• Hamish:

  24 Jul 2008 9:30:34am

  Not to be or sound indifferent, why does the Australian Govt. need to prop-up a foreign government (ie. the government in Honiara has been calling for more involvement by RAMSI in economic development)? For example, if education has been neglected for 30 years, how does RAMSI expect to reverse this trend (in other words, if the govt in Honiara has failed to redress education issues for 30 years, what amount of interference by RAMSI would fix this)?
  
  I would have thought this be a job for the United Nations.

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  • Bertrand:

    24 Jul 2008 10:08:49am

    The united nations is good for nothing, and therefore no job is the right one for the united nations.
    
    What RAMSI demonstrates is that for intervention to work it is best undertaken by those who have something to gain by a successful outome, that is, its neighbours.

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    • G:

      24 Jul 2008 2:29:00pm

      UN is good for nothing becuase when it DOES try to do something good, it is vetoed by the US.
      

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      • Ben:

        24 Jul 2008 2:59:36pm

        Or Russia or China (depends on the topic).
        
        Let's not point fingers at one nation here and instead say that the veto vote is a major hurdle and brings a level of in-equality to the rest of the non-vetoing nations. It also makes the name United Nations a bit of a oxymoron (perhaps it should be renamed to the 'What's In It For Me Nations'... doesn't quite roll off the tongue though).

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  • L:

    24 Jul 2008 10:16:23am

    I'd say they'd have to be there for another 30 years Hamish......and hope they had some good teachers. That's not going to happen though.
    
    I thought the pen was meant to be mightier than the sword......but only to a policy maker, not to a general.
    
    In answer to your first question; RAMSI needs to be there to stop China or Japan having an influence in regard to development of any natural resources they have. That way we cash in on it like East Timor.
    

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  • PeterM:

    24 Jul 2008 8:03:36pm

    It is now at the point where the Soloman's government asks for help from economic advisors and developers, if they want it. RAMSI is doing one job and while economic stability keeps unrest in check, it is not the job of RAMSI to run the country for them.
    
    Any direction must be from within and the ownership of the task needs to be with the people of the Solomans.

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• Skeptical:

  24 Jul 2008 9:44:55am

  So RAMSI has done well - superb in fact.
  
  So when does to Solomons Government step up to perform its duties?
  
  Surely they need to take responsibility for their own direction in life - otherwise Australia cops big brother criticisms.

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• Thinner:

  24 Jul 2008 9:50:46am

  Under a "subsistence economy", at least everyone normally has enough to eat. Rural "subsistence" poverty is not something we'd want to share. But there are much worse forms of poverty, and economic development for a country like the Solomons, if it is geared to exploit what is there for as long as it is exploitable, for the benefit of outsiders, may well end up simply taking what the Islanders have away from them while giving them nothing to replace it. Such things have happened.
  
  I am concerned about an analysis like this - that basically blames lack of "development" on "difficulties" in the way of foreigners alienating land and removing the landowners. Real development should involve the average islander being a real player in the game - not a hapless victimn of an alien rip off that "mines" the islands for short term gain and moves on elsewhere as soon as all the gold is dug up, and all the trees are cut down.
  
  What form true sustainable development would take, in order to deliver a lasting improvement in living standards and economic opportunity for the average Solomons Islander, I don't know. I fear that Gaurav Sodhi knows (and cares) even less - because that is not what he seems to be talking about.

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• Tank:

  24 Jul 2008 10:11:55am

  The Howard Government had many foreign policy successes in our neighbourhood and this is just one.
  East Timor and Bougainville two more - plus helping Tonga sort out its ``little local difficulty'' a few years back. We alsi led the world in responding to the Aceh tsunami crisis.
  I wonder if Kevin Rudd - for all his incessant talking and arm waving - will ever have the deeds to match Howard.

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  • Ford:

    24 Jul 2008 10:16:19am

    Isn't the real question why we're so supportive of 'traditional' living methods for our own indigenous people, and so intent on removing that option for people in the Solomon Islands?
    Who are we to say they need a 'formal' economy or property rights, they've existed this long with traditional land rights and subsistence farming, who are we to judge.

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    • Bertrand:

      24 Jul 2008 10:36:18am

      I think the reason we went in to the Solomon Islands is that a few of them were going to cease "existing" pretty quickly.
      
      There is also a difference between traditional (good), in respect to such things as cheese making techniques and certain cottage industry's and cuisine, and traditional (bad) meaning stone age life styles.
      
      There is nothing good about stone age cultures, and since we are in the position to reform them, there is moral imperative to reform them.

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      • Ford:

        24 Jul 2008 11:41:22am

        Exactly, Bertrand...there is nothing good about them.
        Yet we continue to claim it's 'politically correct' to enable their continuation (and downard spiral) for our own indigenous people...whilst holding out civilization as a lifeline to an indigenous culture on the island next door.
        Maybe we should work on reforming our own before we interfere with someone elses.
        Ultimately, the responsibility to drag themselves out of the stoneage is with the people of the Solomon Island, not everyone else, certainly not Australia.

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      • Bertrand:

        24 Jul 2008 12:54:57pm

        Its not our responsibility at law, but there is a moral imperative to help those who through cultural reasons cannot help themselves. Its our "burden".
        
        And i think we should do the same as we have in the solomon islands to aboriginals in australia. That is the thinking behind the intervention.
        
        These things are quick fixes. We spent 50 years in afircia reforming their societies, and left before we were finsihed. They learnt half of what they should have, but not understanding the whole, they have twisted what they have learnt in very destructive ways. They picked up concepts such as nationalism, without corresponding concepts such as liberalism. Others have learnt about rights but not obligations, which is of course still a problem in our own country.

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      • KarolF:

        24 Jul 2008 2:40:19pm

        'We' spent far longer than 50 years in Africa. Does anyone remember the slave-trade in the 18th century, and the 1880-1900 scramble for Africa? Western imperialism is the real cause of Africa's 'backwardness'. Africa has a long and proud history of civilisation, but of course its more convenient to think of it as 'stone age', since that offers a nice and easy justification for all the crimes that have been committed by imperialist intervention over the past three centuries.
        
        Arguments for the 'white man's burden' are downright racist, and reminiscent of the justifications for imperialism straight from the 19th century.

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      • Ben:

        24 Jul 2008 3:14:54pm

        I hope you are not talking about white minority rule being good Betrand? I'll agree that dictators like Mugabe are an issue but the introduction of white minority rule draws many parallel to slavery. Let's remember that Australia prides itself on being a democratic country and such 'interventions' may be seen as forcing ones own moral beleifs on other cultures (I think this is what Ford is lead to).
        
        In saying this I do agree that developed nations such as Australia should aid in the regional stability (if only solely for the purpose for Australia's regional security). This should remain mainly diplomatic, with the use of force reserved for the most extreme cases (and I do mean extreme).
        
        If I have totally misread what you were leading to I apologise in advance.

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      • GDH:

        24 Jul 2008 4:31:59pm

        I was waiting for this to decend into "The White Man's Burden" line.
        
        Australia and New Zealand. along with a couple of other Pacific countries intervened in the Solomon Islands because it had effectively become a failed state and in a post Sept 11th world was in danger of being taken over by terrotrist groups or others. While the intervention was done in the name of Solomons stability, it was an act of self interest (on the part of Aust and NZ) as most of these things are.
        
        The Solomons is a product not just of its Melanesian culture, but also its colonial history and if it turned into a mess, don't just blame the locals when the Brits should also be wearing some of the flack, just as Australia must carry responsibility at leasty in part for the disfunction in post colonial Papua New Guinea.
        
        I think RAMSI has done a lot of good things for the Solomons in part because of the dedication of many of the people who have been involved in the intervention, , but working out how to disengage is always the hardest part.
        
        
        
        

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      • doowop:

        25 Jul 2008 9:26:04am

        Great plan, lets reform everybody to suit our ideals of civilisation and homogenise the planet.

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  • G:

    24 Jul 2008 2:34:59pm

    Tank,
    This rot.
    Howard did nothing noble, he did what he should have done.
    For example - if you see a child that is in imminent danger of being run over, you should, of course, help the child as best you can and not simply turn away and pretend nothing is happening.
    
    Doing the bare expected minimum (i.e. their job) is not cause for praise, Not doing the bare expected minim is cause for derision, doing MORE than the expected minumim, as an altruistic act IS cause for praise.

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    • Tank:

      24 Jul 2008 3:30:08pm

      By your standards, Robert Mugabe should have been run out of Africa a decade ago by neighbours Thabo Mbecki and Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu... but no, these lions of Africa have just stood there and beamed as Zimbabwe has gone down the toilet.
      Howard acted when he saw degredation and tried to solve it. He saw suffering and sought to heal it. He could have taken the African way and looked in the other direction but he didn't.
      Howard's way will be sorely missed in our part of the world.
      

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• examinator:

  24 Jul 2008 11:19:38am

  My experience with Melanesian cultures having grown up with them I wonder at the *white* bias (arrogance) at play here!
  
  At least under *subsistence* farming (pejorative loaded thinking) EVERYONE had a place in the community and employment and was relatively happy.
  
  Who says the western ethic of greed and consumerism, exploitism, pollution and cultural genocide is better? Why should these people go from a system that meets THEIR needs to one of serfdom to The dubious benefits of God of consumerism? Aren*t we now coming to the recognition of structual and community flaws consequences of this *system*?
  
  Maybe what is needed is a Solomon Island solution neither Capitalism nor *subsistence*. One where they retain control over their lives... it is possible al it takes is thought and lack of bias.
  
  Besides which having Military forces as a defacto government is a Coup and sets up a clear example for the tribal mentality. I thought the point was peace keeping and supporting a democratic governance not defacto colonialism.
  
  Teach them the tools to survive in this world and give them the power to decide on their own path. THAT is our responsibility as a neighbour beyond that we are indulging in hegemony.
  
  Why cant tribal ownership lease land and get royalties? Uneven power! Why cant help Australia broker joint partnerships with business and all interested parties?
  

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  • tomf:

    24 Jul 2008 12:15:17pm

    although in principle i agree with you examinator, however the reality seems to be that many people living on 'subsistence' farming are not immune from the desires of greed and consumerism. For example many want a car, a TV a sound system etc etc, previously these were unnecessary items as they made their own entertainment. The children start to become accustomed to fast foods like chips and sweets, Cola't and the like. All this requires money and subsitence farming does not supply that. Relatively happy is also a loaded phrase, what does that mean? People are often 'relatively happy' as long as they do not view someone else's grass as greener. I've seen lots of poor people who are relatively happy but would like to be happier. It is their perception of what will them happy (just like the industrialised nations) that is the problem. How to balance happiness and avoid the greed etc? I'm afraid i have few solutions, perhaps we can learn from Bhutan with their gross national happiness (instead of GDP).

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• what...:

  24 Jul 2008 1:42:51pm

  why should our goverment be expected to fix someone elses economy, when we cant even fix our own

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• PenPal:

  24 Jul 2008 2:14:09pm

  Well done us, I say!
  
  If you want a job done properly, give it to us Australians!

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• Bob:

  24 Jul 2008 3:07:57pm

  I think, isnt this the end result of Iraq all over again? I beleive when we incorporate ourselves in the region more fully for the future, gold mining, industry and the like will of necessity attract foreign investment and trade. The people are unstable and easily led from the winds of change from the region. However, the lesson that must be learned comes from our own indigenous people. Do we stand up and fight or do we democratise ourselves based upon our minority position in the international community, and inherent committment to non-violence and the sacredness of land and culture. The peace keeping, peace loving attributes of the indigenous people of the great land Australia, need to be the attitudes of the peoples in these regions. This is the only way that the ecconomy and prosperity of the people from the Solomons/Iraq can increase.

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  • AM:

    24 Jul 2008 8:29:06pm

    whether "we" intervene is one thing, whehter someone else will over time is guaranteed, Captilism is not "The" perfect system but until someone comes up with something better i'm all for it. this idea is new to me and it's taking some getting used to, being young and exuberant, and wanting everything is the problem...but back to my point. The red flag of China is waving everstronger and those optimists who thought the Beijing olympics were going to change China have been evidently proven wrong. their need for control is ever constant, their thirst for resources unquenchable, now they are smart cookies when it comes to doing deals and they will screw over anyone/anycountry without any recourse. WE have to consider the argument who is the lesser of two evils.

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• John:

  24 Jul 2008 9:55:48pm

  Why the dogmatic assumption that private ownership of land is the solution to the Solomon Island's woes? They have a traditional system that according to the article reallocates land according to need. That would seem an eminently more sensible and efficient method than our method of allowing a decreasing pool of privileged people to hoard land. Wouldn't it be better to formalise and build on the traditional system, in order to provide a framework for commercial development?
  
  Sodhi's piece seems to be about foisting a libertarian dogma on others rather than considering what best suits their needs. I guess it is to be expected that a self described "libertarian think tank" is more about shoehorning the world into their preconceived position than providing objective consideration of observation, facts and evidence.

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• Mardy:

  25 Jul 2008 1:23:44am

  Typical ABC audience. Our neighbourhood is in crisis, and our only contributions are:
  
  * conspiracy theories about neo-imperialism
  * moans on where taxpayer money goes
  * rimshots at popular political targets of the day
  
  Let's face it - we have ZERO interest in the welfare of our neighbours, unless we can segue it into an argument that we are more comfortable pontificating about
  
  Smugness suffocates...

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• The Slot:

  25 Jul 2008 2:32:37am

  The hub of The Solomon Islands Civil War relates to friction between the Gwale people of Guadalcanal Island and Malaitans from that named Island to the north. The Malaitans were transported to Henderson (Air) Field by USA military forces during WWII to finish the Japanese Airstrip sited to interdict air and sea traffic between Hawaii and Australia and or NZ and protect the south east flank of the Japanese forces lodged in PNG.
  
  Post WWII the Malaitans stayed in the vicinity of the capital Honiara and it was the dispute over land ownership on Guadalcanal and government compensation disbursements that led to the outbreak of a civil war. A long term solution requires the sustainable gainful employment of both the Gwale and Malaitans and if they cannot live together in harmony the relocation of the latter back to their Island of origin or elsewhere otherwise the failed state circumstance will remain. I have not heard or yet seen such success measures in place or in train.
  
  The proximity of Honiara to the WWII warship graveyard dive attraction now called Iron Bottom Sound is the main tourist attraction and reason for the Malaitans to want to stay. The ADF cannot indefinitely sustain more than 5 to 10 year deployments like Bougainville, The Solomons and Timor just to fend off China, India, Japan, Taiwan and USA frictions in Oceania. AusAID bids to outbribe the above in Oceania is doomed to fail like welfare dependency has in Aboriginal communities in Australia. UN Security Council veto frictions have caused the lack of UN intervention successes for 60 years around the globe.

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• island boi:

  25 Jul 2008 7:53:20am

  Whilst RAMSI may have performed a useful service in the beginning of their deployment, it currently seems a "holiday" posting for most officers. There seems to be no roadmap/training/wages for the national police force to take over their duties and the wages bill for RAMSI (majority of aid money to the country) could accomplish so much more. Added to this is the ridiculous circumstance where RAMSI officers have legal immunity for any crimes committed, i.e. in the recent death of a local by drink driving officer, no charges can be laid

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• ram:

  25 Jul 2008 9:14:57am

  The program is SO popular with the local population that it requires Australian troops armed with advanced infantry weapons to implement it! Just like "peace keeping" in the Middle East.
  
  

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