Ethnic Tension in the Solomon Islands: An Integrated United Nations Response.

• Author: Beest, Djoeke van
• Position: Brief Article

The Solomon Islands, once a field in the Second World War, recently was confronted with another conflict, this time from within. Its roots lay in longstanding unresolved issues such as land ownership, control of resources and deeply embedded resentment towards the Malaitan population, who are seen as having acquired a disproportionate share of employment on the main island of Guadalcanal, where they have settled in large numbers over the past 30 years. The ethnic tension escalated in December 1998 when the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army, also known as Istambu Freedom Fighters, started an offensive of active intimidation against the Malaitian settlers, resulting in a mass dislocation of people.

The conflict led Rime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu to ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan for United Nations humanitarian aid. A joint UN assessment team was mobilized to travel to the Islands for a one-week mission.

The team focussed on a humanitarian response to the crisis, which had resulted in a de facto ethnic division in Guadalcanal, where between 15,000 to 20,000 ethnic Malaitans, representing approximately 20 per cent of the total Guadalcanal population and feeling prone to the intimidation campaigns of the militants, had fled from the countryside to the capital of Honiara, converting it into an almost entirely ethnic Malaitan city. The influx required the establishment of 11 evacuation centres, where the families lodged while awaiting a boat trip back to Malaita. At the same time, a large number of Guadalcanal people, possibly up to 12,000, who used to live in and around Honiara, felt forced to hide out in the rural areas surrounding Honiara for fear of reprisals by the Malaitans.

We could not visit the Guadalcanal people outside Honiara because of the still precarious security situation; and the police had established checkpoints around the capital to isolate the militants and as a short-lived attempt to deprive them of food supplies which limited the food flow to and from the capital.

Fortunately, this policy was changed, and the Red Cross was again able to deliver food to the interior of the island. At the evacuation centres in Honaira, we saw Malaitan families, remarkably fatalistic about their circumstances, who seemed only to desire to leave as they were "guests" and respected the fact that their Guadalcanal "hosts" had...