Second opinon!

J. Roughan

28 April 2009

Honiara

When a doctor diagnoses a patient's serious sickness, e.g. cancer, tumor, a life threatening disease, both patient and doctor usually seek out a Second Opinion. Would another doctor make the same diagnosis with all the information at hand? It's good medical practice to have another doctor study the same medical facts, examine the patient and give his/her verdict. It's a case of two heads are better than one; not too many cooks spoiling the broth!

 

This week the nation witnesses an example of seeking a Second Opinion but one that focuses on the awful events of our social sickness years of 1998-2003. The Solomons Government, to its credit, has finally set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to study, in depth, what exactly happened to our country at the turn of the century and especially find out why these things happened. 

 

Serious crime--murder, rape, arson, beatings, kidnappings, wholesale theft, etc.--took place at an unprecedented scale. These serious crimes came, not from an invading army, nor from strangers from afar but from our own people, many times from the victim's own relatives or friends known for many years.

 

The TRC seeks to find out the sources of this grave social sickness. Over the past ten years, then, in the presence and with the assistance of RAMSI for almost six years many concerned citizens have already identified causes why parts of the Solomons went so disastrously off the social rails. Some laid the blame squarely on the land issue, others said it was corruption in high places and still others claimed it was due to mis-development of the nation large scale.  Fortunately, however, this dreaded social disease did not take root in every island and, in fact, was confined mostly to a single island, Guadalcanal and on that island, only the Weather Coast and Honiara's surroundings, suffered the most painful breakout of the disease.

 

Yes, other sections of the nation--Gizo, northern Malaita--did show some symptoms of the disease but for the most part society's social fabric remained strong and resilient. In fact, more than 95% of Solomons society protected our homeland when Central Government proved incapable, the nation's security force, our police, was internally compromised and politicans, both nationally and provincially, were such weak reeds that they could offer little assistance.

 

The lowly village person, on the other hand, proved to have the glue that kept the Solomons from flying apart. For 5 years village society fed the kids, protected the olos, guarded their women folk and kept rural society which is 84% of the population ticking over on its own with little or no assistance from central authorities. To this day few national leaders have understood, much less embraced, this basic truth. They think that RAMSI did the job of turning the Solomons around. If truth be known, RAMSI saved government and its elite. Rural Solomons' future, however,  was guaranteed by the village person!

 

For the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to produce a Second Opinion on why the social unrest sickness laid the Solomons low, it must not only recognize the obvious signs of the social disease but to weigh carefully what it is about the village sector that enabled the nation's life to stick together, to work for a solid future and to dampen down, in some cases completely root out, those who worked mightily for chaos to triumph.

 

In other words, TRC has landed itself a two-fold job. First to identify clearly what are the reasons why certain individuals chose to almost destroy our nation with crime, criminal acts and evil deeds. And secondly, why so few Solomon Islanders followed the chaos workers strong trend to destroy, contaminate and disrupt normal life.

 

Both realities--the few who actively chose chaos and the vast majority who remained solid citizens--are but two sides of the same coin. TR Commissioners have a huge task confronting them.There are no simple, clear and undisputed reasons why some of our own people thought serious and profound chaos would win the day for them. While the vastly more numerous refused to travel the chaos road. After all, those who did chose to follow a safer, more peaceful and in some cases, a more difficult path of forbearance and love had no guarantee that their decision would ultimately carry the day. 

I did it my way!

J. Roughan

23 April 2009

Honiara    

 

Not many years ago, a famous pop singer, Frank Sinatra, crooned the song: I did it my way!  It became an instant hit around the world. The song's words spoke to many people who were fed up with so many official rules, laws and commands. The song struck a deep feeling of acceptance in many people's minds.

 

Unfortunately, the real world runs on rules, does have its laws and most of all, its regulations. All these are suppose to be for the better running of a nation, an organization, even a small family. For instance, these regulations must be followed by all, both big and small, to make sure things go along smoothly.

 

Last week, however, our nation learnt that one of its largest companies, Gold Ridge Mining Company thought itself above the law, decided to follow its own rules and have company regulations come first, not those of the Solomons. It imported a dozen Fiji security  people on its own without going through proper procedures.

 

The company was caught red handed and within a week's time all the Fijian security personnel were sent packing back to their home country. Our Ministry of Immigration had been altered, it asked a few pertinent questions and found out that there had been a major breach in national sovereignty. GRML was immediately put on notice that it had broken immigration rules and the imported security personnel from Fiji had to  return to their own country.

 

That was a feather in the cap of our immigration officials! However, it's sad to report that this kind of incident where foreign companies try to "do it their way" is nothing new. On the contrary there are other cases when foreign companies "do it their own way" which leaves the nation looking like a 'banana republic'. Take the case of the failed oil palm scheme on Vangunu Island in the Western Province.

 

Hundreds of Solomon Island workers have lost thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, salaries, NPF payments and redundancy payouts which were owed by Mr. Wong of the Malaysian Logging company of Silvania Products. Government had been repeatedly warned for many years  about the dubious nature of the logging company's oil palm venture. From the beginning the 5,000 hectares of state land at Merusu, Vangunu was an obvious logging operation masquerading as a palm oil scheme.

 

How right the critics were! Where were Agriculture Department officials, Forestry Division, Ministry of Commerce, etc. etc.? Shouldn't one or more of these ministries been more active to insure that a foreign 'investor' wasn't just using our natural resources for its own purposes. Now, CNURA Government rushes to put out the fire that has already destroyed the house. Project workers, some more than 15 years on the job, never received their entitlements--NPF contributions, redundancy payments, salaries, etc.--and have to wait now for a government task force to be set up.

 

It would be comforting to believe that the Vangunu fiasco was an exception to the rule. Unfortunately we have a similar case right under our noses. PDL Toll (formerly known as Patrick Defense Logistics) operates and services the Guadalcanal Beach Resort (GBR) near Henderson Airport. The PDL Toll company provides the Participating Police Force and troops with all their logistic requirements. 

 

Since 2003, when RAMSI became a dominating fact of Solomon Islands life, the company running GBR, depended upon recruiting local staff to work, prepare food, cook, clean, etc. But during this whole period, the operating company has denied it is the first and major employer of the GBR work force. In Parliament's March sitting, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition raised this very question with the Minister of Commerce.  The Government, however, seems to be unsure of which group is really the employer

 

Yet, it seems clear enough to a typical person studying the GBR operation which organization is the employer. Perhaps this is the place to bring in the "Duck Principle". If a bird looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a DUCK. The group in control at GBR alone hires and fires employees, sets work rules, pays workers salaries, directs clothing requirements and does what an employer does. According to the Duck Principle, it and it alone is the employer and needs to act totally like an employer.

I did it my way!

J. Roughan

23 April 2009

Honiara    

 

Not many years ago, a famous pop singer, Frank Sinatra, crooned the song: I did it my way!  It became an instant hit around the world. The song's words spoke to many people who were fed up with so many official rules, laws and commands. The song struck a deep feeling of acceptance in many people's minds.

 

Unfortunately, the real world runs on rules, does have its laws and most of all, its regulations. All these are suppose to be for the better running of a nation, an organization, even a small family. For instance, these regulations must be followed by all, both big and small, to make sure things go along smoothly.

 

Last week, however, our nation learnt that one of its largest companies, Gold Ridge Mining Company thought itself above the law, decided to follow its own rules and have company regulations come first, not those of the Solomons. It imported a dozen Fiji security  people on its own without going through proper procedures.

 

The company was caught red handed and within a week's time all the Fijian security personnel were sent packing back to their home country. Our Ministry of Immigration had been altered, it asked a few pertinent questions and found out that there had been a major breach in national sovereignty. GRML was immediately put on notice that it had broken immigration rules and the imported security personnel from Fiji had to  return to their own country.

 

That was a feather in the cap of our immigration officials! However, it's sad to report that this kind of incident where foreign companies try to "do it their way" is nothing new. On the contrary there are other cases when foreign companies "do it their own way" which leaves the nation looking like a 'banana republic'. Take the case of the failed oil palm scheme on Vangunu Island in the Western Province.

 

Hundreds of Solomon Island workers have lost thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, salaries, NPF payments and redundancy payouts which were owed by Mr. Wong of the Malaysian Logging company of Silvania Products. Government had been repeatedly warned for many years  about the dubious nature of the logging company's oil palm venture. From the beginning the 5,000 hectares of state land at Merusu, Vangunu was an obvious logging operation masquerading as a palm oil scheme.

 

How right the critics were! Where were Agriculture Department officials, Forestry Division, Ministry of Commerce, etc. etc.? Shouldn't one or more of these ministries been more active to insure that a foreign 'investor' wasn't just using our natural resources for its own purposes. Now, CNURA Government rushes to put out the fire that has already destroyed the house. Project workers, some more than 15 years on the job, never received their entitlements--NPF contributions, redundancy payments, salaries, etc.--and have to wait now for a government task force to be set up.

 

It would be comforting to believe that the Vangunu fiasco was an exception to the rule. Unfortunately we have a similar case right under our noses. PDL Toll (formerly known as Patrick Defense Logistics) operates and services the Guadalcanal Beach Resort (GBR) near Henderson Airport. The PDL Toll company provides the Participating Police Force and troops with all their logistic requirements. 

 

Since 2003, when RAMSI became a dominating fact of Solomon Islands life, the company running GBR, depended upon recruiting local staff to work, prepare food, cook, clean, etc. But during this whole period, the operating company has denied it is the first and major employer of the GBR work force. In Parliament's March sitting, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition raised this very question with the Minister of Commerce.  The Government, however, seems to be unsure of which group is really the employer

 

Yet, it seems clear enough to a typical person studying the GBR operation which organization is the employer. Perhaps this is the place to bring in the "Duck Principle". If a bird looks like a duck, waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it's a DUCK. The group in control at GBR alone hires and fires employees, sets work rules, pays workers salaries, directs clothing requirements and does what an employer does. According to the Duck Principle, it and it alone is the employer and needs to act totally like an employer.

Forgiveness, asked for and given!

 

J. Roughan 

16 April 2009

Honiara 

At the end of April, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, of South Africa, visits the Solomons to help us kick off a most important response to a bloody chapter in our short history. The Archbishop has been closely connected with South Africa's attempts to restore the severely broken relations among people who suffered grievously during the country's Apartheid period not too many years ago.

 

Our own efforts along this line are picking up steam. We are well along the way to establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Already the selection of  a panel of eminent persons is in its final selection phase and hearings where people who have been terribly hurt during our Social Unrest years will soon have their story heard. This review process comes not a minute too soon!

 

However, a major ingredient seems missing. Of course severely traumatized peoples' stories, loss of life suffered and their serious hurts must be publicly known and addressed. And yes, these people, the nation itself, must reach the other shore . . . reconciliation. But the essential ingredient to this whole process, forgiveness asked for and forgiveness granted, must play a much more prominent place than what I've been hearing so far. 

 

Without heartfelt sorrow shown by those who did the terrible deeds of murder, rape, arson, beatings, theft, etc. then getting to the other side, reconciliation, is next to impossible. TRC's work is not a mechanical thing: a deeply wounded person publicly recounts the terrible acts of hurt and destruction and then, somehow, reconciliation, can not be far off. Some say that by publicly revealing the terrible deeds of 1998-2003, then, these stories will highlight the "causes of violence and human rights abuses . . . and through its work to promote national unity and reconciliation". Reconciliation doesn't and can't happen that way!

 

May I suggest that TRC members view the Bougainville documentary film shot only a few years ago? It offers a vision of what happened to our Melanesian neighbor and how it responded to the terrible events of the ten year civil war on that almost destroyed that island. The film records the torturous and painful  journey of one militant's search for forgiveness for his killing of a Bougainville Chief who had a wife and several small children. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the repentant killer's attempts to finally bring closure to that terrible chapter of his life and achieve reconciliation with the family whom he had so wretchedly hurt.

 

The film follows the militant's search for the murdered man's bones and once finding them in the shallow grave they were originally thrown into are then dug up. It shows how the militant and his friends cleaned each of the murdered man's bones, reverently wrapping them in special cloth and then carefully laying them in a small coffin. Only when this act of remorse had been fully accomplished did the militant dare approach the murdered Chief's widow and his children seeking forgiveness.

 

When the slain man's bones were presented to his wife and children, of course there was great weeping and tears of sorrow. But out of that heart wrenching moment, the beginnings of reconciliation were born and carried through. In Bougainville custom, this act of public sorrow called for a public forgiveness by the slain man's wife and children. The obligatory feast, exchange of shell monies and other acts became quite secondary to the whole exercise of public sorrow, act of repentance and final reconciliation.

 

Our own TRC will certainly be hearing victims heart rending stories of the many atrocities that took place during the Social Unrest years. It will  prove easy to point fingers at those who did the awful acts of murder, rape, arson, beatings, etc. But simply making public what has up to now been deep kept in the hearts of those who were terribly affected is simply not enough. As the documentary film referred to above makes clear, the vital and necessary next step must be a sign of remorse, sorrow and shame of what the killer has done.

 

Of course such painful signs of sorrow go far beyond what TRC can demand and for sure no monetary compensation, strings of shell money or public feasting can accomplish. True forgiveness asked for and forgiveness offered lies beyond legislation. Forgiveness, true forgiveness,  comes only from the heart. This then is why the nation will achieve long lasting reconciliation only when both parties walk across the forgiveness bridge to arrive at a meaningful reconciliation.

The Power of Popcorn!

J. Roughan

9 April 2009

Honiara

 

An unsung woman from Savo Island returned to the Father on Monday this week. After serving her Master for more than 50 years as a religious sister in the Daughters of Mary Immaculate (DMI) community she has now left this world for a better place. While here on earth, however, she didn't waste much time but left her mark on Solomons history in such a way that it will be a hard act to follow.

 

Her track record proved once again the Bible's teaching that it's the world's little ones that make the biggest difference. Back in 1981 Noella had a dream. She found that so many little kids were hanging around the town's streets, were not going to school and had little hope of ever finding one for them. Solomons population boom was just beginning to explode and Honiara Town was struggling harder and harder to cater for the growing number of young ones. Sr. Noella set about doing something about it!

 

But how do you kick start a dream with only a few bucks in your purse. Of course, speaking to the Good Lord about the difficulty is a great first step but usually His answer goes something like this: Use what you have at hand and keep me informed. That's exactly what she did! 

 

Like every good development worker knows, you don't wait for the handout, or the money grant or some miraculous gift raining down from heaven to get things started. What Sr. Noella found at hand, she pressed into service and used well. At the Holy Cross Church compound, for instance, she put to good use two small wooden buildings and a near-by large rarely used assembly hall. That was Holy Cross Kindy's start.

 

Of course kids parents chipped in with modest school fees but these never really covered the full running of the school. At that time, government didn't pay Kindy teachers salaries. These had to be found by the school itself. Electricity, water and school running costs mounted monthly and Sr. Noella was soon looking at a debt mountain.

 

Here's where Sister's genius kicked in. Selling popcorn could be an answer to the Kindy's financial problems  Popcorn sales around town especially in the area opposite the old Town Market was her way of getting enough cash to keep the little Kindy going. Bishop Gurunku of Holy Cross had gifted the school with $500, a sort of seed money, but after that other funding was all up to Sr. Noella and her small teaching staff.

 

But the Kindy soon ran into a greater difficulty! Honiara's schools were themselves filling up and could offer little or no space for Holy Cross Kindy 'graduates'. Starting a Kindy was one thing but creating a whole new primary school system was something else again. But no matter Sr. Noella set her sights anew in 1986.

 

She talked Honiara Town Council authorities into giving her a piece of land--Nggosi, in west Honiara--to be the site of a new primary school. Of course we all know that Bishop Epalle School--3 Kindy classes, 14 primary classes and 12 Secondary forms, 1-6--now occupy the Nggosi land area.  

 

Sr. Noella's original dream of a small kindy in the middle of town had now blossomed into a full stream school boasting of more than 1,300 students and has been going strong since 1991. But it's worth while to remember that all of this started off with a single woman's dream back in 1981. Materially she had but a few dollars in the purse but did have a great trust in the one who had chosen her from the beginning to do this work. When she finally entered into the presence of her Creator last Monday, He asked her about the five talents he had given her and what she had done with them. When she showed how she invested the five talents and came out with almost 30 (classes now going strong at Epalle) He will certainly say to Noella: "Come beloved of my Father and take up your rest now!"

When people lead, leaders must follow!

J. Roughan

2 April 2009

Honiara   

                      

President Obana's recent election fundamentally changed the rules of how future political leaders will be chosen. His election was much more than a political event than a new way ordinary citizens gain the political upper hand. This time last year, for instance, it was impossible to think that a young, black men with a strange sounding name had any place to go but down in the American  presidential politics. The country's  leaders were convinced and they already made their minds up. They had basically decided who would sit in Washington's seat of power and all other hopefuls well as might pack their bags, write finish to their political ambitions and look for something else to do. How wrong they were!

 

In our own little part of the world, many citizens still read the present in much the same terms.They labour under the illusion that the nation's well being rests with the modern day political leader--really only a bit more than 30 years in the making--rather than with the majority of its people. Government's White Paper on Political Party Integrity illustrates this point with little ambiguity.

 

To make things clear as possible, achieving political stability is never found in the hearts of  those--politicans, hangers on, cronies, etc.--who consistently use the nation as a private piggy bank. They have too much at stake to seek steep, radical and fundamental change. Tinkering around at the political edges--preferential voting, tighter financial control of campaign funding, etc.--is something they can get their teeth into. Setting up, controlling political parties and funding them is something else again.

 

Even more fundamental is their dislike at the thought of bringing ordinary citizens into the heart of this debate. No, the typical citizen must be kept at arm's length from the political process. Yes, fob them off with project monies, help them with social payments when hard times hit them and above all, act as walking Automatic Teller Machines. Yes, allow citizens to push buttons to access dollar outflows to tide them over in hard times but keep them far from the heart of the political system.

 

Citizens basic and really only job, every four years, is to vote and then get out of the way to let the professionals--parliamentarians, government itself and caucus members--to take up the reigns and lead the nation without much interference from the outside. Professional politicans seem to have forgotten that this very scenario has been followed for more than 30 years and was one of the basic causes of our Social Unrest years (1998-2003) and dare to say it, the Chinatown Burn Down three years ago, in 2006.

 

Yet, Solomons people have shown themselves remarkably accomplished in a number of areas of national life.  Take education for instance!Fifty years ago, as was mentioned in this space in past years, most village people had only the faintest idea what this whole enterprise called education was all about. When I stepped ashore at Tarapaina on Small Mala in 1959 and started a tiny school it was like climbing a steep mountain. The school fee, at the time, was two sticks of tobacco I gave to a father to allow his small son/daughter to attend school.

 

In less than 50 years, however, the nation has grown, matured and come of age from the sticks of tobacco era to one of very high school fees of thousands and thousands of dollars.  Not dozens of school children but literally thousands regularly attend class, taught by trained teachers and continue to do this for years on end. Although governments of the time, both colonial as well as local, took some credit for this remarkable transformation of people's understanding of the worth of education, most credit must come from people themselves.

 

Because the country's education enterprise has been a slow and at times painful step by step process not easily grasped even by those who have gained the most out of it, our political elite and their followers, turning to our most recent past history gives much the same reading. Lest we forget, RAMSI's intervention, as necessary as it was at the time, was primarily focused on saving the government much less on bringing peace, stability and order in the village sector. 

 

Of course the terrible events on Guale's Weather Coast was there for all to see. But the rest of the nation, more than 95% of the population, understood quite clearly that if they didn't take care of their olos, fed the kids, guard their woman folk, protect peace, then who else would do it. The Solomon's police force was in free fall, the government of the day dithered and the rest of the world had basically resigned the country to history's trash heap. No, it was the ordinary village citizen that kept the bulk of the nation feed, secure and protected with little or no help from the outside. 

 

It's these same people who must be brought into the heart of the present political debate, to establish how they would treat political parties and what suggestions and insights these people would gladly give to their professional political leaders. Yes, when people lead, then leaders must follow.