A Solomons Stock Take!

J. Roughan

16 December 2010

Honiara. 

Successful business people, to keep their enterprises healthy, normally conduct an-end-of-the-year Stock Take. The business owner--counts  what hasn't been sold over the year as well as the business' money already in the bank--to see whether his business has been a profitable one, or still struggling to survive or worse, failing. We as a nation would be well advised to do much the same exercise and conduct our own Stock Take to see how well we as a people have been doing over the last ten years. 

 

Compared to the nation's first decade of the 21st century, the Solomons has started its second decade off strongly, well and most importantly we are a nation at peace with ourselves. Recall that the nation's first ten years in the 21st century was filled with major unrest and dislocation to our normal island life. For all intents and purposes, during the first few years of the present century, Solomon Islanders found themselves in the middle of conducting a war with itself, a Civil War.

 

The roots of that conflict were not hard to find. Leadership, especially our senior political leaders, were caught up with searching for easy, fast money. Governing the nation was put on auto-pilot, something best done on its own. One needs only remember the folly of the Tulagi Gold Dig, the Musingku's (Bouganiville's own conman) billion dollar scam, plans to bottle bush oxygen, senior ministers jetting off to the Far East for 'free money', etc. etc. It was no wonder that although these easy money schemes didn't on their own create the Social Unrest years, they certainly added fuel to an already raging fire of national discontent.  

 

Our 2000 Coup, years of Social Unrest--1998-2003--, RAMSI's on going presence since 2003, the 2006 national election with the Chinatown Burndown, the most recent 2010 national election and the Lusibaea court sentencing have left a series of deep scars in our people's minds and hearts. Not that the rest of the world outside these islands we call home, has been all that rosy and tranquil. Far from it! The world's events have had.too often, direct negative impact on our own island home--the Iraq invasion in March 2003, for instance, made it that much easier for other Pacific Island nations especially Australia, to jump into our lives with the hope of coming here to help us sort things out.

 

What international events, already afoot in the Big Outside World, will have serious impact on our own lives here in the Solomons over the next ten years or so?  There are many examples of world-wide breakdowns: the many financial crises in Ireland, Greece, Italy and France; the strained relations between China and Japan; the threat of war between North and South Korea; Vladimir Putin's warning of a Russian nuclear escalation; the nuclear build-up in Iran; the deteriorating peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians; the pervasive corruption in Iraq, Afghanistan; Wikileaks embarrassing world leaders, disrupting international relations, endangering lives, and threatening candid diplomacy.

 

These world events coupled with our own home grown pains and difficulties have a strong tendency to make our next ten years or so more, not less, difficult. That is why it is important for the nation to conduct its own Stock Take, figure out where our next set of major problems are coming from and prepare ourselves to cope with them. 

 

Not many nations like the Solomons get a second chance to re-invent themselves and end up in a positive position. Africa's Somalia remains a failed nation even after 20 years, Iraq and Afghanistan are in the middle of a nine year war with more years of unrest to follow, etc. Our economy, although not the strongest in the Pacific, still functions well for the Solomons half million people with months and months of overseas reserves to pay for the importation of food, energy and goods.

 

No, our difficulties will come from an other direction.Climate change, for instance, will test the nation to care for those village communities which will experience the strength of the ocean which surrounds us, Our poor of food security is another areas of concern and one which will test our strength to assist those people who may not be wantoks but certainly are citizens of the country and must be helped when the time comes. 

 

But the most pressing difficult we face is our unemployed, bored youth who have been at the forefront of each and every riot since 1989. Last month's unrest at the delayed Lusibaea's court case is an example. Whether the unrest is unleashed by swear words posted on a market stall (1989), a failed football game (1993) or a tainted national election (2006), the major actors in each and every riots have been our youth. They are expecting that the new government will create a youth cadre willing and able to help the nation in its infrastructure building or other works that pay modest amounts of money so they can do something useful for the nation.

Block the choke points!

J. Roughan
7 December 2010
Honiara

More than 20 years ago, 8 -10 November 1989 to be exact, Honiara
braced itself for an invasion of more than 5,000 rioting youths. That
youthful riot made last month's rampage along Honiara's streets a pale
imitation. The 1998 Youth Riot was the first in a series--1993 and
1996 ones followed--that hit Honiara but it was one that had the real
potential of turning into something quite serious.

The 1989 youth troubles was triggered off by swear words supposedly
written by a Renbel person against Malaita. The paper which had the
swear words written on had been tacked to a store door at the old
Central Market. Unfortunately, no Commission of Inquiry ever reviewed
the origins of this riot and so Solomons people never knew for sure
what was the truth behind the 1989 Riot. But that didn't make any
difference. Youths from all over town believed that the swear words
had been posted in the market and they were determined to do something
about it.

What better way, they reasoned, than take their anger and frustrations
out on an innocent group of people, the Chinese, ruin their
livelihoods and loot their stores. How such mob rule--stoning people,
breaking into shops and stealing goods--responded to swear words
written on paper and publicly posted on a market wall is beyond
belief!

But the police reaction to the 1989 Riot presents valuable lessons we
should listen to. Hasn't the youth-riot pattern been the same kind of
response as in the 2006 Chinatown Burnout and in the most recent one
last month? Honiara rioters seem to follow the same behavior pattern
since 1989. Heap up dozens and dozens of young angry men, march them
along Mendana Avenue towards Chinatown and before burning stores,
shops and businesses, loot them first. However, in 1989 the youth
rioters were in for a nasty surprise.

Solomon Mamaloni, the PM of that period, had his own ideas how to
bring Honiara's streets back to peace and to do it without loss of
life. He ordered his Police Commissioner of the lightly equipped
police force to do three things: block all entry into Chinatown
especially at the old Metanikau Bridge site as well as the entrance to
it opposite the Referral Hospital; use tear gas to disrupt and
disperse the mob if they refused to obey the Police Commissioner's
orders and, finally, refuse the rioters entry to the road leading to
White River where they intended to do some nasty things.

The PM's plan proved quite successful! Dozens and dozens of rioting
youth never reached Chinatown. When they tried to get through to
Chinatown by way of Honiara's main road--Mendana Avenue--the police
used tear gas that stopped them cold. Dozens of the rioters jumped
into the river to get away from the gas. Then the crowd re-grouped and
marched along Mendana Avenue towards the White River settlement. But
here too the PM had a surprise waiting for them..

Approximately a dozen or so burly, stone-faced Solomon Islands' police
personnel with billy clubs in hand were lined up across the road near
St. John's School, a natural choke point. When the rioting-youth crowd
reached that part of Honiara, the police gave them an option. Turn
back and forget their plans about getting to White River by the main
road since it was blocked off from them by the police. The alternative
of swimming around the road block at St. John's School or taking the
bush track in back of Rove was not particularly inviting. In no time,
then, the youth marchers lost their enthusiasm for the march and most
of them returned home, disappointed of course, but little damage was
done either to the city or to themselves.

I checked the old Metanikau Bridge on Tuesday afternoon when the riot
was in full swing and there wasn't a policeman in sight. Streams of
young men--no young girls, no women, no olos, only youths--were
streaming across the bridge. A number of youth who recognized me
warned me away from the bridge and advised returning home. When I
drove to Chinatown by way of Menadan Avenue near the hospital, I found
it completely open as well, nothing and nobody stopped me from getting
into the Chung Wah School area.

This kind of security lapse would not have happened if Solomon
Mamaloni's tactics had been put into operation. Blocking off critical
entry points to Chinatown seems normal, natural and should be
inevitable. Every riot since 1989--and there have been at least six of
them--rioters have marched on Chinatown hoping to cash in on loot,
goodies and stock. The 1989 Riot was stopped dead in its tracks by
blocking off the town's natural choke points. Shouldn't that tactic be
one of the first strategies used to frustrate other would-be rioters?

Time is not on government's side!

J. Roughan
22 December 2010
Honiara

The Philip Government has been in the driver's seat since late August.
That's more than four months now! Although it has survived a number of
dangerous internal shocks--death to two of its members, a cabinet
member's return to Rove and other serious internal woes--it still
manages to function as a going concern. But that reality is not the
same as saying that it is governing the nation. The events of the last
three to four weeks--ministerial shuffles, fining of illegal fishing
ships, etc.--are more about its own survival than exhibiting a strong
governance model!

But NCRA backers are claiming that the Government is still very early
into its hopeful four-year term of office. Present difficulties and
its hic cups should not be seen as anything very special. A quick
review of the reality of Solomons' politics, however, quickly raises
doubts about this claim. Basically the present government should only
count on being in power for three years, not four, to accomplish
anything of note. 2011, 2012 and 2013 if undisturbed by a successful
'no confidence' motion, are the only years open to it to push through
its legislative program.

During any government's last year in office, and 2014 is when the next
national elections should be coming on stream, national political
history reminds us that Parliamentary campaigning comes on strong,
one could say, overwhelmingly in the last year of the life of any
parliament. Little else fills Members' heads during the last year of
their term, except, of course, how to win back their seat in the House
once again.

So allowing that the last four months of this first year in office has
already disappeared like rain in desert sands it is a 'big deal' for
any new government to start off strongly in its second year of
service. NCRA is going to find it tough to gain back its initial drive
of becoming the new government of the land. But that hope must be part
of its new year's strategy to gain back people's respect and hope.
They are looking forward to a better and brighter future than what
they have received so far at the end of 2010.

NCRA's Policy Statement document is filled with dreams, visions and
hope-to-do plans. But few of these plans, given the three-year time
frame available to NCRA, are able to get off the blueprint table much
less become realities on the ground. There is one project, however,
that could be unleashed in early 2011, which could respond to a much
forgotten people, historically sidelined by government after
government since independence, and answer our youth's hunger and
thirst for paid employment and to be part of the nation's development
story.

I speak of a villager-crafted road stretching along Guale's Weather
Coast from Kuma Village in the west of the island to Marau at Guale's
southern end. Such a locally worked road project, if properly
presented to the donor community, could open up a whole new stretch of
Guale's land holdings to thousands of people who have been abandoned
by the authorities for more than 30 years. In fact, it has been this
very abandonment over a number of generations that lies at the heart
of our Social Unrest years of 1998-2003.

Of course, permanent bridges construction, culverts, strengthening
road sections, etc.call for expertise, advise and over sight
monitoring from outside the local community but the basic road
building work would be assigned to village populations lining the road
way. Extra workers could come from the youth population when called
for.

Such a major development road making project sends an unmistakable
message: Weather Coast people are important to the nation, it would
bring in much needed income for many levels of society of the area and
re-establish links of people with government both on the provincial
and national levels.

The message in this short essay is that the present government has
little time on its hands to effect projects and works to make a
difference to the citizens of this nation. It's vital that the newly
established government 'put runs on the board and quickly so'! Its
first four months of power have not been that productive and it needs
to show the nation that it is the right group of people who given half
a chance can bring the nation up to its potential.

Towards a fairer world!

J. Roughan

2 December 2010

Honiara

From the Solomons earliest days, from 1978 onwards, most political leaders actually worked hard to make Solomon Islands a better, more productive and peaceful place. In a word they wanted the nation to be a fairer place for all: villagers, urban people, elite and the leaders themselves. Unfortunately, over the years, many of them lost their way and led the people and the nation down the wrong path.

 

Solomons first 6 years as a nation, for instance, were solid and growth-full. We had started off our historic journey in 1978 a poor nation but one that had no great war wounds to heal, our colonial masters gifted us with a $30 million golden handshake and our people although scattered among hundreds of islands were no less united.

 

The first few years of independence 1978-1984 were ones filled with hope. Unfortunately the base price of copra, cocoa and oil palm, worldwide, took a nose dive and this development thing, we were fast learning, was becoming harder and more expensive by the day. In was in 1985 that our leaders with the help of many landowners made their fateful decision. There had to be a better, quicker and easier way to become more independent, rich and developed than the road they had been following for the first 6 years of independence.

 

For the next 10 years or so our leaders claimed they knew a better and easier road to gain riches and strengthen independence. Sell off the nation's round tree log wealth to Asian buyers became the wisdom of the day. Not only would vast amounts of money roll in but peoples' lives would become easier by the day. Yes, by 1995 millions of dollars had flown into the Solomons (but land owners also lost millions more into the pockets of the round tree loggers and some of our own corrupt leaders).

 

Rather than continuing along our initial path of slow but constant development for all and government work to strengthen schools, better health facilities, more involvement in people's cash crops and the creation of more employment our leaders convinced the resource owners that there was a quicker and better way. Harvest the round tree logs and sell them at bargain basement prices. The result of this decision proved disastrous for the country and produced a profound weakening of village life.  

 

But the real cost of that poorly thought-out decision came in the 1998-2003 period.  Hundreds of our people died, thousands more lost homes and livelihoods and a nation was forced to call in strangers from other parts of the Pacific to help us get back on our feet. We, fortunately, did make it back to normalcy, back on our feet as it were and once again we had a functioning government, a trust worthy police force and a people once more at peace with themselves and each other. But that process is now into its seventh year and still we're not sure of ourselves.

 

Once again our nation faces a crossroad. More than 180 nations worldwide, Solomons included, in September 2000 made a solemn pledge to achieve the 8 Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. In 2005 these same countries reviewed how well or how poorly the nations of the world were on course. This year, 2010, again there was another review of the progress or lack there of on how far we have come to achieving these 8 goals. The jury is still out for most nations and Solomon Islands is very far from its target.

 

These 8 goals--eradicate extreme poverty, achieve primary ed for all, empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, fight AIDS and malaria, ensure environmental health and develop a global partnership for development--are at the heart of producing a fairer world. No where in the listing of these goals, however, is there any mention about the need to work on projects.

 

Once again our leaders have looked on a universally accepted way of bringing about a fairer way of life for most people by working on the MDGs. We as a nation in 2000 publicly signed up to work on these goals. But over the years things changed and we decided that there is a better way of bringing about a fairer world. Fund individual villagers and town folk to work on projects. This is the wave of the future we are told.

 

Let central government work on the MDGs our leaders say. Each constituency will concentrate attention and resources on achieving a fairer world by pumping money into project work and hope for the best. As in the 1986-1995 period we made a commitment to go one way--help our people--and then did something completely different--sell off our tree wealth. In 1998-2003 period we suffered the consequences of this decision with severe Social Unrest. What will the nation and its people pay for once more promising something--fairer society through the MDGs--but do something quite different--project work.

Journey from the village to $$$

J. Roughan

25 November 2010

Honiara 

Solomon Islanders are in the middle of making their most difficult journeys since 1900 or so. It's the journey from village subsistence way of life to the cash economy. It wasn't that long ago when most islanders gathered their total daily food intake from garden lands and from the near-by sea. There was no such thing as home mortgages! Housing materials--roofing, flooring, posts, walling, etc.--came directly from the near-by forest. Cousins, uncles, aunties, wantoks all, were the labor force. Feeding them for a week or so while they put up one's home took care of labor costs.

 

Energy needs were found in abundance from the plentiful supply of wood in the near-by forest. Water for cooking, drinking, cleaning, washing  was at hand because a well situated villages was built close to the many major streams running in the area or from natural water holes. The rest of life's necessities--medicines, salves, antibiotics, lotions, etc.--were found in the nearby bush or at least a clan member had mastered the necessary local medical knowledge.

 

If the local scene was peaceful, tranquil and orderly--there were few family feuds, pay back situations or out right war--then life was fairly predicable..Unseasonable rains or droughts, plagues of insects or plant infections were a few of the things rural people couldn't control but these were few and far between. Life was physically tough--long hours of garden work almost on a daily basis, hauling bush material to the village, etc.--remained routine but peaceful  

 

The modern world of commerce, education, invention, military power, transportation, communication, etc. etc. had hardly penetrated the village sector 50 years or so ago. It didn't take long for villagers who had little knowledge of matches, kerosene, tinned food, suitable clothing, etc. however, to latch on to these useful items and in no time make them their own. From the lure of luxuries to becoming necessities came over night as it were. But what was clear that the life offered by the cash economy seemed an easier one than what they experienced in their daily lives. 

 

In truth this journey from almost a total self reliant life style to today's cash dominance to buy 'luxuries' has been gaining strength especially since our first days of independence in 1978. Honiara and all it stands for has been the strongest 'pusher' of the nation in this journey but other forces like the 1980s -1990s logging boom, paid employment, access to education, cash cropping and especially the overseas influence have helped fuel this present journey.

 

It was quite timely, therefore, for our own Central Bank and the Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme to join forces and conduct a two day workshop accenting the need for a people to gain financial literacy. The workshop lasted only two days but it was a wake up call for our leaders  to take heed. Just as the ability for a modern citizen to know how to read and write, it's obvious that getting a working handle on how to understand, use and work with money is critical to a successful Solomons citizens future life. 

 

No one argues that the reading/writing skill should be only for certain types of people, so too is the necessity of learning to use the special skill of money management, financial understanding and working with the modern world of money. To make all this financial literacy happen, however, different financial actors--banks, credit unions, lending societies, National Provident Fund, saving clubs, even money lenders--play a vital part in helping rural and urban people become financially literate.

 

That is why it was so disappointing that not a single Parliamentarian showed up at any part of last week's two-day financial literacy workshop. Fortunately, the Minister of Finance did kick the meeting off with a key note speech. However, once his speech was finished he was the only member of Parliament to grace the meeting and become a lead presence in the formation of financial literacy program.

 

For the typical villager to take this difficult trip from village subsistence living to one where cash dominates requires a good deal of courage and luck. It's vital, then, that national leaders lend a hand, appreciate what this new kind of life means and work on ways to smooth the passage.. Of course with greater access to more and more cash, then a villager can live a better, more productive and secure life. The opposite is just as  true as well.  

 

The serious weakening of national economies across the world currently show that the cash economy still has much to learn. The country of Ireland, for example, which only three years ago boasted that it had become an "Economic Tiger". Twenty years ago its youth were hopping on planes and ships, running away from the country looking for employment in other parts of the world. But the Euro cash economy transformed Ireland into a leading world class economic miracle.

 

But it didn't last long at all. Now Ireland is in serious trouble, owing billions of Euros and wondering how it had gotten itself into such debt. If a European country with high education standards, first class economic system and tested leadership could have fallen so hard, so fast, what does that say about us? That's why it is so important for leadership to be at the forefront of helping our people make the journey from village to $$$.

Marau is the place! Not Doma!

J. Roughan

11 November 2010

Honiara

Last week's essay detailed why it is vital for the Guadalcanal Provincial Assembly to put as much distance between itself and the Solomons national capitol as possible. Today's writing makes the case that the tip of Guadalcanal, the southern end of the island, would make a fine location for a provincial headquarters.

The Marau area, on its own, however, even with its fine natural harbor and working air field, is insufficient to be chosen as a worthwhile candidate to establish it as a provincial headquarters centre. But Marau located at one end of a villager-worked road starting at Kuma stretching along the Weather Coast's far west right into the Marau area makes all the difference in the world. Of course it's not a perfect choice! Land purchases would have to be negotiated with local landowners and water rights could be another problem area but these would be minor issues.

More importantly, the Marau area is far enough away from Honiara not to have to constantly worry about its influence and it allows provincial members a chance to recognize the whole of the island is under its jurisdiction.  Most vitally, however, a Marau centre establishes a creative way of responsible leadership responding to Weather Coast villagers' concerns about being once more abandoned by government as they have been for more than four generations in the recent past.

As mentioned in last week's essay, Weather Coast villagers profound sense of government abandonment directly contributed to the nation's worst case social upheaval. It would have seemed only proper, once RAMSI's militantly force had calmed down the social melt down in the area, that responsible authorities would have tried their best to respond to the people's profound hurt.

But just the opposite happened! Like a very bad dream political leaders, provincial as well as central both, distanced themselves from their own people. The Chinatown Burn Down in 2006 where not a single person was killed and only a few were slightly hurt attracted its own Commission of Inquiry in less than 2 years.

Guale's Weather Coast atrocities--at least 100 murdered, hundreds of houses burnt to the ground, untold rapes of women and girls, severe dislocation of many village people--caused no public outcry nor called for a formal inquiry to be held. Only court proceedings which sent less than a dozen or so men to jail for life time sentences became the nation's sole response. 

Once again, when provincial authorities could do something positive and creative to respond to their own people's deep seated feelings of abandonment they spectacularly failed the test. A Marau Provincial Capital could go a long way in repairing the hurt feelings of these people but what we are currently hearing is a continuation of the pattern of running away from responsibility and setting up some kind of commercial centre in Doma, not too far away from Honiara.

A Marau site for a provincial headquarters makes it easier to establish a village-made coastal road along Guale's Weather Coast's shores from Kuma in the west right to Marau in the east. Such a track/truck road would go a long way to helping villagers along the coast to transport their cash crops of cocoa, copra and vegetables to Marau's all weather port. No matter how bad the seas are and at all times during the year, Marau's peaceful, sheltered waters hold out the hope of transporting people and getting cash crops to market without waiting for weeks and months. Once a Marau centre is established would a similar road be constructed linking Honiara with Marau be too far in the future?

But the most important consideration is that the political hub of the province has a place of honor among its people and it is not seen as simply an addition to an other urban centre. Tangarare, Doma, Aola and others should be seen at this stage as fulfilling the idea of a Growth Centre which would be information hubs housing telecommunication gear and awareness building locations. These are needed of course but the political heart of the province should be sited at the core of its people, especially a people who have suffered so grievously over a five year period.

Doma?? Please Re-think this decision!

J. Roughan

4 November 2003

Honiara

Last week, Guadalcanal provincial authorities formerly asked Central Government to help them build a brand new provincial centre set up in the old Doma plantation, just west of Honiara. The price tag on this proposed establishment stands at a bit shy of a billion dollars--$871 million to be exact. At the outset may I congratulate the Province in making this historical decision . . . to flee Honiara's smothering influence and set up its own admin headquarters anew, away from Honiara's overbearing presence towards everything provincial .

 
Over the years, the Guadalcanal Province has been forced to take a lowly third place in Honiara and this in their own land. Of course, Central Government has always seen itself taking pride of place, becoming number one in the pecking order. Next came Honiara City Council and way down, in third place,  came Guadalcanal Province. Now with a desire to shift out of Honiara and move to a totally new location, Guadalcanal Province has begun its exodus from Honiara domination to take the first step towards a State System.
 
On closer study, however, the shift from the Honiara city area to Doma is not that much of a change at all. The smallness of the move but continues Honiara's domination, control and influence but it pretends to give the Guale people something new. Villagers along Guale's northern coast would travel a few miles less for services, markets and commercial activities. Villagers all over the province especially those on the Weather Coast, however, which suffered so severely during the Social  Unrest years of 1998-2003, will be aided not at all by a shift to Doma. In other words, the vast majority of Guale people get no benefit at all from this kind of shift. 
 
In fact such a shift but continues the Honiara influence at the expense of villagers who are in great need of services. Our Social Unrest years seem to have happened so long ago. The terrible happenings that made for an unwelcome history—cool blooded murders, burnt homes, rapes committed, loss of life, etc. etc.—have been partly forgotten.  The nation's courts have dealt with many of the criminals who had unleashed these crimes upon their own people. Yet, why these events had taken root in only one part of the Solomons with few similar examples in other parts of the country have hardly been addressed.
 
Weather Coast's people's present day silence, however, does not mean that the root causes that tore at the heart of society's social fabric have been adequately addressed.  Before those terrible days at the turn of the 20th century, many leaders thought that villagers in that part of Guadalcanal were much like the rest of the country. Yes, most villagers in the area were poor, politically marginalized, not adequately educated and with little hope that things would turn out well for them and their children in the new century. At first glance, these village people seemed little different from hundreds of villagers in other provinces. Why, then, did the serious social melt-down occur on Guale's Weather Coast and few places else?
 
Those people 'living on the edge', however,  had unfortunately experienced another grievance that other Solomon Islanders were not exposed to.  Weather Coast villagers had been suffering, over several decades, a severe sense of abandonment. Although they lived less than 30 miles away from the nation's one spot that housed the most modern, developed and prosperous part of the nation—Honiara, Weather Coast people  never participated in that life style. The city was a mere two day journey overland, less than a day by ship or an hour by plane. However, it might have been located on another continent for the typical Weather Coast village visitor.

Shipping to Guale's Weather Coast was, at the best of times, difficult because of the rough seas and unsafe anchorage up and down the southern part of the island. There were no roads in that part of Guadalcanal and unless ships could safely land on its coast, then getting cash crops like copra, cocoa, garden vegetables, etc. to market proved impossible. It became heartbreaking for villagers of the area, to see ship after ship sailing past unable to land to transport people's market produce. What did happen, however, was their product slowly rotted on the shore for the want of a way of getting it to market.

Given these circumstances, some 'hot heads' took things into their own hands and staged a rebellion. Fortunately, the vast majority of villagers never joined in but did suffer grievously at their hands. Yes. the courts jailed the most notorious of the culprits but the underlying cause of the grievance--the almost perfect abandonment by government authorities--continues on to this day. This author made a plea to Nick Warner, RAMSI's first coordinator, to begin a hand made road from Kuma in the west of the Weather Coast to Marau, to do something concrete to lessen the isolation of the area, but to no avail.

Here it is, going on 8 years since the RAMSI landing, and little has changed in that part of Guale. Next week's essay will detail where this author thinks a new provincial centre should be placed and give the reasons for shifting it completely away from Honiara. and Doma.