Topics in the Contemporary Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013. xv, 243 pp. (Maps, figures.) US$55.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-8248-3854-6.
Greed and Grievance is an important contribution to continuing reflection on the so-called Ethnic Tension crisis which devastated Solomon Islands between 1998 and 2003. The author concentrates on the perspectives of the two principal protagonists, the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM), bitter at historic Malaitan occupation of rural Guadalcanal, and the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), a response to the IFM’s violent expulsion of Malaitans from the island. Allen interviews ex-militants from both groups, placing their perspectives in the context of current historical, political, and socio-economic analyses of the causes of the conflict, as well as (often inaccurate) media and popular explanations. The greatest strength of the book is Allen’s empathy for all the ex-militants interviewed and his even-handedness in putting forward their views.
Fresh from conflict in the Balkans, the international media portrayed the conflict as primarily ethnic, using terms such as “ethnic cleansing” and describing the country as in a state of “civil war.” Allan’s ex-militant protagonists make it clear that the conflict was primarily ethnic only at the beginning and that each side had legitimate grievances. The author traces the historic roots of Guadalcanal underdevelopment and marginalization (for want of better words) as well as Malaitan initiatives in resisting British colonialism and building Solomon Islands as a nation-state, including in Honiara and its environs, such that Malaitans resisted their expulsion through the formation of the MEF.
However, with the MEF-organized June 2000 raid on the national armoury in Honiara and the coup that placed the prime minister, Bartholomew Ulafa’lu, under house arrest and forced his resignation, the MEF gained the upper hand militarily and politically. Crowds of unemployed youth flocked from Malaita to the MEF camps in Honiara hoping for spoils of war (for example, prizes from the vehicle dealerships in Honiara) and some MEF leaders began to raid the national treasury through compensation claims and extortion. The IFM splintered and a militant Guadalcanal Liberation Front (GLF) led by Harold Keke emerged on the west Weather Coast of Guadalcanal.
When Keke and the GLF refused to sign the Townsville Peace Agreement of October 15, 2000, the conflict continued on the Weather Coast with a government-organized Joint Operation comprised of police and ex-militants of both sides, resulting in massive human rights abuses all around. Allan documents these post-ethnic phases of the conflict, critiquing well popular tendencies to read the post-coup MEF criminal activities back into the original conflict and to disregard non-ethnic causes of the conflict. The 2013 report of the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), unfortunately available only as Allen’s book was going to press, documents that the majority of deaths and human rights abuses in the conflict were intra-ethnic and intra-island rather than Guadalcanal vs. Malaita. Allen’s interviews and analyses are consistent with this finding.
As tensions between rural Guadalcanal and the national government increase again today over issues unaddressed after the conflict, such as the expansion of Honiara, resource extraction not benefiting the local population, and lack of employment and infrastructure, Greed and Grievancewould be useful reading for Solomon Islands politicians and the general public. Indeed, most Solomon Islands politicians and/or prominent ex-militants prefer historical amnesia for this period, exemplified by the prime minister’s refusal to table the final TRC Report in Parliament, as required by the TRC Act. Allan’s volume is accessible and would be of considerable interest in the Solomons.
If I have one reservation about Greed and Grievance it is that it seems to lack a certain freedom at times, in that it is shaped by an academic tradition that requires the historical precedents of political, militant, or even religious movements be identified, explored, and connected, through academic analyses (historical and current), even if these movements and analyses are not especially relevant or even known to the contemporary protagonists being discussed.
In the case of the IFM/GRA, Allen’s exploration of the ex-militants’ relationship with the Gwaina’alu Movement (formerly the Moro Movement) is entirely appropriate, as it was widely perceived, with some accuracy, that there was a relationship between the IFM and Moro. Indeed, Allen explains the split between the IFM and the GRA in terms of their different views of Moro and Christianity. The relationship between the Guadalcanal militants and the Gwaina’alu Movement deserves further detailed treatment.
However, I am not so sure the same can be said for the MEF and the postwar anti-colonial Maasina Rule movement, which Allen discusses in much detail, citing David Akin’s new definitive history, Colonialism, Maasina Rule, and the Origins of Malaitan Kastom (2013). Akin emphasizes the passive-resistance qualities of that movement and there is little indication that the MEF saw themselves as somehow in the tradition of Maasina Rule. Rambo movies and Israel were sometimes more immediate models. A better historical case might be made for Malaita Provincial Government as the true heir of Maasina Rule, not the MEF. A similar argument might be made whether the 1980s concept of the Honiara “Masta Liu” (unemployed youth walking about town doing nothing) is so relevant now that education is more universal, aspirations are higher but massive unemployment still exists.
I see only a few small errors in the book. Allen maintains that civil society was excluded from the TPA talks. That is not entirely accurate, as the Anglican Archbishop of Melanesia, Sir Ellison Pogo, was included representing the Solomon Islands Christian Association. Also, the Honiara suburb of Ngossi lacks its proper nasalized spelling.
Greed and Grievance is an important addition to Jon Frankel’s The Manipulation of Custom (2004) and Clive Moore’s Happy Isles in Crisis (2004) as studies of the crisis. The passage of years gives Allan the advantage of more direct protagonist accounts. However, still overshadowing all three are the five volumes of the Final Report of the Truth Reconciliation Commission, available on the internet. Read together, the four works go a long way to understanding the Solomons conflict and preventing it from recurring.
Terry M. Brown
Trinity College, Toronto, Canada
pp. 971-973