A new book on the violence and disorder that gripped the Solomon Islands between 1998 and 2003 explores the motives of ex-militants from both ethnic groups involved in the civil conflict.

It’s the first time a study of the views of ex-combatants has been undertaken.

Fighting broke out in late 1998 between the Guales, the indigenous population living on the main island, Guadalcanal, and migrant Malaitans from the neighbouring island, when the Guadalcanal Militia began forcing the Malaitans out, accusing them of taking land and jobs.

Now, perceptions of what followed is portrayed through the eyes of 39 men who belonged to rival militant groups, in a new book, Greed and Grievance, by ANU College of Asia and the Pacific academic Dr Matthew Allen.

The result of extensive fieldwork in the country, the book goes beyond conventional views that the conflict was caused by greed and criminality, instead arguing that it was fundamentally political in nature.

“Most policy commentators have tended to attribute the origins of the conflict on Guadalcanal to competition between indigenous Guales and Malaitan settlers over land and employment opportunities,” says Allen, who is based in the College’s State, Society and Governance in Melanesia program.

“My motivation for this study was to demonstrate that the men who joined rival militant groups during the conflict were fighting for ‘something’ and that this something can be properly explained and understood only by looking at the relationship between culture, politics, ecology and history.”

The research looks at the ex-militants' individual views on the history of the Solomons and their peoples’ respective places in the country’s experiences of colonisation, development and nation-building.

Malaitan born Justin, one of the ex-militants interviewed by Allen, was forced to leave his home area in search of work after finishing just three years of secondary education. One of many Malaitans to do so at a young age, he believes the trend is due to “deliberate government neglect” of Malaita.

In the late 1990s, he found work at the Gold Ridge mine, east of Honiara, but was driven from the site in late 1998, because of Guale militant activity.

He relocated to Honiara, where he met a man who told him Guale militants had forced him to have sexual intercourse with his daughter.

Spurred by the man’s tale, Justin took it on himself to protect Malaitans not only from the Guale militants, “but also from an incompetent government and a hamstrung police force.”

“Justin and other former members of the militant group Malaita Eagle Force, believe that through their actions they saved not only Malaita but also Honiara and, in fact, the entire nation,” says Allen.

On the other side of the conflict was Jonwin, who was born in 1978 on the “remote and rugged Weather Coast of Guadalcanal”.

“Like so many of his contemporaries Jonwin completed only primary school and three years of secondary school before he was pushed out of the education system,” says Allen.

“For several years Jonwin worked in various menial jobs in Honiara, on the plantations, and in the logging camps, occasionally returning to his home village for a stint. What he saw in his travels made him increasingly aware of the relative deprivation and underdevelopment of the Weather Coast and its people.”

Allen says Jonwin begun to ask questions:  why wasn’t more of the resource wealth of the island being used to provide much needed infrastructure and government services. And why should settlers from Malaita island benefit from the land and resources of Guadalcanal when Weather Coast people did not?

“Pondering these questions, Jonwin and his friends became increasingly frustrated… and these frustrations boiled over,” says Allen.

“Jonwin and his friends believed that they were left with no choice but to take up arms in order to demonstrate their legitimate grievances to the government and to fight for their rights.

“This is their story.”

With the arrival of an Australian-led peacekeeping force, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), in July 2003, many rebel commanders were arrested, and thousands of illegally-held weapons collected.

The Australian Defence Force sent a final planned deployment of peace-keeping soldiers in March 2013, after the mission was deemed a success, with RAMSI now drawing down.

Greed and Grievance was launched this week at a two-day conference examining Solomon Islands in the post-RAMSI era. It is available from University of Hawai’i Press.  

Article by Belinda Cranston.