More than a billion dollars and eight years of effort by Australia has failed to build political and economic stability in the Solomon Islands, according to secret United States diplomatic assessments.
The assessments say Australia's intensive policing and aid effort has not succeeded in stabilising the troubled Pacific island country and predict it would relapse into turmoil within weeks if the multinational Regional Assistance Mission were withdrawn.
''Despite large-scale Australian assistance and intensive institution building, Solomon Island democratic institutions clearly cannot cope with the deep fissures and frustrations that divide the many communities in its society,'' the US embassy in Port Moresby has reported to Washington. ''A strong outside hand will be needed for a long, long time.''
The bleak assessment of Australia's efforts to build effective governance through the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) is given in confidential US diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks and provided exclusively to Fairfax. Describing the Solomon Islands as ''fragile'' if not ''broken'', US diplomats have suggested that external assistance may be required for another 10 or 15 years, though it is thought ''highly doubtful that the [Solomon Islands Government] or the majority of Solomon Islanders envision RAMSI's presence for that long.''
However, ''if RAMSI officers should leave tomorrow, the Solomons could quickly revert to the sad state before its arrival.''
Comprised of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific island military and police contingents together with civilian administrators, RAMSI was first deployed in the Solomon Islands in July 2003 at the request of the Solomon Islands government after a widespread breakdown of law and order.
The peacekeeping and institution-building effort has now cost Australian taxpayers more than $1 billion. In 2011-12 Australia will provide the Solomon Islands, which has a population of only 500,000 people, with more than $260 million in overseas development assistance.
Australia has more than 100 troops and 15 federal police officers deployed in the Solomon Islands.
However, despite the massive aid effort, US officials have approvingly quoted the assessment of key diplomatic contacts in Honiara that if RAMSI left ''it would take about a week for trouble to break out since none of the underlying issues [which caused widespread ethnic violence] have been addressed.''
''There are still people out in communities who have not been brought to justice for atrocities committed during the ethnic conflict. These incidents and the economic tensions ... continue to fester.
''As is clear to every observer, over the 28 years since independence, modern government has failed to take firm root in Solomon Islands soil.''
Senior RAMSI officials are approvingly quoted by US diplomats as saying 10 to 15 years more effort will be required before the Government can resume full responsibility for the country's governance and development. The US diplomatic reports frequently refer to endemic corruption in Solomon Islands politics.
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