Posted on 07/24/2003 6:29:09 PM PDT by blam
Peaceful return to Guadalcanal
By Alex Spillius in Honiara
(Filed: 25/07/2003)
Australian troops and police poured into the Solomon Islands by air and sea yesterday to restore stability to the troubled archipelago.
Troops, vehicles and equipment of the 2,500-man force were delivered by Hercules aircraft, while landing craft from the Australian navy ship Manoora anchored off the main island, Guadalcanal, unloaded in the area where American troops landed to fight the Japanese 61 years ago.
Australian troops disembark from a landing craft yesterday Hundreds of islanders, mostly barefoot and in ragged T-shirts, pressed against the airport fence in amazement at the sight of soldiers from one of the world's most advanced armies, with high-powered rifles and in full combat gear.
The intervention, aimed at overcoming warlords and gunmen, is widely seen as marking a new beginning in the region. The Australians and New Zealanders had long resisted it, fearing accusations of a return to colonial times.
But worried that the Solomons were about to collapse as a state, Canberra decided to act.
The force includes members from New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga but is essentially an Australian enterprise. The last big Australian intervention in the region was its United Nations-backed force that entered East Timor in 1999.
At the run-down, single-storey Henderson airport, Nick Warner, an Australian diplomat who was appointed the co-ordinator of the force, was welcomed with flowers, Christian prayer and tribal warriors.
He promised to end the reign of terror of "a small number of militants and criminals who have brought the country to its knees and done a disservice to the reputation of Solomon Islanders as a good and generous people".
Sir Allan Kemakeza, the prime minister, emerged from hiding as the troops arrived, shadowed by Australian security officers.
He said: "The events which brought us to this place are not something we are proud of. But we recognise that the situation is beyond our control and that we needed to ask for help."
Most Solomon Islanders, weary after three years of civil strife that has left hundreds dead, welcomed the force.
The intervention was launched 25 years after the archipelago of 1,000 islands and 70 languages won independence from Britain. Ethnic tensions and a decline in police discipline led to civil war in 2000. A coup followed and the government has struggled to rule since.
With 2,000 military personnel, 320 police and dozens of civilian advisers, the force dwarfs anything seen in the colonial period and is the largest military expedition in the Pacific since the Second World War.
The mission is something new in a time of pre-emptive interventions: a curious hybrid of humanitarian aid, nation building and invasion.
A Canberra defence official said the force's main role would be to "act as waiters and bouncers" to the police. Combat units will be deployed only as a last resort. Alexander Downer, the Australian foreign minister, said there would be "no witch-hunt" of those involved in the war or the crime wave that followed. Only a few of the leading warlords are expected to be sought for trial.
A gun amnesty is likely to be announced quickly. When it expires, there is expected to be a penalty of 10 years' jail for illegal possession of weapons.
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