RAMSI Intervention in the Solomon Islands
Conflict from 1998 between militants from Guadalcanal and settlers from Malaita over land and employment escalated into the seizure of the prime minister in 2000 and the effective collapse of policing; the police force itself had fragmented along the same lines and its weapons had entered the conflict. By 2003 the state could not pay salaries or enforce law in Honiara. RAMSI was invited by the Solomon Islands parliament and endorsed by the Pacific Islands Forum, giving it a regional rather than purely Australian character. It combined a police-led security operation — collecting some 3,700 weapons, arresting militant leaders and prosecuting corrupt officials including a former police commissioner — with long-term placement of officials inside finance, justice and prisons. Riots in 2006 showed the limits of what had been rebuilt, but the mission handed over policing in 2013 and left entirely in 2017.
- Year: 2003 CE
- Category: Military
