Solomons commentator says nation-building still work in progress

Transcript

A former secretary to the prime minister in Solomon Islands says there is still a lot of work to be done to unite the country under one banner.

Last month Solomon Islands celebrated 35 years of independence along with a decade of the Regional Assistance Mission, or RAMSI, which has been downsized on the basis that the country is in a stable state.

John Roughan says RAMSI has done a great job in some areas, but many Solomon Islanders have gained very little in 10 years.

He says he advised RAMSI's first special co-ordinator Nick Warner in 2003 to build a road connecting the Guadalcanal's isolated Weather Coast with Honiara - but that's yet to happen. Annell Husband spoke to him.

JOHN ROUGHAN: At this time of the year – July and August – the waves over there are frightful. You can't land. On the rocky shore you'd land once and that was it because they'd take your body. These people have lived in this forever. And I don't blame Nick. I blame our central government and the provincial government. The provincial government has decided that Doma, which is this side of the coast, is going to be the new site of the USP Campus – fine – which is less than 25 miles from the people of the Weather Coast, who have nothing. What kind of a message does that send? I'm pretty sure I know what the message it is. They don't give a damn about us. Yeah, we had 10 year of RAMSI, and we've got nothing out of it. I'm just taking it from their point of view, you know? So there is a great gap in our investment, understanding of where the dollar should be going. I'm waiting for the politicians to say, 'Look, we stuffed it up in 1998 to 2003 and you people saved the country with RAMSI'. I have yet to hear any of them say anything like that.

ANNELL HUSBAND: So they're the people that you really hold responsible for what happened between 1998 and 2003, the complete lack of leadership?

JOHN ROUGHAN: The leadership was just not there. With leadership, it's easy to say in retrospect, but what special thing did they bring to the table? Had RAMSI not come into the picture the leaders that we had, who still are in parliament, would have been inadequate.

ANNELL HUSBAND: And the current crop of leaders, how do you rate them?

JOHN ROUGHAN: Running this country is no easy work. And some of them, their educational background can just not cope with it. Others are more than capable of doing it.  But to try to get a thinking apparatus, trying to create a state out of these many victims, is a very difficult uphill slog, and we're not anywhere near that.