Transitional Justice in the Asia-Pacific (31 page)

In contrast to the rule of law approach pursued through RAMSI's state-building program, a grass-roots, community-led reconciliation movement has been well underway in the Solomon Islands. Gathering pace in the
years of the Tensions prior to the signing of the TPA, its various members have continued to pursue justice for the victims of wrongs in the post-conflict era. These reconciliation processes have largely emerged as the result of three sets of influences:
kastom
, religion, and women's organizations.

The foundations of the reconciliation approach to post-conflict justice in the Solomon Islands are found in
kastom
, or the culture and traditions, of its different peoples. In line with other Pacific societies, Solomon Islanders ‘have long-established methods of dispute resolution’ based on the complex interactions between
wantoks
, kinship lines, clans, status, and social relations.
⁶⁴
Reconciliation is traditionally conceived as ‘a process that encourages the restoration of relationships’ through the acknowledgment of wrong, the attribution of accountability, the tendering of apologies and the provision of an ‘opportunity to forgive.’
⁶⁵
It does not necessarily attempt to ‘restore society to the position before the dispute began’ but rather aims to ‘transform’ society and ‘move [it] forward.’ What is more, these processes are ongoing. Customary methods of dispute resolution have ‘no concept of a fixed adjudication’ and, as such, ‘deals can be renegotiated when the circumstances change.’
⁶⁶

To
a great extent this reflects the fact that
kastom
is not fixed or static but can be remoulded, redefined, redesigned, and manipulated to deal with ‘new and unfamiliar circumstances.’
⁶⁷
This has been most prominently illustrated in recent years with regard to the role that compensation plays in customary reconciliation processes in the Solomon Islands. According to
kastom
, justice means ‘compensation for both sides’ of a dispute.
⁶⁸
Indeed, ‘[i]n the traditional context, reconciliation and compensation are inseparable when it comes to brokering peace’; it is literally the payment of compensation that renders a conflict over.
⁶⁹
Traditionally,
compensation associated with reconciliation ceremonies has been in the form of pigs and shell money although, more recently and, in particular in urban areas, it has come to be conceived in more financial terms. As one Solomon Islander explained, ‘When compensation is paid, in shell money or whatever, then the two sides are joined together again. Both sides are satisfied and nobody is angry afterwards
.’
⁷⁰

Just
as
kastom
is not fixed in the Solomon Islands, so too is its relationship with Christianity. This relationship has developed over time to the point where they are now largely inseparable. Thus, contrary to the common assumption that Christianity, introduced by outsiders, competes with traditional values and customs,
kastom
has adapted to embrace Christianity, and the version of Christianity practiced by many Solomon Islanders has become infused with interpretations of religious teachings specific to the Solomons.
⁷¹
Thus, as mentioned above, traditional notions of reconciliation include distinctly Christian practices such as forgiveness and conceive them in explicitly Christian terms.
⁷²

Indeed, the role that Christianity has played in driving the reconciliation agenda in the Solomon Islands has been considerable. Throughout the peace negotiations and in the years that followed the TPA, the Christian Churches of the Solomon Islands played a key role in promoting and facilitating reconciliation processes. The Melanesian Brothers, in particular, ‘played significant roles as mediators’ and peacekeepers, some paying for their peacemaking efforts with their lives.
⁷³
On local and community levels, the ‘Christian churches have been leaders in holding reconciliation services’ and promoting ethnic reconciliation ceremonies.
⁷⁴
On a broader
level, the establishment of the Solomon Islands Truth and Reconciliation Commission was largely the result of lobbying and research conducted by the Solomon Islands Christian Association (SICA). Commissioned to investigate the best way to address the injustices of the past, its Peace Committee (the SICA PC), recommended a TRC modelled on the South African TRC. Its proposal was eventually accepted by Cabinet, which formed a reference group to draft the TRC Bill that was finally passed by the Solomon Islands Parliament on August 28, 2008.
⁷⁵

However, some of the most significant reconciliations have taken place as part of Prison
Fellowship International's Sycamore Tree Program, a five- to eight-week in-prison program that ‘brings together unrelated victims and offenders’ to ‘consider concepts of responsibility, confession, repentance, forgiveness, amends, and reconciliation in the context of crime and justice.’
⁷⁶
This program is widely attributed with facilitating numerous reconciliations between prisoners including be-tween former Prime Minister Alebua who ‘was shot in the head, losing an eye, and through the elbow’
⁷⁷
and Ronnie Cawa, Harold Keke's ‘right-hand man who did much of his killing.’ Outside the confines of the prison, the Sycamore Tree Program has also engaged in ‘community mediation in former conflict areas, especially on Malaita’ and held several peace and reconciliation conferences in Honiara
.
⁷⁸

Reconciliation has also been driven
by women's groups such as the Catholic Daughters of Mary Immaculate Sisters, the Reconciliation and Peace Committee, and the Honiara Women for Peace Group. The main aim of Women for Peace ‘is to convince the warring parties to lay down
their arms to enable the restoration of peace, the return of law and order, and the renewal of good governance and democracy in Solomon Islands.’
⁷⁹
The group works to achieve this through a range of activities including meetings with militants, their leaders, the ‘highest decision-making bodies’, police officers, and the displaced; organizing basket exchanges between the women of Honiara and women in the rest of Guadalcanal to promote goodwill between the women of Guadalcanal; holding prayer meetings; and organizing peace conferences.
⁸⁰
In addition, the Women for Peace Group ‘was also present at the ceasefire talks between the Government, the MEF and the IFM’, its members being ‘able to mingle with the militants and leaders in any way they could, such as by welcoming people and serving tea’ and, in doing so, ‘share their views and opinions on matters under discussion.’
⁸¹
Indeed, the role played by women in the peace negotiation processes is especially prominent in the case of the Solomon Islands, Oxfam reporting that:

If it wasn't for the women of Solomon Islands the armed conflict wouldn't have ended. They went beyond their own safety and security to go out there to the camps to talk to their warring boys to stop fighting.
⁸²

As Moore notes, the women's groups were first to enter the militants’ bunkers to attempt to negotiate peace, and before long, ‘Stories emerged of men from both sides in the conflict leaving their bunkers and meeting together with the brave women, hugging and crying, honestly showing
fear of the conflict in which they were enmeshed.’
⁸³
This, as Alice Aruhe'eta Pollard explains, is a traditional conflict resolution role for women
.
⁸⁴

Although these two approaches to transitional justice have operated in parallel with each other in the post-conflict context of the Solomon Islands, significant tensions have emerged between them. Most prominently, many people view the pursuit of prosecution and punishment for the perpetrators of serious crimes committed during the Tensions as hampering attempts at reconciliation.
⁸⁵
While significant reconciliation processes have taken place within Rove prison, the incarceration of so many militants runs the risk of preventing ‘reconciliation processes outside the prison walls.’
⁸⁶
There are two main reasons for this. First, because of security restrictions placed on the number of relatives who have been permitted to attend reconciliation ceremonies conducted at the prison, reconciliation remains largely interpersonal. As
Alebua stated at the completion of his reconciliation ceremony with Ronnie Cawa, ‘There is peace in my heart after the reconciliation, but not peace in the heart of my tribe.’
⁸⁷
As such, some argue that RAMSI's ‘[e]mphasis on law and order and the resultant court and prison sentences has interrupted necessary and ongoing reconciliation processes at the inter- and intra-community levels.’
⁸⁸
As Averre explains, ‘[t]he initially non-programmatic, ad-hoc and reactionary approach taken to support the law and justice sector resulted in a narrow prosecutorial focus’ that did not pay adequate attention to the ‘holistic impact of arrests and prosecutions on the community and reconciliation’ until it was far too late. By then, ‘entrenched,
polarized positions on truth
and reconciliation’ had been established.
⁸⁹
Second, Averre also suggests that ‘whilst charges are outstanding there is unlikely to be any acceptance of culpability for what occurred’ and, as such, the adversarial nature of the criminal justice system inhibits the recovery of truth.
⁹⁰
Averre thus argues that ‘a stronger reconciliation at the national level’ might have been achieved had the criminal justice process been mixed with a truth and reconciliation process.

However, criticisms of this suggestion have come from two different sources, one predictable, the other not. Somewhat surprising is the position of non-governmental organizations, such as
Prison Fellowship International, which maintain that reconciliation should remain exclusively a community-based activity. To this end, the Sycamore Tree Project makes a deliberate effort to keep ‘the government out of their reconciliation work’ because project leaders believe that when the government becomes involved, reconciliation becomes strongly associated with financial compensation.
⁹¹
This monetarization of compensation has come to be seen, not simply as a form of conflict resolution, but as a conflict driver; in a very real sense, for many Solomon Islanders, violence now pays. As a result, some now argue that reconciliation ought to remain the exclusive preserve of local communities.

More
predictably, RAMSI officials have routinely argued that issues of reconciliation ‘fall outside the mission's mandate and can be addressed only by local stakeholders.’
⁹²
They have maintained that RAMSI's role ‘is to create the ‘space’ for conflict reconciliation to take place.’
⁹³
In response to a June 2006 report by the Review Taskforce sponsored by the Solomon Islands Government which, in part, criticized RAMSI for failing to address the causes of the conflict, Special Coordinator
James Batley stated:

RAMSI's position has always been that one of its key roles is to help create a stable environment in which Solomon Islanders themselves can take forward the task of peace and reconciliation, at their own pace, in accordance with their own customs and traditions
.
⁹⁴

This is not, however, to say that RAMSI or those involved in conducting the Tension Trials are wholly dismissive of traditional and customary forms of justice. As part of its law and justice mission, RAMSI has said that it aims to ‘ensure that the legal system also recognizes the traditional justice systems that have been used for many centuries in Solomon Islands.’
⁹⁵
Rather, what it seems to suggest is that although RAMSI is open to the idea of incorporating traditional justice mechanisms within the rule of law approach, hybridization has not yet occurred. Recognition of the importance of traditional reconciliation has also come from within the justice sector. In the case of John Leveti Randy, a member of the GLF tried on charges of arson and membership of an unlawful society over the Marasa Village atrocities, Justice Palmer noted that:

some sorts of reconciliation ceremony have been conducted within the community. That is also good and is noted. But again this is inevitable, for any community to survive and to rebuild there must be forgiveness, true forgiveness from the heart, for that is an essential ingredient to reconciliation. At least that opens the way forward for the Accused on his release to be accepted back into the community as a changed reformed person.
⁹⁶

Of course, in thus arguing, Justice Palmer was not suggesting that forgiveness and reconciliation ought to replace processes of criminal justice but rather that they both have important roles to play. In raising the issue of forgiveness, however, he touched on what has become a very sensitive
issue in the Solomon Islands and one that has come to the fore with the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
.

On April 29, 2009, Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, one of the
key architects of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, launched a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for the Solomon Islands. In accordance with the TRC Act, passed by the Solomon Islands Government on August 28, 2008, it is a hybrid commission, presided over by three commissioners from the Solomon Islands and two international commissioners (currently one from Peru and one from Fiji). The mandate of the TRC is threefold: to investigate and report on human rights violations that took place during the Tensions; to provide ‘opportunities for affected parties…to tell their story’ through a range of mechanisms, and to recommend ‘policy options or measures that may prevent future repetition of similar events.’
⁹⁷
To these ends, the planned activities of the TRC have included: