femTALK 1325 REPORT on the SOLOMON ISLANDS SITUATION

April 23, 2006 (FemLINK PACIFIC) When Serah Dyer and Josephine Teakeni flew out of Honiara on Tuesday 18 April, on their way to a regional workshop, their capital city was witnessing the initial stirrings of what in a few hours erupted into a full blown riot. Hours later in Brisbane they tried in vain to contact their family and friends in Honiara. When news finally reached them it was that Chinatown was burning.

Dyer and Teakeni have been closely involved in the Solomon Islands women’s movement for a long time. They have held positions of leadership over the last ten years, and they were part of the group of 26 women who contested the recent national elections. They are also both well aware of the contributions of the women’s movement to the peace process in Solomons. Teakeni is also the Chairperson of the (UNIFEM) Women, Peace and Security Committee for the Solomon Islands.

Now on their way home from the regional workshop on Advancing Women in Parliament held in the Cook Islands[1], Teakeni and Dyer spoke to femLINKpacific’s Sharon Bhagwan Rolls in Nadi about how now, more than ever, UN Security Council Resolution 1325 titled Women, Peace and Security must be incorporated into the RAMSI intervention, and future defence and security initiatives for Pacific Island Countries:

According to the first email alert that femLINKPACIFIC received from the General Secretary of the NCW, Ella Kauhue on Tuesday 18 April it related that Kauhue together with Hilda Kari (the President of the Solomon Islands National Council of Women and two other women) went up to the Parliament House to see what they could do as women. But surprisingly, RAMSI Personnel did not allow them in.

According to Teakeni, this is a clear example of the existing barriers preventing women from actively engaging in the formal peace process: “Let me say first that the experience of women, after what the country had been through, we have felt that we have been forgotten. In the case of RAMSI not allowing the women to go into parliament, (especially) for women from NCW not to be allowed to go in is very surprising because NCW is the focal point for the women of Solomon Islands, and they are a very important organization that represents the voices of women, and they are supposed to be in the frontline of brokering peace. (So) I am surprised with this report that they were not allowed to go in. Maybe RAMSI or whoever gave the order, did not know what importance women of Solomon Islands had and will always have in any peace negotiations or resolving conflicts.”

Certainly, one need to acknowledge that personnel involved were trying to protect the NCW women but is this yet again an example of the defence and security sector only seeing women as vulnerable victims rather than recognising them for their proven capacity to broker peace? In order to understand how women could have provided a positive intervention between the dissenting political factions Teakeni takes us back to the height of the “ethnic tensions: “I could give you many examples. Even RAMSI’s presence on Solomon Islands is one of the areas that women were asking for at the time when we (as a country) just couldn’t help ourselves. Women had come together and offered to government priority areas of action, including getting a neutral intervention force to assist. During the height of the crisis, it was the women who crossed borders between the conflicting parties, to talk to our children, on both sides (of the conflict) to get information from them as to what was happening, and these are the areas where men couldn’t move, women were free to move in. It was our involvement, our negotiations between conflicting parties that brought peace. It was very disappointing for us that when peace came we were left out. “

Nonetheless, Teakeni and other women have continued to pursue peace, including contesting the recent national elections. None of the 26 female candidates including those with proven international experience were successful: “We didn’t get an opportunity to get in and with all these things happening today, I just wonder what could have happened if women were in there,” says Teakeni, reiterating that even a few women could have provided a voice of reason.

“I would really like to know what the reasons were for not letting the women in,” says Dyer, who is also a former President of the NCW. She is surprised at the rejection of the women at the gates of Parliament. She knows that had she been in Honiara on the day, she too would have been part of that group who would have attempted to appease the situation: “Because I guess if there were women allowed in there to talk to our men, they might have listened.”

But why was RAMSI and other responsible authorities taken by surprise when the political dissent broke out into the violent confrontation?

Two early warning indicator reports (EWI reports) have been made public, as well as distributed through a range of official channels, but is this a case of such peace initiatives being discounted as “women’s initiatives” and therefore not taken seriously?

These EWI reports, which were a result of extensive community based interviews and surveys as well as a media scan, was produced through a partnership between SICA-Federation (Solomon Islands Christian Association) the Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation and Vois B’long Mere, as well as UNIFEM. They offer documented as well as gender-sensitive evidential information to better understand the root causes and ongoing dynamics of the Solomon Islands conflict. EWI reports are recognised the world over for their potential to not only improve interventions but to also alleviate existing tensions, and establish mechanisms for addressing conflict non-violently.

Teakeni is adamant that these EWI reports are not just another women’s peace initiative and provided clear indication for the potential for what happened on April 18th: “I would say this especially for Honiara. We had the voices of communities in Honiara, in the Western Province and in Guadalcanal, and these voices are representative of the nation as a whole, and there were areas that people were not happy with. These were not hidden reports they were public reports, that we were expecting the responsible authorities to act upon. However, now that these things have happened, I hope, this has triggered leaders of Solomon Islands, to seriously look at the reports and act on them.” Women she says were a partner to this process: “It was not just a women’s survey, it was a people’s survey. It was the voices of men, women and young people.”

These were the voices that more leaders including RAMSI should be listening to says Dyer: “(however) the problem that happened last week was not a surprise and shouldn’t be taken as a surprise. I think RAMSI was surprised, because I think they felt that they had the law and order situation under control, which they didn’t, and this is an important learning experience both for RAMSI and leaders of the Solomon Islands, they have to take into account the participation of women in all levels of decision making and contribution towards any development.” This she says includes involving organizations like the NCW as a vital part of the process of educating the broader community of information available from reports such as the EWI report, which could assist in preventing further conflict.

The signs were also obvious to Teakeni and Dyer who campaigned within Honiara as independent candidates despite threats to their own personal safety: “What happened in Honiara was not a surprise to me,” says Teakeni as she highlighted some of the campaign rumour-mongering which she believes fueled the recent resurgence of conflicts: “I found a lot of people spoke about what has happened in Honiara. That was the fear I had in my heart. People living in the temporary areas outside of and within Honiara were telling me that they were hearing that the Chinese would come in and take over of the land, or that RAMSI would bulldoze our land,” these fears she said, made her realize of the vital need to address a common problem facing many Pacific Island countries today, "There is a lot of unplanned development within urban communities. However we are being given an opportunity to try and fix these things,” and this includes being more responsible about the future policies and upholding the law, especially when dealing with issues relating to investment and migration “These were areas that I campaigned on.”

Likewise Dyer also sensed that all was not right, and one lesson she has learnt as a key organizer of the NCW Women’s Leadership Desk, is that the voter and candidate training should be an ongoing programme which is inclusive of male voters and candidates, who need just as much information on policies and issues relating to good governance including gender equality: “When we went out people talked about the need for change and so the result of the elections was a surprise. Voters did not expect certain people to be voted back in. But it is the voters who cast their ballot and we need a lot of education.”

As advocates of the full implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, titled Women, Peace and Security, Teakeni and Dyer offer the following recommendations:
- RAMSI needs to accelerate efforts to up-skill local law enforcement and security personnel in a manner that is conducive to the environment and people of Solomon Islands; there needs to be greater flexibility to better understand and appreciate the local realities and experiences
- Strengthen the role of RAMSI’s gender adviser
- Peacekeeping and / or intervention missions in the future, coordinated through the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, or other international organizations, must ensure a gender adviser, as well as ensure gender equality in operations personnel
- The Biketawa Declaration which guides such interventions, must be reviewed to ensure the upholding of gender equality commitments, such as UN Security Council Resolution, as well as commitments made through the Pacific Platform for Action and the Beijing Platform for Action

“The relevant international and regional agreements (to gender equality) must be embedded into the national laws and policies of any of our countries,” says Teakeni, and Dyer agrees, “When our governments sign onto these conventions and agreements, they do so on behalf of the people of that country, and I would like to see whatever we have signed as Solomon Islands, whatever has been agreed to, be implemented, and that is for the good of the country.”

About UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1325:

Resolutions are the strongest way for the Security Council to act, the other mechanisms available do not hold the same weight - Presidential Statements and Press Statements are not as significant and do not bestow responsibility or mandate action with anything like the same force as a resolution, and nor do they reach the field operations of the UN nearly as much as resolutions….and when it comes to women, war and
peace …it needs to work all the way!

Informed by Beijing Platform for Action…. Chapter E: Women and Armed Conflict, Recommendation E.1: “Increase the participation of women in conflict resolution at decision making levels and protect women living in situations of armed and other conflicts and under foreign occupation.”

This Security Council resolution is not only groundbreaking in content but proof of the achievements that are possible when NGOs, the UN system and member states work together.
On October 31, 2000, the UN Security Council adopted this resolution which urges states to be gender sensitive and to include women in all facets of conflict management and peace building:

Key Elements of 1325 are:
- Participation of women in decision making and peace processes.
- Inclusion of gendered perspectives and training in peacekeeping.
- Protection of women and girls in conflict zones and refugee camps
- Gender mainstreaming within UN system – reporting and programmatic implementation
[1] supported by Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, Secretariat for the Pacific Community, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the United Nations Development Fund

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