Australia Worries About Unstable Neighbours

By Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer

The potential fragmentation of a number of states on Australia’s doorstep remains a worry for the country’s decision-makers. Problems in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea have required Canberra’s active involvement. 

As Andrew Pickford and Jeffrey Collins point out in their recent study “Reconsidering Canada’s Strategic Geography: Lessons from History and the Australian Experience for Canada’s Strategic Outlook,” published by the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, “Failed states create an authority vacuum, drawing in criminal and extremist groups, and prompting irregular emigration of populations.”

The authors note that such states “often attract external powers who seek to protect their citizens and interests. Such interventions inevitably incorporate a military dimension, and could result in an external power creating a semi-permanent footprint within striking distance of the Australian mainland.”

In the case of the Solomon Islands, by the turn of the century, the government and associated structures were collapsing. Governments rarely survived a full four-year term. 

What Solomon Islanders called ping-pong politics -- frequent government changes and side-switching by politicians in search of more lucrative jobs -- took its toll, increasing public disillusionment and leading to outbursts of violence.

There was intense and bitter rivalry between the Isatabus on Guadalcanal, the largest island, and migrant Malaitans from the neighbouring island. Not wishing to have a failed state to its northeast, Canberra felt it necessary to intervene.

In 2003 the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), consisting of more than 7,000 police and troops, was created  in response to a request for international aid by the Solomon Islands’ governor-general, John Ini Lapli.

RAMSI helped to end five years of ethnic conflict that brought the island nation back from total collapse.

Last year, Australia and the Solomon Islands signed a security treaty, which allows the island archipelago to request assistance from Australia in emergency situations of national security, including humanitarian involvement in natural disasters.

It will enhance cooperation with the two countries Post-RAMSI.

Australia is the largest provider of development assistance to the Solomon Islands, providing it with almost two thirds of overseas aid in 2016-17. In 2017-18, total Australian assistance will be an estimated $139 million.

The prospect of Papua New Guinea, due north of Australia, descending into civil war has also been a major cause of concern for Canberra. It was under Australian rule until 1975.

Occupying the eastern half of New Guinea, the world’s second-largest island, linguistically, it is the world's most diverse country, with more than 700 native tongues.

There was an armed conflict fought from 1988 to 1998 in the North Solomons Province of Papua New Guinea by the secessionist forces of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA). The civil war saw 15,000 people killed.

During the 1960s, as independence approached, there had been debate over whether or not Bougainville would be part of the new nation. 

The island is the largest in the Solomon Islands archipelago and its people have more in common in terms of ethnic, tribal and customary values with Solomon Islanders than with Papua-New Guinea.

Peace talks brokered by New Zealand finally led to autonomy for the island. A multinational Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) under Australian leadership was deployed in 2001.

Following the Bougainville Peace Agreement, the PMG focused primarily on facilitating the weapons disposal program, in co-operation with the small UN Observer Mission on Bougainville (UNOMB). A referendum on independence is scheduled for June 2019.

Papua-New Guinea will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Summit this coming November and Australia will foot much of the bill. Currently, Australia’s total annual aid budget to Papua-New Guinea amounts to $547 million.

As well, 73 Australian Federal Police officers will remain in the country until the end of November. This will cost Australian taxpayers another $98 million.

Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper of 2017 asserts that Canberra will remain committed to working with Papua New Guinea and other Pacific island countries “to support their economic growth and governance, and to strengthen our cooperation. Their security and stability is a fundamental Australian strategic interest.”

Instability in the South Pacific “could have strategic consequences for Australia should it lead to increasing influence by actors from outside the region with interests inimical to ours.” It’s assumed this refers to China.

On April 15, the Chinese navy challenged two Australian frigates and an oil replenishment ship in the South China Sea as the Australian vessels were sailing to Vietnam.