Amnesty International: 6 September 2000
SOLOMON ISLANDS: HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES ERODE PEACE TALKS
Members of rival armed groups and the police responsible for unlawful killings, torture and abductions must be brought to justice if current peace efforts are to have a lasting effect, Amnesty International says releasing a new report.
AI Index ASA 43/007/2000
MEMBERS of rival armed groups and the police
responsible for unlawful
killings, torture and abductions must be brought to
justice if current
peace efforts are to have a lasting effect, Amnesty
International said
today releasing a new report.
"If human rights abuses continue to remain
unpunished, there is
little
hope for the restoration of peace, law and order, or
for justice for
victims and their families," the human rights
organization said.
"Fear of reprisals is feeding a culture of
silence about
well-known
atrocities," Amnesty International added. "Many
aggrieved families do
not
know where to find the bodies of relatives killed in
the conflict, or
cannot risk searching for them."
A coup in June, supported by many paramilitary
police officers,
has
led to increased fighting on Guadalcanal island
between rival ethnic
groups, widespread lawlessness and a rapidly
deteriorating human rights
situation. The coup was led by the Malaita Eagle Force
(MEF - settlers
from
Malaita island) which is fighting Guadalcanal island
'militants' known
as
the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM).
"Ethnic Malaitan police officers defecting to the
MEF have
disempowered the police service, stripping it of guns,
cars and
equipment.
Criminals have been let out of prisons, and civilians
are at the mercy
of
undisciplined MEF or IFM supporters and criminal
opportunists taking
advantage of the situation," Amnesty International
said.
Since the conflict began, 20,000 - 30,000 people
have fled their
homes, at least 100 people are estimated to have been
killed, and tens
of
thousands are cut off from basic food supplies,
medical and other
relief.
In recent months, hundreds of homes have been burnt
down or looted and
thousands of people abandoned their homes to seek
shelter with
relatives,
on remote islands or in hill forests. Peace
initiatives are currently
gathering momentum but have yet to end the violence.
"People live in fear of looting, rape or
'payback' killings by
armed
political groups and criminal opportunists. Due to the
lack of police
protection, women and ethnic minorities are
particularly vulnerable and
have no way of seeking redress," Amnesty International
said.
Police have been unable or unwilling to bring
perpetrators of such
abuses to justice, and armed political groups have
continued their
operations with virtually no risk of arrest. Both
rival groups are said
to
have bases where they reportedly torture captured
combatants.
In mid-August, at least four mutilated bodies
were found buried in
a
shallow grave near the capital, among them 18-year-old
student John
Bosco,
a Guadalcanal islander evacuated from a school shelled
in June by a
police
patrol boat. He was abducted early July and allegedly
brutally beaten
by an
armed group from Malaita island because of his
ethnicity. His killing
followed the reported torture and killing of two
Malaitans by the IFM
in
June.
The current national and international efforts
towards a peace
agreement and rebuilding the police service must
address this ongoing
impunity. Plans to grant an amnesty to armed groups
must not prevent
the
authorities from establishing the truth and bringing
to justice those
responsible for atrocities like torture or the killing
of civilians.
"Peace and reconciliation cannot last if killers
and torturers can
be
sure they will never be held to account."
Background
Since late 1998, armed groups of unemployed
Guadalcanal youths,
angry
about perceived government inaction in addressing
their grievances,
resorted to arms, atrocities and intimidation to drive
out of rural
Guadalcanal virtually all settlers from other islands.
Thousands of
displaced Malaitan families abandoned their homes,
mostly via the
capital
Honiara on the Guadalcanal north coast, now a Malaitan
enclave within
IFM-controlled territory.
Since January 2000, the MEF has retaliated. In
June the MEF
forced
former Prime Minister Ulufa'alu to resign and
parliament to form a new
government.
Violent ethnic tension has recently escalated in the
southwest Pacific
nation's main island of Guadalcanal, resulting mainly
from unresolved
social and land disputes between local villagers and
settlers who
arrived
mostly from Malaita island after World War II.
Fighting is concentrated
at
the scene of the 1942-43 Battle of Guadalcanal between
American and
Japanese forces after which a Malaitan-dominated
capital was built on
Guadalcanal.