Was New Zealand too slow to deploy police and soldiers to the Solomon Islands? – Stuff.co.nz

New Zealands decision to send soldiers and troops to the Solomon Islands to help quell riots shows the country is prepared to follow through on commitments to the region, albeit slowly.

Roughly 15 New Zealand Defence Force personnel were due to travel to the Solomon Islands on Thursday, with a further 50 military and police staff expected to follow at the weekend, according to a statement released by the government late on Wednesday.

The move came 24 hours after the Solomon Islands officially requested help in its capital Honiara, and follows commitments already made by Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea to send military or police to support the government.

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Anna Powles, senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security at Massey University said New Zealand needs to support the Solomon Islands if it wants to be a good regional partner.

New Zealand has a legacy in the Solomon Islands of supporting peace and security and has been successful at doing that, Powles said.

The country, located around 2000 kilometres north-east of Australia, was rocked by protesters who razed buildings including a hut in the parliamentary grounds and police station, looted stores and caused significant damage to stores and houses.

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare last week blamed foreign interference over his governments decision to switch alliances from Taiwan to Beijing for the tensions. But critics also blame the unrest on complaints of a lack of government services and accountability, corruption and foreign workers taking local jobs.

Solomon Islander Transform Aqorau said in a post on the Devpolicy Blog that there was widespread frustration with the national government, the attitude of the Prime Minister and ministers to provincial governments and provincial politicians, and the sense of alienation and disenfranchisement.

Gary Ramage/AP

Locals photograph Australian soldiers and Australian Federal Police as they patrol the streets in Honiara, Solomon Islands, on Sunday.

This is not the first time such tensions have boiled over. New Zealand soldiers were stationed in the Solomon Islands for over a decade as part of a regional assistance mission known as RAMSI. This mission was jointly led by New Zealand and Australia and our soldiers were there until 2017.

New Zealands defence and foreign policy focus remains on the Pacific region. Last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta in a speech reframed the countrys policy towards the Pacific to focus on resilience from a previous reset. At the time, she re-emphasised the region was a priority and that the country would be working to respond to the needs of the countries as they saw them.

Powles said the countrys focus and this came through in Mahutas speech has seemingly been on Polynesia. New Zealands going into the Solomon Islands, which is in Melanesia, is an opportunity to demonstrate the countrys commitment to the whole region.

Australia needs to know that it can rely on New Zealand to step up in the region as well, she said.

New Zealand and Australia have been charting very different foreign policy paths in recent years with Australia increasingly taking a stronger stance on the actions of China and aligning itself with the US. Most recently, this has seen Australia sign up to the AUKUS security partnership with both the US and the UK. This move led to questions about New Zealands role as an ally of Australia and what that looks like in future.

The decision to wait for a formal request for help from the Solomon Islands has led to the deployment coming days after other partners in the region sent personnel.

Robert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies at Victoria University, said he can accept that the country might be slow to respond to issues further afield such as in the South China Sea but that the country needs to take a leadership role in the Pacific.

If this is an area that is important to us, then our actions need to reflect that, said Ayson. Furthermore such missions are in the countrys national interest as common missions and commitments in the South Pacific, including on security matters are a big part of the glue that keeps the New Zealand-Australia alliance relationship together.

The Solomon Islands has significant development issues. According to the Asia Development Bank, around 13 per cent of the population suffers from undernourishment.

Josie Pagani, director of the Council for International Development, said the decision to send in defence personnel and police is being welcomed by the aid sector who have local partners that in some cases have been targeted.

Security is the number one priority, she said. When you're doing a project, you can't do anything if you don't have secure streets and cant protect people.

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Was New Zealand too slow to deploy police and soldiers to the Solomon Islands? - Stuff.co.nz