| Solomon Is: Failed State or Not Failed State? Wednesday: October 29, 2003 Just month after an international intervention force was deployed to restore peace to Solomon Islands, a war of words has broken out on whether the country was indeed a failed state crying for help or just a lost and misunderstood paradise. As the 2,000-strong Australian-led intervention force begins scaling down its four-month-old mission to the islands, having successfully brought warlords to book and disarmed militias, academics are now picking up the fight. Leading the charge is Auckland University economist Ross McDonald who has hit out at efforts to brand the Solomons a "failed state", insisting it exaggerates the level of ethnic unrest in the otherwise peaceful archipelago. McDonald offers an alternative view of a country where tight-knit communities work to reverse foreign exploitation of resources and the term "failed state" used to justify the military intervention was dramatic and unwarranted. He said in many parts of Solomon Islands, things are quite stable, self-sufficient and well organised. Despite McDonald's protestations, other academics insist the "failed state" tag is justified and notions of a peaceful paradise are over-simplistic. University of the South Pacific political science lecturer Jon Fraenkel said those who questioned the term have "shifted into a more politically correct gear and are embracing a more tranquil and wholesome image of Melanesia's trouble-spots". Fraenkel points to a 14.1 percent slump in gross domestic product in 2000 to justify the failed state notion, along with the collapse of gold mining and fishing industries. � PFNet/PINA Nius |
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