Australia and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands 2003–2017
Michael Wesley
History, geopolitics, blood feuds and the ingredients of a successful Australian armed intervention.
In 2003 Australia conceived, financed and led a Pacific-wide intervention into Solomon Islands to prevent the collapse of that state. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was to remain there for fourteen years, costing over $2 billion and involving thousands of soldiers, police and public servants from Australia and across the Pacific. It was remarkably successful in an age of disastrous interventions. And yet, by the time it was withdrawn, RAMSI had largely vanished from the Australian public's mind
Helpem Fren is the first comprehensive history of Australia and the RAMSI intervention. Drawing on still-classified official documents and over thirty interviews, it records the preconditions, motivations and dynamics of RAMSI between 2003 and 2017. Providing an intimate look at the challenges of interventions and development assistance generally, Helpem Fren is also a portrait of the personalities involved and the complex interactions between two systems that couldn't be more…
In 2003 Australia conceived, financed and led a Pacific-wide intervention into Solomon Islands to prevent the collapse of that state. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) was to remain there for fourteen years, costing over $2 billion and involving thousands of soldiers, police and public servants from Australia and across the Pacific. It was remarkably successful in an age of disastrous interventions. And yet, by the time it was withdrawn, RAMSI had largely vanished from the Australian public's mind.
Helpem Fren is the first comprehensive history of Australia and the RAMSI intervention. Drawing on still-classified official documents and over thirty interviews, it records the preconditions, motivations and dynamics of RAMSI between 2003 and 2017. Providing an intimate look at the challenges of interventions and development assistance generally, Helpem Fren is also a portrait of the personalities involved and the complex interactions between two systems that couldn't be more different in culture, wealth, size and capacity.
As Australia confronts the most challenging environment in the Pacific for seventy years, Helpem Fren offers readers a deeper understanding of the recent history of Australia's involvement with Solomon Islands and the Pacific.
Helpem Fren book launch
“
This is an important, path-breaking book … The result is a forensic study of the intervention: its beginning and end, successes and failures, limitations and legacies. The book becomes the benchmark in writing about the practice of Australian foreign policy in the Pacific – an absorbing, sometimes hair-raising account of how the Australian government’s mission staunched the cycle of bloodshed but attempted to rebuild a shattered state.”
Australian Financial Review
“
Michael Wesley’s scrupulously researched analysis of Australia’s Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomons is extremely timely.”
The Australian
“
Helpem Fren could not be more timely. It plugs so many gaps in our knowledge of Australia and the Pacific’s history which then of course allows us to understand present confusions better. The historian’s true craft is on fine display in this beautifully assembled work”
Geraldine Doogue
“
Michael Wesley’s meticulous, engaging and finely judged account of the RAMSI mission in Solomon Islands is a masterly and very timely account of one of Australia’s most extraordinary international initiatives. But more than that, it offers vital reflections on how Australia defines and defends its regional interests in the difficult and dangerous decades ahead.”
Hugh White
Michael Wesley
Michael Wesley is a leading scholar on Australian foreign policy and Australia’s relations with its region. He has previously published Making Australian Foreign Policy (with Allan Gyngell) and the The Howard Paradox: Australian Diplomacy in Asia 1996–2006. His 2011 book, There Goes the Neighbourhood: Australia and the Rise of Asia won the John Button Prize for best writing on Australian public policy, and was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary awards.
In April 2003, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister Sir Allan Kemakeza requested urgent international assistance from Pacific neighbours. The nation's government was on the brink of collapse due to 5 years of violence and lawlessness.
Michael Wesley tells the story of the multinational assistance mission RAMSI in Helpem Fren.
Helping a Friend: Looking Back on Australia’s Intervention in Solomon Islands
Twenty years ago, as the first few months of 2003 passed, the political situation in Solomon Islands — uneasy since a 1998 spike in ethnic violence, a 2000 coup, and a peace agreement — remained unsteady, with violent gangs extorting the government. In April that year Solomon Islands Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza wrote at letter to his Australian counterpart John Howard requesting assistance. What came to be known as the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) marked a sharp reversal in Australia foreign policy thinking, but one rooted not only in the geopolitical obsession of the era — “failed states” — but further back in Australia’s wary watching of its Pacific Island neighbors.
We spent $2.6bn on Solomons intervention: Was it worth it?
By the late afternoon of June 29, 2017, Lawson Tama sports stadium in Honiara was humming with excitement. Thousands of Solomon Islanders on the seats and grassy inclines around the playing field were talking and laughing.
Outside, in precise rows and pristine uniforms, was a parade of hundreds of Royal Solomon Islands Police. Inside had gathered a coterie of notables: the prime minister, the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, the mayor of Honiara, the governor-general of Australia.