Solomon Islands children too were witnesses to the violence that saw 100 people murdered between 1998 to 2003. Image by Jason Dorday, courtesy of Scoop.co.nz.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By the Pacific Media Centre news-desk.

Solomon Islands: The first truth and reconciliation commission hearings concluded this week in Honiara with 19 witnesses giving their account of five years of conflict in the Solomon Islands, many urged perpetrators of the violence to appear before future hearings.

A United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report detailed eye witness accounts of how civil unrest affected their lives and those of their loved ones and community through 1998 to 2003 when civil unrest, and inter-island violence, caused the Solomon Islands to sink into crisis.

Among the witnesses were Pretty Rose Proctor from Choiseul Island who, the UNDP report stated, lost her husband, her brother and her niece in the tensions. Another witness, Benedict Maisura, spoke of how his father was brutally attacked and tortured by militants. And Maria Odilia from Guadalcanal, said she was attacked by militants because she married a man from Malaita.

The UN estimates 100 people were murdered and approximately 20,000 persons were displaced during the crisis.

The Solomon Islands’ Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been set up to hear eye witness accounts of what happened, and offer a forum for those who committed the violence to reveal why it occurred and how they were drawn into the conflict.

This week, witnesses and victims told the hearing repeatedly that they hoped the perpetrators of the violence would have the courage to appear before the TRC for the next round of hearings scheduled for April.

Father Samuel Ata, chair of the TRC, said: “We will definitely invite them to testify. It is very important, because the perpetrators do also need healing.”

The Solomon Times online reported: “During the five-hour hearing, nearly all of the victims called for the perpetrators to come forward to testify, and they also seemed ready to reconcile. Selwyn Kei, the final victim to testify Tuesday, said it this way:
’I am asking you, my perpetrators, to come forward to reconcile with me. Together we can carry our nation forward. May God richly bless us all.’”

AAP news agency reported that the Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Derek Sikua and Chief Justice Sir Albert Palmer attended the hearings which were broadcast live on the national Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation.

It reported how Robert Buga: “a part Malaita and part Guadalcanal man, speaking in the local linga franca, tok pisin, described the night in 1988 when his uncle went out drinking ‘and never came home’. ‘I am still waiting for his return. He is a father with three daughters, all of whom live with me, and I take care of them,’ he said.”

The TRC is designed to resolve tensions that still exist and to learn from the past and progress stability into the future. It was launched by South Africa’s former Archbishop Desmond Tutu last year. Tutu was influential in guiding South Africa toward democracy during its Apartheid era and advocated a peaceful transition through the years that followed the collapse of the racist Apartheid regime.

Further hearings are scheduled to take place on Malaita in April.

The UNDP report detailed how “financial and technical support for the TRC has been provided by a number of contributors, including the Governments of Solomon Islands, Australia and New Zealand; the European Commission; the International Centre for Transitional Justice; the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; and the United Nations Development Programme”.

For more see:
UNDP statement on hearings