REPORTER: Mark Davis
A Pacific farewell to an Australian soldier. Private Jamie Clarke was killed in March, falling into a cave while searching for a weapons stash. The second Australian death in three months. For Australians, the Solomon Islands has become a deadlier mission than Iraq and it's likely to be a much longer one.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Jamie was part of the contingent that did deploy in the wake of the tragic shooting of Australian Federal Police Protective Services Officer Adam Dunning.
The calculated murder of policeman Adam Dunning in December, long after armed confrontation had ended, changed the tone of the mission here and the threat assessment of placing an army of Australian police, soldiers and public servants in the middle of a Melanesian land dispute.
I'm standing on the island of Guadalcanal in the national capital Honiara. Among the islands out here is Malaita. Also out here are 42 Japanese and American battleships. This was a major battle ground of World War II and in some ways the problems of today stem from that period.
The Americans brought thousands of Malaitans here to help build their military bases. Those bases eventually turned into a city, and the Malaitans stayed.
The hard working Malaitans did well and prospered, dominating business on Guadalcanal in Honiara and beyond. An arrangement that lasted until the late 1990s. It was then that the troubled Guadalcanal leader Harold Keke emerged.
HAROLD KEKE, GUADALCANAL LEADER: Know about reality the root cause of ethnictation in this island.
Under Keke and others, Guadalcanal militants tried to drive the Malaitans off the island - attacking them, burning down their houses. Many were killed, 20,000 became refugees. In response, the Malaitans armed themselves, formed the Malaitan Eagle Force militia, launched a coup and fought back with brutal efficiency with the backing of a weak and corrupt government.
The militias ultimately turned on the government and the country was out of control when Prime Minister Sir Alan Kemakeza asked Australia to intervene.
REPORTER: It's a very rare thing for any government to do to ask for another country to come in and intervene to the extent that has occurred in the Solomon Islands. Was that a difficult decision or did you have no other choice?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA, PRIME MINISTER: I have no other choice. The country was in a total disorder. They kidnapped my brother, they burn down my properties, they shot me here at my residence, seven bullets. That's the risk I have taken during those difficult times.
The real losers through the events of recent years are here on the island of Malaita. Although many are still hanging on in and around Honiara, thousands of ordinary people here lost their homes and the lives they'd built on Guadalcanal with virtually no chance of getting them back.
REPORTER: You were chased off, chased off? Yeah. Were you on a garden or farm, or what were you on?
GIRL: Yeah, we were just farmers, on the west side of Guadalcanal.
REPORTER: And did you lose your house?
WOMAN: We lost our house.
REPORTER: Lost your house. No money for this one?
WOMAN: No money, everything's lost.
Australia's intervention through operation RAMSI compounded the Malaitans' loss. Many of their militia leaders may have been dangerous criminals, but they ruled the government and in some places, secured Malaitan interests against Guadalcanal land claims.
Today, a simmering resentment for RAMSI is more easily found amongst Malaitans.
MAN: No respect, we have no respect now for RAMSI.
REPORTER: Are criminals, are all the Malaitan men are criminals?
MAN 2: They think that all of us are criminals. So that's not very good. We complain about that but no response. Because it's part of their operation.
Views on RAMSI are mixed, but if there's one view shared by ordinary people, it's a distrust of and distaste for their own politicians who many blame as the cause of the killing and chaos.
MAN 2: They do things which are crooked.
REPORTER: They're not straight?
MAN 2: Happens is they stand behind and force the little people and the little people end up in prison and in trouble.
James Batley, the head of RAMSI, inherited the government that many view as the source of the crimes and turmoil that occurred here.
JAMES BATLEY, HEAD OF RAMSI: Well, we worked closely with the government. We - RAMSI came here to Solomons at the invitation of the government. So they are our partners in this whole enterprise.
REPORTER: But you're arresting a lot of them?
JAMES BATLEY: Well, we've arrested a few ministers, that's right.
In the past six months, RAMSI has arrested four government ministers and prominent Malaitan leaders and businessmen on corruption or murder charges. More arrests are rumoured, and it would seem that this could be the most dangerous phase.
A danger highlighted by the killing in December of Australian policeman Adam Dunning, a killing that occurred long after the militias were disbanded.
This suburb is on the edges of Honiara and it's regarded by police as one of the rougher parts of town. It was along this road that Adam Dunning was driving in the early hours of December 23. His killers were lying in the grass ahead knowing that he'd slow down to a virtual stop on the next sharp bend.
Dunning was fired upon by a group with military-style weapons. It was well planned and they were well armed. Anything but a random act. This valley is one of the fault lines of conflict in the Solomons. It's where the fighting first began in the late '90s. It's still a Malaitan stronghold and still a flashpoint for Guadalcanal activists who claim this land is theirs. It's where Adam Dunning was shot and where one of his alleged killers, John Ome, lived together with his wife Doris.
DORIS OME: When he came home we watched 'Home and Away', 8:00.
Doris Ome believes her husband, now in Rove prison, is innocent. She also believes she speaks for many in this suburb when she explains why RAMSI and the Australians aren't popular here. That Malaitan militants believed they would be given an amnesty if they surrendered.
DORIS OME: Because they say why they told us lie, they say because they say amnesty. Yes, I heard John Ome say why they say amnesty and then they come and arrest us.
There are other reasons why people here might resent Australians. Stories abound about harsh Australian police tactics.
MAN 3: When I heard the word from the RAMSI officer's mouth when I was locked in the container I had a suspicion they wanted to kill me.
But no-one, on or off camera, see these incidents as serious enough to have provoked an attack on Dunning. Most believe some other agenda was at play.
In the background of all Australians activities here is the death of Adam Dunning, a murder which has been made even murkier by the man I'm about to meet - and, like most meetings here, to be held far out of the public eye.
Elton Kannasi is in hiding. He's already been beaten up once and his life threatened for information he's made public. He was a member of the Malaitan Eagle Force and a friend of and bodyguard to the Prime Minister. Last year he revealed a plot to attack Australians. A plan, he says, was orchestrated by a minister in the Kemakeza government.
ELTON KANNASI: A government minister was talking to the boys if they can do a... if they can attack RAMSI officers doing policing in the Honiara outskirts. And that boy came and told me...
REPORTER: Why did this... why did this minister want to have RAMSI attacked?
ELTON KANNASI: I think because the minister was very much involved during the ethnic tension with the militants. He must be worried about maybe the police will catch up with him. Something like that.
REPORTER: And to scare the Australians away or to scare RAMSI away or something like that?
ELTON KANNASI: Yeah, to scare RAMSI away.
Elton was approached to join the attack. His account of two meetings he claims occurred at the minister's house is second-hand, replayed to him, he says, by close associates who were there.
ELTON KANNASI: And he told the boys the government agreed to facilitate any operations the boys would car out.
REPORTER: So he was saying, not just him, that the government had agreed that they should create trouble for RAMSI?
ELTON KANNASI: The minister told the boys. That he'd spoken to the government about other ministers... Other ministers and they agree to facilitate if the boys willing to... attack RAMSI officers, yeah.
Elton Kannasi may have scores to settle. Like many people, he resents seeing militiamen in jail while the so-called big fish are still free.
ELTON KANNASI: Stealing crimes, stealing crimes they're using the boys, asked the boys to kill people for political reasons and clear some of the boys who are in prison custody, they were used by the politicians.
Whatever his motives, Kanassi is not seeking any money nor can anyone claim he's made up a story after the death of Dunning. He wrote key elements of it in a remarkable letter to the local paper well before the shooting.
ELTON KANNASI: Prime Minister Sir Alan Kemakeza, I am almost guilty of my concerns for my involvement with you in the last years and now I made up my mind...
It was no surprise to Elton when Dunning was killed.
ELTON KANNASI: RAMSI don't wait until it's too late to catch the big fish.
Nor was he surprised that the second Australian to die was searching for a weapons stash in the same area. Weapons that were supposedly all collected 18 months before.
REPORTER: So this was the minister saying he was going to give them guns?
ELTON KANNASI: He was going to give them guns, he'd already got 11 guns. The minister told the boys "I've qot 11 guns" I think that was from his group, the government group. They got 11 guns to give the boys.
REPORTER: I believe you're familiar with Elton Kannasi's claims that the militants were being encouraged to attack Australians. Have his claims been investigated?
JAMES BATLEY: Yeah, he's written to me and I've referred that letter to the police and he has said to me that he's concerned for his own safety and again I've said that if he does have concerns with his own safety that he should speak to the police as a matter of urgency.
The police aren't saying what they make of Kanassi's account. But there is enough evidence to make RAMSI wary about the company that some government ministers are keeping. John Ome may be a loving father and husband but the Dunning killing is the second murder charge he's facing. He will also be on trial for the murder of a Guadalcanal leader, shot, but it seems not killed, then bound and driven off a cliff.
Ome and another former Eagle Force militiaman charged with the Dunning shooting, were also very close associates of a serving minister.
ELTON KANNASI: They stay with him every day, they drive his vehicle. They drink beer together.
REPORTER: They drove his car, they have - they socialise with him, they're tough guys, yeah? They're tough guys for the minister, is that the deal?
ELTON KANNASI: The minister uses these boys at all times to assist security.
REPORTER: And these are the guys that have been arrested for the killing of Adam...
ELTON KANNASI: Those guys were arrested for the killing I don't know if they did t or not but they got arrested.
REPORTER: Does it disturb you that one of your ministers was has a very close association with one of the men that's being charged with killing Adam Dunning?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA: That is what I heard from other people that the house was searched, my minister's house was searched, because of this relationship with the other suspect. I'm sorry about that, if that happens - some involvement or not I'm not sure.
The Australians may be having to deal with some unpalatable members of the government, but it's a government on a very short string. The Australian takeover of the Solomons has been comprehensive. Like other arms of government, the Solomon Islands police force, don't get much of a look in beyond the most basic of duties. RAMSI is a regional force but it has become overwhelmingly Australian.
Nothing happens here in policing, justice, finance or the public service that isn't controlled by Australian officials. No-one wants to mention the colony word but Australia has effectively adopted a country. And there's little room in or out of parliament for anyone to challenge that arrangement.
I'm off to visit Francis Zarma. Until a few weeks ago he was finance minister here, one of the most important members of the government, until he presented this report to parliament fairly mildly criticising RAMSI and Australia. Two days later, he was sacked.
FRANCIS ZARMA: Well this is the parliament chambers. This area of the house is the Government, and this is where I sat.
To Francis Zarma, Parliament House seemed the appropriate forum to raise issues of sovereignty. He believed RAMSI tactics were overkill and a liability, but he doubts anyone else will say that again.
FRANCIS ZARMA: It wasn't well received and that resulted in my being removed.
REPORTER: You were kicked out from that?
FRANCIS ZARMA: Yeah.
REPORTER: Overkill and a liability? To the country. Why?
FRANCIS ZARMA: It was heavy handed in one sense. And I think liability in the sense of it has economic, social and cultural effects.
REPORTER: Essentially the Australians are trying to control too much here, more than is needed, do you think?
FRANCIS ZARMA: That's right.
REPORTER: And why do you think they want to do that? This is the key question.
FRANCIS ZARMA: Well, it's going to be very difficult to say, but if you really look at it, I think because Australia has got its security interest in the Pacific and with all the fear of al-Qa'ida, terrorism and all that, and I think, you know, they seem to want to control this place so that nothing gets to Australia.
REPORTER: Did you have any discussions with Australian officials about those dismissals?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA: No, 98% of the population still like RAMSI to be in the country. We are representing these people. If you think otherwise then something is wrong.
While some may challenge the generosity of the PM's arithmetic, few would doubt the general sentiment. With some dangerous exceptions, RAMSI is very popular throughout the Solomons. Why wouldn't it be - the rule of Australian James Batley delivers not just peace but goods and services.
Here on the remote Weathercoast on the southern side of Guadalcanal, a government visit or government largesse used to be a rare event even before the fighting that tore this region apart.
JAMES BATLEY: Well this is... we're going towards Kolina Primary School which this is one of the areas which was badly affected by the violence in what Solomon Islanders call "the tension times".
When Australia was planning on deploying in 2003, it was this stretch of coast that they feared the most - crossing through the heart of Harold Keke territory.
JAMES BATLEY: I expect to be very much welcomed here.
It's a good natured display today but the warlords that ruled here didn't ask for the intervention.
This village was on the dividing line between Keke supporters and government militias. The area was decimated. In the end, the people here were fighting each other, not the Malaitans. Villages destroyed, people killed, most people fled and hid in the hills for years. The children attending this school opening missed up to four years of their education.
JAMES BATLEY: There is now peace. Without peace ... there'll be no development. No development, no education. If no education then our children will remain in darkness.
Amongst the festivities, it's hard to imagine that these people were butchering each other a short time ago. Today, surrounded by RAMSI officials, no-one talks of revenge or of much else for that matter.
REPORTER: So can you live together now, can you get on now or not so much?
MAN 3: I don't know.
And, it seems, no-one ever supported Harold Keke and his causes.
REPORTER: What did you think of him before? Some people support, some people not support?
GRAHAM: Before he went, I did not support him.
This man felt a bit guilt-ridden. He couldn't speak to me openly. A few days later he was to take a 6-hour boat trip to find me in Honiara. We met in a quiet park behind Rove prison where Keke and hundreds of other militants are being held.
GRAHAM: Why I support Keke... because we worked together and fought for this island against the people from Malaita.
Like many other Guadalcanal militants, Graham ultimately changed sides and joined the equally vicious pro-government militia.
He knows that there are still scores to be settled on both sides.
GRAHAM: These people are fully supportive of Harold. And Kolina and beyond are supporting the police.
Our interview comes to a halt when one of Keke's commanders happens to walk by, Stanley Joashe.
GRAHAM: I'm not frightened.
REPORTER: Stanley? Hi. I'm Mark from Australian television, SBS TV.
Stanley didn't resist RAMSI's arrival but he makes no apologies for the bloodshed during Keke's uprising.
REPORTER: Keke and his boys, they murdered a lot of people, a lot of people on the Weathercoast and the houses burnt.
STANLEY JOASHE: Yeah, that... is a military issue. A military issue. In the military... I can kill anybody. You can kill them because that's what the military is about. The military can do that.
Everything is fair in war and, for Stanley, the battle to get back all Guadalcanal land is still not over.
STANLEY JOASHE: We want our land restored to us. That's why we're fighting for this, the land must come back to its rightful owner.
REPORTER: But not now?
STANLEY JOASHE: Yeah, but not now
REPORTER: When RAMSI goes or something? Yeah, might be.
No-one knows how long RAMSI will stay here but most believe it will be at least 10 years. Australia will be extremely lucky if the core tensions here don't explode before then.
A Pacific farewell to an Australian soldier. Private Jamie Clarke was killed in March, falling into a cave while searching for a weapons stash. The second Australian death in three months. For Australians, the Solomon Islands has become a deadlier mission than Iraq and it's likely to be a much longer one.
PRESS CONFERENCE: Jamie was part of the contingent that did deploy in the wake of the tragic shooting of Australian Federal Police Protective Services Officer Adam Dunning.
The calculated murder of policeman Adam Dunning in December, long after armed confrontation had ended, changed the tone of the mission here and the threat assessment of placing an army of Australian police, soldiers and public servants in the middle of a Melanesian land dispute.
I'm standing on the island of Guadalcanal in the national capital Honiara. Among the islands out here is Malaita. Also out here are 42 Japanese and American battleships. This was a major battle ground of World War II and in some ways the problems of today stem from that period.
The Americans brought thousands of Malaitans here to help build their military bases. Those bases eventually turned into a city, and the Malaitans stayed.
The hard working Malaitans did well and prospered, dominating business on Guadalcanal in Honiara and beyond. An arrangement that lasted until the late 1990s. It was then that the troubled Guadalcanal leader Harold Keke emerged.
HAROLD KEKE, GUADALCANAL LEADER: Know about reality the root cause of ethnictation in this island.
Under Keke and others, Guadalcanal militants tried to drive the Malaitans off the island - attacking them, burning down their houses. Many were killed, 20,000 became refugees. In response, the Malaitans armed themselves, formed the Malaitan Eagle Force militia, launched a coup and fought back with brutal efficiency with the backing of a weak and corrupt government.
The militias ultimately turned on the government and the country was out of control when Prime Minister Sir Alan Kemakeza asked Australia to intervene.
REPORTER: It's a very rare thing for any government to do to ask for another country to come in and intervene to the extent that has occurred in the Solomon Islands. Was that a difficult decision or did you have no other choice?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA, PRIME MINISTER: I have no other choice. The country was in a total disorder. They kidnapped my brother, they burn down my properties, they shot me here at my residence, seven bullets. That's the risk I have taken during those difficult times.
The real losers through the events of recent years are here on the island of Malaita. Although many are still hanging on in and around Honiara, thousands of ordinary people here lost their homes and the lives they'd built on Guadalcanal with virtually no chance of getting them back.
REPORTER: You were chased off, chased off? Yeah. Were you on a garden or farm, or what were you on?
GIRL: Yeah, we were just farmers, on the west side of Guadalcanal.
REPORTER: And did you lose your house?
WOMAN: We lost our house.
REPORTER: Lost your house. No money for this one?
WOMAN: No money, everything's lost.
Australia's intervention through operation RAMSI compounded the Malaitans' loss. Many of their militia leaders may have been dangerous criminals, but they ruled the government and in some places, secured Malaitan interests against Guadalcanal land claims.
Today, a simmering resentment for RAMSI is more easily found amongst Malaitans.
MAN: No respect, we have no respect now for RAMSI.
REPORTER: Are criminals, are all the Malaitan men are criminals?
MAN 2: They think that all of us are criminals. So that's not very good. We complain about that but no response. Because it's part of their operation.
Views on RAMSI are mixed, but if there's one view shared by ordinary people, it's a distrust of and distaste for their own politicians who many blame as the cause of the killing and chaos.
MAN 2: They do things which are crooked.
REPORTER: They're not straight?
MAN 2: Happens is they stand behind and force the little people and the little people end up in prison and in trouble.
James Batley, the head of RAMSI, inherited the government that many view as the source of the crimes and turmoil that occurred here.
JAMES BATLEY, HEAD OF RAMSI: Well, we worked closely with the government. We - RAMSI came here to Solomons at the invitation of the government. So they are our partners in this whole enterprise.
REPORTER: But you're arresting a lot of them?
JAMES BATLEY: Well, we've arrested a few ministers, that's right.
In the past six months, RAMSI has arrested four government ministers and prominent Malaitan leaders and businessmen on corruption or murder charges. More arrests are rumoured, and it would seem that this could be the most dangerous phase.
A danger highlighted by the killing in December of Australian policeman Adam Dunning, a killing that occurred long after the militias were disbanded.
This suburb is on the edges of Honiara and it's regarded by police as one of the rougher parts of town. It was along this road that Adam Dunning was driving in the early hours of December 23. His killers were lying in the grass ahead knowing that he'd slow down to a virtual stop on the next sharp bend.
Dunning was fired upon by a group with military-style weapons. It was well planned and they were well armed. Anything but a random act. This valley is one of the fault lines of conflict in the Solomons. It's where the fighting first began in the late '90s. It's still a Malaitan stronghold and still a flashpoint for Guadalcanal activists who claim this land is theirs. It's where Adam Dunning was shot and where one of his alleged killers, John Ome, lived together with his wife Doris.
DORIS OME: When he came home we watched 'Home and Away', 8:00.
Doris Ome believes her husband, now in Rove prison, is innocent. She also believes she speaks for many in this suburb when she explains why RAMSI and the Australians aren't popular here. That Malaitan militants believed they would be given an amnesty if they surrendered.
DORIS OME: Because they say why they told us lie, they say because they say amnesty. Yes, I heard John Ome say why they say amnesty and then they come and arrest us.
There are other reasons why people here might resent Australians. Stories abound about harsh Australian police tactics.
MAN 3: When I heard the word from the RAMSI officer's mouth when I was locked in the container I had a suspicion they wanted to kill me.
But no-one, on or off camera, see these incidents as serious enough to have provoked an attack on Dunning. Most believe some other agenda was at play.
In the background of all Australians activities here is the death of Adam Dunning, a murder which has been made even murkier by the man I'm about to meet - and, like most meetings here, to be held far out of the public eye.
Elton Kannasi is in hiding. He's already been beaten up once and his life threatened for information he's made public. He was a member of the Malaitan Eagle Force and a friend of and bodyguard to the Prime Minister. Last year he revealed a plot to attack Australians. A plan, he says, was orchestrated by a minister in the Kemakeza government.
ELTON KANNASI: A government minister was talking to the boys if they can do a... if they can attack RAMSI officers doing policing in the Honiara outskirts. And that boy came and told me...
REPORTER: Why did this... why did this minister want to have RAMSI attacked?
ELTON KANNASI: I think because the minister was very much involved during the ethnic tension with the militants. He must be worried about maybe the police will catch up with him. Something like that.
REPORTER: And to scare the Australians away or to scare RAMSI away or something like that?
ELTON KANNASI: Yeah, to scare RAMSI away.
Elton was approached to join the attack. His account of two meetings he claims occurred at the minister's house is second-hand, replayed to him, he says, by close associates who were there.
ELTON KANNASI: And he told the boys the government agreed to facilitate any operations the boys would car out.
REPORTER: So he was saying, not just him, that the government had agreed that they should create trouble for RAMSI?
ELTON KANNASI: The minister told the boys. That he'd spoken to the government about other ministers... Other ministers and they agree to facilitate if the boys willing to... attack RAMSI officers, yeah.
Elton Kannasi may have scores to settle. Like many people, he resents seeing militiamen in jail while the so-called big fish are still free.
ELTON KANNASI: Stealing crimes, stealing crimes they're using the boys, asked the boys to kill people for political reasons and clear some of the boys who are in prison custody, they were used by the politicians.
Whatever his motives, Kanassi is not seeking any money nor can anyone claim he's made up a story after the death of Dunning. He wrote key elements of it in a remarkable letter to the local paper well before the shooting.
ELTON KANNASI: Prime Minister Sir Alan Kemakeza, I am almost guilty of my concerns for my involvement with you in the last years and now I made up my mind...
It was no surprise to Elton when Dunning was killed.
ELTON KANNASI: RAMSI don't wait until it's too late to catch the big fish.
Nor was he surprised that the second Australian to die was searching for a weapons stash in the same area. Weapons that were supposedly all collected 18 months before.
REPORTER: So this was the minister saying he was going to give them guns?
ELTON KANNASI: He was going to give them guns, he'd already got 11 guns. The minister told the boys "I've qot 11 guns" I think that was from his group, the government group. They got 11 guns to give the boys.
REPORTER: I believe you're familiar with Elton Kannasi's claims that the militants were being encouraged to attack Australians. Have his claims been investigated?
JAMES BATLEY: Yeah, he's written to me and I've referred that letter to the police and he has said to me that he's concerned for his own safety and again I've said that if he does have concerns with his own safety that he should speak to the police as a matter of urgency.
The police aren't saying what they make of Kanassi's account. But there is enough evidence to make RAMSI wary about the company that some government ministers are keeping. John Ome may be a loving father and husband but the Dunning killing is the second murder charge he's facing. He will also be on trial for the murder of a Guadalcanal leader, shot, but it seems not killed, then bound and driven off a cliff.
Ome and another former Eagle Force militiaman charged with the Dunning shooting, were also very close associates of a serving minister.
ELTON KANNASI: They stay with him every day, they drive his vehicle. They drink beer together.
REPORTER: They drove his car, they have - they socialise with him, they're tough guys, yeah? They're tough guys for the minister, is that the deal?
ELTON KANNASI: The minister uses these boys at all times to assist security.
REPORTER: And these are the guys that have been arrested for the killing of Adam...
ELTON KANNASI: Those guys were arrested for the killing I don't know if they did t or not but they got arrested.
REPORTER: Does it disturb you that one of your ministers was has a very close association with one of the men that's being charged with killing Adam Dunning?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA: That is what I heard from other people that the house was searched, my minister's house was searched, because of this relationship with the other suspect. I'm sorry about that, if that happens - some involvement or not I'm not sure.
The Australians may be having to deal with some unpalatable members of the government, but it's a government on a very short string. The Australian takeover of the Solomons has been comprehensive. Like other arms of government, the Solomon Islands police force, don't get much of a look in beyond the most basic of duties. RAMSI is a regional force but it has become overwhelmingly Australian.
Nothing happens here in policing, justice, finance or the public service that isn't controlled by Australian officials. No-one wants to mention the colony word but Australia has effectively adopted a country. And there's little room in or out of parliament for anyone to challenge that arrangement.
I'm off to visit Francis Zarma. Until a few weeks ago he was finance minister here, one of the most important members of the government, until he presented this report to parliament fairly mildly criticising RAMSI and Australia. Two days later, he was sacked.
FRANCIS ZARMA: Well this is the parliament chambers. This area of the house is the Government, and this is where I sat.
To Francis Zarma, Parliament House seemed the appropriate forum to raise issues of sovereignty. He believed RAMSI tactics were overkill and a liability, but he doubts anyone else will say that again.
FRANCIS ZARMA: It wasn't well received and that resulted in my being removed.
REPORTER: You were kicked out from that?
FRANCIS ZARMA: Yeah.
REPORTER: Overkill and a liability? To the country. Why?
FRANCIS ZARMA: It was heavy handed in one sense. And I think liability in the sense of it has economic, social and cultural effects.
REPORTER: Essentially the Australians are trying to control too much here, more than is needed, do you think?
FRANCIS ZARMA: That's right.
REPORTER: And why do you think they want to do that? This is the key question.
FRANCIS ZARMA: Well, it's going to be very difficult to say, but if you really look at it, I think because Australia has got its security interest in the Pacific and with all the fear of al-Qa'ida, terrorism and all that, and I think, you know, they seem to want to control this place so that nothing gets to Australia.
REPORTER: Did you have any discussions with Australian officials about those dismissals?
SIR ALAN KEMAKEZA: No, 98% of the population still like RAMSI to be in the country. We are representing these people. If you think otherwise then something is wrong.
While some may challenge the generosity of the PM's arithmetic, few would doubt the general sentiment. With some dangerous exceptions, RAMSI is very popular throughout the Solomons. Why wouldn't it be - the rule of Australian James Batley delivers not just peace but goods and services.
Here on the remote Weathercoast on the southern side of Guadalcanal, a government visit or government largesse used to be a rare event even before the fighting that tore this region apart.
JAMES BATLEY: Well this is... we're going towards Kolina Primary School which this is one of the areas which was badly affected by the violence in what Solomon Islanders call "the tension times".
When Australia was planning on deploying in 2003, it was this stretch of coast that they feared the most - crossing through the heart of Harold Keke territory.
JAMES BATLEY: I expect to be very much welcomed here.
It's a good natured display today but the warlords that ruled here didn't ask for the intervention.
This village was on the dividing line between Keke supporters and government militias. The area was decimated. In the end, the people here were fighting each other, not the Malaitans. Villages destroyed, people killed, most people fled and hid in the hills for years. The children attending this school opening missed up to four years of their education.
JAMES BATLEY: There is now peace. Without peace ... there'll be no development. No development, no education. If no education then our children will remain in darkness.
Amongst the festivities, it's hard to imagine that these people were butchering each other a short time ago. Today, surrounded by RAMSI officials, no-one talks of revenge or of much else for that matter.
REPORTER: So can you live together now, can you get on now or not so much?
MAN 3: I don't know.
And, it seems, no-one ever supported Harold Keke and his causes.
REPORTER: What did you think of him before? Some people support, some people not support?
GRAHAM: Before he went, I did not support him.
This man felt a bit guilt-ridden. He couldn't speak to me openly. A few days later he was to take a 6-hour boat trip to find me in Honiara. We met in a quiet park behind Rove prison where Keke and hundreds of other militants are being held.
GRAHAM: Why I support Keke... because we worked together and fought for this island against the people from Malaita.
Like many other Guadalcanal militants, Graham ultimately changed sides and joined the equally vicious pro-government militia.
He knows that there are still scores to be settled on both sides.
GRAHAM: These people are fully supportive of Harold. And Kolina and beyond are supporting the police.
Our interview comes to a halt when one of Keke's commanders happens to walk by, Stanley Joashe.
GRAHAM: I'm not frightened.
REPORTER: Stanley? Hi. I'm Mark from Australian television, SBS TV.
Stanley didn't resist RAMSI's arrival but he makes no apologies for the bloodshed during Keke's uprising.
REPORTER: Keke and his boys, they murdered a lot of people, a lot of people on the Weathercoast and the houses burnt.
STANLEY JOASHE: Yeah, that... is a military issue. A military issue. In the military... I can kill anybody. You can kill them because that's what the military is about. The military can do that.
Everything is fair in war and, for Stanley, the battle to get back all Guadalcanal land is still not over.
STANLEY JOASHE: We want our land restored to us. That's why we're fighting for this, the land must come back to its rightful owner.
REPORTER: But not now?
STANLEY JOASHE: Yeah, but not now
REPORTER: When RAMSI goes or something? Yeah, might be.
No-one knows how long RAMSI will stay here but most believe it will be at least 10 years. Australia will be extremely lucky if the core tensions here don't explode before then.