Election 2022: ‘Rogue PM Manasseh Sogavare holding Solomons back’, says Alexander Downer
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has branded Solomon Islands PM Manasseh Sogavare a ‘rogue’ who is holding his country back.
Former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer has branded Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare a “rogue” who is holding his country back, amid a crisis in Australia’s relations with its Pacific neighbour.
Mr Downer, who was the nation’s top diplomat in the early years of the 2003-2017 Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, said Mr Sogavare was “a huge problem in my time”, when he railed against Australia’s support “because it was interfering with his governance plans”.
“I always use the term ‘governance’. But Sogavare knew we were onto him,” he told The Australian.
“You can rest assured we knew a lot about Sogavare and his goings-on throughout all of that period. He was a rogue.
“Someone like Sogavare goes to the heart of the problems in Melanesia that you have with governance.”
Mr Downer’s comments come as the Morrison government pushes back against Labor claims it could have averted the Sogavare government’s new security pact with Beijing, which Australian officials fear could open the way for a Chinese base less than 2000km off Cairns.
The Australian revealed on Monday that Beijing has vowed to build wharves, shipyards, submarine cables in Solomon Islands under a second bilateral agreement, raising fears the investments could be used by the Chinese military.
Scott Morrison, who has refused to say exactly when the government knew about the China security pact, declined to say whether Australian officials were aware of the draft maritime agreement.
“We’re very aware of what the Chinese government’s ambitions are in the Pacific, whether it be in relation to facilities such as that or naval bases or other presence of their military in the Pacific,” the Prime Minister said.
“They’re doing this all around the world. I don’t think there’s any great secret about that.”
Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said the draft “Blue Economy” agreement “demonstrates the seriousness of what has occurred on Mr Morrison’s watch”.
Mr Downer, now the executive chairman of King’s College London’s international school for government, said he was furious that Mr Sogavare remained a thorn in the Australia-Solomon Islands relationship.
“I know what Sogavare is like. I remember. I know what his values were. And I can see what has happened here and I am pretty angry about it,” he said.
The Australian-led RAMSI force was first deployed in Solomon Islands from July 2003 to help restore order and rebuild the country after years of ethnic violence.
Mr Downer said he had been distressed in February 2007 when Mr Sogavare – then on his second stint as Prime Minister – tried to kick the Australian-led peacekeepers out of the country.
He took on Mr Sogavare at the time by penning an open letter to the Solomon Islands people published in the country’s newspapers, warning the Prime Minister was seeking to undermine RAMSI.
In the letter, Mr Downer attacked what he said was “a deliberate push to undermine RAMSI, to tarnish its reputation”, and warned the country was “once again at the crossroads”.
He told The Australian: “He was a huge problem in my time. Although he was the Prime Minister I thought it would be absolutely disastrous if we pulled it out.
“I communicated directly with the public. I told them the Prime Minister wanted RAMSI out, and I thought it was a huge mistake and we were happy to stay.”
In an extraordinary address to the Solomon Islands parliament last week in defence of his controversial pact with China, Mr Sogavare suggested his country had been threatened “with invasion” by Australia, and treated like “kindergarten students walking around with Colt .45s in our hands”.
“We deplore the continual demonstration of lack of trust by the concerned parties, and tacit warning of military intervention in Solomon Islands if their national interest is undermined in Solomon Islands,” he said.
Former high commissioner to the Solomon Islands James Batley, who was RAMSI co-ordinator from August 2004 to November 2006, said Mr Sogavare had a long history of dislike for Australia.
“Australia has been here before,” he said. “The relationship between Sogavare and Australia, and by extension RAMSI, was very rocky in 2006, 2007.
“The fact that RAMSI had such a good relationship with the people of Solomon Islands, and a direct relationship through visits to villages, radio broadcasts and so on, irked political classes and I think Sogavare in particular.”
Just before the Solomon Islands’ decision to switch diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China in September 2019, Mr Sogavare said he would have been able to push back harder against Mr Downer during RAMSI if his country was aligned to Beijing.
“I sent 40 police officers to go and train in Taiwan. And you know what Australia did? The foreign affairs minister himself went to Taiwan and says: ‘Stop the training, that area is ours’,” he told ANU’s Little Red podcast.
“So what I’m saying is, if this was China … they wouldn’t give a damn to Alexander Downer if he goes there and says: ‘You stop, get out of here’.
“They’d say: ‘Get the hell out of here. This is a sovereign decision made by a sovereign government’.”
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