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Hell in the Pacific

In tiny Solomon Islands, money grows out of the barrel of a gun

Weekend Australian

1 December 2001

By Mary-Louise O'Callaghan

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Mary-Louise O'Callaghan reports on a country descending into anarchy.

There has been no bread in Honiara homes this week. The staff of life has been absent from the Solomon Islands' capital after eight former employees turned up at the main baker on Monday with a militia escort demanding money with menaces…

The former bakery workers arrived accompanied by members of the Malaita Eagle Force…

Local police called to the scene the following day said they could do nothing to protect staff outside the company compound, so Australian-owned Goodman Fielder closed the bakery's doors and flew the expatriate workers out of the country.

And Solomon Islanders, who have long become used to regularly doing without power and water, now have no bread either.

Guns and money-the use of one in the pursuit of the other by a tiny minority in this embattled Pacific island nation-has brought Solomon Islands slowly but surely to the point of collapse…

In the brave new Solomons it's the guys with the guns who rule…

ID: N54

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