Subject: 'austraLasia' # 355

SOLOMON ISLANDS UPDATE.

Note - collection of items from Ambrose Pereira and Luciano Capelli SDB, our men in Honiara. Includes some Word attachments - I hope these do not cause difficulty for any recipients. Let me know if they do. Julian

ARCHBISHOP ADRIAN SMITH CALLS FOR PEOPLE POWER FOR THE PARLIAMENT MEETING

SCHEDULED ON JUNE 15 ON A NON CONFIDENCE VOTE FOR THE PRIME MINISTER Archbishop Adrian Smith has appealed and called for People Power this morning in the Broadcast Pentecost Eucharistic Celebration...He invited all the people to be there at the Parliament building in recollection and prayer to show our support to our democratic process and duly elected leaders The prayer of the faithful was concluded with the Singing of the National Prayer: the national anthem. Not few eyes were in tears. The archbishop received a warm applause Catholic ommunication The Archbishop congratulated Fr. Ambrose Pereira, SDB for the timely publishing of the second "rush issue" of Voice Catholika, reporting professionally on the recent events as they objectively happened and the various reactions they provoked through out the nation and international community.

Congratulations to Fr Ambrose for putting together 4 pages of Voice catholika, printing and distributing the papers in 24 hours... That' what you call competence and commitment.

Letter of Bishop Loft of Malaita The Archbishop proceeded to read (off the air) at the end of the mass the letter of Bishop of Auki (Malaita) Gerard Loft. Bishop Loft and his clergy acknowledge the seriousness of the issues involved and courageously condemned the perpetrators of the coup. He challenged the audience to ask themselves if they are true Christians and make the needed options.

Meanwhile some Bougainville armed men have captured the arms of the Gizo Police to defend the western province from the threat of the Malaita Eagle Force.

Our community remains safe but under constant threat like the rest of the Honiara People.

Your support (of whatever kind) means a lot to us at this critical moment... The Honiara SDB Community Frs Pedro, Luciano, Ambrose and Bro. Tanaka

The Salesian Community in Honiara have decided to stay put and not to take the option of evacuation offered to foreign nationals.

Change is Sight?

The evacuation of expatriates continues. Malaysia have flown out their logging personnel. The arms taken from the police armory by the joint paramilitary and MEF group have not been returned as it was said they would be. However the vehicles of the Chief Justice have been returned.

Parliament did not meet as planned cause the PM had already resigned.

SICA in dialogue

Archbishop Adrian Smith together with Mr Matthew Wale of the SSEC from the South Seas Evangelical Church, visited a number of foreign missions in Solomon Islands - Australian High Commission, British High commission, New Zealand High Commission, European Union Advisor, Republic of China Embassy … While they are open – they want to hear the voice of the Government. And that’s a pity – cause the Government seems to be voiceless.

SICA plans to invite Professor Adeadefuiya, the representative of the Commonwealth Secretariat, for the next meeting of SICA.

SICA is working on a joint meeting with the various foreign missions in the country to see who would do what. SICA also met with the Leader of the Opposition. They stressed the upholding of the principles of democracy is the issue at stake, not just the changing of the leader of Government. A SICA Tension Committee is envisioned. Economy dreadful The Government revenue collection on Friday last, 9th June, was said to be as low as SBD 12,000. In normal times the daily collection of revenue is in millions. There is a fear that on Friday 16th June all public servants will be laid off, as there are no funds to pay them.

Women lead Women who are taking the issues to the leaders are making the call for peace loud and clear. But unfortunately, SICA Women's Desk Officer was not part of the daily SICA Executive meetings in this time of stress.

"The Archbishop of the Church of Melanesia, Most Rev. Ellison Pogo, who has been stranded for a week in Brisbane, managed to return to Honiara on board a New Zealand Air Force plane. He expressed his concern that there were members of the MEF whose hearts are so hardened that it will be difficult to pull them back from the road of revenge as they had lost relatives and property during the IFM eviction of Malaitans from rural Guadalcanal. There has to be a lot of healing. In reality, the number of those who were evicted from land that they had bought and who lost relatives and property is not very high. The majority are those who were evicted and driven from employment. This majority group have not in fact lost much property as they lived in the employers' buildings. The destruction of employers' property and the closing down of business operations has been very extensive", stated Archbishop Adrian Smith.

Article – 47

15th June, 2000