I am not naive to the politics and geo-politics at play today in the Solomon Islands but it is not prudent for any commentary by me, an outsider, and one who last held official office in the SI now over 25 years ago.
There is an exception, however, and one that deeply concerns me about the reported intention of the SIG to import lethal firearms next year from Australia; firearms not so long ago demonstrated to a collective of the Solomon Islands government ministers, and lethal arms claimed for issue to the members of the RSIPF who will be deployed on public order duties in the event of the kind of violent scenes Honiara witnessed on its streets and roads in November 2021.
In the last day or so, the RSIPF Executive, under the leadership of Ms Juanita Matanga, OBE, QPM, the Deputy Commissioner, held important talks on review its Crime Prevention Strategy for the period till the end of 2022.
Here, I quote from an article on that review meeting published by the SIBC today, and I find it rather disturbing when it refers to the mindset of police officers.
Quote.
“One of the key aspects of the CPS is to set up Crime Prevention Committees in different words in the country. This will help us to do our work in terms of policing.
“But then we have come to realise that we have some issues associated with the committees which we do not have money to assist by implementing crime prevention programs we have. “Then a review was conducted and focused mainly on the change management strategy of the RSIPF. This means we focus on the changing mind set of police officers. By changing the mindset of police officers and think it is essence as to why it is important to understand the meaning of change of the mind set of police officers,” Ms Matanga said.
End of quote.
Maybe I can be accused of being alarmist after reading what I have quoted, but it is no longer a secret that the rioting last November in Honiara, the virtual destruction of Chinatown, the looting, arson, property damage and the deaths of two civilians, plus the costs in millions of dollars, was the result of the over reaction of the police carrying out public order management duties and who fired tear gas at a gathering of people who initially assembled to protest peacefully.
Will the mindset of police officers be better acquainted to the concept of the use of minimum force when next deployed maintaining the peace?
In addition to the RSIPF looking into its policy of Crime Prevention and changing the mindset of its members about how to view their responsibilities and duties, I suggest some time is given to the following.
Quote
An Overview of the Scientific Theory and Evidence. Submission on Policing of Public Protest Review and Team Crowd Psychology & Public Order Policing: An Overview of Scientific Theory and Evidence.
The report was commissioned by then UK’s HMIC in July, 2009 and authored by one of Europe’s leading scientific authorities on crowd psychology and behavior
The central conclusions and recommendations are as follows:
Research overwhelmingly demonstrates that the indiscriminate use of force by the police during an event can negatively impact upon crowd dynamics to increase the risk that a crowd poses to ‘public order’.
The disproportionate and indiscriminate threat or use of force can create psychological processes in the crowd that draw into conflict those who had come to the event with no prior conflictual intention.
End of quote
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
