Charles Dausabea’s recent accusation of Australia of “hijacking”
the judicial system in the country is not only misleading, but an attempt by a
very frustrated and desperate person. Of course, his view is not representative
of the country’s mood for Australia to exit from its leading role of rebuilding
the country; but such a statement should not be taken in the context of him,
but seen in the context of him being a puppet of a foreign legal advisor. In
reality, Dausabea’s recent outburst is simply part of a campaign by a number of former local criminals turned political leaders and Australian citizens, who are trying to make
Australia and RAMSI feel unwelcome in the country.
While the Registrar of the SI High Court has recently
refuted Dausabea’s unfounded allegation, the public in Solomon Islands should
not in any way allow itself to be influenced by a man, whose personal history
as a politician speaks volumes of his leadership quality and the lack of it.
Historically, Dausabea has been always a divisive figure in
the Solomon Islands political circle and civil society. To his political
supporters, Dausabea is a saviour in times of need and a very generous person.
He has often shared his material wealth and spoils with supporters and been ready
to help the needy in his constituency of East Honiara whenever they approach
him to provide assistance in paying primary, secondary and tertiary education
scholarships, purchasing sports and other equipment for sporting teams, church
choirs and youth groups, providing travelling expenses, airfares and pocket
money for touring individuals, sports teams and church groups and paying for
the building of community halls and buildings.
But for his opponents and those with prior working
experiences and knowledge of his dealings, one way or the other, as a former police
traffic officer, politician, government minister, director of protocols,
political appointee, financier of the now disbanded Bougainville Revolutionary
Army (BRA), the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF), president of the SI National Olympic
Committee, and Member of Parliament, Dausabea is a heartless bully, murderer, crook,
corrupt, criminal and a racist thug.
The mixed images and different perceptions by the public
about Dausabea are also influenced by the cultural values, virtues and norms
that are “acceptable” in various ethnic communities of the country. In most
Malaitan cultural and linguistic communities, stealing, telling lies, conning people
and accumulating wealth by hook or crook, are traditionally acceptable
qualities of bravery, worthy of a leader. On the contrary, Polynesian and contemporary
Christian communities in the country see
those attributes as unacceptable, outright disgraceful and unworthy of being
associated with a national leader.
For decades, the above contrasting images of Dausabea as a
national leader have made him either a saviour or a big time crook, depending
on one’s vantage point. And for others, Dausabea has always been a law unto
himself in the small-fishbowl community of Honiara since he became a politician
in 1989. During his time as a Member of Parliament, Dausabea has been
untouchable. His only bad luck with the judicial system in the country occurred
twice: before and after he became a parliamentarian and lost his parliamentary
seat of East Honiara Constituency in 2003.
Obviously, the presence of RAMSI in the country over the
past nine years has frustrated him and his network of criminal operatives in
various government departments and other public institutions from carrying out
their usual under-table and corrupt dealings.
Dausabea’s history
prior to becoming a politician
To qualify one of the perceptions that Dausabea is a big
time crook, let’s briefly analyse his past dealings and history as a former
convicted fraudster turned politician. Dausabea is no stranger to controversy.
Before he became a politician in 1989, he was a traffic officer with
the Solomon Islands Police Traffic Centre at Kukum Station, East Honiara.
His rise to national spot light came in the most
dubious way in the early 1980s, when he was charged and
jail for over two years, for forgery and fraud of more
than $20,000 from the Solomon Islands Ports Authority.
The case was based on a scheme that Dausabea had hatched. He
enticed and befriended the then office orderly or mail-man of the Solomon
Islands Ports Authority; a man from Makiara-Ulawa Province by the name of
Arthur. During their friendship, Dausabea asked Arthur to forge the “signature”
of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the SI Ports Authority, which he
did.
Over time, they studied and practiced the signature and
before long, they successfully penned it down on a stolen SI Ports Authority’s
cheque, which they had successfully cashed at a bank. For months, Dausabea and Arthur took new girlfriends and
relocated their residential homes in Honiara to Tambea Tourists Resort, in
North West Guadalcanal. They lived in
lavish life style at the resort, hired rental cars and travelled on a daily
basis to and from their workplaces in Honiara.
In addition to their luxurious life style, they also hosted
drinking parties on a weekly basis. Of course the honeymoon ended in tears when
members of the SI Police CID arrested and charged them for forgery. But the
most intriguing issue about Dausabea’s ascendency to national political
leadership was the way he was elected to parliament in 1989.
The story began following his discharge from Rove prison.
His elder brother, who was a well-liked and popular political leader in the
then Honiara Municipal Authority, now the Honiara City Council, died in
suspicious circumstances. Allegations were labelled against his opponents at
the council for foul play, but they were never taken up against them in a court
of law. The outpouring of grief and sympathy for Dausabea’s family
by ethnic Malaitans and supporters of his late brother in the East Honiara
Constituent finally led to Dausabea’s decision then to contest the forthcoming
national election in 1989. Dausabea won convincingly through sympathy votes.
But sadly, Dausabea never learnt his lesson from his past.
In the following national election of May 1993, Dausabea’s re-election victory
was overturned by the SI High Court, after it was successfully challenged by
the runner-up, John Maetia Kalu’ae. In Kalu’ae’s petition, which was then upheld by the SI High
Court, he alleged that Dausabea had practiced widespread corruption and fraud
in the electoral registration of names. The court nullified Dausabea’s victory
and banned him from contesting the re-run election for East Honiara
Constituency.
While taking a spell from national politics, Dausabea was
appointed as the Director of Protocols in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by
his political mentor and good friend, the then Prime Minister, Solomon Mamaloni.
But Dausabea’s term was also short lived following a diplomatic blunder, when
he failed to intervene in an embarrassing case of the then Solomon Islands High
Commissioner to Brussels, who got really drank and began verbally abusing the
visiting Ambassador of South Korea, during an official function to honour the visiting
dignitary at Lelei Resort, West Honiara. The case led to his immediate
dismissal.
Despite the apparent failure of Dausabea to perform his role
as the Director of Protocols, the late Mamaloni, once again, created a new post
and appointed him as the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office Intelligence Services.
Back then, no one really knew Dausabea’s activities, but he had gradually become
very influential in the political circles and civil society in the country. In
the following national elections of 1997, Dausabea re-contested and regained
the seat of East Honiara, amidst more allegations of bribery and fraud.
Interestingly, the two High Court cases, which had resulted
in Dausabea’s jailing in the mid-1980s and nullifying his victory as the
elected Member of Parliament for East Honiara in May 1993, were made prior to
the arrival of RAMSI in mid-2003. Since then, RAMSI has been assisting in
rebuilding, not only the capacity of the judicial system and the police in the
country, but public trust on both institutions.
The only time in the history of
the country that the judicial system and police force were highly compromised
and virtually hijacked was when the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF) ousted the
democratically elected government and took control of the police, courts and executive
government between 1998 - 2003, when RAMSI arrived in the country. Back then Dausabea was one of the key
leaders of the MEF armed thugs. In a sense, the judicial system in SI prior and
after the RAMSI intervention was never kind to Dausabea. So his charge that
Australia has hijacked our judicial system is beyond belief.
The only era that Dausabea appeared to have stayed away from
running foul with the legal system in Solomon Islands was from 1993 until 2002.
Interestingly, following the intervention of RAMSI in the country in 2003,
which restored the highly compromised judicial system in the country, Dausabea
was again convicted and jailed for fraud, and then arrested again in April 2006
and briefly jailed on allegations of inciting violence.
Dausabea and his BRA
connection
Dausabea’s political career and history have laced with
vengeance. He became late Mamaloni’s right hand man during the Bougainville
ethnic crisis between 1988 and late 1990s, where the government was allegedly
involved in the importation of arms for the BRA. During that time, Dausabea was implicated in
a number of cases of financial aiding, supplying of old WWII relics for the cause
and allowing BRA members and sympathisers to build houses and reside at his
land near Henderson Airport, north east of Honiara.
Despite mounting allegations against Dausabea over his alleged
criminal activities, especially his decision to allow BRAs to reside at his
house and allegedly engaging in acquiring and collecting WWII bombs and other
war relics and transported them back to Bougainville for their conflict, the authorities
failed to mount an investigation against him. A move that was reciprocated by
the BRA to the MEF during the ethnic conflict in Solomon Islands, where former members
of the BRA were seen taking part along-side armed MEF militia in some of their
operations on Guadalcanal and carrying out special tasks for MEF in Gizo,
Western Province.
The apparent reluctance by the judicial system and the
police force in the country to take action against Dausabea has been
understandable. Over the past two decades, Dausabea had surrounded himself with armed
body guards and armed criminals, who are too willing to do anything to protect
their boss.
As common knowledge, during the ethnic conflicts between
Guadalcanal militants and Malaitan Eagle Force (MEF) in 1998 – 2003, Dausabea
was once again implicated in openly housing, arming and financially supporting
a so-called platoon of the MEF armed militia at his residential area near Henderson
Airport. Despite the then government’s initial decision to outlaw the MEF armed
militia group and the police knowledge of the existence of the armed
group, the police failed to arrest Dausabea.
Instead, Dausabea’s reputation remained intact, which also resulted
in his re-election in 1997 and 2006 national elections, only to relinquish the later
soon following his conviction and imprisonment for fraudulent. Besides his
political prowess, Dausabea has also made a name for himself in the country’s
sporting administration arena. Under his stewardship as President of the
Solomon Islands National Olympic Committee (SISNOC) in the early part of this
decade, Dausabea was also accused of misappropriating thousands of dollars of
grants by the International Olympic and national government for the development
of sports in the country. Again – Dausabea has never been charged or called to account.
One of Dausabea’s bloopers of epic proportion as former
President of SISNOC was his decision to strip-off the title of the SISNOC
Pageant Queen from the winner, Yolanda McSasa’i on the basis of her racial
profile. In 1996/7, SISNOC held a Pageant Queen contest, to raise funds for the
upcoming South Pacific Games and to select a pageant queen to represent the country
in the games.
Following a tight contest, the judges announced the winning
Pageant Queen as Ms McSasa’i, a Polynesian girl from the island of Bellona, in
the Rennell and Bellona Province. As president of the organisation, Dausabea
vetoed the decision on the basis that the winning candidate was not a
Melanesian woman, and it would be an insult to the Melanesians of the country
for a Polynesian to represent them. Despite the racist overtone of Dausabea’s
decision, no one was able to challenge him.
With a history of criminal convictions, forgery, fraudulent,
arms dealing, aiding criminals and racism, Dausabea’s accusation of Australia
and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) of “hijacking”
the judicial system in the country, based on a flimsy assertion, is not only
brave, but self-evident of someone who is pulled by the nose by some alien anti-Australian
legal advisor(s). In the end, Dausabea and his cohorts should stop insulting
the intelligence of our law abiding citizens. Nafunao!
The following Members of Parliament have represented
East Honiara
Election MP Political Party
1976 Bartholomew
Ulufa’alu National Democratic Party (NADEPA)
1980 Bartholomew
Ulufa’alu National
Democratic Party
1984 John
Maetia Kalu’ae SI National
Party (SINP)
1989 Bartholomew
Ulufa’alu (resigned) National Democratic Party
(Bye
Election) Charles Dausabea People Alliance Party
(PAP)
1993 Charles
Dausabea (petitioned) People Alliance Party (PAP)
John
Maetia Kalu’ae SI
National Party (SINP)
1997 Charles
Dausabea People
Alliance Party (PAP)
2001 Simeon
Bouro Independent
2006 Charles
Dausabea (jailed) People
Alliance Party (PAP)
2008 (Bye
Election) Silas Milikada Independent
2010 Douglas
Ete Reformed
Democratic Party
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