HONIARA (Pacnews) — Solomon Islands’ capital has been abuzz with speculation about the alleged massacre of 11 Malaitan men on the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal.
The police have been referring to the 11 men as “missing,” following an incident involving the use of illegal guns.
The incident took place on the weekend of June 8-9 and early unconfirmed reports spoke of a massacre in the area.
Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza admits that whatever happened, the incident has set back the peace process.
As a Solomon Islands police team led by the most senior Guadalcanal policeman in the force, Assistant Police Commissioner Philip Manakako, went to the Weathercoast to investigate, Radio Australia has been conducting its own investigation.
What has been established so far is that 10 men, some of them from the West Kwaio area of Malaita, set out in a boat from Honiara on the weekend of 8 June, intending to link up with another male resident on the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal.
They never returned.
In the Solomons, it’s being referred to as a “mystery mission”—but the speculation is that they had a plan to capture the Guadalcanal militant leader, Harold Keke, who has remained outside the peace process.
They apparently borrowed the boat from the Malaitan Eagle Force commander, Jimmy Rasta, who Radio Australia reports has denied knowledge of any mission to get Keke. His version is that the men told him they were going to a funeral back home on Malaita.
Police Commissioner Moreton Sireheti says police have sought help from the Anglican indigenous religious order, the Melanesian Brothers, to get to the bottom of the story.
Badley Devesi is one of the Melanesian Brothers who actually went to the Weathercoast looking for the men.
“We go there, and we find that all of them are now dead,” he said. Devesi says a catechist in the area said he had helped bury the dead.
Devesi also says people on the Weathercoast told him that the group—who were armed—apparently ran out of fuel or had some engine trouble and that local people went to fetch Keke. Events took a tragic turn, he says, when one of the group shot a relative of Keke’s.
“Some of them are holding pistols, guns, there. So they bring it over to the boss of that area, Harold Keke… But on the way they shoot one of his uncles. So (Keke) shoot them all.”
Other sources have said that one of the group of Malaitan men was an escaped criminal who’d been serving a life sentence before he broke out of prison some years ago, and that this man may have been the one who fired the first shot.
Sireheti has confirmed that another person in the group that went to the Weathercoast was a sergeant from the paramilitary police, the field force, but that he’d been absent from duty for some time and was not acting under any instructions from the police.
