Patrolling in Malaita

Malaita, Christmas 2009

ALL THREE SECTIONS in our platoon were rotated in and out of the island of Malaita over the period of a month. The barge ride to Auki, Malaita's main town, took eight hours, five of which were spent sleeping in the back of a Land Cruiser. Once on dry land, we moved to our accommodation in a house belonging to the Police.

The house is on a hill with a road leading to it that is possibly the worst I have seen - it is pitted with pot holes and rainwater has eroded most of its surface into deep channels of mud. The main phone line for the town also runs along the road, and in some places the wires are exposed.

Most of our time in Auki involved confiscating illegally brewed liquor, known as kwaso. Many people here also indulge in betel nut, a mind narcotic, which, although legal, leaves frequent users with dark red stains on their teeth. Patrolling down the main street of Auki over Christmas was often a surreal experience: with many people, either drunk on kwaso or high on betel nut, moving like zombies through the darkness of the night.

Back at the central police station, a dozen people walked into the car park and we weren't sure that to expect until they started singing. Their voices were beautiful and they sang three carols before leaving as quietly as they had arrived. It was such an unexpected and kind gesture and home never felt so close and yet so far away as it did that night.

A few days later, we left Auki and went out to some of the villages around the area. The first one that we arrived in had a DJ playing music for children to dance to. We were always very well received when we visited the villages: little girls would blow us kisses, young men saluted, and old men, with tears in their eyes, shook our hands and thanked us and asked us not to leave. One of the most memorable tasks that we had in Auki was the kwaso raids. This often involved turning up at properties in the early hours of the morning to accompany the Police and assist them in detaining suspects and removing distilling equipment.

Early on one such morning, we surrounded a suspects home while the police moved in to detain him. We had woken at 3am and moved to the village under the cover of darkness and had nearly reached the hut when dogs started barking. As it turned out, our suspect wasn't there, and nor was there any sign of distilling equipment for making kwaso. Later, we learned that he had been arrested the week before, and his equipment confiscated, but the local police had neglected to update their files as a result of the raid.

Success came a couple of weeks later, however, when we confiscated over 100 litres of kwaso in an operation in another village. Our time on the island wasn't exclusively taken up with kwaso raids, however, and we often found ourselves assisting the police with other day to day tasks. One particularly memorable occasion involved us travelling to another town to provide security for the police officers who were investigating the outcome of a sorcery case that was threatening to escalate into violence between three different tribes.

The whole thing had begun when one man had died and another had been tried for speaking ill of the dead man, proving, some said, that he was responsible for the first man's death. As a result, the dead man's tribe demanded compensation and, when it was not given, sought retribution by burning down the house of the accused and banishing him from the area.

We arrived the day after his home was destroyed and immediately started visiting with and talking to the villages in an effort to understand the situation. An extremely complicated picture soon emerged, and, although we had a rather sleepless night watching over the village, our presence there had an immediate and positive effect of calming down the tensions.

The next day, we were relieved by another section and we returned to Auki, and from there to the main island, and the capital, Honiara.

Overall, we felt that our time on the island was well spent, and although we are not always successful in our work, a chain of small victories, linked with those of the soldiers who have come before us, and those who will come after, will continue to make a real and vital difference to the people here.