By Paul Daley. Foreign Affairs Correspondent. The Age.com Australia. Canberra . Thursday 18 May 2000
About 12 months ago a small group of young men from Guadalcanal, the main island in the Solomon Islands chain, began calling themselves the Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army.
Armed with home-made rifles and a few military relics from World War II, the GRA wanted to rid Guadalcanal of ethnic settlers from nearby Malaita island.
Most neighboring countries, including Australia, had trouble taking the GRA too seriously.
But the GRA was killing people and close to 20,000 Malaitans were forced to flee their homes in and around the Solomons capital Honiara, on Guadalcanal. The Commonwealth appointed Fiji's former prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka as a peace envoy to the Solomons.
By the time Mr Rabuka made contact with the rebels last July, they had changed their name to the Isatabu Freedom Movement, their number had swollen dramatically and they were armed with automatic and semi-automatic weapons.
Mr Rabuka secured disarmament agreements with the rebels, but each time he left Guadalcanal, violence flared again.
Since a group of Malaitans - forced from their settlements near Honiara - established their own militia last last year, the violence has worsened dramatically. At least 55 people have been killed in the sporadic fighting.
The Solomon Islands Government wants Australia to send police to directly bolster its force. But Australia, eager to avoid becoming entwined in another protracted Bougainville-style conflict, has resisted such pressure.
New Zealand appears to be similarly cautious.
Now, in desperation, the Solomons government appears to be turning to Fidel Castro's Cuba, which is strongly indicating its willingness to help solve the Solomons' growing security crisis. Exactly what form of "help" Cuba is willing or able to offer remains unclear.
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