PM orders investigation into Rennell logging violence
PRIME Minister Manasseh Sogavare has reportedly ordered an urgent investigation into the deepening violence-related logging operations in West Rennell, Renbel Province.
This followed a briefing by the Peace and Reconciliation Committee after it was approached by landowners who feared the situation on West Rennell could ignite a repeat of the so-called ethnic tension.
It is understood that following the briefing two weeks ago, Mr Sogavare summoned the Commissioner of Police, Commissioner of Forests and senior government officials.
He wanted to know why law enforcement officers were not dealing with the violence which has resulted in at least two people nursing knife wounds.
The attacker is in police custody in Honiara.
Poly Tepai, a Chief for his tribe in West Rennell, a landowner and a logging licence holder over Sengena, his customary land in West Rennell and his family are victims in their own land.
The tribe is a victim of the enforcement agencies, including the judiciary.
According to him the police and the judiciary exist to please and protect the interest of powerful logging companies.
Mr Tepai has been battling a particular foreign logging company since 2014, when it landed equipment and machines on his land.
In that time he had been fighting a pitch battle with the foreign logger, who in the meantime had been recruiting security guards from Malaita and transporting them to West Rennell to provide security while the logging company’s employees felled and pulled trees from Mr Tepai’s customary land.
“They were doing this while a high court injunction over this land was on. They are still doing that today,” he said.
“I just don’t know what I am supposed to be. Here I am on my land feeling helpless to protect it.
“I just sat and watched while a foreign company harvested my resources and selling them for millions of dollars and yet responsible authorities cannot intervene,” he said.
The situation came to a head on 28 August this year when in an altercation two people were knifed including Mr Tepai’s own sister.
She was attacked with a brush knife right in front of her children who have since stopped going to school because of the trauma they had suffered.
“These are preventable crimes if law enforcement agencies are doing their work. But they are not,” he said.
“Why are the responsible authorities so afraid of this logger? This logger seems to look at the High Court Orders or injunction as just another piece of paper,” Mr Tepai said.
“It is so painful. This logger hired people who literally fought us and inflicted wounds on my family.
“And then they proceeded to harvest our timber right in front of us in an area outside their concession. I have timber rights over the area, not this foreign logging company,” he said.
But he has glowing praise for Prime Minister, Sogavare’s intervention.
“This is the kind of leadership we need in the judiciary, police and the Ministry of Forests and Research,” Mr Tepai said.
Mr Tepai said he feared the situation on West Rennell could escalate into a second ethnic tension between Renbel and Malaita provinces.
“We do not want that to happen. But this foreign logger is encouraging that by picking up Malaitans on the road in Honiara and sending them to Rennell to protect his interests.
“He is not above the law.
“Police, the Office of the Sheriff of the High Court and other law enforcement agencies should intervene immediately before it is too late,” he said.
