RAMSI weighs short-term emergency versus development

Updated November 18, 2009 09:47:32

The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, RAMSI, is now well into its seventh year - hailed by Pacific leaders as an outstanding example of regional cooperation, while at the same time condemned by some critics as simply Australian neo-colonialism.

The RAMSI intervention - with its billion dollar price tag and soldiers, police and bureaucrats from the 16 members of the Pacific Islands Forum - has the aim of stabilising and re-building a country classified in 2003 as on the way to being a failed state.

Former Bishop Terry Brown sees no reason for RAMSI's mission in Solomon Islands to cease, but he does question the disconnect between treating the intervention still as a short term emergency and the need for development.

Presenter: Jim Middleton, Australia Network
Speaker: Terry Brown, Anglican Bishop of Malaita in Solomon Islands 1996-2008