SOLS: Attempted theft of Japanese WW2 monument
Updated
In Solomon Islands, the National Museum and local police are monitoring the contents of Malaysian scrap metal barges following the attempted theft of a Japanese World War Two Monument. The bronze statue was found 200 metres from its base on Mount Austin and police believe the thieves were intending to sell it for scrap metal.
Presenter: Barbara Heggen
Speakers: Lawrence Fo'anaota, Director of the Solomon Islands National Musem; John Innes, War Historian
HEGGEN: About five weeks ago a Malaysian scrap metal barge moored at a beach in Rinandi offering locals 50 cents a kilogram for scrap metal. Since then, cars and trucks loaded with junk metal have been observed heading for the beach. But some villages have reported that metal collectors have been trying to sell World War Two relics to the Malaysian dealers.
Then last week, the Japanese War Monument, a solid brass life size statue of a Japanese fisherman was found 200 metres from its base on Mount Austin road. Police have assumed that it was headed for the scrap metal dealers, but, thankfully, it was just too heavy for the thieves.
John Innes, an Australian war historian, based in the Solomons, says the theft is an extraordinary act of desperation.
INNES: Guadalcanal itself is significant to both the Japanese and the Americans. It was the place where America went on the offensive for the first time in Second World War, that campaign there is often referred to as the first offensive and 37,000 people died fighting over that air strip at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. So I was particularly sad when I looked up on the internet and saw that they had vandalised it, and not just vandalised, they had tried to take it and sell it for scrap. So the worst example of the have nots and wanting to make some money and they don't care how they do it. But I guess it's hardly an excuse, but when you've got a country where the employment rate, the unemployment rate is over 80 per cent, you've got a lot of people hanging around with idle hands and the devil plays in idle hands. But it's particularly sad that it's happened.
HEGGEN: Lawrence Fo'anaota, Director of the Solomon Islands National Museum says an investigation has been carried into the claims that other World War Two relics have been collected as scrap metal.
FO'ANAOTA: What we have actually done is spoken to the person who is dealing with this is an agent of the one whose collecting all the scraps here that in the future, because they're planning to send another barge, so each time they about to load anything on the ship, we need to inspect them first and make sure that there is nothing of importance to the historical collections or World War Two wrecks and relics that might be in whatever they collect or people are selling.
HEGGEN: Perhaps of greatest concern to police is the issue of unexploded World War Two ordinances that can be found all over the Solomon Islands. Lawrence Fo'anaota says that these to are being collected to sell as scrap metal.
FO'ANAOTA: And we found out from what he has collected from people who are also selling, they were actually selling some of these live ammunitions or big shells were still alive. And so the police were called in to take these things away. And so those were some of the things that people were finding and taking them because of the empty shells. But amongst them, there are also these live ones that are really dangerous.
We need to work together to ensure that some of these war relics are very important to the museum which we are setting up a section within the museum to look after the World War Two relics that we work together to ensure these things are kept in the country.
