1/5 Australian cops & troops have been sent to Honiara after protests by the Malaitan community there. The Aussies are not neutral. They have been summoned by an anti-Malaitan government, & Malaita has always been a stronghold of anti-colonial feeling in the Solomons. 
2/5 In the 19th C the blackbirding ships that sought slaves in Melanesia learned to be wary of landing on Malaita. Scores of white slavers were slain in the island's jungles, & ships were stormed & burnt.
3/5 In 1927 the Kwaio people of Malaita slew an Australian tax collector working for British colonial authorities. A retaliatory expedition led by Australian expats slaughtered scores of islanders. Malaitan feeling hardened.
4/5 In the '40s Malaita was the stronghold of the Maasina Rule, or Marching Rule, movement, which rejected British control & promoted cooperation between villages & ethnicities. Maasina Rule activists were arrested by the score.
5/6 Many Australasians mistakenly believe the long occupation of the Solomons by Oz-led RAMSI forces in the early 2000s was universally supported. In fact, as Matthew Grant Allen shows in his 2009 essay 'Resisting Ramsi', many Malaitans rejected the occupiers.
6/7 The latest intervention by Australia is likely to be seen by Malaitans, both in Honiara & on the home island, as yet another act of interference by colonialists. & who can blame them?
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