MAN QUESTIONED CREDIBILITY OF RECONCILIATION PROCESSES

A South Guadalcanal man has questioned the credibility of a number of processes required before the National Reconciliation Ceremony will be held for the people of Guadalcanal.

Speaking after the final solovisu ceremony at Sunghu Village in Wanderer Bay last week, a Silas Nickson said it had took the Government more than 10 years to come up with the Solovisu program – which is the start of the national reconciliation program.

Mr Nickson said people are worried that the other processes the Government requires after the solovisu will take another ten years before any national reconciliation will be held.

“What I would like to bring here so that the government will understand and try to consider before taking further steps ahead, because it seems counseling following the solovisu program is yet to be completed as well as reconciliation and rehabilitation afterwards. So we’re looking at these steps and process, you are talking about up to ten years before the solovisu began and we believe that after another ten years before the counseling as well as another ten years before reconciliation and yet another before rehabilitation.”

SIBC News understands that one of the processes required is trauma counselling and this is the next step after the solovisu ceremonies.

Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary for Peace, Reconciliation and National Unity, Lennis Rukale says the delay for the reconciliation ceremony is because previous governments did not allocate any budget for the program.

He says only the only Government who made funding available for the program to start is the Lilo-led Government.

“I quite agree that it took so long, ten years as he mentioned regarding the solovisu program but then it is also right to see that since the ethnic crisis government has not allocated funds to carry out such programs until now when only this government has allocated funds, which saw the solovisu ceremony in South Guadalcanal convened.”

The Permanent Secretary also said the Solovisu program is to facilitate reconciliation between the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force and communities in South Guadalcanal.

He says the Solovisu ceremony is only the first step towards the final reconciliation and this will take place after trauma counselling.

“The reason for this is basically because if we only have the solovisu and then straight onto reconciliation, the underlying issues experienced by communities and the human atrocities suffered won’t be addressed properly or remain unsolved.”