OPPOSITION leader Manasseh Sogavare has assured the people of the of East Fataleka and West Kwara’ae in Malaita Province of OUR Party’s commitment to addressing the political and development aspirations of Solomon Islanders.
Mr Sogavare had the opportunity of meeting with the people there after attending the opening of Seventh Day Adventist Church in Niuleni and the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the church on Niuleni and Fakaloloma in the Lau region.
He said he met the chiefs and elders following their requests to brief them on OUR Party’s policy intentions.
This is a new political party Mr Sogavare’s Opposition group and those from the Independent group had formed ahead of this year’s national elections.
Mr Sogavare told the chiefs and elders ethnic crisis was a result of past governments’ failure to address the political and development aspirations of the people.
“You might remember when the country attained independence we had problem, the problem of the Western bloc not wanting to participate in independence,” Mr Sogavare said.
“They were doubtful that the political structure the country adopted could address their political and development aspirations and that gave birth to what we know as Provincial Government system in the early 1980s.
“Come 1988 we had another problem and that as you can well remember our brothers of Guadalcanal submitted some kind of demands to the government.
“If one cared to look closely at those demands, they were basically a repeat of the issues that the people of the Western bloc which then included Choiseul demanded of the government.
“In 1998, the people of Guadalcanal again placed the same issues before the government because it failed to address them.
“The government’s continued failure to address those issues eventually led to the ethnic crisis.”
Mr Sogavare said the issues behind the ethnic crisis were merely developmental in nature but unfortunately leaders and donors misinterpreted them and took no action to address them.
He said when his Grand Coalition for Change Government came into power in 2006, it was confident of being committed to addressing the root causes of the crisis.
But he said political strife deprived it of achieving that policy objective.
Mr Sogavare, who is interim president of OUR Party said his new party is determined to carry on from where his previous government as left but with a more focussed policy.
“This is to ensure results as soon as practicable should we form the next government at this year’s national general elections,” he said.
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