Word: batley
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...Special Coordinator James Batley, RAMSI has to win over the elite while breaking their hold on power, or at least their longstanding habits. His team is encountering two kinds of resistance-common bastardry and the equally corrosive Solomons passivity. Technically, RAMSI works in partnership with the country's government and people. Its performance is monitored by an eminent persons group from the Pacific Islands Forum. Yes, RAMSI is staffed by people from 14 nations in the South Pacific?as Batley, an Australian diplomat, stresses tirelessly. But there's no doubt that the mission is an Australian initiative. Without Canberra...
Which brings us back to Sogavare's populist trump card. Sovereignty is a slippery concept in the arc of instability to Australia's north. In a typically under-the-radar speech on RAMSI's third anniversary, Batley defined it for tomorrow's leaders. "Sovereignty is not just about having the ability to pass laws," he told university students in Honiara. "It's also about the capacity of a nation to enforce those laws. Sovereignty is not just the ability to announce government policies. It's about the capacity of a nation to implement those policies and to pay for them...
RAMSI's special coordinator, Australian diplomat James Batley, acknowledges that stopping child exploitation is an urgent problem, and says his team is "reinforcing the system" for doing so. But he points out that the mission's mandate is to help the Solomons government perform its role more effectively. To that end, it has focused on the most pressing problems: a lack of security and essential services. Much of the effort by RAMSI's Participating Police Force and the Royal Solomon Islands Police "has to be put into the task of getting the pieces of this fragmented institution (the RSIP) operating...
...monitoring the trade think all that's needed is a firm demonstration that child abuse will no longer be tolerated. "Hover a helicopter over one of those boats, drop a boarding party on the deck, and it wouldn't happen again," says a senior ngo worker. But RAMSI chief Batley says "one show of force is not going to solve the problem." Commissioner Castles says he will follow up Junelyn's story and investigate the other allegations in the unicef report. Yet for all of RAMSI's successes to date, this is an area where authorities can't afford...
...Batley understands that Solomon Islanders want basic services, but feels even those expectations are unrealistic. "A lot of Solomon Islanders don't make the connection between good policy and what that means for the delivery of government services and for a growing economy," he says. "The work required to return the social infrastructure and administration not only to functionality but to really being effective and efficient is an enormous challenge, and it will take years." It's a hard message to sell to a public that's been let down for so long. Batley and other ramsi officers are wary...