An Australian academic says there is a risk that Solomon Islands will never heal from the violent conflict that resulted in international military intervention a decade ago.
Clive Moore's comment comes as the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands or RAMSI prepares to mark its 10th anniversary along with its transition to a policing-only operation.
The mission, which has been led by Australia, followed five years of tensions from 1998 thought to have killed about 200 people and displaced more than 20-thousand.
The Solomon Islands government has been sitting on a Truth and Reconciliation report into the conflict since early last year, prompting its final editor to leak copies of it online.
Professor Moore says it is the right time for RAMSI to be scaled right down but the country's ability to recover from the unrest will depend on whether the government processes the report.
"Having invested so much of people's time and just their hopes in truth and reconciliation, lots of people sort of vented their souls and told everything, you can't just say, 'Oh, we didn't like the answer.'"
The University of Queensland's Professor Clive Moore.
