Solomons police unaware of talks for extended AFP presence

Transcript

The commissioner of the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force says he is not aware of any talks about a longer term Australian Federal Police presence in the country.

Frank Prendergast was responding to media reports that a permanent AFP presence was being planned after the departure of the Regional Assistance Mission (RAMSI) to Solomon Islands in June next year.

Mr Prendergast told Koroi Hawkins about plans for the future development of the RSIPF.

FRANK PRENDERGAST: What we're doing at the moment recognising that like a lot of police forces around the world there is scope for ongoing assistance to the development of the RSIPF. We've been in discussions with both New Zealand and Australia in relation to ongoing police development support to the RSIPF and this is the type of support you see in a lot of countries around the world, in our very near neighbour Timor, also in PNG where you have police advisors coming in to assist the ongoing development of the police force and that's what's being discussed at the moment. None of those programmes are finalised. There's some decisions to be made by both Australia and New Zealand in conjunction with the Solomon Islands government about the type of support that will be offered, the scale of it, the scope of it, but clearly there's been a lot of consultations with the RSIPF and the Solomon Islands government as those programmes are worked through. So it's premature to talk about how big those programmes will be, what sort of investment there'll be in those programmes, but I'm confident that based on the discussions that we've been having with Australia and New Zealand around the design of those programmes that both those programmes will be well targeted and assist with the continuing development of the RSIPF. Police development doesn't stop. If you don't continue to improve and change you'll get left behind and this is what these programmes are designed to assist us to do.

KOROI HAWKINS: Would you be able to respond if I said - are reports of the AFP setting up a more permanent rotation of any value or would that  be just a non-point?

FP: I think it really depends on, you know when we talk about these programmes they're always arranged for a certain set lifespan, so normal budget cycles of four years so generally when you see these programmes designed, they're designed for a four year or a less period and at some stage during that process there'll be an ongoing discussion about whether we require the developments still or whether the donors are in a position to provide it so to call them a permanent presence I think you know this programme is a bit premature and it doesn't really reflect what the programme's about. Now in terms of reports about a permanent presence, as I said, I think that question's best directed to the AFP rather than to me.

KH: Right and there's also in those reports, there's also suggestions of having access to advanced or higher levels of response to stuff like public unrest and larger events. Is that something that your force would also be looking at?

FP: Yes certainly when you move outside arrangements around the development of the RSIPF, clearly we're very interested in arrangements with police forces around the region in terms of cooperation. We're  in discussions with other police forces about more formal arrangements for cooperation. We're a candidate for membership of INTERPOL, so certainly we'd be looking to talk with all our partners about cooperative arrangements where we can help each other. Examples of that are where the Solomon Islands has deployed to Vanuatu with the patrol boats on a couple of occasions to assist them with issues. So those type of regional arrangements where we assist each other either with resources or expertise are always something we're interested in or the exchange of relevant information. So those sort of discussions will go on, those sort of arrangements are in place. The RSIPF already has a Memorandum of Understanding with the AFP around cooperation and indeed in certain cases where we don't have the technical expertise, we'll reach out to our partners for assistance.

KH: Obviously the question this report raised in my mind was - so RAMSI's gone, or not gone, almost implying the job's not done, you know?

FP: No, I think the job has been done. In all the discussions we're having, we're not talking about a continuation of RAMSI, but what we're talking about is some fairly normal continued assistance with police development, and I think , as Commissioner of RSIPF, I'd welcome that support. We are a big region geographically but we're a small region. It's good to have in place relationships and arrangements with other forces so that we can help each other. Clearly New Zealand and Australia have some technical resources that we don't have so for some investigations we'll need assistance from them with advanced forensic techniques for example, ballistic examination of firearms, those type of things. You need to have the arrangements in place that let that happen. They're not the only regional police forces we're interested in working with. We're also working through the MSG Police Commissioners framework and through the Pacific Island Chiefs of Police framework and cooperative approaches there so I don't think anyone should misread this talk. It's really about bringing things back to the normal police to police relationships. I think that what people have forgotten is that what's happening with RAMSI has been out of the ordinary and it was designed to respond to a specific situtaion. That situation's finished now.