AS Guadalcanal celebrates its 34th Second Appointed today, men, women, youth and ex-combatant representatives from around the Province have converged into Honiara to be part of a reparation scoping workshop organised to share ideas on helping the National Government to address outstanding issues and claims arising from both the Bougainville crisis and the recent ethnic tensions.
Ideas and resolutions reached during the workshop will provide a guideline for the national Government to design a comprehensive policy and legislation to address issues that gave rise to the ethnic tensions from 1998 to 2003 including impacts of the subsequent violence as well as the Bougainville Crisis.
The scoping workshop aims to gather collective views and to inform ex-combatants, victims, women, youths and other important stakeholders that the National Government in partnership with the UNDP is committed to start addressing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report pertaining to Reparation.
The consultation process begins the Government’s first step to address outstanding issues of the social conflict as well as to discuss key issues necessary to assist in creating a new legislation to address all reparation-related issues.
The scoping and consultation process also looks at introducing legal frameworks and to identify avenues within existing legal frameworks where reparation issues can be addressed.
The current Solomon Islands Democratic Coalition of Change Government (SIDCCG) places emphasis on post-conflict rehabilitation focusing on the TRC Report implementation, which includes Reparation as one of key priority policies.
The scoping workshop was funded by the UNDP through the UN Peacebuilding fund, the UN Women and the Solomon Islands Government through the Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation and Peace (MNURP).
Similar workshops will be held for both Western and Choiseul provinces and Malaita province in coming weeks.
–GCU
