Solomon Islands Needs an Army? What the Hell!!!

GRA fighters 2000

My belief is that for situations where we can control, we only need police personnel to take charge, but for situations that we cannot control we need the presence of army. 

And I think Solomon Islands needs to have its own army or military forces to take care of its own matters.

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I came across this letter to the editor of Solomon Star and just wanted to post a few thoughts about the issue. Just a few years ago, Solomon Islands was plunged into chaos and total anarchy by an army paid for and trained by Australia and New Zealand army. I was among the spectators at Rove in the 90s marveling at the performance of the then Solomon Islands' Royal Field Force, dubbed the PFF squad. One of the commanders was my brother-in-law who was promoted to Staff Sergeant after saving his squad at an Island in the Shortland Islands from the tyrannical PNGDF. This well trained army was responsible for the burning of Kakabona and killing of innocent civilian Guadalcanal during the crisis when it teamed up with the Malaita Eagle Force (MEF). In an attempt to protect its border and building up military strength to fend off any incoming invasion from its neighboring Papua New Guinea, prime minister Solomon Mamaloni diverted foreign aid money into purchasing of modern weapons. These high powered weapons were then used in the wake of the Guadalcanal insurrection (1998-2000). 

Commodore Frank Bainimarama

The main argument in this article is seriously flawed because we all know that SI had an army (prior to the ethnic crisis) of more than 200 soldiers. It didn't bring peace but chaos as these trained soldiers turned criminals. To assume that having an army would prevent wars /crime is indeed presumptuous. Look around the Pacific: PNG and Fiji both have strong military - Army and Navy, but look at the crime rate in these country. PNG is rated the third highest crime rate in the world while Fiji military is being used as a bargaining tool by so-called chiefs and military rulers such as Sitiveni Rabuka and Commodore Frank Bainimarama. Today, Fijians still living under a military government capable of creating havoc in minutes. 
Having an army is not a deterrence, especially in a region people of different ethnicity living side by side. An army can be misused by political elites and dominant ethnic groups, in fact, it is not a theory - we've seen the chaos in the past forty years. In Vanuatu, PNGDF was called to hunt the rebels, so were New Caledonian rebels. In PNG, Bougainvilleans took up arms against PNG. In Solomon Islands, government guns were turned against its citizens. Don't be naive!
Besides that obvious danger of having an army, the cost itself is unreal. It is not only costly but a waste of resources and capital. As a developing state, Solomon Islands Government (SIG) should use (properly) allocated funds on things that are most important to the people: the infrastructure, services, etc. These are the pressing issues our leaders need to focus on instead of going back to the past mentality!

NO NIDIM ARMY - Waste of time!