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Transcription originale d'une interview de M. Alexander Downer, ministre australien des Affaires étrangères, réalisée et diffusée le 3 octobre 2007 par ABC Radio  

MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP

TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE
DATE: 3 October, 2007
TITLE: Interview – ABC Radio.

PRESENTER: I’m talking to Alexander Downer, Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. We’re talking about the Solomon Islands. Mr Downer, Patteson Oti got up on Monday, a couple of nights ago, in the UN General Assembly and gave, what I would describe, as a fairly horrific spray towards the regional assistance, RAMSI, and its leadership. Was the venomous of what he had to say, did it surprise you?

MR DOWNER: It doesn’t really surprise me because you’ve got a coalition of politicians led by Mr Sogavare and including Patteson Oti, the Foreign Minister, and of course the so-called Attorney General, Mr Moti, who want to destroy RAMSI, and what stands between RAMSI and its destruction, to tell you the truth, is the very strong public support there is in Solomon Islands for the continuation of RAMSI so we’re kind of used to this. They’re always out there attacking Australia and attacking RAMSI and my view is that the Solomon Islands Government needs to think about the interests of the ordinary people of the Solomons, not just about their own personal interests.

PRESENTER: Let’s look at a couple of the criticisms that were made. The leadership of RAMSI, he said, were only there to pursue Australia’s interests because Australia leads RAMSI. I’m pretty sure that’s something you would disagree with?

MR DOWNER: Of course. What interest does Australia have? This is costing us a lot of money. We want to see Solomon Islands a stable and secure country. We don’t have any economic interests in it. With the greatest of respect to the Solomon Islands, it is a tiny place, it has got a very small economy and Australia is the 12th, 13th or whatever largest economy in the world so it is not for economic reasons we’re there. We don’t have some kind of 21st century equivalent of British imperialism, as a philosophical backdrop to the business we do. All we’re interested in is trying to help the people of the Solomon Islands achieve a degree of stability and growing prosperity and we’d like to see that. I’d appreciate that there are people like Mr Moti and Mr Sogavare and of course Mr Oti who have other interests and they are not the same as ours.

PRESENTER: The other one, the point that he made there was a call on the United Nations Security Council to play a larger role. Has the Security Council shown any interest in putting it under the umbrella of the United Nations?

MR DOWNER: Well, Solomon Islands doesn’t recognise China, it recognises Taiwan so that would be the first great obstacle they would confront if they wanted it taken up more by the United Nations Security Council. But I think in any case the United Nations Security Council is comfortable with what is being done so I’m not really quite sure what his point is.

PRESENTER: Given all this and given that this is the latest in a long line of complaints, we’ve also had a complaint - you’re probably aware – of an ANU run study of public perceptions.

MR DOWNER: Yes.

PRESENTER: Given all this – I will ask you a question about that later – but given all that, does it concern you the future of RAMSI in the Solomon Islands?

MR DOWNER: It does concern me somewhat, I suppose, that all of this has been going on for so long, since the riots took place in Honiara and as a result of those riots, Mr Sogovare became the Prime Minister and basically to start with, he wanted to appoint people who are facing charges in relation to those riots into senior positions in his government. Then subsequent to that, he’s really embarked on quite a long campaign of personal abuse of Australia and Australian leaders and of attacking RAMSI because he doesn’t like RAMSI. I accept that he doesn’t. But does it concern me? Well what worries me is the interests of the ordinary people of the Solomon Islands frankly and if RAMSI were to fail, then I think the consequences for the ordinary people of the Solomons would be dire and that’s why they don’t want it to fail and I don’t want it to fail.

PRESENTER: Finance Minister, Gordon Darcy Lilo announced that he will be investigating the funding of the statistics division of his department in relation to that ANU study which he says was done only for the purposes of RAMSI. A surprising move, do you believe?

MR DOWNER: Well of course because this is only after Mr Sogovare asked him to say those sorts of things. The statistical office in Honiara was happy to work with the ANU, and they did work with the ANU and the head of the statistical office was going to go to the launch of the project. Look, it’s an embarrassment to Mr Sogovare and some of the people in his government, not all of them, because they want to destroy RAMSI and it just demonstrates the enormous public support. I mean we’re talking here 90 per cent support for RAMSI amongst the general public in the Solomon Islands and it also has some fairly harsh things to say about the quality of the government in the Solomon Islands – I won’t comment on that – but it has harsh things to say so they don’t like it. But their just shooting the messenger really and they need to concentrate on the national interests, not their own personal interests.

[Ends]

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