Sputnik’s
investigation into an alleged systematic and well-funded campaign by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to gently oust
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare via elections as punishment for his gradual strategic realignment away from Washington toward Beijing apparently made some waves ahead of last week’s vote.
Stressing that these “categorically false” allegations of electoral interference “detract from USAID’s highly professionalized and non-partisan support of free, fair, and credible elections in the Solomon Islands and elsewhere in the world,” Yastishock suggested that media efforts to call out Washington’s alleged election meddling, and not the suspected interference itself, was at the root of the problem.
“She did not deny USAID’s support for Solomon local political and community leaders, but kept defending and glorifying their aid meet[ing] the requirements of the target country,” the source said.
The source, who previously warned Sputnik that they could not rule out a repeat of the 2021 riots which rocked the Solomons if the elections didn’t go Washington’s way, said reporting on USAID’s alleged nefarious activities may have forced the US and its local networks “to retreat for a while,” with the vote taking place “relatively peacefully” so far, and police commending the public for a peaceful polling day.
“As the counting continues and the highest position of Prime Minister has not been settled, the US and their local networks might try to stir up problems, protests and riots…It all depends on whether the results of the election can meet the expectations of all parties. The people are nervously waiting for the election results,” the source said.
“Can anyone in Washington explain the upgrading of the American diplomatic presence in an island state of 700,000 souls when the same Biden administration has turned its back on Moscow and Beijing in recent years? Dollar diplomacy is alive and well,” Siracusa stressed, pointing to the 100+ year record of the US “involving itself in the domestic affairs of foreign states.”
The Solomons may be small and sparsely populated, but have big strategic potential thanks to their deep water ports and geographic location, Siracusa says.
“Washington has been asking people [in the region] to choose between Beijing and Washington and this guy [Prime Minister Sogavare] surprised everybody by choosing Beijing. He opened his new embassy in Beijing. A country of 724,000 islanders wouldn't have enough money to run an embassy. Obviously, that's a gift from the Chinese government. And, of course, the Americans wanted to reassure the Australians that they were on top of this ‘problem’, and that is why they upgraded their representation there, from a council to an embassy. The idea of having a US embassy in an island of 700,000 people strikes me as absurd. It's an absurd proposition. They are there to woo voters to bring the Solomon Islands ‘back in line’ as a pro-Western nation. And of course, the people in Solomon Islands are not stupid, they like to play off the great powers. There's no neutrality there, they might they might use this tension with Washington and Canberra to get more foreign aid. And of course, the Chinese are just pouring time and money into the place because, the Chinese have offered the Solomon Islanders a concept for economic progress that is their own recent history of beating poverty, beating scarcity, etc.,” the observer noted.
With the Solomons lying at the fault lines of a new Cold War between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region, both countries, as well as regional US ally Australia, have watched the recent election “very closely,” seeing it as a “bellwether” of regional attitudes as the great power competition heats up.
As for Ambassador Yastishock’s claims about Sputnik’s reporting on USAID’s alleged interference campaign, Siracusa said her allegations look “ridiculous.”