A highly tense row between Rendova landowners, including a logging company, has been resolved by commendable police intervention.

Speaking yesterday at the police headquarters in Rove, Police Commissioner Mathew Varley said that the logging dispute at Rendova island is now resolved after the police’s exhaustive operation.

Mr Mathew noted that the police operation was an ongoing operation which began last week.

On Monday last week, a community group of about sixty people armed with local weapons approached the Vasara logging camp at Rendova and delivered a letter demanding that the logging company leave within seven days.

Mr Varley adds that, that same day, an argument broke out causing disturbance to the community, damage to property, injury to some security guards and damage to equipment and infrastructure at the logging camp.

Since then, the police commissioner said officers have been involved in negotiations with the community groups as well as negotiations between the disputing parties.

He also said that last week additional officers were dispatched to help assist the situation.

“On Friday and on Saturday we deployed further officers from Honiara including the police response team as a precautionary measure to ensure that the safety and peace of the area was preserved.

“Our objective at all times was to negotiate a peaceful resolution and a peaceful outcome between the disputing parties and to preserve the peace,” he said.

The police commissioner said that the seven-day period lapsed yesterday and over the weekend police officers continued to negotiate but were unsuccessful in soothing the dispute.

During the early hours of Monday morning, Feb 27, police officers from the western province community policing team and the police response team were deployed into the area to arrest the ring leaders of the disputing party, those who were responsible for the incident and people who were in possession of local weapons.

“As a result today, RSIPF has arrested approximately 59 people at the camp site and those 59 people are currently in custody and are in the process of being transported to our police station at Gizo.

“We have investigators on site and we have additional officers on site that are working to process those charges and those in custody as a priority.

“In due course, those persons charged will be placed before local magistrates and the matters will be dealt with appropriately by the court,” he said.

The police commissioner said that the arrests which occurred yesterday was effectively carried out and that the operation was a success given that there no injuries and very little resistance during time of the arrests.

“So overall, the operation was successful and the police on the ground will continue to monitor the situation, to make sure that there are no further issues of risks to safety to any person.

We will to negotiate and talk to community leaders and parties involved to ensure that peace is preserved.

“On top of that, we will also monitor the situation in the coming days and we will work with our counterparts including the forestry commission to ensure that the disputed problem in relation to the logging camp can be successfully resolved without any further party resorting to violence,” he said.