FEATURE: Solomons police target kwaso makers

Pacific Beat's Jemima Garrett joins Malaitan police on a raid targeting makers of potent home-brew kwaso, blamed for a rise in drunken violence across the Solomons.

Jemima Garrett, Malaita

Last Updated: Fri, 2 Apr 2010 10:32:00 +1100

Home brew, known as kwaso, is rapidly becoming Solomon Islands biggest law and order problem.

In Honiara, the highly potent spirit drink is causing drunken fights and bashings, and making women scared to walk the streets at night.

Three Kwaso suspects have been rounded up in a weekend raid by the Royal Solomon Islands Police and members of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands of a hideout in the village of Buma, just north of the Malaitan capital Auki.

Village Council Chairman and Chief John Kala, who called in the Solomon Islands police, says 20 or 30 young men in the village are now kwaso drinkers.

"As chief, I've observed that many women become victims of this Kwaso problem," he said.

"The husband go out drink, come in at nights, bashst them up, if there is no food in the house, that is the real problem."

Kwaso is made by mixing fruit, sugar and yeast, with the ingredients put in an old gas cylinder which serves as a pressure cooker, and the mix heated on an open fire.

Corporal Tony Robertson, who headed up the military contingent of the raid party, says the alcohol is being made deep in the rainforest.

"This is a place here where the cook up the Kwaso, so you can see it is beside a running stream, and they need the water to cool it down, so it can come back to a liquid form and as you can see they have built a small lean to hut, to protect the fire from the elements, and also gives them some concealment from being seen by anyone else returning to the gardens in the area," he said.

An initial raid found evidence of the manufacture, but the raiding party was told by locals the offenders had moved.

Detective George Kalo says two of the offenders were located in a leaf hut - one holding a long-bladed bush knife and one an axe.

"When you see the natives holding a bush knife, you might feel they are going to hurt you, but somehow, with some understanding, it's just something that's nothing to us," he said.

"We can just communicate in their own language, so we can approach them...very peacefully. We can handle it with no problem."

A third suspect was later arrested.

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