The Solomon Islands went through an ethnically fuelled armed conflict commonly known as “the Tensions” between 1998 and 2003.  Gross human rights abuses were committed during the conflict, including killings, abductions, torture, sexual violence, forced displacement and destruction of property. Peace agreements signed in 1999 and 2000 failed to end the conflict, which only stopped in 2003 with the intervention of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

In August 2008, Minister for National Unity, Reconciliation and Peace Shemuel Sam Iduri introduced a Truth and Reconciliation Commission Bill in Parliament, which was passed later that month. The commission was formally inaugurated on 29 April 2009, with the attendance of South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (Read more about the commission.)