San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
3 bodies found, 100 arrested in violent protests
CANBERRA, Australia — Solomon Islands police found three bodies in a burned-out building and arrested more than 100 people in last week’s violence sparked by concerns about the Pacific nation’s increasing links with China.
Australian media reported the bodies were recovered late Friday after riots and protests subsided. Authorities imposed a curfew in the capital Honiara, after a 36-hour lockdown ordered by the embattled Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare ended Friday.
Sogavare blamed outside interference for stirring up the protests calling for his resignation, with a thinly veiled reference to Taiwan and the United States.
Sogavare has been widely criticized by leaders of the country’s most populous island of Malaita for a 2019 decision to drop diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of mainland China. Beijing claims the self-ruled island of Taiwan as part of its territory.
His government, meanwhile, has been upset over millions in U.S. aid promised directly to Malaita, rather than through the central government on the largest island of Guadalcanal, where Honiara is located. The two islands have been rivals for decades.
Malaita threatened to hold a referendum on independence over the issue, but that was quashed by Sogavare’s government.
Andrew Yang, a professor at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University and former deputy defense minister, said
Australian soldiers stand guard outside the airport in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. Protests erupted over the Pacific nation’s increasingly close links with China.
China’s efforts to win diplomatic recognition from the Solomon Islands are part of a competition for regional dominance with the United States and its ally, Australia.
The Solomon Islands, with a population of about 700,000, are about 1,000 miles northeast of Australia. They are best known for the bloody fighting that took place there during World War
II between the United States and Japan.
Riots and looting targeting Hoinara’s Chinatown and downtown precincts erupted Wednesday during a protest in the capital by people from Malaita. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the demonstrators, who set fire to the National Parliament, a police station and many other buildings.
Australian police officers and diplomats arrived in Honiara last week to help local police restore order. Up to 50 more Australian officers and 43 defense force personnel were also deployed following a request by Sogavare under a treaty with Australia. The presence of an independent force, though small, seemed to help quell some of the violence.