Solomon Islands police find 3 bodies after violent protests
CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA
Solomon Islands police found three bodies in a burned-out building and arrested more than 100 people in this 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. No other details were given.
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 Guadacanal, where Honiara is located. The two islands have been rivals for decades.
Andrew Yang, a professor at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University and former deputy defense minister, said 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