Peacekeepers patrol strife-torn Solomons capital

A burnt out RAMSI vehicle lies in front of the Chinese-owned Pacific Casino Hotel in Honiara. Picture / Reuters

HONIARA - An Australian-led peacekeeping force patrolled the Solomon Islands capital Honiara today after two days of rioting as Canberra vowed to maintain stability in the region over concerns of terrorism.

Honiara was calm early today after an overnight curfew forced rioters off the streets, but torched buildings continued to smoulder and send smoke over parts of the town.

"It is generally calm. People are still going to the burnt out shops and trying to pick up what they can, but there are more police out on the streets now," government communications officer Johnson Honimae told Reuters.

Australia and New Zealand have committed an extra 235 troops to a multinational peacekeeping force in the Solomons, which has been unable to stop the violence sparked by the election of Snyder Rini as new prime minister on Tuesday.

Australia led a South Pacific force into the Solomons in 2003, when the country was on the verge of collapse due to ethnic fighting, with Prime Minister John Howard saying failed states could become terrorist havens.

"As a stable, united, prosperous nation in the region, we know it is in our interests, as well as in the interests of the region, that we prevent states from failing," Howard said in a speech late on Wednesday.

"It is a reminder that we live in a part of the world that carries with it the constant threat of failed states."

The rioters torched and looted mainly Chinese-owned businesses in Honiara and the new Pacific Casino Hotel, owned by a Chinese businessman, was set ablaze overnight.

Protesters believe the election was rigged and was influenced by local Chinese businessmen and the Taiwan government, which the Solomons recognises diplomatically, but Rini refuses to step aside.

"The common knowledge here is that the election was not a fair and free one, it has been tainted by corruption by Taiwan," Joses Tuhanuku, president of the Solomon Islands Labour Party, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. television late on Wednesday.

"That's why people are very angry, they are going to have to put up with the same group again for the next four years," said Tuhanuku, who lost his seat to a former Solomons ambassador to Taiwan.

About 50 people have been evacuated to northern Australia and Australia has offered flights on military aircraft for citizens from Australia, Britain, the United States and Canada who want to leave the Solomons.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said extra patrols on Thursday would lock down areas where rioters torched mainly Chinese-owned businesses and looted shops.

Keelty defended the response by police from the 11-nation Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, which has been in the country since 2003, saying work to disarm rival gangs over the past three years had prevented more violence.

"If this had happened three or four years ago, we would have been counting the number of dead this morning," Keelty told Australia radio.

The Solomons, a chain of 992 islands covering 1.35 million sq km of ocean, teetered on the brink of collapse in 2003 when armed gangs fought over Honiara.

- REUTERS