CANBERRA: Australian police began taking control of the Solomon Islands capital Honiara on Friday after days of violent protests in the South Pacific island nation, witnesses said.
Tear gas was deployed in Chinatown where looting and the burning of buildings continued on Friday morning and a new curfew was expected to be imposed later in the day, a resident told Reuters.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who requested help from Australia, on Friday blamed foreign countries for stoking the violent protests, but did not name any.
Many of the protesters come from the most populous province Malaita and feel overlooked by the government in Guadalcanal province and oppose its 2019 decision to end diplomatic ties with Taiwan and establish formal links with China.
“I feel sorry for my people in Malaita because they are fed with false and deliberate lies about the switch,” Sogavare told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“These very countries that are now influencing Malaita are the countries that don’t want ties with the People’s Republic of China, and they are discouraging Solomon Islands to enter into diplomatic relations and to comply with international law and the United Nations resolution.”
China and Taiwan have been rivals in the South Pacific for decades with some island nations switching allegiances.
China views Taiwan as a wayward province with no right to state-to-state ties, which the government in Taipei hotly disputes. Only 15 countries maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The last two to ditch Taipei in favor of Beijing were the Solomon Islands and Kiribati in September 2019.
Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou said in a statement: “We have nothing to do with the unrest”.
Solomon Island resident Transform Aqorau said more than a hundred people were on Friday looting shops, before Australian Federal Police officers arrived.
“The scenes here are really chaotic. It is like a war zone,” Aqorau told Reuters by telephone on Friday morning.
“There is no public transport and it is a struggle with the heat and the smoke. Buildings are still burning.”
He said later Australian police were “taking control of Chinatown.”
A statement on the Solomon Islands government website said public servants with the exception of essential workers should stay at home “due to the current unrest in Honiara City.”
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australia was sending 100 police personnel and was “clearly focused on stability in our region.”
Australian police were previously deployed to the Solomon Islands in 2003 under a peace keeping mission authorized by a Pacific Island Forum declaration and stayed for a decade.
Severe internal unrest and armed conflict from 1998 to 2003 involved militant groups from Guadalcanal and the neighboring island of Malaita, and fighting on the outskirts of Honiara.
Australian police take control of Solomon Islands capital after days of unrest
https://arab.news/m57ut
Australian police take control of Solomon Islands capital after days of unrest
- Tear gas was deployed in Chinatown where looting and the burning of buildings continued on Friday morning
Related
EU leaders to reassess US ties despite Trump U-turn on Greenland
- Diplomats stressed that, although Thursday’s emergency EU talks in Brussels would now lose some of their urgency, the longer-term issue of how to handle the relationship with the US remained
BRUSSELS: EU leaders will rethink their ties with the US at an emergency summit on Thursday after Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs and even military action to acquire Greenland badly shook confidence in the transatlantic relationship, diplomats said.
Trump abruptly stepped back on Wednesday from his threat of tariffs on eight European nations, ruled out using force to take Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and suggested a deal was in sight to end the dispute.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, welcoming Trump’s U-turn on Greenland, urged Europeans not to be too quick to write off the transatlantic partnership.
But EU governments remain wary of another change of mind by a mercurial president who is increasingly seen as a bully that Europe will have to stand up to, and they are focused on coming up with a longer-term plan on how to deal with the United States under this administration and possibly its successors too.
“Trump crossed the Rubicon. He might do it again. There is no going back to what it was. And leaders will discuss it,” one EU diplomat said, adding that the bloc needed to move away from its heavy reliance on the US in many areas.
“We need to try to keep him (Trump) close while working on becoming more independent from the US It is a process, probably a long one,” the diplomat said.
EU RELIANCE ON US
After decades of relying on the United States for defense within the NATO alliance, the EU lacks the needed intelligence, transport, missile defense and production capabilities to defend itself against a possible Russian attack. This gives the US substantial leverage.
The US is also Europe’s biggest trading partner, making the EU vulnerable to Trump’s policies of imposing tariffs to reduce Washington’s trade deficit in goods, and, as in the case of Greenland, to achieve other goals.
“We need to discuss where the red lines are, how we deal with this bully across the Atlantic, where our strengths are,” a second EU diplomat said.
“Trump says no tariffs today, but does that mean also no tariffs tomorrow, or will he again quickly change his mind? We need to discuss what to do then,” the second diplomat said.
The EU had been considering a package of retaliatory tariffs on 93 billion euros ($108.74 billion) on US imports or anti-coercive measures if Trump had gone ahead with his own tariffs, while knowing such a step would harm Europe’s economy as well as the United States.
WHAT’S THE GREENLAND DEAL?
Several diplomats noted there were still few details of the new plan for Greenland, agreed between Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte late on Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Nothing much changed. We still need to see details of the Greenland deal. We are a bit fed up with all the bullying. And we need to act on a few things: more resiliency, unity, get our things together on internal market, competitiveness. And no more accepting tariff bullying,” a third diplomat said.
Rutte told Reuters in an interview in Davos on Thursday that under the framework deal he reached with Trump the Western allies would have to step up their presence in the Arctic.
He also said talks would continue between Denmark, Greenland and the US on specific issues.
Diplomats stressed that, although Thursday’s emergency EU talks in Brussels would now lose some of their urgency, the longer-term issue of how to handle the relationship with the US remained.
“The approach of a united front in solidarity with Denmark and Greenland while focusing on de-escalation and finding an off-ramp has worked,” a fourth EU diplomat said.
“At the same time it would be good to reflect on the state of the relationship and how we want to shape this going forward, given the experiences of the past week (and year),” he said.
