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
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UN’s top court opens Myanmar Rohingya genocide case
- The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019
- Verdict expected to impact Israel’s genocide case over war on Gaza
DHAKA: The International Court of Justice on Monday opened a landmark case accusing Myanmar of genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The Gambia filed a case against Myanmar at the UN’s top court in 2019, two years after a military offensive forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya from their homes into neighboring Bangladesh.
The hearings will last three weeks and conclude on Jan. 29.
“The ICJ must secure justice for the persecuted Rohingya. This process should not take much longer, as we all know that justice delayed is justice denied,” said Asma Begum, who has been living in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district since 2017.
A mostly Muslim ethnic minority, the Rohingya have lived for centuries in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state but were stripped of their citizenship in the 1980s and have faced systemic persecution ever since.
In 2017 alone, some 750,000 of them fled military atrocities and crossed to Bangladesh, in what the UN has called a textbook case of ethnic cleansing by Myanmar.
Today, about 1.3 million Rohingya shelter in 33 camps in Cox’s Bazar, turning the coastal district into the world’s largest refugee settlement.
“We experienced horrific acts such as arson, killings and rape in 2017, and fled to Bangladesh,” Begum told Arab News.
“I believe the ICJ verdict will pave the way for our repatriation to our homeland. The world should not forget us.”
A UN fact-finding mission has concluded that the Myanmar 2017 offensive included “genocidal acts” — an accusation rejected by Myanmar, which said it was a “clearance operation” against militants.
Now, there is hope for justice and a new future for those who have been displaced for years.
“We also have the right to live with dignity. I want to return to my homeland and live the rest of my life in my ancestral land. My children will reconnect with their roots and be able to build their own future,” said Syed Ahmed, who fled Myanmar in 2017 and has since been raising his four children in the Kutupalong camp.
“Despite the delay, I am optimistic that the perpetrators will be held accountable through the ICJ verdict. It will set a strong precedent for the world.”
The Myanmar trial is the first genocide case in more than a decade to be taken up by the ICJ. The outcome will also impact the genocide case that Israel is facing over its war on Gaza.
“The momentum of this case at the ICJ will send a strong message to all those (places) around the world where crimes against humanity have been committed,” Nur Khan, a Bangladeshi lawyer and human rights activist, told Arab News.
“The ICJ will play a significant role in ensuring justice regarding accusations of genocide in other parts of the world, such as the genocide and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the people of Gaza.”
