Ethnic Chinese flee Solomons, more troops on way

HONIARA, Apr 23: Australia is sending additional troops to the Solomon Islands, as more ethnic Chinese fled the country today amid rising tensions before parliament opens for the first time since post-election rioting.

The election of new Prime Minister Snyder Rini sparked two days of rioting last week in the capital Honiara, where a curfew has been imposed. A peacekeeping force from Australia, New Zealand and Fiji is patrolling the capital.

About 50 soldiers from New Zealand arrived today.

Australia's Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said today another platoon of 25 soldiers would be sent to the Solomons to guard the airport, joining 300 military personnel in Honiara. Two patrol boats would arrive this week, he told ABC television.

The rioting, fueled by rumours that Taiwan had paid lawmakers to elect Rini, targetted the tiny, but economically powerful Chinese community in Honiara.

About 150 Chinese were airlifted out of Honiara today, travelling to the airport under a military escort in the back of three small trucks. They will join 90 Chinese who were flown to Papua New Guinea on Saturday night on a Beijing chartered aircraft and will eventually be sent on to China.

The Solomons, like other Pacific island countries, has been caught up in a battle for diplomatic influence between China and Taiwan, which split in a civil war six decades ago.

The Solomons officially recognises Taiwan, but China is trying to lure it and Taiwan's other diplomatic allies away.

PARLIAMENT LOCKED DOWN

The military will lock down the Solomons parliament on Monday when MPs meet for the first time since an election earlier this month. That poll was the first since Australian-led peacekeepers restored law and order in 2003 after violent ethnic unrest.

Opposition parties have already moved a no-confidence motion against Rini, which is due to go to a vote on Wednesday.

Both sides claim they have the numbers to be successful.

Church leaders appealed to congregations today for calm and asked looters to return what they had stolen.

''As soon as the Chinese have the courage to open their doors again, they should go in and shake their hands and say sorry,'' Catholic Archbishop Adrian Smith told Honiara's packed Holy Cross church.

China and Taiwan have long battled for diplomatic recognition from South Pacific nations. A recent Australian Senate report on China said the diplomatic competition could hurt political stability and economic development in the South Pacific. It described the rivalry between Beijing and Taipei -- as a ''Pacific Cold War'', with both using ''cheque book diplomacy''.

MISUSED AID

Taiwan, one of the biggest aid donors to the Solomons, must know that since its money is going through the prime minister's office instead of the finance ministry it is being misued, opposition leader Job Dudley Tausinga said on Sunday.

''Taiwan knows that and they perpetuate that by using the prime minister's office to disperse the funds,'' Tausinga, who lost the parliamentary poll for prime minister on Tuesday to Rini by just a few votes, told reporters.

Solomons voters ousted half their parliament in the poll in early April, but it wasn't enough to unseat the government, with Rini being elevated to the top job and naming 11 members of the previous government in his 21-member cabinet.

Honiara's Chinatown was destroyed in the rioting and looting, with buildings burnt to the ground, forcing some Chinese to jump from windows and flee across a nearby river.

The Chinese number just a few thousand in the Solomons' 50,000-strong population.

Dozens of buildings still smoulder in Honiara and derelict shops are daubed with obscene graffiti directed at Rini and the Australian-led peacekeeping force.

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.

Australia led a South Pacific force to restore order, warning that failed states could become terrorist havens.

Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea have all committed more troops and police to the Solomons since the latest unrest, bring the foreign peacekeeping force to more than 700.

REUTERS