After two days of violent riots, Manasseh Sogavare, the pro-Chinese Prime Minister of the archipelago called Canberra using, Thursday, to restore order.
By
Thursday, November 25, after two days of violent riots in his country, it is to Australia that the Prime Minister Pro-Chinese Solomon Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, asked for assistance. Under a security agreement bias the two countries since 2017, its Australian counterpart, Scott Morrison, with Knives with Beijing, immediately answered and announced the deployment of more than 100 police officers and military to help forces. of the Solomonian order to “ensure the stability and security” of the archipelago. The first men landed the same evening in the capital, Honiara. Friday afternoon, a hundred protesters had gathered in front of Manasseh Sogavare’s residence.
“The Australian government has no intention in any way to intervene in the internal issues of the Solomon Islands, it is up to them. I said it very clearly. Our presence Low does not indicate any position taken, “stake the Scott Morrison Conservative.
Between 2003 and 2017, Canberra had led the RAMSI peacekeeping force, established to stabilize the Melanesian country after five years of interethnic violence. “Australia already has the experience of the land. Without its intervention, there is a risk of reliving a civil war that could cause regional instability,” says Alexander Dayant, researcher at the Lowy Institute of Sydney.
Wednesday, protesters claiming the resignation of Manasseh Sogavar had attempted to storm the Parliament before breaking down the streets of the capital, where they burned official buildings and looted shops. From 19 hours, the head of the government introduced a curfew but the police were totally overwhelmed by the rioters, ever more numerous, who, continued to rack the city and in particular the Chinatown district. Worried, a spokesman for the diplomacy of Beijing, Zhao Lijian, asked “to the Government of Solomon Islands to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the entities and Chinese nationals”.
Resentment screws – China
This is not the first time this community owner of most businesses in Honiara, makes the fees for the anger of Solomonais, some of whom are invaded. In 2006, protesters had already taken Chinatown.
Today, the resentment vis-à-vis the Asian giant is all the more vivid than in 2019, Manasseh Sogavare has decided, without real consultations, to recognize diplomatically Beijing, turning his back to an alliance of thirty -Six years with Taiwan. Several elected officials had protested; The most virulent of them, the leader of the Government of the Island of Malaita, Daniel Suidani, had even ended up announced, the September 2020, that he would organize a referendum on the Independence of his province, the most populous of the archipelago – In the early 2000s, she had played a major role in the interethnic violence that had blocked the country.
You have 35.19% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.