Solomons’ riots were likely politically motivated

According to an interim report, commission of inquiry into the violence said security forces — which were under the control of an Australia and New Zealand-led mission — were unprepared and could not handle the situation.

Hundreds of people went on a rampage that erupted on April 18, 2006, outside the Pacific island country’s Parliament when Snyder Rini was announced as the winner of just-held elections.

The violence raged for two days, leaving most of the downtown business district burned and ransacked. Hundreds fled but no one was killed in the violence.

Australia and New Zealand sent troops to restore order. Eventually, Rini was forced to resign and Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare came to power.

The violence targeted ethnic Chinese amid rumors that China or Taiwan was involved in bribing lawmakers to vote for Rini — a charge both countries deny.

The Solomon Islands, an impoverished archipelago of nearly a half million people northeast of Australia, is caught in a tug of war for diplomatic influence between China and Taiwan, which split in 1949.

The commission, headed by former Papua New Guinea judge Brian Brunton, said that while there was animosity toward Chinese in the community, it was not the cause of the riots.

“The assertions that the riot was a spontaneous outburst because of the corruption of the previous government and its links with the Chinese ... does not ring true,” he said in the report.

“The evidence suggests that a group of persons planned events and decided that if their candidate was not elected prime minister ... they would cause such trouble so as to force a regime-change,” he said.

He did not name any suspected orchestrators of the violence.

The report said police should have known tensions would be high during the “king-making period” immediately after the elections, when the government would be formed through intense political horse trading.

But police were caught off guard and had no plan to deal with a riot.

“The Solomon Islands Police Force were, in effect, unprepared without riot gear, or a riot trained capability on that morning,” the report said.

The report said local police were at the time effectively under the control of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, the Australia led force deployed to the country in 2003 to quell a long-running tribal conflict.

Canberra did not immediately respond to the report. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has previously derided the commission as a waste of money, and as potentially compromising trials stemming from the riots.

Two men Sogavare appointed as ministers are awaiting trial for allegedly stoking the violence.

Relations between Sogavare and Canberra have plunged since he came to power, with Downer accusing the Solomons’ leader of poor governance and the Pacific chief threatening to throw the peacekeepers out.

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