An Australian navy command ship will sail for the lawless and near-bankrupt Solomon Islands on Monday as the advance guard of a multi-national intervention force, Australia said yesterday.
"The [navy ship] Manoora is being deployed to ensure it can be in place for the arrival by air of police and military elements that the government may decide to send to the Solomons," Defense Minister Robert Hill said yesterday.
PHOTO: AFP
HMAS Manoora would leave the northern Australian city of Townsville on Monday for the Solomons capital Honiara, he said in a statement. Honiara is 1,750km northwest of Townsville.
The vessel will act as a command and logistics center for the force and will also provide medical services.
The 2,000-strong force of police, troops and civilian administrators, the largest military deployment in the South Pacific since World War II, has been unanimously backed by the Solomons parliament and has widespread support among the nation of 450,000 people.
Hundreds of people have died in fighting between rival ethnic militias from Guadalcanal island and neighboring Malaita since 1998 and the country has slowly spiralled toward anarchy and bankruptcy since a police-backed coup in June 2000.
Local media reported that the government of Prime Allan Kema-keza and police commissioner William Morrell had begun a public education program to inform Solomon Islanders about the intervention force.
"The people of the Solomon Islands have nothing to fear from this intervention," Morrell, a Briton, told Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp radio.
The rest of the force, including soldiers and police from New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga is due to begin gathering in Townsville before being airlifted to Honiara.
A spokesman for the Fiji armed forces said some of the 123 experienced peacekeepers Fiji has committed to the force would leave for Townsville later yesterday. New Zealand will contribute 105 soldiers, 35 police and four helicopters to the force.
The Solomons parliament passed a bill on Thursday legalizing the deployment of the force. The legislation includes the right to use reasonable force, an amnesty for handing in illegal weapons and immunity from prosecution for members of the contingent.
The foreign troops and police will seek to restore order in Honiara, where armed gangs roam at will, before moving to take control of outlying areas, including the Weathercoast stronghold of renegade warlord Harold Keke southwest of Honiara on Guadalcanal.
"Restoring law and order to the Solomon Islands is essentially a policing task," Hill said.
Australia expects the military component of up to 500 troops, sent to protect police and administrators, would only be in the troubled country for a few months at most.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS