A dusk to dawn curfew was lifted in the capital of Honiara yesterday, more than a week after Snyder Rini's election as prime minister sparked two days of burning and looting amid allegations of official corruption.
The former deputy prime minister was accused of shady links with prominent Chinese businessmen and of receiving cash from Taiwan, prompting mobs to focus their anger on businesses owned by the Chinese community.
But despite the violence abating and Rini stepping down, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the situation would remain problematic into the foreseeable future, even after new elections planned for next week.
"Regardless of who they appoint as prime minister, I don't think you can say that that's going to overcome the instability," Downer said on Australian commercial radio. "The instability is also pretty entrenched."
The curfew was imposed on Wednesday last week as Australian troop reinforcements arrived to reimpose order after the worst violence since an Australian-led force arrived in 2003 to end five years of civil unrest.
Rini's resignation after losing the support of parliament -- just five days after he was sworn in -- was met with jubilation in Honiara, easing the tense atmosphere in the dusty city of 50,000.
Police Commissioner Shane Castles said the decision to lift the curfew was made after he met top government officials yesterday.
Security would continue to be progressively relaxed over coming days but around 1,000 mostly Australian and New Zealand troops and police would remain on high alert until next week's prime ministerial election, he said.
"Hopefully that will be a more popular choice and we won't see the level of violence recur," Castles said.
Australia has been criticized for being caught off-guard by the rioting and for not being able to stabilize the country nearly three years after leading the July 2003 intervention. But Downer said the riots could not have been foreseen.
"We didn't know they were going to trash the joint. Obviously if we'd known that in advance we would have had some troops there in advance," he said.
New Zealand Defence Minister Phil Goff also defended the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) during a visit to Honiara Thursday.
"If RAMSI hadn't have been here, and something like this happened, we would've been looking at loss of life, we would've been looking at chaos," Goff said during a tour of damaged areas.
The only reported casualties during the rioting were about 35 police, injured mostly by rocks thrown by protesters.
Government officials said a new election of a prime minister by the 50 members of parliament would be held on Thursday next week.
Opposition candidate Manasseh Sogavare said he was confident of victory. He added he expected the elections to be clean following accusations that Rini had bribed other MPs for support in last week's election.
"I think people are sick and tired of it ... we want clean elections and that is what will happen," Sogavare said
Sogavare, who was also prime minister for a year from 2000 after a coup displaced his predecessor, added he expected no further unrest.
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