Last night police and soldiers on the islands — a former British colony in the Pacific 1,777 miles northeast of Sydney — had abandoned the centre of Honiara to gangs who had destroyed the Chinese business district and the newly completed Pacific Casino Hotel. The capital is on Guadalcanal, the scene of fierce fighting during the Second World War that claimed the lives of more than 7,000 American soldiers and at least 28,000 Japanese.

John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, sent almost 200 extra soldiers and police yesterday to quell the riots and protect a large contingent of Australian and New Zealand police who have been engaged in peacekeeping duties on the islands since mid-2003. New Zealand is also sending reinforcements.

A curfew was declared by the Government last night after the hotel was destroyed and nearby restaurants and nightclubs were set on fire. About 90 per cent of Honiara’s Chinese-dominated business district was destroyed.

The violence was the worst in the Solomons since 2003 when Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific nations intervened to end years of bloody ethnic gang conflict.

The latest violence was sparked on Tuesday when a new Prime Minister, Snyder Rini, 46 — who is considered to be closely aligned with the minority Chinese population — was voted in by MPs.

Francis Billy Hilly, the former Prime Minister, said that some MPs were offered bribes to vote for Mr Rini. The election “was not free. It was controlled and influenced by outsiders”, he told the Solomon Star newspaper.

A government official said: “The protesters were shouting that this was a Chinese Government because the president of the party that Snyder Rini belongs to is a naturalised Chinese.” Shane Castles, an Australian who is the Solomon Islands’ police commissioner, said that the Chinese were the target of the mobs, adding: “That’s not unusual to the extent that the Asian or the Chinese population here do own most of the retail and commercial businesses.” By noon yesterday about 1,000 rioters had moved from Chinatown to Honiara’s central shopping district. Witnesses said that looting was rife.

At least 17 Australian police officers, who fired teargas at the protesters, were injured.

UNHAPPY TIMES

The Solomons, once a British protectorate known as “The Happy Isles”, is a chain of islands across 232,000 sq miles of southwest Pacific, with only 11,500 sq miles (600,875 sq km) of land

Population is 500,000, mostly Melanesian, 95 per cent Christian

English is official language; 63 native languages

Ethnic fighting and lawlessness have claimed hundreds of lives. Beheadings and gun battles common. Up to 30,000 people have been driven from their homes

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