Solomons riots are a bloody shame: Officer

LAWRENCE GULLERY
Hastings police constable Kevin Stewart knows the streets of Honiara in the Solomon Islands like the back of his hand - he worked a "tour of duty" there as part of a combined police unit of officers from Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific Island countries last year. Mr Stewart worked as a professional standards investigator on the islands. His job involved investigating allegations of offences committed by current and former Solomon Islands police officers.
He finished his seven-month stint there last September but will return to Honiara on Wednesday to testify in court cases relating to those investigations.
The election of the Solomon Islands' new Prime Minister Snyder Rini, would have been the catalyst for the recent riots, although the trouble would have initially be caused by a minority group, Mr Stewart said.
"When I first heard about the riots I felt sympathy for the general population and the way they have come forward from a couple of years ago.
"Everyone has worked so hard to bring the country up and now we've got drunken troublemakers ruining it - it's a bloody shame," he said.
"The group of people that would have kicked off the riots would have been small and I believe there was a lot of alcohol consumed by (that) small group.
"A lot of people in Honiara are poor and desolate and once a few shops had been burnt, there would have been a part of the population that would have taken advantage of that.
"There was a certain amount of resentment towards the Chinese and it's pretty much a them-and-us situation ... and Chinese businesses were targeted in the riots."
Mr Stewart said solving the problem will take a long-term effort from New Zealand and Australia to help secure an honest government and a professional police force.
"If you have those two things - a stable government and law and order - that country will be back to the way it once was," he said.
Mr Stewart also worked as a police shift inspector for Honiara during his last month there. He held the rank of senior sergeant and was in charge of 46 police officers and oversaw 10 Australian and New Zealand officers.
"I thoroughly enjoyed that job. You are working at the coalface and working with the public and the public enjoyed us being there," he said.
"It's just a shame a small part of the population are hell-bent on creating anarchy."
Mr Stewart would be in the Solomon Islands for just two days but he will be keen to talk to police officers he knows there about the riots.
"That (the riots) will be the number one topic of discussion," he said. The 40-year-old Hastings police officer has been in the police force for over nine years and said he would like to work in the Solomon Islands again.
"I have to see what my own work commitments are here and consider my family commitments.
"But there is a desire to go back ... it would be on of the most beautiful places I have been to in my life."