KEY POINTS:
Nearly 80 per cent of the shops in Tonga's capital appear to have been destroyed after fires were lit in the city centre, correspondents report.
Groups of youths roamed the streets, overturning cars, smashing windows and setting fires while police stood by watching the violence, Mary Fonua of
the Matangi Tonga news website told The Associated Press by telephone from the capital, Nuku'alofa.
They appeared to originally be targeting Chinese-owned shops but late tonight, Radio New Zealand International's correspondent, Mateni Tapueluelu, reported the fires spread quickly because the shops were built close together.
"Fires quickly spread to places not intended to be burned, including businesses owned by Western investors, and Tongan business people," he said.
"There is no shopping centre left in the capital," said Mr Tapueluelu. "The main shopping centres are already burned out in blocks -- it started first with the Prime Minister's (Feleti Sevele) own shopping centre.
"The people looted that -- they started drinking the beer they looted and from there no one could control them," he said.
Rioters moved on to a duty-free shop and continued drinking the alcohol and distributed money from it to people in the area.
"From there the fires started spreading," Mr Tapueluelu said.
Late tonight, the looting and burning had spread from the central business district to Chinese-owned shops in nearby villages within a few kilometres of the capital.
As night fell, fires still burned unchecked in buildings in several parts of the city, and torched cars lay wrecked and smouldering on the streets.
Mr Tapueluelu said the rioters were pro-democracy supporters, and some had been at a rally at which thousands of people demanded that a vote approving democratic reforms take place in the Legislative Assembly before the House rose for the year.
"They demanded that if the Government did not agree to political reform by 2008, they would do something -- nobody knew what they meant," he said.
"None of the leading activists or peoples' representatives were leading this: they tried to stop it but they couldn't stop it".
After drunken youths belonging to pro-democracy groups attacked the office of the Prime Minister police became unable to control the crowds, and simply asked the youths to take it easy. "They were walking past the central police station in Nuku'alofa -- no police officer would do anything about them," he said
The youths also attacked other public buildings, including the Magistrate's Court, the Public Service Commission Office and the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Nuku'alofa Club, offices of the Shoreline power company, the ANZ Bank, the Pacific Royale Hotel and other businesses.
Mr Tapueluelu reported that the rioting and burning continued after the Tongan government held an urgent Cabinet meeting approving the people's demands that 21Tongan MPs will be appointed democratically by 2008.
It appeared many of the rioters were not aware the Government had acceded to their demands, their movement's leaders were not able to communicate with them and the island's AM radio station was off the air.
The government had proposed putting reform ideas to a subcommittee for it to consider next year, but the pro-democracy activists wanted changes are in place for the next general election in 2008.
Tongan academic Sitiveni Halapua said the rioters' anger was fostered by the government producing its own ideas on political reform.
Dr Halapua, from Hawaii's East-West Centre, was vice-chairman of the Parliamentary National Committee on Political Reform.
He took over as chair after Prince Tu'ipelehake died in a car crash in California this year.
Dr Halapua said the government encouraged those agitating for reform to wait until the report was presented, which happened in early October.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement the riots were a "disaster" for Tonga.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised New Zealanders to avoid the downtown area of Nuku'alofa.
Tonga, a group of 170 islands about 2000km north of New Zealand, experienced unprecedented protests in May last year, when 10,000 people - a tenth of the population - took to the streets demanding democracy and public ownership of key assets.
In August last year public servants staged a six-week strike over pay that halted services at hospitals and schools.
Recently Tonga's new king, George Tupou V, signalled some democratic changes. Tupou V succeeded his father, King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, who died on September 10 after a long illness.
- NZPA