Questions about the disaffected youth in Honiara

Transcript

Our correspondent in Solomon Islands says while there is praise for police after last weekend's riots, the incidents raise questions about the numbers of disaffected, often unemployed youth in the capital Honiara.

Last week there was rioting, looting and destruction in parts of the city, prompting police to use tear gas to restore order.

Blame as been ascribed to opportunists looking to cause trouble.  

Don Wiseman asked Dorothy Wickham about the atmosphere now.

DOROTHY WICKHAM: It's been quiet, and the police are more visible on the roads, we can actually see them on the streets. We weren't seeing them on foot on the streets a few weeks ago. I saw them over the last few days, you know, walking in pairs. You can tell the police are showing they are seen on the streets more than usual.

DON WISEMAN: Yes, there's been a lot of praise for the police, the way they subdued these rioters?

DOROTHY WICKHAM: That's right, Don. You know, the local journalists have been very critical of the police in the past, and even I have to admit that the riot squad has improved a lot in doing its work. I've actually been on the streets the last few riots we've had and watched them operate. They're very good. I think because they're also Solomon Islanders they understand how our crowds react to certain things but at the same time, applying what they've been told in terms of pushing them back and not giving way when rioters are trying to intimidation. So I think the police have come a long way, they're young and they're coming to this without issues from the past.

DON WISEMAN: They used tear gas last weekend, is that used often?

DOROTHY WICKHAM: Not very often. The last riot I didn't see them use it too much. I think this time round what they really wanted to do is not to let the crowd build, separate them and start grabbing them, instead of letting them build up into a bigger group and letting them spread. I think they did that really well.

DON WISEMAN: And now initially victims of the floods were considered the culprits but it sounds like mostly the people involved were opportunists, maybe a lot of unemployed youths, these sorts of people?

DOROTHY WICKHAM: Well, since after the flood, there's a lot of frustrated people. Even though your house wasn't damaged, but if you're in an area where others were damaged, of course psychologically some people were affected. And another thing is the amount of disease that has gone through the town. It's affected everybody, never mind if your house is damaged or not. There's a lot of kids with diarrhoea, the hospital can't cope, there's a bad flu going around because of the amount of dust that's around because of the roadworks and all the ground that was washed down on the main streets because of the rain. Our streets have very bad drainage and that's a result of bad infrastructure over the last 15 years. And all these things have resulted in the experiences in town. So you know in any society it's the people right at the bottom that get worst affected than middle and top. And I think some of these youths have got nothing to do, they're frustrated, they're angry, of course they will jump into something like this, to vent their frustration.

DON WISEMAN: It's scary though, isn't it, that it is such a fine line between orderliness and mayhem?

DOROTHY WICKHAM: That's the problem, Don. As a Solomon Islander, we've experienced this so many times, we've experienced it with soccer, with politics, now it's come to flood victims. They trigger it, and then you get all these other ones, who are not affected but they jump in. We have such a high number of young people unemployed, there are no jobs, no prospects. The government really seriously needs to look at this. Like it has been quoted in the media in the past ten years, our youth is a ticking time bomb, and they've said it time and time again, and the government needs to do something about it.