Posted on 11/17/2006 12:42:10 AM PST by naturalman1975
Australia and New Zealand are expected to send 150 troops and police to Tonga after the kingdom agreed to seek foreign help to prevent a repeat of deadly pro-democracy riots.
Armed soldiers and police were patrolling Nuku'alofa under expanded emergency powers today, awaiting the arrival of foreign forces to ensure the security of the airport and other critical infrastructure.
Authorities spent the day searching dozens of trashed and torched buildings for more victims after six charred bodies were found inside the shell of the nation's Shoreline power company.
Australia's High Commission has estimated that yesterday's rampage destroyed up to 80 per cent of the CBD.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Fred Sevele tonight said the Government had approved a request for 150 troops and police from Australia and New Zealand.
Ninety Australian troops and 40 federal police would arrive in Tonga soon, spokesman Lopeti Senituli said, along with 20 New Zealand troops "tasked with securing the airport".
The request for help from Australia and New Zealand, considered regional powers in the South Pacific, would "ensure peace and security" and was "an acknowledgment our security apparatus is ... short of manpower," Senituli said.
Both Australia and New Zealand have offered to help Tonga, if they are asked to do so. They were still awaiting a formal request for help from the South Pacific nation tonight.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Tonga is very feudal, its wealth controlled by the king and the aristocracy.
"Shops were looted and cars overturned as hundreds of youths rampaged over delays to a vote on proposed democratic reforms."
Sorry naturalman1975 that should have posted to "All."
One of the few remaining true monarchies, Tonga has been a benevolent dictatorship, highly responsive to the interests of the common citizenry.
The aristocracy is a large clan, not wealthy, in a society that is not particularly stratified. I am involved with a family in the aristocracy in a business venture that provides jobs and economic opportunity for several Tonga families. Everything is rather low level on the island. There is no wealth.
The youth are rebelling as much about lack of economic opportunity as about democracy. The only reason this is not a Marxist uprising is that there is nothing of political value, essentially anywhere in the Solomons.
The ancient myth that King Solomon established a retirement kingdom in the islands and continued his alchemic research into heavy gold has never been established.
Notwithstanding the rumor that Czar Peter of Russia benefitted from a hoard of such gold through the offices of Leibniz in the late 1600s. The logic machine gold plate punch cards created at that time are said to still be in existence.
Thank you Amos for your feedback.
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