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Experiencing the Olympics Torch overshadows violence in Soloman Islands
Posted: Friday May 26, 2000 10:22 AM
HONIARA, Solomon Islands (AP) -- Thousands of people lined the streets of Honiara to cheer Olympic relay torchbearers today, the reception overshadowing recent civil unrest on the Pacific Ocean island. But an ongoing political coup in Fiji has cast doubt over that leg of the relay, scheduled for June 3. Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Fiji could lose the right to play host to the Olympic flame as part of proposed economic, sporting and military sanctions. He said the actions of coup leader George Speight, who was holding hostage Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry and about 30 members of the cabinet, could not be condoned. Downer said he would meet with Olympics Minister Michael Knight within 24 hours to discuss removing Fiji from the torch relay route. "The Olympic spirit is a spirit of cooperation and peace, not a spirit of racism, division and holding guns to people's heads," he said. In the Solomons, police struggled earlier this month to contain outbreaks of violence between Guadalcanal islanders and people from nearby Malaita, who have been flocking to the capital of Honiara, on Guadalcanal, to find work. Organizers of the Sydney 2000 Olympics suggested the upheaval jeopardized the chances of the torch relay stopping in the Solomon Islands. But after monitoring the situation, SOCOG agreed to go ahead with the scheduled stop in Honiara as the flame moved from Nauru to Papua New Guinea. The first of 100 torchbearers Friday was Lency Tenai, the local tennis champion who captains the Oceania Davis Cup team and was bidding for a place at the Sept. 15-Oct. 1 Olympics. "Very few people in my country will experience the Olympics, so this was a very special thing for them all," he said. From Papua New Guinea, the torch was scheduled to travel though Vanuatu, Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tonga before arriving in Fiji. The torch will land June 8 in central Australia to kick-start the 100-day countdown to the Olympic opening ceremony.
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