Ethnic tension behind Solomons coup

Ethnic rivalry is a key factor behind the coup in the Solomon Islands, just as it is in Fiji.

The dispute has sprung out of a power struggle and a bitter fight over land and resources between the two ethnic groups from the main islands of Guadalcanal and Malaita.

The indigenous people of Guadalcanal, the largest island and home to the capital Honiara, are opposed to the significant presence in their island of migrant Malaitans.

Many Malaitans have left their under-resourced and overpopulated island for fertile Guadalcanal in search of work.

Malaitans first arrived in Guadalcanal during World War II, to help the Americans build an airfield.

Honiara is a Malaitan enclave

US marines stormed the island's beaches - then hardly known to the world - to drive out the Japanese in 1942. The troops' landing point later became Honiara.

Today, Honiara is still largely populated by Malaitans. Around the city are squatter areas in which migrant Malaitan workers live.

The Malaitans also dominate business circles and the government - Prime Minister Bartholomew Ulufa'alu is a case in point.

Physically, Malaitans look the same as people from Guadalcanal, both groups being Melanesian. But they speak completely different languages and have distinct cultures.

'Ethnic cleansing'

Since 1978, Guadalcanal people have been demanding the return of lands that they claim were acquired "illegally" by Malaitans, some of whom have spent their entire lives in Guadalcanal.

Ulufa'alu is a Malaitan who is accused of being a turncoat

About 18 months ago, the situation turned violent. The Guadalcanal Revolutionary Army - since renamed the Isatabu Freedom Movement (IFM) - began attacking Malaitans and their homes, in a move to drive them off the island.

Some accused the group of conducting "ethnic cleansing".

About 20,000 Malaitans have been displaced in this country of 300,000 people.

The Malaitans are now fighting back under their own militia group, the Malaitan Eagle Force.

A peace plan, brokered last year by a Commonwealth representative and Fiji's former prime minister and leader of its 1987 coup Sitiveni Rabuka, has not managed to quell the ethnic row.

Timber

A key issue that has fuelled the tension between the two ethnic groups is timber, a major export which is of huge importance to the economy.

The rebel groups have been fighting for 18 months

"One way of earning an income is logging or selling your land to log," explained Mark Golding, chief executive officer of the British aid organisation Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO).

There are a limited number of concessions to log and who gets them has become a source of tension.

"The role of government in handing out these concessions is very sensitive," he said.