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Agence France Presse

HONIARA, Solomon Islands, 7 May 2002 -- A Taiwanese company has won permission to dump up to three million tonnes of industrial waste containing lead, mercy and arsenic on a largely untouched island in the war-torn Solomon Islands, state run radio said here Wednesday.

The Solomons, which is virtually bankrupt after three years of civil war, is also negotiating with the Taiwan Power Company to store nuclear waste in the South Pacific nation, Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Both the toxic and nuclear waste deals appear to violate regional treaties signed by the Solomons, prohibiting the importation of such material. But the Solomons, which is one of the few nations > in the world with diplomatic ties to Taiwan, is deeply in debt to Taipei, which has kept the economy going with loans.

Solomons Prime Minister Allan Kemakeza is currently in Taipei seeking further assistance.

Radio New Zealand International (RNZI) quoted Agriculture Minister Steven Paeni as saying a Taiwanese company, Primreview Forest, will be granted a license to dump 10,000 tonnes at a time of garment factory waste in Makira Island up to a total of three million tonnes.

"Cabinet has approved this proposed invitation last week, and the officers are still having consultations with the public service officers," he said.

The proposed shipments have caused protests here, even among government officials concerned over the true nature of the material being dumped.

The principal quarantine officer, Daniel Wagatora, told RNZI that they had tested some samples of waste.

"When they gave us the application they were saying it was humus and sediment materials but when we carried out that risk assessment we found out that it wasn't humus and sediment materials but hazardous waste," he said.

The waste is to be dumped onto coastal lowlands at Makira island, a largely untouched densely wooded island also known as San Cristobal.

Meanwhile Solomons Broadcasting said Taiwan was negotiating with the Solomons to store nuclear waste here.

Taiwan embassy official Michael Shih said he was seeking clarification on the report as they had advised Taipei that the Solomons was too small to accommodate either industrial or nuclear waste.

The proposal also flouts the 1995 Waigani Convention which bans the importation into Pacific Forum nations of "hazardous and radioactive wastes and to control the transboundary movement and management of hazardous wastes".

The Solomons signed the convention in 1995 and ratified it in 1998. The convention came into force across the Pacific last October.

Taiwan has a history of trying to dump its toxic trash in other countries, including Cambodia, North Korea and Russia.