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Paras Indonesia, 11, 01 2005 @ 11:22 pm

President Given Deadline to Resolve Schoolgirl Beheadings

Roy Tupai

Opposition legislators have said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must reshuffle the leadership of state security forces if they fail to swiftly resolve Saturday's beheading murders of three Christian schoolgirls in the religiously-divided town of Poso, Central Sulawesi province.

Deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Sutardjo Surjoguritno, who is a member of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), on Tuesday (1/11/05) said local government leaders in Central Sulawesi should also be replaced if they cannot unmask the perpetrators.

On October 29, six machete-wielding men, wearing dark clothes and masks, attacked a group of four schoolgirls at 6.30am at Bukit Bambu village. The students, dressed in their Girl Scout uniforms, had been walking by a cocoa plantation on their way to Central Sulawesi Christian Church High School on the outskirts of Poso.

Three of the teenagers – Theresia Morangke (15), Alfita Poliwo (17) and Yarni Sambue (15) – were beheaded. The fourth girl, Noviana Malewa (15), was badly wounded and remains in hospital. All four of the girls were relatives.

The three headless bodies were found on Jalan Romboyo, not far from the scene of the crime. Two of the heads were found several kilometers away in Lege subdistrict, about 100 meters from a local police station. The third head was discovered further away, outside a recently built Christian church in Kasiguncu village.

Yudhoyono and Vice President Jusuf Kalla have condemned the killings and ordered police to hunt down the perpetrators. Religious leaders have called for calm amid fears the attack could spark revenge killings.

Central Sulawesi was plagued by sectarian violence that left about 2,000 people dead between 2000-2001. The carnage subsided considerably after the signing in December 2001 of a peace deal negotiated by Kalla (who at that time was coordinating minister for people's welfare) and Yudhoyono (who was coordinating minister for political and security affairs).

Although Christian and Muslim residents strongly supported the peace deal, dubbed the Malino Accord, intermittent killings and bombings have continued in Poso over recent years, mostly targeting Christians. Some analysts say the violence might have been masterminded by members of the local political elite, using trained militias or even members of the security forces, to incite further religious conflict in order to profit from relief aid and to divert attention the vast corruption in Central Sulawesi.

Other analysts have speculated the latest killings could have been carried out by local Islamic extremists linked to regional terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been blamed for a series of deadly bombings in Bali and Jakarta.

Deadline

Surjoguritno said Yudhoyono should give security forces and local government officials a deadline of between 10 to 15 days to solve the latest murders.

"If there is no deadline, there will be no resolution, so conflict will continue to occur," he was quoted as saying by detikcom online news portal.

"The National Police, the Indonesian Defense Forces [TNI] and the local government must be responsible," he said. "If the apparatus cannot meet a determined deadline, then they must be reshuffled, because there have already been repeated incidents of violence in Poso."

He said the security forces in the province must intensify patrols, while the public should also provide assistance to authorities.

Fellow House deputy speaker Zaenal Maarif, a member of the National Mandate Party (PAN), said the attack had been planned well in advance, so police and intelligence agencies should strengthen their efforts to anticipate further acts of violence.

"We will give the police an opportunity to resolve this. The public should not be provoked," he said.

Little Progress or Perpetrators Identified?

After coming under fire for their failure to keep the peace in Poso, police have made conflicting statements on the progress of their investigation into the latest attack.

Poso police chief Muhammad Soleh Hidayat on Tuesday said officers and forensic experts had combed the scene of the killings but found few clues. "We haven't found any meaningful leads so far because we have had difficulty finding witnesses," he was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

He said the only witness was Noviana, who was not well enough to be questioned. She remains under close guard at a police hospital in the provincial Palu, where she is recovering from her wounds. "She's badly injured. Our first priority is to save her life. It would be inhuman to insist on questioning her," said Hidayat.

But Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Rais Adam was on Tuesday quoted by Tempo Interactive as saying police had identified the perpetrators after questioning six witnesses.

"Based on the testimonies of the witnesses, the perpetrators have been identified… For now, we cannot reveal the name[s] of the witnesses and the identity of the perpetrators because this involves the safety of the witnesses. They have also been targets in Poso," he said.

He said the perpetrators were suspected to be "well organized" and still in Poso.

Poso Police Detective chief Captain Idham Mahdi on Tuesday told the Associated Press it was too early to say who was behind the killings. He said sniffer dogs had led police to hills overlooking a cocoa plantation where the teenagers were murdered.

"We believe the perpetrators may have been watching the girls from the hill before they attacked them," he said, adding that officers had found a backpack (containing only a keychain) that allegedly belonged to the attackers.

National Police deputy spokesman Aryanto Budiharjo said there were no key suspects yet. He said only six people, including Noviana, had been questioned so far. He said the attackers were well organized but declined to say whether they had military-style training.

He was quoted by AP as blaming the attack on "terrorists" seeking to destabilize the province "just as relations between Muslim and Christian communities were improving".

Budiharjo said the perpetrators were bold "because the incident took place in the morning when the community was busy".

National Police Detective chief Makbul Padmanegara said the killers must have come from outside Poso.

About 1,500 soldiers and police have been deployed on at Poso's markets, mosques, churches and schools in an effort to prevent further violence on the eve of the post-Ramadhan holiday period of Idul Fitri.

National Police spokesman Sunarko Artanto said police had prepared a four-point intelligence plan to prevent further unrest in Poso, focusing on: detection; prevention; deployment of officers; and law enforcement.

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