AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Thursday April 4, 2002 2:47 PM
Governor accuses bombers of trying to sabotage Maluku peace
pact
A senior Indonesian official vowed to hunt down those behind a "savage" bombing
which killed four people, saying they wanted to sabotage a Muslim-Christian pact
which brought relative peace to the eastern Maluku islands.
"We all know those people who do not want to accept the Malino (peace) agreement,"
said Maluku provincial governor Saleh Latuconsina.
"Society has been provoked and the opportunity has been used by certain people to
conduct yesterday's (Wednesday's) savage action."
Speaking to journalists a day after the bombing and the ensuing torching of his office
by an angry crowd, Latuconsina said there were already "clearer indications" about
the perpetrators but gave no details.
The government-brokered peace pact signed in February by Muslim and Christian
delegates ended three years of sectarian clashes in which some 5,000 people were
killed and half a million driven from their homes.
But some parties oppose it, saying the delegates were not representative of society.
Among them are the militant Muslim Laskar Jihad and a Christian separatist group.
Latuconsina said that as of early Thursday four people had died and 39 were still in
hospital following the blast, which occurred in a Christian area of the city.
On Thursday the provincial capital appeared calm with traffic back on the streets and
markets and shops open.
"Even the market near the blast site is open this morning, although there were not as
many people as usual," a local journalist said.
The carnage caused by the blast angered people from both Muslim and Christian
camps who converged on the governor's office. The office was set ablaze, stones were
thrown and police and troops fired warning shots to disperse the crowd.
Only the frame of the three-storey building is still standing and the governor and other
officials are working from other offices.
Latuconsina, who oversees a state of civilian emergency in the province, said he had
ordered the police and the military "to take firm actions, seek, arrest and process the
bombers."
He said the move should include "sweep operations" to find weapons and explosives.
Maluku police chief Brigadier General Sunarko said they have questioned five
witnesses and have sought help from the national police forensic laboratory.
Sunarko said a van believed linked to the bombing had been confiscated. It contained
wiring and an antenna.
Muslims and Christians had begun mingling freely in Ambon following the February 12
agreement, which Jakarta hailed as another landmark in efforts to end sectarian and
communal unrest in the huge archipelago.
A similar pact in December ended Muslim-Christian fighting in the Poso region of
Sulawesi.
Ambon and the rest of the Maluku islands had been relatively peaceful since the
peace pact in February.
But Laskar Jihad, which sent thousands of fighters to the eastern islands in May
2000, has said it will not leave the Malukus even though the peace deal calls for
outside forces to withdraw, because it is engaged in "humanitarian work."
Christians say Laskar Jihad, a Java-based group, played a major part in fanning the
violence while some Muslims accuse Christian groups of doing likewise.
More than 80 percent of Indonesia's 214 million people are Muslims but in some
eastern regions, including the Malukus, Christians make up about half the population.
Copyright © 2001 AFP. All rights reserved.
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