The Jakarta Post, 12/25/2003 3:47:04 PM
Indonesia fetes Christmas under tight security
JAKARTA (AFP): Tight security was in place as Indonesian Christians flocked to
churches across the world's largest Muslim-populated state Thursday to solemnly
celebrate Christmas.
By noon, there was no report of violence in the country, including in Central
Sulawesi's restive Poso district and in Ambon and Maluku, where sectarian violence
between Muslims and Christians has continued intermittently despite state-sponsored
peace pacts.
On Wednesday evening, churches were packed for services.
Almost 166,000 officers, or two-thirds of the entire Indonesian police force, are
reported to be deployed nationwide for the Christmas and New Year festivities -- more
than 22,000 of them in Jakarta alone.
About 1,000 soldiers were assisting Jakarta police, the local command said.
Jakarta police and the U.S. embassy have warned of a high risk of seasonal terror
attacks from the al Qaeda-linked Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).
Several top JI operatives are still on the run and believed to be planning attacks.
On Christmas Eve three years ago, the JI launched coordinated bomb attacks on
churches and priests nationwide, killing 19 people.
Some 200 police guarded Jakarta's cathedral alongside a few dozen uniformed
members of Banser Anshor, a youth taskforce of the country's largest Muslim
organisation Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).
To mark Christmas, Justice and Human Rights Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra
symbolically cut the prison sentences for 5,612 jailed Christans by between 15 and
60 days. A total of 268 of them walked free.
Sixty-four members of a "doomsday sect" which was disbanded by police as they
awaited the apocalypse on November 10 in Bandung, West Java, held a Christmas
service at their temporary holding place, a meeting hall, where they have been
receiving "guidance" from authorities, Antara.
Their reverend, Mangapin Sibuea, was spending Christmas at the Bandung state jail.
An estimated 87 percent of Indonesia's 212 million people are Muslim and just under
10 percent are Christians. But Islam is not the official religion.
According to press reports, Muslim youth organisations in many towns in East Java
and at Medan in North Sumatra have offered to help guard churches.
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