AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Tuesday July 30, 2002
Residents allege military behind latest Ambon blast: priest
By IAN TIMBERLAKE JAKARTA
Christian residents of the Indonesian city of Ambon suspect soldiers and not their
former Muslim enemies were behind a weekend bomb blast that wounded at least 54
people, a local priest said Tuesday.
"The people themselves suspect that the military are behind it, which was the case in
earlier cases," Father Cornelis Bohm told AFP from Ambon, the capital of troubled
Maluku province.
The allegation comes shortly before a visit to Indonesia by US Secretary of State
Colin Powell, who said in Bangkok on Monday that he hopes to announce resumed
military contacts with Indonesia. He is due in Jakarta on Friday.
Bohm said local residents considered it strange that the blast on Saturday occurred
near a military post.
He said local newspapers reported that the two bombs, which exploded at a
traditional market in a mainly Christian area, contained cables and batteries,
indicating some level of skill.
"The Christians still do not blame the Muslims," said Bohm, a Dutch national resident
in the Malukus for 36 years.
No one at Ambon's main Al Fatah mosque would comment on Saturday's bombing.
The blast was latest challenge to a government-sponsored peace deal in February
between Maluku's Muslims and Christians.
More than 5,000 people have died since fighting began in January 1999. At the peak
of the conflict soldiers and police were implicated in combat on both the Christian and
Muslim sides.
The peace pact brought relative calm to the region. But Bohm said local newspapers
have reported that the under-funded military can still profit from periodic unrest by
charging for their security services.
About four months ago another bomb killed several people on a street in Ambon. At
that time a prominent Muslim sociologist, Tamrin Amal Tomagola, alleged that
"security forces not in the line of command" were linked to the powerful explosion.
Tomagola, a native of North Maluku, has also alleged that the security forces have an
interest in creating periodic unrest which they can use to extort money from locals.
"Some people feel they stand to lose if they feel the security and economy is
improving in Ambon," Indonesia's military chief General Endriartono Sutarto said
Tuesday, without elaborating.
In a February report on the Maluku conflict, the International Crisis Group of political
analysts said continuing low-level violence in Ambon raises questions about the
commitment of security forces to a final resolution of the conflict.
"Regular outbreaks of violence in the form of occasional shootings and bomb
explosions create an atmosphere in which businesspeople and property owners feel
vulnerable and are willing to pay members of the security forces for protection," the
report said.
Ambon military spokesman Major Heri Suhardi dismissed as "impossible" that regular
members of the military could have been involved in the latest bombing.
But he did not rule out the involvement of deserters, a small number of whom remain
in the area.
Top welfare minister Yusuf Kalla, quoted by the state Antara news agency, said
recent bloody incidents in the Malukus were not caused by sectarian differences.
"There is a possibility that competition between rival gangs over which gets more
'security money' from locals is growing more fierce," he said.
Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved.
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