REUTERS, Tuesday November 27, 2001 6:46 PM
Tension high after church bombed in eastern Indonesia
JAKARTA (Reuters) - A church in the eastern Indonesian city of Poso has been
bombed and burnt to the ground, a policeman said on Tuesday, and an aid worker
said the area was gripped with renewed religious tension.
The policeman in the Sulawesi island town, where hundreds of people died two years
ago in clashes between Christians and Muslims, said the church was attacked early
on Monday but there were no casualties.
"Based on our findings, the church was bombed and caught on fire," he told Reuters
by telephone from Poso, some 1,670 km (1,000 miles) east of Jakarta.
"But there were no clashes and the church was empty when the attack happened,"
the policeman said.
The bombing came amid renewed tension between Christians and Muslims in Poso
following the arrival of Muslim paramilitaries called Laskar Jihad, said an aid worker
who just returned from Poso to Jakarta.
He told Reuters that while the authorities subsequently imposed tighter security, the
situation remained uneasy.
The same group has fought Christians in the Moluccas, not far from Poso, during
three years of religious bloodshed which has claimed thousands of lives and forced
tens of thousands to flee to neighbouring parts of Indonesia.
Communal conflict has plagued parts of Indonesia's outlying regions since the
downfall of autocratic President Suharto in 1998.
Earlier this year, hundreds of people, mostly settlers from Madura island, died in a
fierce ethnic battle between the indigenous Dayaks and the Madurese in the vast
island of Borneo.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
|
