LAKSAMANA.Net, April 27, 2003
Flags Fly in Maluku
Already beset by attempts to split off the country's outermost provinces, Aceh and
Papua, the government received an extra shock on April 25 when more than 200
separatist flags were flown in South Maluku.
The usually reliable Christian Diocese of Amboina reported that "notwithstanding stern
warnings by the government, an unprecedented large number of flags was hoisted on
the eve and during the night of April 25, the 53rd commemoration of the founding of
the RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan/Movement for South Moluccas Independence),
both in the city of Ambon and in various villages and nearby islands."
The center reported several hundred arrests, with more than 100 from the village of
Aboru on the island of Haruku, detained and transferred to Ambon to be interrogated
over connectionx with the Front Kedaulatan Maluku (FKM), a new body for the RMS
cause. News agencies put the figure of arrests at around 60.
Ambon was reported to be calm but Acting Governor Harry Sinyo Sarundayang, who
spent much of the day surveying the city from a helicopter, had little to tell the media
at the end of his tour.
He argued that the show of flags did not mean a show of force, pointing to the total
lack of any ceremonies at the flag raisings.
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