AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Tuesday April 30, 2002 3:53 PM
Martial law looms over Indonesia's riot-torn Maluku
JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesian authorities looked increasingly set to declare martial
law in the eastern province of Maluku, where a fragile government-brokered peace has
been shattered by renewed Muslim-Christian violence.
President Megawati Sukarnoputri has said a military emergency, which would grant
authorities extraordinary powers to restore security, could be imposed in Maluku if
conditions deteriorated, top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said late on
Monday.
"The government is of the opinion, and the president also gave her own opinion, that a
state of military emergency can be imposed if the situation really worsens and can no
longer be overcome by a mere civilian emergency," Yudhoyono said, according to the
Antara news agency.
Maluku governor Saleh Latuconsina has recommended that the 18-month-old state of
civilian emergency, which he heads, be upgraded to a military emergency, Yudhoyono
said after a security meeting on Ambon.
A team of officials sent from Jakarta to assess conditions in Ambon also backs a
military emergency, the minister said.
The team, comprising top security officers and officials from the attorney general's
office and home ministry, was dispatched Monday to help authorities in the provincial
capital Ambon, following the slaughter of 13 Christians in a pre-dawn raid by masked
attackers on Sunday.
"If the current conditions under the civilian emergency continue to be disturbed and
attacks continue, then I think there should be efforts towards that (the imposition of
the military emergency)," national police chief General Da'i Bachtiar said in Surabaya
according to the Antara news agency.
Yudhoyono said many politicians, mass organisations and legislators have called for
a military emergency in Maluku.
"There should be no hesitation to impose a military emergency because it turns out
that the civilian emergency authority in Maluku cannot effectively settle the problem,"
MP Sutradara Ginting of the Justice and Unity Party said.
But Yudhoyono warned a military emergency entailed certain actions needed to
restore security "which could be seen as curtailing human rights."
But Ginting asked: "Which is the more serious human rights violation? The military
acting firmly, or allowing civilians to become victims?"
Under martial law, authority would rest with the military and it would be allowed to
arrest people for up to 70 days.
Indonesian law requires that such an emergency be declared by the president in
consultation with the parliament.
In February, the government brokered a peace pact between the warring Muslim and
Christian camps to end over three years of sectarian violence which has already killed
more than 5,000 people and displaced over half a million people.
Top welfare minister Yusuf Kalla said the truce he had helped broker now needed to
be reviewed in light of the recent upsurge of violence.
"The results of the (peace) declaration have undergone a setback, and therefore there
is a need for a rescheduling and a disarmament," Kalla was quoted by Antara as
saying in Surabaya.
The shaky truce was shattered early in April by a deadly bomb blast in Ambon, and
by a series of blasts and angry protests last week surrounding the anniversary of the
outlawed separatist South Maluku Republic (RMS).
Clandestine raisings of the RMS flag on Thursday angered many Muslims who blame
the small and predominantly Christian movement of fanning the sectarian violence.
Copyright © 2001 AFP. All rights reserved.
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