BBC World News, Friday, 26 April, 2002, 15:38 GMT 16:38 UK
Moluccas brace for more trouble
Indonesia is worried a recent peace deal is still fragile
Hundreds of police reinforcements are being sent to the Moluccan islands in eastern
Indonesia to prevent more violence, after a series of explosions undermined a shaky
peace pact between Christians and Muslims.
Indonesian police in the provincial capital Ambon wounded at least one person on
Friday when they fired warning shots to keep a massive Muslim rally from spilling into
the city's Christian areas, Reuters news agency reports.
Also on Friday, the leader of one of the country's most radical Islamic groups urged
thousands of Muslims in the islands to join a holy war against local Christians.
The violence threatens a fragile peace agreement signed in February to end three
years of conflict between the Christian and Muslim communities, in which at least
6,000 people have died.
Witnesses said more than 15,000 Muslims had gathered in and around the city's
main mosque after mid-Friday prayers, staging a rally against what they viewed as
Jakarta's sluggishness in dealing with a local Christian separatist group, the Maluku
Sovereignty Front (MSF).
'No reconciliation'
Jafar Umar Thalib, the leader of the radical Muslim Lashkar Jihad group, told a rally in
Ambon that now was not the time for reconciliation.
He accused local officials of failing to contain the MSF, which on Thursday raised
separatist flags in the city sparking a series of bomb attacks.
Fourteen people were hurt in the violence and a Christian church was burnt down.
Police, backed by reinforcements from Jakarta, fired warning shots in an attempt to
stop thousands of Muslims from the rally reaching the Christian sector of Ambon.
Such a blatant call to arms by the Lashkar Jihad leader now threatens to undermine
the entire peace process, but it is far from clear whether the authorities will take
action against him, says the BBC's Jakarta correspondent.
Failed independence
The authorities in Ambon had been bracing for trouble because 25 April marks the
anniversary of a failed attempt by a Christian organisation to create an independent
republic in the Moluccan islands in 1950.
Authorities had already arrested the main Christian separatist leader, Alex Manuputty.
They had extended a night-time curfew, ordered a news blackout and banned all
foreigners from visiting the area.
But the separatists went ahead with plans to mark the anniversary by raising flags
and banners across the city, as they have done in many previous years.
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