CNN, April 3, 2002 Posted: 7:02 PM HKT (1102 GMT)
Bomb blast rocks Indonesian island
[Photo: Ambon blast/AFP]
The Maluku islands have a history of religious violence
By Amy Chew
(CNN) -- A bomb blast in Indonesia's riot-scarred eastern Maluku islands has killed
four people and injured 52, threatening a one-month-old peace deal struck between
Muslims and Christians.
The Wednesday blast, which struck Maluku's provincial capital of Ambon in a busy
Christian area, triggered a violent protest by hundreds of residents, who then torched
the governor's office.
"The bomb was so powerful that we could feel the tremors from the governor's office
which is about 50 meters away from the blast," said Ety Samson, who was in the
building when the bomb rocked the city at around 11.30 a.m.
"The people became angry upon seeing so many wounded and they then massed at
the governor's building," Samson told CNN. "I was inside the building when the
masses came in, poured petrol and set the building alight," she said.
The blast victims were taken to three hospitals.
"One of the victim's stomach was ripped open and his intestine spilled out," a nurse
from Ambon's Bhakti Rahayu hospital told CNN.
Scores had their feet amputated, an official from Ambon's General Hopsital told CNN.
Warning shots
Christian houses go up in flames following a petrol bomb attack by Muslim groups in
1999
Hundreds of police and soldiers rushed to the streets and fired warning shots in the air
to disperse the crowds in the ravaged city of 400,000 people, 2,300 km (1,400 miles)
east of Jakarta.
"We were rained with warning shots. The situation is very tense," said Samson.
This is the first major incident after a peace deal was signed on February 12 between
warring Muslim and Christians to end three years of bloodshed, which the government
says killed 5,000.
But human rights activists and local residents have put the death toll closer to 10,000.
The violence has displaced more than half a million people and carved the once
peaceful island into Muslim and Christian enclaves.
Months of peace
Wednesday's blast comes after several months of relative peace in the city and
residents are now fearful it may jeopardize the peace deal.
The accord had been cheered by thousands of Muslims and Christians who marched
through the streets of Ambon in late February for several days in a sign of
reconciliation.
But the deal was not without opponents. The hardline paramilitary Muslim group,
Laskar Jihad, who has been blamed for exacerbating violence on the islands, opposed
the deal from the start.
Laskar Jihad comes from Java and many of the local residents want them to leave the
Maluku islands.
Peace in Maluku is seen as crucial in helping to burnish the government's image in
the eyes of the international community, who have long called for serious efforts to
end one of the bloodiest bouts of sectarian violence in the country's history.
© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP
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