REUTERS, Thursday April 4, 2002
Indonesian police vow to find Ambon bombers
JAKARTA, April 4 (Reuters) - Indonesian police have pledged to find those responsible
for a bomb attack in eastern Ambon city that killed four people and cast a cloud over
a peace deal aimed at ending Christian-Muslim bloodshed in the region.
The official Antara news agency on Thursday quoted the region's police chief and
governor, who both said efforts were being made to prevent Wednesday's blast in a
Christian district sparking more anger from residents.
In response to the attack, residents torched large parts of the governor's office.
Police reached by telephone from Jakarta said Ambon was calm on Thursday
morning. They declined to give further details and local government officials could not
be reached for comment.
Some 55 people were also wounded in the blast outside a karaoke bar in the centre of
Ambon, hub of the Moluccas islands in the world's most populous Muslim nation.
"We are investigating this case seriously with the governor and the regional military
commander," Antara quoted Moluccas police chief Brigadier-General Soenarko as
saying.
The attack was the worst act of violence since the signing of a peace pact in February
between Muslims and Christians many hope will end a cycle of violence in the
Moluccas that has left at least 5,000 people dead in the past three years.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast. Police have said the bomb might
have been hurled from a moving car.
"Thank God the situation is quite calm and nothing has happened so far today," said
Semmy Waileruny, a Christian community leader and lawyer in Ambon.
"People are carrying on their business although of course local government activity is
paralysed because the (governor's) office was burnt," he told Reuters by telephone.
The once-idyllic Moluccas, which captivated traders from former colonial ruler the
Netherlands with their rich array of spices such as nutmeg and cloves, had been fairly
calm since the landmark peace pact took effect.
The Moluccas is one of several flashpoints where separatist, communal or religious
tensions pose a challenge to the central government's efforts to maintain order and
convince investors and aid donors the vast Indonesian archipelago is stable.
Ravaged Ambon, home to 400,000 people, lies 2,300 km (1,400 miles) east of
Jakarta. About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, but Christians
make up roughly half the population in some eastern areas.
Ambon was reduced to a shambles during the three years of fighting which saw the
city split into Muslim-Christian enclaves.
Despite the peace pact, parts of the Moluccas are still under a civil emergency, one
level down from martial law. That allows security forces to search houses and detain
suspects.
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