REUTERS, Friday April 12, 2002 8:01 AM
Indonesia to intensify disarmament in Moluccas
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia said on Thursday it had ordered police to get tough
on seizing weapons in the Moluccas islands after at least three people were killed in a
clash between Christian villagers.
Chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told reporters a deadline for
handing in weapons across an eastern island chain ravaged by three years of fighting
between Muslims and Christians was the end of May.
"We have decided police must take action in accelerating and intensifying
disarmament. This can be conducted with repressive action," Yudhoyono said after a
cabinet meeting in Jakarta, without elaborating on the type of force that could be
used.
"As long as people in the Moluccas are fond of weapons, including homemade bombs
and other types...it will be very difficult to stop conflict."
In the fresh violence, the official Antara news agency said at least three people were
killed and 12 wounded in fighting on Saparua island on Wednesday night. Officials
said the incident was unrelated to the past religious violence in the Moluccas chain.
Yudhoyono put the death toll at two, with nine wounded in the Saparua clash.
Christians and Muslims signed a peace pact earlier this year aimed at ending a
three-year cycle of bloodshed that killed at least 5,000 people in the Moluccas. It was
unclear if a deadline for handing in weapons had been set when the pact was agreed.
Saparua is not far from the main city in the Moluccas, Ambon, 2,300 km (1,400 miles)
east of Jakarta.
The cause of Wednesday's clash was unclear, as was the type of weapons used.
Last week a powerful bomb exploded in a Christian quarter of Ambon, killing four
people and wounding some 55. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack that
cast a cloud over the landmark peace pact.
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 world's most populous Muslim country is
stable.
However, the once-idyllic Moluccas has been fairly calm since the peace pact took
effect. About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, but Christians
make up roughly half the population in some eastern areas.
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