REUTERS, Thu Apr 25, 2002 6:31 AM ET
Blasts hit Indonesia's Ambon as mobs torch church
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Several explosions rocked an area near the Muslim quarter of
Indonesia's eastern city of Ambon on Thursday, wounding at least two people and
triggering a mob to torch a church, police and witnesses said.
The fresh bout of violence coincided with the anniversary of a local Christian separatist
group and came despite a peace pact reached between Christians and Muslims in
February.
"There was the torching of a church which was under construction and there were
mortar explosions which wounded two people," National Police Chief Da'i Bachtiar told
reporters.
Witnesses said the explosion occurred near the city's Muslim quarters where flags of
the separatist South Moluccas Republic (RMS) were flying.
"After the explosions, many people swarmed the streets near the church," one
witness told Reuters by phone from Ambon, some 2,300 km (1,400 miles) east of
Jakarta.
Ambon is the key hub in the Moluccas, a once picturesque chain of islands that was
the scene of three years of savage religious violence that killed at least 5,000 people.
Most of the city is partitioned into Muslim and Christian quarters.
Local authorities banned journalists from covering the anniversary of the RMS, a
decades-old movement whose membership has dwindled to an estimated 100 people
but which is accused by many Islamic groups of backing attacks on Muslims.
A Jakarta radio station earlier reported four people had been arrested for hoisting the
group's flag.
The RMS was established in 1950 by supporters of Indonesia's former colonial ruler,
The Netherlands.
Political analysts say the group poses no threat to Jakarta due to its tiny numbers but
Chief Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier this week said it had the
potential to grow and cause a "fundamental problem" in the Moluccas.
Unlike separatist groups in Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra and in the vast
eastern province of Papua, the RMS does not have a military wing.
Many of its members reside in the Netherlands.
Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, although Christians
comprise half the population in some eastern areas.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
|
