SUNDAY MAIL, 03 April 2002
Bomb kills four in Ambon
A BOMB killed four people and injured almost 50 in the eastern Indonesian city of
Ambon today in the worst violence since a Muslim-Christian peace agreement in
February, witnesses and hospital staff said. One died at the scene of the blast and
three others in hospital or on the way to it, according to a general hospital employee.
The bomb went off in a central shopping street not far from the governor's office, said
the employee, who identified himself as Ronny.
A doctor at the same hospital said 37 people had been admitted. A nurse at the Bakti
Rahayu private hospital said nine people were admitted there, four of them in serious
condition.
There were conflicting reports about the bomb with some saying it was thrown from a
speeding van while others said it exploded under a parked motor scooter.
The blast damaged a Christian-owned shop, a karaoke lounge and several hawker
stalls, witnesses said.
The carnage angered people from both Muslim and Christian camps who converged
on the provincial governor's office.
The office was set ablaze, stones were thrown and police and troops fired warning
shots to disperse the crowd.
Security forces contained the two groups in separate areas as firefighters tackled the
blaze.
It was not clear which side started the fire, but part of the back of the three-storey
building appeared gutted.
Hospital officials said that all victims were from the blast.
CJ Bohm, a Catholic priest at the Crisis Centre Diocese of Ambon, said he suspected
that the mob which set fire to the governor's office were Christians.
"I think it is quite visible because it is a Christian area," he said.
The city and the rest of the Maluku islands had been relatively peaceful since Muslim
and Christian representatives reached a government-sponsored peace accord in
February to end three years of sectarian fighting.
The violence left more than 5,000 people killed and more than half a million homeless.
Muslims and Christians mingled freely for the first time in years after the accord,
hugging each other or shaking hands. But officials have accused unidentified
individuals or groups of trying to wreck the peace deal.
More than 80 per cent of Indonesia's 214 million people are Muslims but in some
eastern regions, including the Malukus, Christians make up about half the population.
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