Beliefnet [New York], April 27, 2004
Calls For Holy War Again Heard In Indonesia's Maluku Islands
The Associated Press
Ambon, Indonesia, Apr. 27--(AP) Snipers shot two police officers to death Tuesday
and a Muslim man was killed in a bomb blast as Christians and Muslims clashed for
a third day in Indonesia's Maluku islands.
Armored vehicles patrolled the streets of Ambon, the provincial capital, after the
bloodiest outbreak of violence in the region since a peace deal in 2002 ended two
years of religious clashes that killed 9,000 people.
Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko said at least 24 people had been killed since
the fighting erupted Sunday.
The latest casualty was a Muslim man caught in the explosion of a homemade bomb
in Ambon's Talake district, where hours earlier snipers killed two paramilitary
policemen and wounded a third.
It was not clear who shot the policemen. But as the dead and injured officers were
taken into a hospital next to the city's largest mosque, an angry crowd gathered.
Men armed with machetes and sharpened sticks shouted "God is Great'' and called
for a holy war against the region's Christian separatists.
The clashes have stirred fears of renewed sectarian violence in the Malukus, known
as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial days and once held up as a model of
religious harmony.
Fighting between Christians and Muslims in the Malukus between 1999 and 2001
energized militants across Indonesia - the world's most populous Muslim country.
It also attracted Islamic fighters from around Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Many members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terror group linked to al-Qaida, captured in
recent years have told authorities they fought in Malukus to avenge Muslim deaths.
"I'm telling Christians to stay indoors and don't be provoked,'' Ambon's Roman
Catholic Bishop Petur Canis Mandagi told The Associated Press after talks with
Muslim leaders and security officials at police headquarters.
"The conflict can be stopped, but we must be quick.'' The bloodshed is of particular
concern because of earlier reports of a rift inside Jemaah Islamiyah between militants
who want to attack Western targets and those who wish to limit their holy war to
fighting Christians in religiously divided areas such as Maluku.
Throughout Ambon, gunmen took potshots Tuesday along the main streets as mobs
manned barricades on roads leading to Muslim and Christian parts of the city, which
is spread across wooded hillsides and overlooks a sparkling blue bay.
"We are defending our area,'' said Kurnia, a Muslim manning a checkpoint. "If we are
attacked we will respond in kind.''
The clashes erupted Sunday after a rally in Ambon by the region's small separatist
movement. Muslims who view such public displays as a provocation attacked the
group.
The Malukus' 2 million people are evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. The
region is 1,600 miles east of Jakarta. Most of the Muslims in the Malukus are settlers
who were moved to the region from other densely populated islands in the 1970s and
80s a government program to dilute the secessionist movement.
Late Monday, Muslims outside the city's main port hacked to death a Christian man
and injured at least 28 others who had just arrived on a boat from Jakarta, the capital,
witnesses said.
"The police were outnumbered. I hugged my son to try and protect him,'' said Ita
Tanila. She and her 4-year-old son suffered head and leg wounds when the two police
trucks they were riding in were ambushed as they left the port.
The violence comes amid Indonesia's protracted election season and maintaining
stability in the sprawling nation of 210 million people is shaping up to be the main
election issue.
Parliamentary elections were held earlier this month and the presidential vote is
scheduled for July.
-AP-
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