The Jakarta Post, 5/2/2004 8:58:44 PM
Police confirm detaining Manuputty's kin
JAKARTA (AP): Investigators on Sunday were questioning the detained wife and
daughter of Alex Manuputty, an exiled Christian leader seeking self-determination for
Indonesia's troubled Maluku archipelago, the national police chief said.
Oly Manuputty and her daughter, Christina, didn't resist when officers came on
Saturday to their home in a neighborhood of Ambon, the capital of Maluku province,
which is a stronghold of the Maluku Sovereignty Front that Alex Manuputty heads,
witnesses said.
The move came on the same day that Pope John Paul II urged Indonesian authorities
to restore order in Ambon after a week of Muslim-Christian clashes left at least 38
people dead in the region, known in Dutch colonial times as the Moluccas or Spice
Islands.
"The cause of the recent violence is this separatist group, which wants to gain
independence from Indonesia," police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said. He said
authorities were questioning the wife and daughter.
The clashes sparked fears that the region could plunge back into Muslim-Christian
battles like those that killed up to 9,000 people three years ago.
The latest fighting began a week ago, when several dozen members of Manuputty's
group paraded through Ambon's city center -an act some area Muslims regarded as a
provocation.
Manuputty and an associate, Samuel Waileruni, were arrested in 2002 and sentenced
to three years in jail for encouraging their followers to hoist banned separatist flags.
Manuputty fled to the U.S. last year while waiting for his appeal to be heard by the
Supreme Court.
Indonesian authorities have banned Manuputty's organization because of its campaign
for a referendum on self-determination for the province, 2,600 kilometers east of
Jakarta, akin to a UN-supervised plebiscite held in East Timor in 1999.
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