The Jakarta Post, 5/25/2004 2:37:15 PM
Separatist leader says peacekeepers should be sent to Maluku
LOS ANGELES, California (AP): The fugitive leader of anIndonesian separatist group
says international peacekeepers should be sent to the Maluku islands, where dozens
died in Christian-Muslim violence last month.
Alex Manuputty, who has been convicted of treason in Indonesia and sentenced to
four years in prison, accused the Jakarta government of inciting religious violence in
the Malukus. He claimed snipers shot many of the 39 people who died in the Malukus
last month.
"Indonesia continues to become a place where they harbor terrorism," the 56-year-old
Manuputty told The Associated Press in an interview last week in California, where he
has been living recently.
"You can no longer distinguish between the jihad forces, the Muslim militants, the
police, the military or the Indonesian government itself," he said.
"The military are supposed to protect the people, but instead they were used to kill
the people."
Two-thirds of those killed in April were Muslims. But Manuputty and others say
authorities are fomenting the religious intolerance to squelch the independence
movement.
Granted a visa by the United States embassy in Jakarta despite his conviction,
Manuputty was in Washington earlier this month to press for an inquiry by the U.S. or
the United Nations into alleged abuses in the Malukus.
Indonesia has asked the U. S. to deport Manuputty, said Marty Natalegawa, a
spokesman for the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said, however, that there
is no extradition treaty between the two countries.
The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta said no formal deportation request had been received.
The issue is sensitive for Washington. Top Bush administration officials have been
pushing to overturn a congressional ban on ties with the Indonesian Military (TNI).
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and Christians comprise more
than 20 million of its approximately 210 million people. Since 1999, thousands of
people have died in violence between Muslims and Christians in the Malukus,
formerlyknown as the Spice islands.
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