ASSOCIATED PRESS, Tuesday December 18, 2001
Nine Die In Sectarian Attacks In Indonesia Maluku Islands
JAKARTA, Dec. 18 (AP) -- Unidentified gunmen on a speedboat opened fire on a ferry
carrying Christians in Indonesia's eastern Maluku islands on Wednesday, killing at
least nine people, witnesses and medical officials said.
The victims were fish and vegetable traders traveling to an early morning market in
Ambon, the provincial capital. The gunmen were traveling from a Muslim area of town
and were armed with automatic weapons, witnesses said.
Last week, seven Christians were killed in an explosion on a boat in the same waters.
The latest bloodshed comes after a six-month period of relative calm in the
archipelagic province, located 2,600 kilometers east of Jakarta.
Fighting between Muslims and Christians in the Malukus first erupted in January
1999. Government officials said at least 9,000 people from both communities have
died in the conflict, which has devastated large parts of the province of two million
people.
Shortly after Wednesday's attack, hundreds of angry Christians rallied outside the
governor's office in protest at the attack, forcing all Muslim employees there to flee the
building, witnesses said.
Officials said three of the victims in the attack were women. One person was being
treated for serious injuries.
Ambon city is the capital of the string of islands that make up Maluku province. The
area was known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial times.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Islamic nation. About 85% of its 205 million
people are Muslim. However, in Maluku the balance between Christians and Muslims
is almost even.
A Muslim paramilitary group from the main island of Java has been blamed by local
government officials for fomenting the violence in Maluku and on neighboring Sulawesi
island, where at least 1,000 people have been killed in a similar sectarian conflict.
Jafar Umar Thalib, commander of the 3,000-strong Laskar Jihad militia, or Holy War
Troops, has vowed to rid the islands of Christians. Thalib and other leaders of the
group have also expressed support for the country's former dictator Suharto.
Foreign diplomats and reformist generals in Indonesia's army have accused military
hardliners loyal to Suharto of covertly funding the paramilitaries in an apparent effort to
undermine government efforts to reform the armed forces.
Meanwhile, government-sponsored peace talks between Muslims and Christians in
central Sulawesi province opened in the southern town of Malino, 1,300 kilometers
(780 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
About 50 representatives of the two communities met with government mediators for a
first round of talks expected to last two days.
A dozen people have died in violence in the area since October, and thousands of
villagers have fled their homes.
Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
|
