REUTERS, Tuesday December 4, 2001 8:53 PM
Fresh communal violence grips east Indonesian town
By Achmad Sukarsono
JAKARTA (Reuters) - A wave of Muslim-Christian violence has hit the Indonesian town
of Poso on eastern Sulawesi island, after months of uneasy calm in the coastal area
where communal clashes first broke out three years ago.
The tension underscores the problems Indonesia's central government has faced in
controlling ethnic and religious violence since 1998, when the 32-year Suharto
presidency ended and with it the enforced harmony imposed by his autocratic rule.
Estimates put the dead in the latest Poso clashes at up to 14, and Jakarta sent top
security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to the area on Tuesday and planned to
deploy around 2,000 troops.
Trouble began last Tuesday and the area has been tense since.
"It started from the shooting at women in Tabalu village... prompting villagers to chase
(the gunmen)," said Poso deputy mayor Abdul Malik Syahadat.
He balked at saying which religious group was on which side in that clash, but Tabalu
is predominantly Muslim and police have said two Muslims were killed when villagers
tried to pursue the gunmen who ran for safety in Christian villages.
The incident grew into fighting that included attacks on Christian villages, leaving
churches and houses charred.
Officials have no record of Christian casualties but church groups claim Muslim
fighters have killed at least a dozen, forcing the Vatican bishop who covers the area to
call for help.
"This is an S.O.S for Poso," said Bishop Yosephus Suwatan whose diocese resides
at the North Sulawesi city of Manado.
Poso three years ago was a regency of 400,000 people. Located 1,565 km (980
miles) northeast of Jakarta, it has a small centre and many hamlets rest around
cocoa plantations near Lake Poso.
THOUSANDS FLED
Muslims stay downtown, Christians near the lake. Around one-fifth of the population
have fled the area for safety.
In the nearby Moluccas where similar religious clashes broke out in 1998 they spread
from one city to an entire chain of islands, but violence in Poso has yet to spread out
of the regency's confines.
Sulawesi island is predominantly Muslim like most areas in Indonesia. In the
Moluccas and Poso, Christians share half of the population.
Christians blame the radical Muslim Ahlu-Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Forum for the fresh
violence. Its armed wing Laskar Jihad has sent hundreds of men to Poso since July.
"Laskar Jihad have said they would hunt Christians up to the mountains. They are
starting to do it in the last week," the secretary-general of the Central Sulawesi
Christian Church Rinaldi Damanik told Reuters.
He said peace was wishful thinking if the group stayed in Poso.
Java-based Laskar Jihad is known for waging war against Christian fighters in the
ravaged Moluccas for the past year.
Its chief as well as police denied the group struck in Poso.
"Laskar Jihad has no link (to the attacks). Why you always ask us when Christians
are the victims? You do not ask us when Muslims are being slaughtered," said forum
head Ayip Syafruddin.
The fresh violence comes at a sensitive time when Muslims and Christians are
preparing to celebrate their holiest days.
The Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival which marks the end of Ramadan falls this year on
December 16, nine days before Christmas.
Rumours of both groups being ready to spoil the others' holidays are now rife in a
town where fights between Christians and Muslims have killed more than 1,000 people
since December 1998 after drunken Christians celebrating Christmas assaulted a
Muslim boy near a mosque during Ramadan.
Because of this Syahadat wants the extra troops sent to Poso immediately.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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