REUTERS, Saturday December 15, 1:48 AM
Troubled Indonesia's Poso said calm before holiday
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesians have been travelling through Poso town on
Sulawesi island on their way to celebrate Sunday's Muslim festival, a sign officials
say shows the ravaged area is returning to normal after November's religious killings.
Muslims and Christians clashed late last month leaving at least 15 people dead and
forcing thousands to flee to the hills, and there had also been rumours of more
violence ahead of the weekend Eid al-Fitr festival that celebrates the end of the fasting
month of Ramadan.
"Many are coming in and out of town. Not to escape but to celebrate Eid," Poso
deputy mayor Abdul Malik Syahadat told Reuters on Friday from Poso, some 1,565
km (980 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
"There were big fears (of violence on the holidays) before but with the reinforcements,
people are moving around again. We have not heard any gunshots for days," he said
by phone.
Jakarta sent an extra 2,000 troops to the area last week to restore calm and provincial
police said there were now hundreds of checkpoints along the highways connecting
Poso with other cities throughout the sprawling Sulawesi island.
Officials said it was not clear if the hundreds of people on the roads were coming back
to areas they had fled after the violence erupted but police said the presence of
around 3,500 security personnel in the area meant the roads were now safe from
marauding religious gangs.
"Conditions are getting better in Poso with troops deployed all around the area," said
Central Sulawesi police spokesman Agus Sugiyanto.
Religious conflict in the area, which has now claimed more than 1,000 lives, first
broke out three years ago when drunken Christians celebrating Christmas assaulted a
Muslim boy near a mosque during Ramadan.
So far the violence has remained localised but the possibility is always there that it
can ignite simmering religious tensions elsewhere in the multi-ethnic archipelago.
Last year the central government imposed a state of emergency on the Moluccas,
after clashes between Muslims and Christians spread from one city to the entire chain
of islands.
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