17 more live bombs found in Poso
17 more live bombs found in Poso
Ruslan Sangadji, The Jakarta Post, Palu, Central Sulawesi
Police here on Saturday found an additional 17 live bombs in Poso
regency, Central Sulawesi, through the door-to-door search for
arms in operation since last week's renewed attacks.
The homemade bombs were discovered at around 11:55 a.m. under
a bridge in Masani village, Poso Pesisir subdistrict, following a
tipoff from local residents who reported seeing a suspicious
package there.
A bomb squad arrived, along with officers from the police's
Mobile Brigade (Brimob), and defused the bombs that were equipped
with timers. The bombs were taken back to police headquarters in
Poso.
Poso Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Abdi Dharma Sitepu said the
17 bombs were low explosives, but if they had exploded, they
could have endangered local villagers.
"At the very least, the windows of their houses would have
shattered..."
Abdi suspected that the bombs were deliberately hidden under
the bridge, so as to elude the security forces' door-to-door
search.
The tipoff on the bombs cache was indicative of the active
participation of local residents in helping police restore peace
and order in Poso, he said.
"I suspect the residents wanted to hand the bombs over to
security personnel, but were afraid to do so. So they put them
under the bridge and reported it to us," Abdi said.
Earlier, residents and police had discovered other live bombs
in the religiously mixed town amid the string of renewed attacks
blamed on unidentified gunmen.
The latest attacks hit the town over the past three weeks with
Christians seemingly the target. Two people, including a
clergyman, were killed, and a woman lecturer was injured.
Police have questioned several people in connection with the
cases and declared one of them, Risman, a suspect. However, the
investigation is apparently going at a snail's pace, as no new
leads have emerged.
The fresh attacks broke out despite the government-sponsored
December 2001 Malino I peace pact to end the two-year sectarian
conflict in Poso, in which at least 2,000 people have been
killed.
Hundreds of police reinforcements were deployed to the area
after the peace pact was signed, but sporadic attacks continued.
The latest unit of more than 100 Brimob officers left the
North Sulawesi capital of Manado on Saturday to help secure Poso,
which has been facing an uneasy peace, Antara reported.
The string of new attacks have not provoked a resurgence of
the conflict, as Christians and Muslims in Poso refrained from
reacting to the violence.
Also on Saturday, the Poso Administration met to discuss
further measures to restore security and to prevent more violence
in the regency.
The meeting, hosted by the Poso Police, agreed to provide the
police with a full mandate to conduct ID checks on all local
residents.
People found to have no local ID cards during a raid would be
sent back to their hometowns of origin, said Poso Administration
spokesman Abdul Haris Rengga.
The planned ID raids came amid a report that at least 11 men,
mostly from Java, had disappeared from the restive regency in the
past six months.
Ten of the migrants are from Tegal municipality, Central Java,
and the other is from Makassar, South Sulawesi.
Police said they had questioned 13 traders hailing from
several areas of Java, but none of them had any connection with
nor knowledge of the 11 missing Javanese.