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.