21 dead as troops arrive in Ambon

Azis Tunny and Tony Hotland, Ambon/Jakarta

The death toll in Ambon rose to 21 with over 140 injuries reported as of late Monday as sectarian/separatist clashes finally began to tail off with the arrival of reinforcement troops from Java.

Ambon was a ghost town as night fell, as the hundreds of police paramilitary reinforcements were deployed to the troubled city to prevent the conflict from escalating.

After Sunday's brutal clashes, the retaliatory strikes began in earnest at around 3:30 a.m on Monday, as the sound of a bomb blasts and sporadic gun fire were heard in the Tanah Lapang Kecil area in Nusaniwe district, Ambon, a mixed Muslim-Christian area facing Ambon Bay in the city's southwest.

"At least one more person was killed and nine others suffered from gunshot wounds," said Abdullah Wassahua, a spokesperson for Ambon's Muslim Youth Organization, as quoted by DPA.

Wassahua claimed that all of Monday's victims were from the Muslim community.

The tense situation kept many residents at home, so schools, markets and offices were empty on Monday. Other residents chose to flee to safer areas.

"We seem to have gone instantly back to the same conditions as at the beginning of the conflict in 1999. The Christians remain in their sector and the Muslims remain in theirs," said Olin Tutamahu, an employee at the local UN mission, quoted as saying by AFP.

In the afternoon, dozens of Muslims gathered in the Tanah Lapang Kecil area and marched angrily through Ambon's streets and burnt several buildings at Indonesian Christian University, Ambon in downtown. They also burned several buildings belonging to the Ambon Vocational High School, located near the university.

However, no clashes were reported after those arson attacks places of higher learning. The Crisis Center Diocese of Ambon reported on Monday that since Sunday night, there had been a full-scale attack targeted at the Christian neighborhoods in Batugantung area of the city.

All the Christians from Batugantung and nearby Mangga Dua area had fled the area, just before their homes were razed by the roving arsonists.

On Sunday, when the clashes began in response to a predominantly Christian separatist commemoration in the city, six people were killed and dozens injured. The hospitals were swamped with dead and wounded across the city.

In a particularly telling incident one man, likely a Christian according to local people, was stabbed to death at the Yos Sudarso port in Ambon, as he was trying to escape from a Muslim area.

Meanwhile, two companies of police personnel (around 200) and two battalions of soldiers (around 450) were dispatched on Monday from Jakarta to help restore security in Ambon, said Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno in a teleconference held in Jakarta.

Gen. Da'i Bachtiar, the chief of the National Police, said that the police had arrested eight suspects, all members of the separatist Maluku Sovereignty Front (FKM), including Moses Tuanakotta, its secretary-general.

FKM, which organized a rally on Sunday in Ambon to commemorate its self-proclaimed 54th anniversary of the South Maluku Republic (RMS), was blamed for provoking the renewed sectarian clashes in Ambon. Most members of the FKM are Christians. The rally angered a gang of mostly Muslims. Sociologists have cited unresolved problems that have festered over the last two years such as property disputes among refugees.

The current sectarian clashes were the worst since the signing of the Malino II Peace Pact in 2002. The peace pact was signed after Ambon had been rocked by major sectarian clashes from 1999, in which thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands of others fled to safer areas.