Death toll in Sambas continues to rise

Death toll in Sambas continues to rise

JAKARTA (JP): The death toll from weeklong clashes between
Madurese settlers and local Malays and Dayaks in West
Kalimantan's Sambas regency increased to more than 90 on Sunday
as more bodies were found, reports said.

As of Sunday, the Suara Pembaruan evening daily put the death
toll at 96, while Reuters quoted police official estimates of 70.

Residents in the regency capital of Singkawang and provincial
capital city of Pontianak told The Jakarta Post by phone the
situation was not improving, despite security personnel's claims
of a return to calm.

"It's really scary, although Singkawang is still safe," said
Lim Jan Liong, a Chinese-Indonesian.

"Today I saw 10 truckloads of Madurese driving to Pontianak."

A resident working as an engineer on a bridge development
project, also a Chinese-Indonesian, said he had just returned to
Pontianak from Sekurak in the Jawai subdistrict.

The small town is located some 250 kilometers north of
Pontianak.

"(It is) horrible! They (the mobs of Malays and Dayaks)
stopped our truck and inspected us with their machetes around our
necks... but they were only looking for Madurese," said the man,
who identified himself as Boni.

"There were 18 of us in the truck, mostly Javanese."

Nobody was harmed in the incident, he said.

Boni said almost all the Madurese-owned houses he passed were
razed.

He said the carnage was different from the outbreak of
violence in 1997 when the Dayaks would reportedly go into trances
to "smell" whether a person was Madurese.

It is now not as clear-cut as in 1997, as the war is waged
mainly by the Malays.

Reuters reported on Sunday from Singkawang that there were
unconfirmed reports of mobs setting fire to a body in the town of
Sambas.

More than 800 machete-wielding Malays and Dayaks burned dozens
of Madurese homes in the village of Sukarame in Sambas. The
Madurese fled before the mobs arrived.

The unrest broke out last Monday as indigenous Malays and
Dayaks clashed with Madurese settlers.

Dispute

The bloodshed was sparked by a dispute over a bus fare, but
local West Kalimantan leaders said it was fueled by long-standing
rivalries among the ethnic groups.

Sambas regency predominantly consists of Dayaks, Malays and
Chinese-Indonesians with the Madurese being the minority ethnic
group along with the Bugis, Minangkabau and others.

"The situation is very tense. Houses are being torched in
villages on the edge of the city... I can see the smoke from my
office," a resident of Singkawang said.

He said people were worried the ethnic clashes, until now
largely confined to villages and the city's outskirts, would
spread to the city center.

Meanwhile in Jakarta on Saturday, chairwoman of the Indonesian
Democratic Party of Struggle Megawati Soekarnoputri challenged
President B.J. Habibie to visit riot-torn Sambas and Maluku
capital of Ambon.

"The people need a strong government and popular leadership to
help defuse the crisis.

"The escalating tension in Sambas and the recent clashes in
Ambon are linked to inaccurate information reaching the central
government, leading to security personnel's inability to quell
them quickly," Megawati said.

At least 200 people have died in full-scale riots in Ambon
involving Christians and Muslims.

In Sambas, the Malays and Madurese are predominantly Muslim,
while the Dayaks are mainly Christians.

Separately, National Mandate Party chairman Amien Rais said
the government should make concerted efforts to quell the riots.

"The riots in Sambas must be stopped to prevent them from
spreading to other areas," Amien said, after launching his book
on corruption at the office of the Muhammadiyah Muslim
organization in Central Jakarta on Saturday. (edt/rms/aan)