Embers still smoldering in Poso

Embers are still smoldering in Poso, Central Sulawesi. Last Sunday, a group of armed people attacked four villages and killed eight people.

Although security personnel have been deployed there ... there would be trauma if the conflict is not settled soon. People are fed up with violence.

The conflict in Poso, such as the one in Maluku, subsided with the signing of the so-called Malino Agreement in Malino, Gowa, South Sulawesi in December 2001.

The agreement however was not the end of the bloody story. Bombs were detonated in Poso's district social office in March 2002 and in a bus in Poso Pesisi subdistrict in June 2002.

Rioters must be dealt with stern measures .... otherwise it would indicate that the country is too soft on them or, second, that the rioters are too powerful. Thus, the country is powerless is the face of powerful rioters. And if this happened, it would suggest that the country had fallen in the hands of thugs.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta