Maluku enjoys brief lull over New Year's break

JAKARTA (JP): Maluku enjoyed a brief respite over the New Year break from almost continuous violence, with reports of only minor clashes, as figures show that escalating violence in 1999 has killed over 1,000 people.

The final week of the year saw the devastation reach new heights in Maluku, with about 300 people killed in the last three days on Halmahera Island alone.

Fresh troops arrived on Morotai Island on New Year's Eve to help quell the escalating violence.

Led by Lt. Col. Guru R. Manaf, the 500 Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) soldiers were sent from Java and will be primarily deployed to secure the northern half of Halmahera Island, Antara reported.

But governor of the newly established North Maluku province, Surasmin, expressed hope that more troops would be deployed.

"Ideally there should be one more battalion posted at the western half of Halmahera Island, which until now has not seen any violence," he said, adding that the ratio of security forces to residents was 1-to-1,400.

Clashes spread across Maluku after a mid-January 1999 incident in Ambon which has now produced the worse religious violence Indonesia has seen in many years.

The Indonesian Military officially took over security responsibility in Maluku from the police after the eruption of a new wave of violent clashes just after Christmas.

Last week's clash resulted in the Silo Church in Ambon being burned, fueling the anger of many residents around the city.

Meanwhile, in The Hague, the Dutch government has offered assistance to help end unrest in Maluku.

Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Jozias van Aartsen, in a letter to his Indonesian counterpart Alwi Shihab, said the Netherlands was "prepared to offer any assistance to the Indonesian government that could contribute to restoring peace and promoting reconciliation".

"In the present situation, a neutral presence of police and military forces seems to be of the utmost importance," he said in the letter made available on Friday.

Holland has been a refuge for tens of thousands of Maluku rebels who, in the 1960s and 1970s, fled to Indonesia's former colonial ruler after failed secessionist attempts.

AFP reported that there are about 40,000 people from Maluku living in the Netherlands.

Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) last week called for international peacekeepers if Indonesian security forces could not take responsibility for the violence.

However Indonesian legislators have rejected the proposal.

House of Representatives speaker Akbar Tandjung said there was no need for an international presence at the moment because the government itself has not exerted its full attention to the problem.

Senior legislator Aisyah Amini also rejected the proposal.

"There is no advantage in such a course of action," the United Development Party legislator said.

However she also said she disagreed with President Abdurrahman Wahid's decision not to impose martial law in Ambon.

"There's no reason to reject martial law because the security situation there is very difficult to control. The most important thing is martial law is not misconstrued by our security personnel as a license to shoot people arbitrarily," she said.(48/mds)