Maluku enjoys brief lull over New Year's break

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)