Maluku to review emergency status

AMBON, Maluku (JP): Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina asserted on Sunday that the civil emergency status on the disputed province will be evaluated in June by a team comprising central government officials led by Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and security Affairs, House of Representatives (DPR) members and the civil emergency executors.

"We will conduct a one year evaluation of the civil emergency in June," Latuconsina, also the chief of civil emergency in Maluku, told media during the Easter celebration here.

Civil emergency was first imposed in Maluku and North Maluku on June 27, 2000 following rampant bloody conflicts and disorder in both provinces.

Prior to the enactment of civil emergency in Maluku, almost all base of Police forces in the island were destroyed by armed rioters in last year's June 23 incident in Tantui area of Pandan Kasturi of Sirimau district in Ambon.

Among the proposals to be discussed in the June evaluation are the removal of civil emergency status in relatively calm areas such as Tual and Southeast Maluku regencies and changed the status into that of a civil order.

Conflicts in the Malukus first erupted on Jan. 19, 1999 and have so far claimed more than 8,000 lives.(49/edt)