National rights body team visits devastated Maluku

AMBON, Maluku (JP): A team from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) began a visit to Ambon on Thursday to evaluate the success of the one-month long civil emergency status in the strife-torn provinces.

Bambang W. Soeharto, BN Marbun and Maj. Gen. (ret) Sjamsoedin from Komnas HAM's team of reconciliation and mediation for the Malukus met with Governor Saleh Latuconsina at his office on Thursday.

"The team is here to gather data for an evaluation of the imposition of the civil emergency status that started on June 27," Bambang told the media after the meeting.

"We are very concerned that violence has intensified here during the civil emergency, whereas in April the situation was actually already very conducive for peace and reconciliation.

"We believe that the arrival of unwanted outsiders has disrupted the rehabilitation and reconciliation efforts," Bambang said, without mentioning who he was referring to.

Reports have said that the arrival of Laksar Jihad fighters in early May worsened the situation in the two provinces.

"We ask for the political elite to support the ongoing civil emergency in a bid to speed up the resolution of the Maluku conflict," Bambang said.

The team will reportedly visit North Maluku on a similar mission.

Separately, the Navy's Eastern Fleet security commander, Commodore Djoko Sumarsono, said on Thursday that Navy officers had recently seized 200 grenades and grenade launchers and around 7,000 rounds of ammunition from onboard the KM Dobonsolo.

The liner sails from Surabaya to Ambon via Bali and Kupang.

He also said that Navy officers had seized three vessels loaded with weaponry on their way from southern Philippine waters to Halmahera and Ternate in North Maluku.

"We also detected the movement of armed rioters entering Maluku from Gorontalo, North Sulawesi," the commodore said.

The officer also alleged that in southern Philippines weapons were being traded freely.

"Anybody with a certain amount of money can purchase guns there," he said.

In Sorong, Irian Jaya, the KM Dobonsolo, with around 3,000 refugees from Maluku onboard, was denied entry to the town's port to unload its passengers as residents feared they would trigger unrest.

Hundreds of Irianese crowded the port on Thursday to drive the ship back to sea, a witness named Bondan, a worker at Sorong Parish Cathedral, told The Jakarta Post by phone. He added that the vessel finally disembarked its passengers on the nearby island of Buaya, before continuing to the other Irian Jaya towns of Manokwari, Biak and Jayapura, were the refugees were told to remain onboard. (49/eba/edt)