Police continue to hunt for masterminds of Poso mayhem

Police continue to hunt for masterminds of Poso mayhem

By Jupriadi

POSO, Central Sulawesi (JP): It was a mid-August morning. The
sun shone and calm reigned as residents streamed back into the
city after weeks of hardship in scattered refugee centers.

The refugees' expressions, however, still spoke of the hurt
and trauma inflicted on the city's 400,000 residents by the
recent communal clashes that had killed hundreds. At the time of
writing this, an estimated 1,000 military troops had been posted
here to restrain both Christian and Muslim groups involved in the
violence.

The semblance of normalcy was attributed also to a truce
declared on Aug. 13 by governors of the four Sulawesi provinces
(North, Central, Southeast and South) in Tentena, Pamona Utara
subdistrict.

For some people, including Poso police chief Supt. Djasman
Baso Opu, the matter was far from over. He promised recently that
his men would continue to hunt down three men thought to be
responsible for the massacre of at least 270 residents, mostly
students of Islamic boarding schools.

Djasman identified Fabianus Cornelius Tibo, Dominggus da Silva
Soares and Marinus "Nus" Riwu as leaders of the so-called Black
Bat group of black-clad, masked men who had entered settlements
and engaged in a frenzy of killing.

Gamma weekly quoted Untung, a 35-year-old refugee among
thousands being sheltered in military compounds, as saying that a
mob of masked men attacked his village. "Everyone who was over 10
years old was tied and loaded onto trucks and were brought to a
spot by the River Poso.

"The masked men then chopped everyone's head off, one by one.
I escaped by jumping into the river before they got to me,"
Untung said.

The masked assailants were later identified as members of the
"Red" (Christian) mob. The Muslim camp was later as the "White"
mob in the conflict.

Another refugee, Ahmad, spoke of how the "Red" mob attacked
his village on June 2, burned down houses and killed anyone they
met including women and children. Ahmad and a number of residents
fought back and managed to kill A.L. Lateka, a leader of the
"Red" group.

The "Red" supporters avenged their leader's death by attacking
settlements in the subdistricts of Lage, Pamona Selatan, Pamona
Utara, Lore Utara, Lore Selatan, Limbo and Mori Atas in the
regency of Morowali. They dumped the bodies in the River Poso,
Gamma said.

"I saw corpses scattered around by the river," a Berita Kota
reporter testified.

Indeed, at one point during the violence, the River Poso, that
slashes the city into two halves, had turned red with the blood
of the victims. All this is said to have started when a drunk
called Deny hurt his hand at a Poso bus terminal and claimed to
have been injured by Lombogia residents, the majority of whom
were Christian.

Muslims from three subdistricts of Kayamanya, Lawanga and
Bonesompe then rampaged through Lombogia, burning down at least
200 houses, schools and church buildings. Six people were killed
in the mid-April violence.

Djasman believed more victims have yet to be recovered. "We
are hoping that if we can capture those 'executioners', then we'd
find out about the exact locations of other victims," he said.

The atrocity was even worse than that committed in 1965 by the
communists, Djasman said. "This is why we will continue to hunt
for the perpetrators and suspected executioners," he vowed.

So far, the Poso police have arrested only three men they
suspected of leading the killing spree, identified only as Hery,
52, Alexius, 19, and Rahman, 46. None have admitted
responsibility for the murders.

"I did round up a number of women and children, but what
happened to them (I don't know) as they're in the hands of
Dominggus and Tibo," Hery said.

First Lt. CHK Agussalim, the commander of the joint police and
military "Peace-loving Task Force" revealed the gruesome task of
combing several subdistricts in Poso in search of victims of the
attacks.

His men spoke of stumbling upon a dog chewing an object which,
on closer inspection, happened to be a human jaw. They also spoke
of chasing the animal for the object only to find themselves
being led to mounds of decayed, mutilated bodies in shallow
graves.

The team found corpses practically everywhere--in bushes, in
ravines, in the lake and in the river.

The three subdistricts have been identified as the "killing
fields". The bodies found in Lage subdistrict bore signs of
torture, which investigators believe took place in the village
hall of Tambaru. Agussalim told The Jakarta Post that a ravine in
Pandiri, Lage, was another location where the team discovered 57
bodies -- all badly mutilated.

Victims of the violence were also found floating in Lake Poso
in the Tentena village, Pamona Utara subdistrict. Two other sites
of violence were the subdistricts of Poso Pesisir and Poso Kota.

Agussalim said 89 bodies had been found in Lage, 28 others
found in both the subdistricts of Poso Kota and Poso Pesisir. The
remaining 153 bodies were found in Lake Poso and the stream of
Poso River.

"The actual number could be higher because many residents are
still unaccounted for," Agussalim admitted, citing that before
the conflict Lage had a population of 1,600 but the number was
found to have dwindled to 1,200 in a recent census. "Where have
the 400 people gone?"

Djasman said the police now have a list of suspected
murderers, including members of the Indonesian Military and
Indonesian Police who were said to have joined the Black Bat
group.

"(We gathered) from the witnesses there were eleven butchers,
but three have been arrested," Djasman said. "We are now
monitoring some organizations in Tentena (we believe are)
involved."

At the provincial level, deputy police chief Senior Supt.
Zainal Abidin Ishak asserted that his people had been seriously
working to track down a number of people suspected of
involvement. He said a total of 117 rioters had been arrested.

"We are questioning them intensively, we want to find out
about their involvement in this killing spree," he said.

Djasman and Zainal were confident that if all suspected
murderers were captured, the investigators would then be able to
trace all victims and places where they were buried. More
importantly, they believed investigations would reveal the
mastermind of the violence.

The two police officers said some witnesses have testified
that Tibo, Dominggus and Riwu had all mentioned several
"generals" as being behind the massacre.

Local media reported that the violence began at dawn on May 23
when a group of "ninjas" suddenly entered the Lore Utara
subdistrict killing everyone they met and burning houses and
places of worship.

An estimated 15,000 people abandoned their houses and property
and sought shelter in cities such as Palu, Makassar, Manado and
Gorontalo. The unrest continued until June 4, but was said to be
a continuation of the first bout of violence on April 17.

Central Sulawesi police chief Col. H. Soeroso had named A.L.
Lateka as having paid the "Black Bat" men to go on the killing
spree. Central Sulawesi Governor H.B. Paliudju supported this
allegation about Lateka, a former civil servant who was said to
be seeking revenge for earlier unrest.

Observers believe the Poso communal clashes are connected with
the prolonged violence in Maluku, where thousands of people have
been killed since the Christian-Muslim conflict erupted in
January 1999.

Sociologist M. Darwin of the Hasanuddin University in
Makassar, South Sulawesi, urged the involvement of non-
governmental human rights organizations in the investigation. He
believed the presence of human rights activists would spur the
police investigators on.

"If the police work alone, I am sure this massacre in Poso
will soon be forgotten," he said. "It has taken them so long to
hunt down the executioners, much less search for the mastermind."

"Had it not been for the presence of the joint military-police
team, the killing fields in Poso would not have been revealed,"
he said.

Darwis urged human rights groups to launch their own
investigations into the violence. He said refugees have testified
that not only were the Muslim Javanese and Bugis migrants
targeted in the killings, but women had been raped and sexually
assaulted.

The writer is a correspondent of The Jakarta Post in
Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi.