Police fish for church minister, Christians alleged set up
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Central Sulawesi Provincial Police insisted that they would immediately interrogate church minister Rev. Rinaldy Damanik who was declared a suspect for alleged possession of guns and ammunition without a permit.
Brig. Gen. Zainal Abidin, chief of the provincial police, said here on Saturday that his office would deliver a second summons to the suspect to replace the previous letter which mistyped his identity.
"Rev. Damanik turned down the first summons because we had the name on it wrong. We will send a second one with the right name," he was quoted by Antara as saying while warning that the suspect would be taken by force should he reject the summons.
Damanik was declared a suspect following the seizure of 14 guns and ammunition from a car in which he was a passenger, while evacuating Christian villagers who were being massacred by Muslim extremists in the bloody assault on Mayumba Village in Morowali regency on Aug. 15.
Damanik was not arrested when the weapons were first alleged to have been discovered because he was accompanied by hundreds of his supporters.
The Institution of Christian Churches in Central Sulawesi (GKST) released an official statement in connection with the police's announcement about the minister's status in the case, which categorically denied the reverend's involvement.
It said that the minister was asked by villagers in Mayumba and Peleru to evacuate them to safer areas following the bloody attack where many people were killed and many houses were burned down and security authorities had yet to investigate that incident, let alone identify who was responsible.
The second reason, the statement said, was that not even one of the hundreds of people around, while they were in a convoy of vehicles, saw any guns that belonged to the minister, but other witnesses confirmed that some weapons were planted in the car during the police raid, which was not conducted in compliance with official procedures.
GKST also called on all sides, including law enforcers, to respect the principles of the legal system to uphold the supremacy of law in handling the case.
Damanik is one of the Christian delegates who signed the Poso peace agreement in Malino, South Sulawesi, in December, 2001, and also chairman of the crisis center assigned to handle conflict victims and publicize the peace deal among conflicting factions' supporters.
In other related developments, Gymnastiar, a Muslim leader, and Rev. Lambe, secretary of the Indonesian Churches Communion (PGI) were scheduled to visit Poso on Sept. 13, 2002, to help calm down the increasingly volatile situation.
Farid Husain, a deputy of the coordinating minister for people's welfares, said the two religious figures were sent to help speed up the peace process in the conflict-torn regency.
"The central government hopes the two religious leaders' visit will create a fresh situation after the regency has been torn by a sectarian conflict for four years," he said.
The conflict erupted in December, 1998 and has claimed more than 2,000 lives and caused billions of rupiah in material losses.
Gymnastiar is scheduled to visit predominantly Muslim Poso town while Lambe will visit predominantly Christian Tentena, some 50 kilometers south of Poso.
The government has redeployed thousands of security personnel both from the police and the military, but sporadic attacks on Christian villages continue and the police still claim to be completely unaware of who was behind the recent series of bombings and killings.
Some 200 security personnel from the Papua Provincial Police arrived in Poso on Saturday to reinforce thousands of police and military personnel already stationed in the regency.
Most recently, a bus bombing occurred in the regency only a day after the second round of the Poso meeting attended by military and police officials, ended in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi early last month.