Police plan to screen outsiders entering Poso
La Remy, The Jakarta Post, Palu, Central Sulawesi
The Central Sulawesi Police are considering a regular screening process of all people arriving in the province in a bid to foil ammunition smuggling attempts into the conflict-prone regency of Poso.
Violence has returned to Poso just a few months after a peace accord was reached between warring Muslim and Christian groups last December to end two years of sectarian conflict that left over 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
A series of explosions have rocked Poso, the latest occurring on Sept. 26 when a bomb exploded in the town's main market, injuring four people.
The provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Zainal Abidin Ishak said on Monday he had urged the local administration to draft bylaws that would justify the police and the provincial officials to thoroughly check all outsiders traveling through or temporarily residing in the region.
He said that the involvement of people from other regions in illegal trafficking of ammunition in the province was verified by police findings and information.
"Recently we have foiled an attempt to smuggle a consignment of more than 2,800 rounds of ammunition conducted by a man identified as Far, a Jakartan Muslim, who temporarily resides in Poso on the pretext of selling clothes," he said.
Far and his associate, Sisi, were arrested by the police last week in the Pantoloan port as they disembarked from the Nggapulu ship, shortly after it docked following a trip from Jakarta. They were unloading some 2,845 rounds of ammunition, 12,943 various kinds of fireworks, and 15 toy guns that are sometimes used to make homemade firearms.
They said the hazardous materials were obtained from a person identified only as Tj, in Jakarta and were to be loaded onto horses so that security personnel would not suspect them.
Far admitted that the materials would be sent to another accomplice identified only as Tar, in Poso and later delivered to their associates, a group of Muslim fighters.
"We will cooperate with the National Police headquarters and the Army headquarters because the ammunition was wrapped in their original PT Pindad packages, the Bandung-based military weapons producer," Zainal said.
The police are still questioning the suspects and the investigation may be linked to the finding of 4,000 more rounds of ammunition in Poso two years ago that remains unsolved.
Zainal suspected that the two cases were related and the alleged smugglers worked for the same network. Further investigation into Tj and Tar will be focused on the network, Zainal added.