Riot battalion reinforcements for Maluku

JAKARTA (JP): Another battalion of riot troops from Java will be deployed to Southeast Maluku regency as the death toll from clashes there continues to rise, police said on Wednesday.

Maluku Police spokesman Maj. Jekriel Philipis told Antara sporadic clashes between groups of Muslims and Christians on Tuesday killed at least 28 people, bringing the death toll from recent violence in the regency to 80.

Jekriel said from Ambon that 17 bodies were found in the Southeast Maluku regency capital of Tual, 10 bodies were found in neighboring Kei Besar district and another body was discovered in Kei Kecil district. Unrest also occurred in the districts of Kei Besarlekat and North Tanimbar, but no fatalities were reported.

Some 55 people were injured and nearly 300 houses and buildings and scores of vehicles set on fire in violence on Tuesday.

Antara reported no fresh clashes on Wednesday.

"We call for people to stop fighting because experience has taught us that it is the regular people who fall victim in such conflicts. The provocateurs, intellectual ones in particular, are still at large and must be all smiles for causing such successful unrest," Jekriel said.

He said the additional battalion of riot troops was expected to arrive in the regency by the weekend. The Armed Forces earlier deployed a battalion of reinforcements to the regency when communal clashes broke out at the end of March.

A battalion comprises some 1,000 troops.

Jekriel appealed to warring parties to lay down their weapons and seek a peaceful settlement to their grievances.

"The clashes in fact pit brother against brother and fathers against their children. Let's stop the clashes for the sake of the development of the country," he said.

Religious conflicts in Southeast Maluku erupted just after the Maluku capital of Ambon began to return to normal after months of unrest. Some 200 people died in the violence in Ambon.

The crisis settlement center set up by the local Communion of Churches blamed the renewed unrest in Maluku on the government. In a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, the center said the religious conflicts hit Southeast Maluku because of the government's failure to adequately cope with the core causes of the problems in Ambon.

"It's not difficult to answer why the unrest spilled over to the Kei islands, and very possibly will spill over to other areas in Maluku," center coordinator Rev. Dicky Mailoa said.

He suspects a series of attacks on predominantly Christian villages in Tual were orchestrated by the same people who provoked the unrest in Ambon. "Other than the wearing different clothes, we found in some areas the attackers used the same weapons and tactics as in Ambon," Dicky said.

The crisis center also hinted that not all clashes pitted Muslims against Christians.

It reported that in one of the clashes on Monday, both Christian and Muslim residents in two separate villagers faced attackers.

Thousands of miles away in West Kalimantan, tension gripped the small town of Singkawang on Wednesday after three people died and 20 were injured after police opened fire on a crowd of people marching to the local legislature.

The police opened fire to disperse the thousands-strong crowd of mostly Malays who were marching to the legislature to demand the release of 70 people being detained by the police for allegedly provoking the recent communal unrest in the area.

Local legislator Bong Cin Nen told the Post the crowd was trying to march to the local legislature office when police blocked their way in Naram hamlet, Tujuhbelas district, on the outskirts of the town.

Cin Nen said the crowd planned to march to the legislature to ask legislators to help free the 70 people.

The people were peaceful and unarmed, according to Cin Nen. But Antara quoted police as saying they were forced to open fire on the crowd because they had changed direction and burst into the police station.

Police arrested 32 people, Antara said. (aan/amd)