Riot-torn Sanggau Ledo returns to normal

Riot-torn Sanggau Ledo returns to normal

JAKARTA (JP): Sanggau Ledo, the small West Kalimantan town
which was hit recently by ethnic violence that killed five, has
returned to normal, the chief of the Tanjungpura Military
Command, Maj. Gen. Namuri Anoem, said yesterday in nearby
Singkawang.

Accompanied by local military and police officials and Sambas
Regent Tarya Aryanto, Namuri said the economic cost of the riots
was still unknown.

"There hasn't yet been any calculation of material losses," he
was quoted by Antara as saying.

The news agency reported that the more than 5,000 people who
had fled Sanggau Ledo and other affected districts for
Singkawang, some 70 kilometers west of the district, were
gradually being sent home.

Namuri estimated that about 900 people were still sheltering
at the haj dormitory in the province's capital of Pontianak. But
a reliable source told The Jakarta Post that their number was
more than 1,000.

Some shops have reopened in Sanggau Ledo.

Namuri hoped that social and economic life there could soon
return to normal.

Namuri said that, now the worst-hit districts were recovering
from shock, the authorities could concentrate on finding ways to
dissolve tension and enmity between the two clashing ethnic
groups: Dayak people, the natives of Kalimantan; and migrants
from Madura Island, East Java.

Namuri revealed that his officers had detained five Sanggau
Ledo residents suspected of inciting the riots; he identified
them as TS, WW, BS, SL and BH.

The riot was sparked on Monday by a brawl between two groups
of youths over a woman at a concert in Sanggau Ledo.

Five people died, nine were injured and dozens of houses
burned during the disturbances which erupted after a man from
Madura reportedly stabbed two Dayak tribesmen in the stomach.

Namuri said the two Dayak tribesmen, Yakobus and Efegius, had
been discharged from hospital.

Namuri said that leaders of the two feuding ethnic groups had
agreed to bury the hatchet with a ritual which symbolized an
agreement to cease fighting and end disturbances.

The ritual was attended by residents of Selakau, Pemangkat,
Sambas, Sanggau Ledo, Bengkayang, Tebas, Monterado, Samalantan,
and Singkawang, district military chiefs and police sub-precinct
and district chiefs, he said.

"We hope this kind of truce can go up to the regency level,"
Namuri said.

Stepanus Djuweng from the Institute of Dayak Research and
Development in Pontianak told the Post that the animosity was "a
latent problem besetting the two ethnic groups".

He recalled the 1979 unrest in Samalantan, which he said
claimed lives, and unrest in 1993 in Pontianak which led to
vandalism.

Stepanus said the root of the problem lay in the two groups'
ignorance of each other's social and cultural natures. "This
ignorance has existed for so long, it's high time that some
effort be launched to educate them," he said. (08)