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)