Rival Maluku factions begin peace talks
Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Malino
All the 70 delegates from the warring factions have arrived in the resort hill town of Malino in South Sulawesi to meet for peace talks aimed at halting three years of sectarian fighting in the troubled Maluku islands.
The 35 Christian representatives arrived by plane in the province's capital of Makassar on Sunday afternoon, a day after the Muslim delegation led by Thamrin Ely arrived on board the same aircraft.
Members of the militant Java-based Laskar Jihad group will reportedly be involved in the talks. But it remained unclear on Sunday whether they were among the newly arrived Muslim delegates.
The two-day peace talks will officially be opened on Monday in Malino, Gowa regency, about 76 kilometers south of Makassar.
At least 19 members of the monitoring team comprising religious and community leaders, and government and military officials have also arrived at the venue. So has the nine-member mediating team led by Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla.
The mediating team includes Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina, South Sulawesi Governor H.Z.B. Palaguna, Maluku's Pattimura Military Commander Brig. Gen. Mustopo, Maluku Police Chief Brig. Gen. Sunarto DA, and Speaker of the Maluku Legislative Council Z. Sahubura.
"All the delegates are prepared to negotiate in Malino. All the mediating and monitoring teams are already here," Farid W. Husein, an assistant to the head of the government's mediating team, told The Jakarta Post last night in Makassar.
The two rival delegations were housed in two different hotels that were tightly guarded by police in Makassar before they left for Malino on Monday morning. The Muslim representatives were accommodated in the Kenari Hotel and the Christian delegates at the Losari Beach Hotel.
Farid said that during the fist day of the meetings on Monday, mediators would meet separately with the two warring delegates.
On the second day on Tuesday, the two conflicting delegations will meet at one table along with the mediators.
"The meeting will not discuss the reconciliation or peace issue, but the essence of the talks will be how to halt the conflict. The meeting is aimed at eliminating the passion behind the clashes," Farid said.
He further said the talks were directed at exploring how differences could be addressed. They included how to deal with Muslim or Christian migrants who had been involved in the religious war, he added.
"The model of the Feb. 11 to Feb. 12 meeting in Malino differs from the Poso case because we will work from the differences toward similarities."
Malino hosted similar talks between Muslim and Christian leaders from Poso district in Central Sulawesi province. They ended with an agreement to halt more than two years of intermittent clashes there which left hundreds dead.
The Maluku representatives from the two sides had already held a string of meetings in Maluku and in Makassar over the past few weeks, during which, Farid said, several agreements had been achieved.
The agreements, he added, included joint efforts to rebuild public facilities such as schools, mosques and churches.
South Sulawesi Police Chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani said he would be providing stricter security for the talks in Malino than for the earlier meeting to end the fighting in Poso.
He said that a total of 1,700 military and police personnel have been deployed to guard the Maluku talks, 500 of whom would be stationed in Malino.
The Maluku unrest broke out in Ambon following a trivial dispute on Jan. 19, 1999. Apart from some 6,000 deaths, more than half a million people were forced to flee their homes.