State of emergency in Maluku lifted
Azis Tunny and Octovianus Pinontoan, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku
The government lifted the state of civil emergency in Maluku on Monday after security conditions normalized in the province, where over 6,000 people were killed in a three-year sectarian conflict.
Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno announced the lifting of the state of emergency during the inauguration of the new governor of Maluku, Karel Alber Ralahalu, and deputy governor Muhammad Abdullah Latuconsina in the province's capital, Ambon.
He said President Megawati Soekarnoputri returned Maluku to normal civilian rule with Presidential Decree No. 71/2003, which also marked the installment of the new governor and deputy governor.
The minister said troops sent to the province following the outbreak of the conflict between Christians and Muslims would be withdrawn gradually. "They still have a lot of work to do in other places," he told reporters.
He hoped the improving security in the region would lure businesspeople to invest in the province.
"The situation is conducive to investment now," Hari said.
The government of President Abdurrahman Wahid imposed the emergency status in June 2000 after clashes between Christians and Muslims erupted in Ambon and spread to the northern part of the province, which was eventually established as a new province.
Under a state of civilian emergency, the governor holds supreme command over the military and police, and has the authority to stop people from entering the province or any specific area, to ban public meetings and to censor press reports.
During the three-year conflict from 1999 to 2002, members of the two religious communities set up roadblocks to segregate sections of the city and killed anyone from the opposite faith they encountered in their areas.
The only way to bypass the roadblocks was to travel by speedboat across the Bay of Ambon.
The Megawati administration deployed a security restoration operation to Maluku and North Maluku in May 2002, three months after the warring sides signed a peace agreement in Malino, South Sulawesi.
The state of emergency in neighboring North Maluku province was revoked in May this year.
Apart from the deaths of at least 6,000 people, the protracted sectarian conflict also displaced more than 350,000 people, who fled to refugee camps across the province.
To date, more than 202,000 people, or 39,000 families, are still stranded in refugee camps without the prospect of speedy repatriation, officials earlier said.
Contacted separately, Maluku Military chief Maj. Gen. Agus Sasongko Purnomo said after the withdrawal of military troops from Ambon, police would be in charge of restoring security conditions in the provincial capital.
A native Ambonese member of the House of Representatives from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction, Alex Litaay, said the perseverance of the Ambonese in overcoming the bloody conflict had contributed greatly to the lifting of the civil emergency status.
"Let's join hands in maintaining the hard-earned peace," he told reporters.
More than 80 percent of the country's 212 million population are Muslims, but in many eastern regions, including Maluku, Christians make up about half of the population.