'Third party' behind bloody Kupang riots

'Third party' behind bloody Kupang riots

JAKARTA (JP): Rights campaigner Benjamin Mangkoedilaga said on
Saturday that an investigation into recent unrest in Kupang, East
Nusa Tenggara, revealed that it was not a spontaneous eruption of
outrage over earlier unrest in Jakarta.

Instead, it was determined that a "third party" masterminded
the attacks against mosques and properties of the Muslim
community in the predominately Catholic region, Benjamin said in
Bandung.

The new member of the National Commission on Human Rights was
quoted by Antara as saying that witnesses reported the presence
of strangers in their neighborhoods just before the rioting broke
out.

"The strangers wandered around in the sites of the rioting,"
said Benjamin, while "most Kupang residents claimed they did not
know how the unrest began. They learned about the rioting after
it spread."

"There's no indication that the unrest was in retaliation for
the tragedy in Ketapang" he said. Ketapang, West Jakarta, was the
scene of unrest in which 14 people were killed late last month
when residents attacked churches.

"What we have, instead, are indications that the (Kupang)
unrest was plotted so that it looked like an interreligion
conflict," he said.

Benjamin described how the people he spoke to did not bear any
grudge toward people of other faiths or ethnic groups.

He also said that Muslims who lost their homes were given
shelter by Catholic missionaries, while the damaged mosques were
repaired with the help of the Catholic community.

President B.J. Habibie met with some officials and community
leaders from East Nusa Tenggara on Friday in Jakarta where they
agreed that the rioting was triggered by attempts to use religion
to pit one group against another.

"The torching of places of worship in Kupang was not caused by
religion-, race- or ethnic-related issues but by attempts to use
religion to pit one group against the other and to commit an act
of deception," East Nusa Tenggara Governor Piet Tallo said after
the meeting with Habibie.

The Kupang riots on Nov. 30 followed a procession initiated by
four Christian youth organizations to memorialize the Nov. 22
riots in Ketapang in which numerous buildings were also damaged.

At least 11 places of worship were set ablaze and more than a
dozen houses, a haj dormitory, government offices and school
buildings were extensively vandalized in the Kupang riots,
causing material losses of nearly Rp 30 billion.

Police claim they have strong evidence linking eight people to
the Kupang riots. (swe)