Troops on patrol after clash

JAKARTA (JP): Military and police troops patrolled two villages in Maluku on Sunday after least three people were killed and another 12 injured in a mass brawl three days earlier.

"Bataka and Talaga are calm now, but troops and police are still stationed there to monitor the situation," First Sgt. Mustafa told The Jakarta Post by phone from the North Maluku capital of Ternate on Sunday.

At least four houses were ransacked and two of them set ablaze along with a car in Thursday's unrest.

Police said last week that at least 200 troops and police were dispatched to the villages to calm residents and prevent the clashes from spreading to other areas.

The riot, the second to jolt the province within a week, erupted after a dispute between youths in Bataka and Talaga.

Police arrested seven people and seized dozens of traditional weapons.

Hundreds have died in communal violence in Maluku this year, most of them in southern and central areas of the archipelago, widely known as the "spice islands".

At least one man died and 12 others were injured when people in nine motorized canoes attacked the village of Waab in Kei Kecil district in Southeast Maluku on June 20. Hundreds were arrested.

Southeast Maluku, and particularly its capital Tual, has been the scene of clashes between Muslims and Christians since March. At least 130 people have been killed.

More than 350 fatalities have resulted from the communal hostilities which first erupted in the provincial capital of Ambon in mid-January.

In the most recent instance of unrest in the capital, seven people were killed when soldiers fired into a crowd during a dispute between members of two neighborhoods on May 15.

The violence occurred only a few days after community and religious leaders from the province gathered in Ambon to sign a military brokered peace accord. (byg)