Two senior ministers greeted by anti-peace demonstration
Two senior ministers greeted by anti-peace demonstration
Jupriadi, The Jakarta Post, Makassar
A high-powered ministerial delegation checking preparations for
reconciliation talks between warring religious factions in
Maluku, were greeted in South Sulawesi Tuesday by more than 30
Muslim students opposed to the talks.
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Coordinating Minister for People's
Welfare Jusuf Kalla passed the students gathered at the Mandala
Monument, as they drove from the airport to the governor's
office.
The students from Maluku, who reject the government-sponsored
talks, held a banner stating: Indonesia has its own laws and is
not a reconciliation country; crimes committed by the South
Maluku People separatist movement (RMS) and Maluku Sovereignty
Forum (FKM) must be solved in accordance with the law not with
reconciliation talks.
The students said the groups were Christian-based separatist
organizations responsible for killing Muslims.
So far, the sectarian conflict that has lasted for three years
has claimed more than 6,000 human lives.
The ministers' visit was to check on preparations for the
reconciliation meeting scheduled for the middle of this month in
Malino, 70 kilometers northeast of the provincial capital
Makassar.
The ministers and other high-ranking officials, including from
the Military and National Police, visited Maluku last month and
met with both warring factions.
Delegates of both factions held a preliminary meeting in the
city last week and agreed to the reconciliation meeting. They had
returned home to promote the planned meeting.
Demonstration coordinator Chaeruddin Moto said: "We reject the
reconciliation. What the Maluku people needs now is not
reconciliation but law enforcement."
He said the main issue in Maluku was not sectarian conflict
but a separatist movement launched by the RMS and FKM which
provoked ethnic and religious sensitivities.
"We want the government to quell the separatist movements and
take strict action against all those violating the law," he said.
He warned that the reconciliation meeting, the twenty-first
such meeting, would not be effective in ending the conflict
unless the government quelled the separatist movements.
He said the Maluku Muslim students would not support the
meeting because they believed the factions were forced to go to
the negotiating table.
"We will be ready to go to the negotiating table only if the
government investigates the systematic massive killing committed
by RMS supporters on Jan 19, 1999, and bring to court all those
violating the law over the last three years," he said.
The Christian-based groups believe the conflict is being
fueled by Muslim-based organizations from Java who are supplying
men and weapons to kill Christians.