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.