World community to help restore ruined Maluku

World community to help restore ruined Maluku

AMBON, Maluku (JP): The international community is ready to
help Indonesia restore riot-torn Maluku, United Nations
Development Program resident coordinator Ravi Rajan said here on
Wednesday.

Ravi Rajan, who was in Ambon along with foreign envoys seeking
information on conditions in the areas affected by unrest, said
the international community was ready to help Indonesia with its
reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation programs.

Asked about security on Ambon island and Central and North
Maluku, Rajan said it was an internal affair of the government of
Indonesia and foreign countries could not interfere.

When asked about funds the international bodies would donate
for the reconstruction and rehabilitation programs, Rajan said
that detailed talks on that would be held with foreign
ambassadors here and representatives of international bodies.

Security guarantees for the personnel of international bodies
working here was a must, he said.

Rajan visited Ambon with British ambassador Robin Christopher,
Egyptian ambassador envoy Abdel Rahim Ismail Shalaby, Japanese
deputy ambassador Jun Yamasaki, the Netherlands embassy's press
spokesman BSM Berendsen, Phillip Clarke from the World Food
Program and Andrew Harper from the United Nations High
Commissioner. Indonesia's settlement and regional development
minister Erna Witoelar accompanied the foreign envoys.

Meanwhile chief of Pattimura Military Command Brig. Gen. Max
Tamaela told reporters that a special team had been formed to
investigate the Huruku and Sameth riots on Jan. 23, which claimed
25 lives.

"There are indications that police and military officers
became involved in the sectarian clashes," Tamaela said.

Tamaela's statements referred to reports from local people
that officers from the Police Mobile Brigade unit and 303
Infantry Battalion were involved in the fighting.

According to Tamaela, the commander of the military
subdistrict should have detected the movement of people before
the fighting, which involved hundreds of people from four
villages, took place. "How could hundreds of people moving from
one place to another be undetected?"

When asked by journalists how his intelligence team failed to
detect the early indications of rioting in the province, Tamaela
merely said, "There was a weakness."

In a related development, the North Maluku legislature decided
almost unanimously on Thursday to dismiss Sultan of Ternate,
Mudaffar Syah, as chairman of the council. (49/sur)