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Moluccas
brace for more trouble
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BBC
World News
Friday, 26 April, 2002, 15:38
GMT 16:38 UK |
Indonesia is worried a recent peace
deal is still fragile
Hundreds of police reinforcements are being sent to the Moluccan
islands in eastern Indonesia to prevent more violence, after a
series of explosions undermined a shaky peace pact between
Christians and Muslims.
Indonesian police in the provincial capital Ambon wounded at least
one person on Friday when they fired warning shots to keep a
massive Muslim rally from spilling into the city's Christian
areas, Reuters news agency reports.
Also on Friday, the leader of one of the country's most radical
Islamic groups urged thousands of Muslims in the islands to join a
holy war against local Christians.
The violence threatens a fragile peace agreement signed in
February to end three years of conflict between the Christian and
Muslim communities, in which at least 6,000 people have died.
Witnesses said more than 15,000 Muslims had gathered in and around
the city's main mosque after mid-Friday prayers, staging a rally
against what they viewed as Jakarta's sluggishness in dealing with
a local Christian separatist group, the Maluku Sovereignty Front (MSF).
'No reconciliation'
Jafar Umar Thalib, the leader of the radical Muslim Lashkar Jihad
group, told a rally in Ambon that now was not the time for
reconciliation.
He accused local officials of failing to contain the MSF, which on
Thursday raised separatist flags in the city sparking a series of
bomb attacks.
Fourteen people were hurt in the violence and a Christian church
was burnt down.
Police, backed by reinforcements from Jakarta, fired warning shots
in an attempt to stop thousands of Muslims from the rally reaching
the Christian sector of Ambon.
Such a blatant call to arms by the Lashkar Jihad leader now
threatens to undermine the entire peace process, but it is far
from clear whether the authorities will take action against him,
says the BBC's Jakarta correspondent.
Failed independence
The authorities in Ambon had been bracing for trouble because 25
April marks the anniversary of a failed attempt by a Christian
organisation to create an independent republic in the Moluccan
islands in 1950.
Authorities had already arrested the main Christian separatist
leader, Alex Manuputty. They had extended a night-time curfew,
ordered a news blackout and banned all foreigners from visiting
the area.
But the separatists went ahead with plans to mark the anniversary
by raising flags and banners across the city, as they have done in
many previous years.
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