JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Adm. Widodo A.S.
asserted on Monday that the plan to impose a military state of
emergency in strife-torn Maluku would be based on objective
conditions on the field, a report said.
Speaking at Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base in East Jakarta after
the installment of the new Air Force chief of staff, Vice Marshal
Chappy Hakim, who replaced Marshal Hanafie Asnan, Adm. Widodo said
that the current civil emergency administration in Maluku province
had been doing its job as regulated by law.
Meanwhile, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Endriartono Sutarto also
said on Monday that TNI's function in Maluku was to help maintain
peace and order in the restive province.
"If the public wants TNI to take firm measures in handling
the Maluku conflict, there must be adequate legal and political
grounds to do so," Endriartono said.
Over three years of bloody communal and religious conflicts in
Maluku and North Maluku provinces have claimed the lives of 9,000
and drove some 500,00 people from their homes.
In the latest round of violence, at least 12 people were killed
when a group of masked people attacked predominantly Christian
Soya village, some 12 kilometers from Ambon, the capital of Maluku,
on Sunday. Twenty-four houses and a church were burned in the
melee.
