Author:
Publication: Zenit.org
Date: February 13, 2002
Muslim-Christian Pact Says Unauthorized
Units Must Disarm
Seventy Muslim and Protestant Christian
representatives from the Molucca Islands have signed a pact committing
themselves to abandon violence, but an Islamic paramilitary group says
it won't abide by the accord.
"We have no business with the Malino
agreement because our mission in the Moluccas focuses on humanitarian work
and every citizen of this country has the right to stay anywhere he wants,"
Laskar Jihad spokesman Ayip Syarifuddin told Agence France-Presse today.
Confrontations broke out in the
Indonesian islands in 1999 following a personal dispute between a Christian
and a Muslim. Clashes have caused 10,000 deaths so far (15,000, according
to the Vatican agency Fides), produced 500,000 refugees, and devastated
the archipelago's economy, particularly tourism.
Negotiations between the two rival
communities of the islands opened Monday in Malino, in the province of
Sulawesi South, in the presence of government negotiators, under the protection
of 1,700 security agents. The pact was signed Tuesday.
The meetings were presided over
by Social Welfare Minister Yusuf Kalla and retired General Susilo Bambang,
Minister of Security and Political Affairs. The government officials had
a prior, separate meeting with the two delegations.
It is not clear what will happen
to the 3,000 Laskar Jihad troops, the paramilitary militia that disembarked
on the former Spice Islands in mid-2000 to fight the Christians.
Christians requested that these
forces abandon the archipelago. For their part, Muslims called for the
dismantling of the Christian militia known as the Front for the Sovereignty
of the Moluccas.
The peace deal calls for an independent
inquiry into the activities of Laskar Jihad and two Christian separatist
groups -- the Front for the Sovereignty of the Moluccas and the South Moluccas
Republic movement -- and another Christian group called Laskar Kristus.
The pact states that all unauthorized
armed groups should surrender their weapons or be disarmed. "For those
outside parties that are sowing unrest in the Moluccas, they are obligated
to leave the Moluccas," the pact states.
Father Cornelis Bohm, of the Crisis
Center of the Ambon Diocese, said Christians would demand "strong and decisive
actions" to expel Laskar Jihad from the Moluccas.
"Their image as killers and provocateurs
of war is so deeply rooted here that no Christian in the Moluccas will
ever believe their claim (to be) a humanitarian nongovernment organization,"
Father Bohm said.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri
welcomed the peace deal, the second negotiated by her Cabinet ministers
in two months. A December agreement ended Muslim-Christian fighting in
the Poso region of central Sulawesi.
Welfare Minister Yusuf Kalla said
Jakarta would soon send judges as well as more troops and police to the
Moluccas.
Asked about Laskar Jihad's stance,
Kalla said: "I have approached them," but did not elaborate.
More than 80% of Indonesia's 214
million people are Muslims but in some eastern regions Christians constitute
about half the population.
ZE02021303
