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State
of emergency in Maluku lifted
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The
Jakarta Post September
16, 2003
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State of emergency in Maluku
lifted
Azis Tunny and Octovianus
Pinontoan, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku
The government lifted the state of
civil emergency in Maluku on Monday after security conditions
normalized in the province, where over 6,000 people were killed in
a three-year sectarian conflict.
Minister of Home Affairs Hari
Sabarno announced the lifting of the state of emergency during the
inauguration of the new governor of Maluku, Karel Alber Ralahalu,
and deputy governor Muhammad Abdullah Latuconsina in the
province's capital, Ambon.
He said President Megawati
Soekarnoputri returned Maluku to normal civilian rule with
Presidential Decree No. 71/2003, which also marked the installment
of the new governor and deputy governor.
The minister said troops sent to
the province following the outbreak of the conflict between
Christians and Muslims would be withdrawn gradually. "They
still have a lot of work to do in other places," he told
reporters.
He hoped the improving security in
the region would lure businesspeople to invest in the province.
"The situation is conducive to
investment now," Hari said.
The government of President
Abdurrahman Wahid imposed the emergency status in June 2000 after
clashes between Christians and Muslims erupted in Ambon and spread
to the northern part of the province, which was eventually
established as a new province.
Under a state of civilian
emergency, the governor holds supreme command over the military
and police, and has the authority to stop people from entering the
province or any specific area, to ban public meetings and to
censor press reports.
During the three-year conflict from
1999 to 2002, members of the two religious communities set up
roadblocks to segregate sections of the city and killed anyone
from the opposite faith they encountered in their areas.
The only way to bypass the
roadblocks was to travel by speedboat across the Bay of Ambon.
The Megawati administration
deployed a security restoration operation to Maluku and North
Maluku in May 2002, three months after the warring sides signed a
peace agreement in Malino, South Sulawesi.
The state of emergency in
neighboring North Maluku province was revoked in May this year.
Apart from the deaths of at least
6,000 people, the protracted sectarian conflict also displaced
more than 350,000 people, who fled to refugee camps across the
province.
To date, more than 202,000 people,
or 39,000 families, are still stranded in refugee camps without
the prospect of speedy repatriation, officials earlier said.
Contacted separately, Maluku
Military chief Maj. Gen. Agus Sasongko Purnomo said after the
withdrawal of military troops from Ambon, police would be in
charge of restoring security conditions in the provincial capital.
A native Ambonese member of the
House of Representatives from the Indonesian Democratic Party of
Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) faction, Alex Litaay, said the
perseverance of the Ambonese in overcoming the bloody conflict had
contributed greatly to the lifting of the civil emergency status.
"Let's join hands in
maintaining the hard-earned peace," he told reporters.
More than 80 percent of the
country's 212 million population are Muslims, but in many eastern
regions, including Maluku, Christians make up about half of the
population.
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