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Fresh violence in
Indonesia's Moluccas kills four
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LAKSAMANA.Net
September
9, 2002 08:44 GMT+08:00 PM
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Fresh violence in Indonesia's
Moluccas kills four
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Four people were
killed in two incidents in Indonesia's strife-torn Moluccas
islands on Sunday, police said, just days after four people died
in a bomb blast in the region.
In the first incident, three Muslim
women from the island of Saparua were shot dead as they walked on
a beach early on Sunday, which police said led to a mob attack on
a car and the killing of its Christian driver in the city of Ambon
on a nearby island.
"The shootings took place at around
seven o'clock this morning. The women were at the beach to take a
bath and wash their clothes when the shootings erupted. They all
died on site," Sergeant Eddy Wattimena told Reuters by
telephone from Ambon, some 2,300 km east of Jakarta.
He said the mob torched a car and killed
its driver after news of the shooting reached Ambon several hours
later.
"Apparently the mob was angry over
the shootings because some of them were families of the three
women," he said.
Ambon is the hub of the Moluccas, where
a wave of clashes between Muslims and Christians has claimed more
than 5,000 lives since early 1999.
A bomb last Thursday killed four young
women -- three Christians and a Muslim -- near an Ambon sports
field.
Vice President Hamzah Haz said the blast
was not linked to the long-running religious conflict but was the
work of provocateurs.
The latest incidents underscore the
tension that remains in the once idyllic island chain despite a
peace deal signed by both sides in February. A civil emergency
status, one level down from martial law, remains in place in the
Moluccas.
Several parts of the world's most
populous Muslim nation have been ravaged by violence since
autocratic President Suharto stepped down amid chaos in 1998,
allowing long-simmering tensions to come to the surface.
About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210
million people are Muslim, but Christians make up roughly half the
population in some eastern areas.
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