More
News
Across Pacific Magazine | Humour | God at Work | Across Asia | Marine Reach | Rancho de la Paz
INDONESIAN
POLICE INCREASE PATROLS
AFTER ASSAILANTS BEHEAD INDONESIAN GIRLS POPE BENEDICT EXPRESSES CONDOLENCES TO SLAIN GIRLS' FAMILIES By Michael Ireland Sunday, October 30, 2005 JAKARTA, INDONESIA (ANS) -- Reuters news agency reports that Indonesian police have increased patrols in the violence-plagued Poso area of Sulawesi island after assailants in black beheaded three teenage Christian girls at the weekend. And, at the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI offered his deepest sympathies to the families of the 16 to 19-year-old students, who police said were attacked by six machete-wielding men as they walked to school on Saturday (Oct.29). Reuters says that police official Made Rai said Sunday (Oct. 30) that about 1,000 police, including reinforcements from other parts of the country, were securing the remote regency of Poso, with more than 300 additional officers expected to arrive during the day. "So far no witness has been questioned and no suspect arrested," Rai told Reuters by telephone from Poso, about 1,500 km (900 miles) northeast of the capital Jakarta. One student survived and had described the attack. The three headless bodies of the girls, dressed in brown uniforms, were left at the site of the attack. Their heads were found at separate locations two hours later by residents. Television news showed wailing and distraught relatives of the dead students looking at their corpses in coffins. The girls' bodies, their heads re-attached, were shown in media reports in flowing white gowns, their hands holding bouquets. A Vatican spokesman called the killings "barbaric" and said in a statement that the Pope would pray for "the return of peace among the people" of the region. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has condemned the killings, which he described as "sadist and inhuman crimes." According to Reuters, Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso area killed 2,000 people from 1998 through 2001, when a peace deal was agreed. The agency says that while the worst violence abated after the deal, there have been sporadic outbreaks since. Bombings in May in the Christian town of Tentena killed 22 people. Reuters quoted Din Syamsuddin, leader of Indonesia's second-largest Muslim group Muhammadiyah, who earlier warned of more violence in Poso if police do not catch the perpetrators soon. "Similar murders are likely to occur in the future because there are some parties wishing communal conflict to flare up," Din Syamsuddin was quoted as saying by Indonesia's official news agency Antara. In an online article carried on CNN's website, Reuters said reports of the killings were on Sunday featured across the front pages of virtually all Indonesian newspapers. The leading daily Media Indonesia splashed a headline across its front page saying "Barbaric!" and the Muslim-oriented Republika daily devoted its full front page to the incident. About 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim. But in some eastern parts, Christian and Muslim populations are about equal. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderates, but there has been an increasingly active militant minority in recent years. Reuters commented that religious and communal tensions in areas like Poso have been aggravated by a transmigration policy. "For decades, under this policy, large numbers of mostly Muslim people from Indonesia's most crowded areas like Java have moved to places that had been largely Christian," the Reuters report said. Reuters explained that, "In addition to religion the newcomers often have cultural and language differences with locals. Politicians and security forces have sometimes been charged with exploiting the differences for their own ends, adding to the potential for violence."
|
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - E-mail
Across Pacific Magazine | Humour | God at Work | Across Asia | Marine Reach | Rancho de la Paz