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Lynch mobs rampage in East Java

Source
Agence France Presse - October 26, 1998

Surabaya – Hundreds of people, angered when police refused to hand over to them a suspected killer, went on the rampage in the East Java town of Pasuruan, reports reaching here said Monday.

The violence broke out after a man, suspected of being involved in the killings and terror against local Moslem leaders, was caught Saturday on the highway in Ketapaan, near Pasuruan on the northern coast, sources there said.

The man, an ethnic Chinese was arrested and brought to the local headman, who refused to hand him over to a lynch mob outside his house, sources said. The angry crowd then went on the rampage, attacking shops, banks and vehicles, they added.

"The man is still being held here and we have also arrested four of the rioters for questioning," an officer on duty at the Pasuruan police headquarters who identified himself as Hari told AFP. First Sergeant Rachmat of the Pasuruan military said one unit of soldiers had arrived on Saturday from Beji while another unit had arrived from nearby Malang earlier Monday to assist the local security. One unit includes about 100 men.

"There has been no more unrest since Saturday," Rachmat said. Residents said shops had begun to reopen for business on Monday. The banks, attacked on Saturday were also open again, they added. Both Rachmat and Hari declined to confirm sources' allegations that shots, believed to be warning shots, had been fired on Saturday.

Between 10-15 shops were damaged as well as the three banks. The crowd also overturned a passing sedan and damaged a police pickup which had come to take the man to the police station, they added.

Violence has risen against suspected "ninjas" – marauding men clad in black with their faces covered in the fashion of the Japanese Ninja assassins – who have been blamed for a series of killings in East Java in the past few months.

The backlash came after scores of Moslem scholars and teachers became the victims of the mysterious killings which initially targetted warlocks. At least 178 people have been killed in East Java so far, according to an independent fact finding team set up by student activists here, the Surabaya-based Jawa Pos daily said.

The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Islamic movement said that 96 of its members were among the victims. Scores of local NU leaders have also spoken of being terrorised, including receiving anonymous telephone calls. The Suara Karya daily said threatening telephone calls have also targetted Moslem leaders in Sukabumi, Bogor and Cianjur in West Java.

Religious and military leaders have said conflicts within the country's political elite may be behind the violence in East Java as they seek to spread unrest in the run-up to next year's elections.

Action by neighbourhood watches, set up by the local population in several areas in East Java to protect their villages against ninjas, has led to the deaths of scores of people suspected of being involved in the killings.

They have been arresting and attacking people found without identity documents or roaming the countryside after dark. In Central Java, crowds beat to death three people suspected of belonging to the Ninja groups, the Media Indonesia daily said.

Two men killed by mobs on Saturday after they were caught in ricefields in Wedung in the district of Demak late on Saturday, turned out to be snake hunters, the daily said.

The third victim, a woman, was killed when mobs dragged her from a motorcycle carrying her to a police post after she was arrested by a neighbourhood watch in the same district on Saturday without clear indentity papers and declining to answer questions, the daily added.

In Malang, mobs last week killed eight people, beheading at least two of them and burning another. In the East Java district of Mojokerto, where 87 leaders of Moslem boarding schools have reported threatening telephone calls, the local NU youth arm has set up a special security team of some 2,500 members to assure the security of the threatened Moslem teachers, the Jawa Pos said.

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