Jakarta – Police and troops patrolled two Indonesian towns Tuesday after new riots left hundreds injured in Lampung, Central Sulawesi and North Sumatra provinces.
In Fajar Bulan in western Lampung, police opened fire Monday on rioters who torched a police post and a police station after the death of a suspected thief in police custody, residents said. Scores were injured in the riot and the shooting, but no deaths were reported.
"It's safe and under controlled now. Only the local police are patrolling the streets," a police officer in Liwa district told AFP. He said six police were injured after being hit by stones. The officer said police had used blank bullets, while the Suara Pembaruan evening daily said police opened fire with rubber bullets as a mob attacked the police station, ransacked four homes and set fire to three cars.
The violence erupted after one of three robbery suspects died in custody on Sunday. Police claimed the suspect committed suicide. Residents accused police of involvement because of wounds on his body. Before attacking the police post, hundreds of residents paraded the body through the town.
Mobs then attacked the homes of a coffee trader who was the victim of the alleged robbery and the homes of his lawyer and two police officers. They took furniture from the houses onto the streets and set it on fire.
The port of Poso, on the island of Sulawesi, was tense Tuesday following two days of rioting which left scores injured and dozens of houses and shops burned. The riots were triggered by clashes between Christian and Moslem youths from different neighbourhoods.
"Poso is still tense and activities have not returned to normal. Shops are still closed and streets are empty. But the situation is already under control, no more upheavals are reported," said Poso police lieutenant Iwan.
The Kompas newspaper reported that at least 500 troops, including two companies of infantry and two from the police mobile brigade, were sent to the town from the central Sulawesi capital of Palu.
At least 79 people were injured in Poso when hundreds rioted on Friday after a teenager was stabbed by a drunken man at a mosque in the town. "The stabbing was used by provocators who said a Christian man had attacked a Moslem," a resident said.
Police said at least 13 buildings were damaged, including hotels, homes and a liquor distiller. The incident led to further clashes Monday between Moslem and Christian youths. One group was seen parading through the town with sickles, swords, spears and bamboo poles. Seven shops and 12 houses were set on fire Monday in the neighbourhoods of Lombogia and Kasintuwu.
Central Sulawesi Governor H. Bandjela Paliudju said the riot was criminal, and not an ethnic or a religious conflict. "I hope all sides restrain themselves and think clearly. Don't be influenced by rumours and provocators," Paliudju told the state TVRI television.
Meanwhile in North Sumatra, at least six farmers were wounded when police fired rubber bullets to break up a clash at a state-run plantation near the provincial capital of Medan.
Fighting erupted when about 1,000 employees of the Nusantara II tobacco and palm oil plantation tried to force the farmers off the land on Monday, charging that they were disrupting routine planting, the Kompas daily said.
The farmers, calling themselves the People's Struggle Board, denied they were squatting on the plantation and said they were entitled to the land in the Deli Serdang district. North Sumatra governor Rizal Nurdin said after a meeting police, plantation union representatives and the farmers that a negotiated settlement would be found.