Jakarta – Indonesian police have arrested more than 100 people in West Kalimantan province on suspicion of arson and planning attacks on Madurese settlers, officials said Wednesday.
"Most were arrested when they were attacking houses, but some were arrested when they held meetings to plan an attack or when making ready their weapons," Major Tumino Hadi of Sambas district police told AFP. Hadi said those detained included indigeneous Dayak tribesmen, Malays and ethnic Chinese.
At least six houses belonging to Madurese settlers were torched late Tuesday in a village some 40 kilometres south of Singkawang, the main district town, said the major.
"The rioting has been contained and everything is under control now," added. He said it was business as usual in Singkawang. "The people here have learned to live with it and they don't care anymore," Hadi said.
Violence pitting Madurese against Malays and Dayak tribesmen in Sambas erupted last month, and has since left more than 200 people dead and a trail of destruction of Madurese property.
Some 29,000 Madurese settlers have fled Sambas under military protection. Massacres, torchings, decapitations and ritual canibalism were widespread in March as armed Dayaks and Malays roamed the Sambas countryside hunting settlers.
There have been at least eight major outbreaks of violence between Dayaks and Madurese since 1968. Battles in 1998 left some 300 dead according to official figures while independent tallies spoke of up to 4,000 dead.
Ethnic and religious violence has increased in various flashpoints in Indonesia in recent months.
The other main trouble spot has been the Maluku, where there have been Moslem-Christian clashes since mid January that have left more than 250 people dead.
Southeast Maluku, where at least 55 people were killed in a week of fighting up to Monday, was reported calm Wednesday. But Maluku police spokesman Major Philip Jekriel said in Ambon, the provincial capital, that 28 people had been killed in Southeast Maluku this week.
Seventeen people were killed and 44 seriously injured in Tual and Kei Kecil sub-districts on Monday while 10 were killed and 12 seriously wounded in Elat on the neighbouring island of Kei Besar the same day, Jekriel said.
On Tuesday, clashes following an attack on a Christian village by Moslems from rival villages in Kei Besar left one man killed, he added. Around 300 houses were burned or damaged and seven public buildings, including a church and a mosques, torched.
The Jakarta Post daily quoted Aka Roroa, a member of the riot monitoring post at the Al Huria mosque in Tual, as saying four people were killed and 17 others were injured in Tual on Tuesday after police opened fire on Moslems attempting to attack a Christian neighbourhood.
Roroa said the four dead were buried at the mosque. Police have threatened to shoot on sight rioters.