Jakarta – Eight people, including two policemen, have been killed and scores injured in the latest clashes between Muslims and Christians in the eastern Indonesian city of Ambon, the military said yesterday.
Mobs of Muslims and Christians in Hative Kecil Atas village in Ambon's Sirimau sub-district clashed on Monday, leaving eight dead and more than 30 homes and a church burnt down, said Captain Sutarno of the Maluku military command.
He said Ambon had been calm yesterday as rain helped to dampen the fighting spirit of the two rival communities. "It's the weirdest war in the world. Rains deter them more than bullets do," he said.
Six of the victims were Muslims and Christians involved in the clashes, while snipers had shot dead two policemen trying to break up the fighting, military officials said.
Tensions within the Maluku islands were heightened recently by the arrival of more than 2,000 hard-line Muslim paramilitaries, who travelled by sea after training in a camp in Java.
The paramilitaries have vowed to wage a jihad, or holy war, although their leaders insist their role is to help Muslims and not to attack Christians.
Elsewhere in the troubled nation, in Aceh province, two people were wounded yesterday during clashes between Indonesian troops and suspected rebels as activists called for the military to pull out of the region.
And soldier was shot during a skirmish with suspected members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in Babah Buloh village, North Aceh, on Monday, a district police spokesman said.
Some 30 soldiers had been lowering three GAM flags in the village when an "unidentified group of armed men" opened fire, police spokesman Captain Ahmad Mustafa Kamal said.
Meanwhile, Indonesian military commander Admiral Widodo warned yesterday that "destructive anarchy" was breaking out in the country. "Unrest ... still plagues the nation's livelihood. What has ... emerged are acts of destructive anarchy," he told parliament during a routine meeting with the military. "The security situation in Maluku is still worrying us. After clashes eased off for some time, fresh violence has reappeared, taking lives."
Admiral Widodo also accused rebel forces in Aceh of launching a campaign of attacks and kidnappings in violation of the recent ceasefire agreement.
He said there was no unified vision on how to return Indonesia to its pre-crisis state, a relatively stable period of 30 years under former president Suharto.