Irwan Firdaus, Palu – Christian mobs torched cars, blockaded roads and looted Muslim-owned shops in violence touched off by Friday's executions of three Roman Catholics convicted of instigating attacks on Muslims.
Some 200 inmates escaped after mobs assaulted a jail in the town of Atambua, sending guards fleeing to the nearby jungle. By midday only 20 had been recaptured, deputy national police chief Lt. Gen. Adang Dorodjatun said, calling on the others to turn themselves in.
And on the island of Flores, the executed men's birthplace, machete-wielding mobs ran through the streets Friday, sending women and children running in panic, police and witnesses said. Police and media reports said at least five people were hurt, including a prosecutor who was hospitalized with stab wounds.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla appealed for calm, saying the deaths of the three men had nothing to do with religion. "It's a matter of law," he told reporters in the capital Jakarta. "If the people resent the law, we are doomed."
Fabianus Tibo, 60, Marinus Riwu, 48, and Dominggus da Silva, 42, were found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks on Muslims in May 2000 that left at least 70 people dead. Human rights workers say the men's 2001 trial was a sham, and that while it was possible the men took part in some of the violence, they almost certainly were not the leaders.
The men were taken before the firing squad at 12:15 a.m. (2:15 p.m. EDT Thursday), said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Family members later said they had received confirmation of the deaths.
Palu, where the executions took place, was largely calm, with thousands of police standing on street corners and guarding markets and churches. But violence flared in the Sulawesi villages of Tentena and Lage, where hundreds of Christians rampaged after learning of the deaths.
Thousands also rallied in the eastern province of East Nusatenggara, home to many Roman Catholics, blockading roads and setting fire to government buildings, including a courthouse and a prosecutor's office.
In carrying out the death sentence, Indonesia ignored an appeal last month by Pope Benedict XVI to spare the men. A Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the Italian news agency ANSA that news of the execution "was very sad and painful."
The European Union also criticized the executions; capital punishment is banned in the 25-member bloc. "The presidency of the European Union has learned with disappointment that despite numerous expressions of concern by the EU to the Indonesian authorities, Indonesia has carried out executions in Central Sulawesi," said a statement issued Friday by Finland, which currently holds the EU presidency.
The case against the three had heightened tensions in the world's most populous Muslim nation and raised questions about the role religion played in punishing those allegedly behind the violence that swept Sulawesi province from 1998 to 2002, killing more than 1,000 people of both religions. Only a handful of Muslims were convicted, all for 15 years in prison or less.
The men told relatives and a priest during final prayers at their jail Thursday that they were innocent but ready to die.
Tibo's son, Robert, told Christian followers early Friday that his father "begged us not to be angry, not to seek revenge." "He asked us to forgive those who did this to him. 'God blesses all of us,' he said.
The executions came amid an outcry in many Muslim nations about comments made by the pope on Islam. The pontiff last week cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman." He has since said he was "deeply sorry" about the reactions to his remarks and that they did not reflect his own opinions.
The condemned men had said they hoped investigations into the clashes would continue, noting that they had provided authorities with the names of 16 Christians who allegedly provoked some of the worst bloodshed. The government says its probe is complete.
"It's useless for me to say anything now," said Tibo's son early Friday. "The government never listened to him when he was alive. They ignored everything."
Human rights activists said Muslim hardliners gathered at the court during the hearings, likely intimidating judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses.
"The men's lawyers received death threats, including a bomb planted at one lawyer's house and demonstrators armed with stones outside the courthouse demanded that the three be sentenced to death," said Isabelle Cartron of London-based Amnesty International.
Indonesia is a secular nation with the world's largest number of Muslims, about 190 million. In Sulawesi and several other eastern regions, Christian and Muslim populations are roughly equal.
Though violence in Sulawesi largely ended with the signing of a peace deal in 2002, there have been isolated incidents of violence since then, most blamed on Islamic militants.