Christian-Muslim conflict in Sulawesi - Three
Christian Schoolgirls Beheaded in Indonesia
JAKARTA, Indonesia Terrorists attacked a group of high school girls in Indonesia's
tense province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding a fourth,
police said. Jakarta said recent attacks on the island were an attempt to foment religious
hostility.
The students from a private Christian high school were ambushed while walking through a
cocoa plantation in Poso Kota subdistrict on their way to class, police Maj. Riky Naldo
said. The rural area is close to the provincial capital of Poso, about 1,000 miles
northeast of the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
He said the heads of the three dead girls were found several miles from their bodies. A
fourth girl who survived the attack reportedly told police there were six machete-wielding
attackers, dressed in black and wearing masks.
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation. But Central Sulawesi has a roughly
equal number of Muslims and Christians. The province on Sulawesi island was the scene of a
bloody sectarian war in 2001-2002 that killed around 1,000 people from both communities.
At the time, beheadings, burnings and other atrocities were common.
A government-mediated truce ended the conflict in early 2002 but since then, there have
been a series of bomb attacks and assassinations targeting Christians. A market attack in
the predominantly Christian town of Poso killed 22 people in May
Christian leaders have repeatedly criticized the authorities in Jakarta for allegedly not
doing enough to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
The Christian-Muslim conflict in Sulawesi was an extension of a wider
sectarian war in nearby Maluku archipelago in which up to 9,000 people died between 1999
and 2002.
Soon after it erupted in 1999, the Maluku conflict intensified with the arrival of
volunteers belonging to Laskar Jihad (search), a newly created militia from Indonesia's
main island of Java that was supported by hardline elements in the security forces.
Analysts and diplomats accused senior army commanders of funding and training the militia,
which was hurriedly disbanded following the terrorist attacks on the tourist island of
Bali in 2002 that killed more than 200 people, including 88 foreigners. Some former
militiamen are believed to have moved to Poso.
Saturday, October 29, 2005 FOX News CountryWatch: Indonesia |
