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Mengenai Peristiwa Ambon
Mengenai Peristiwa Ambon
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JAKARTA, Aug 12 (AFP) - Uniformed men massacred at least 25 and possibly 30 Christians after locking them inside a church in Indonesia's riot-torn city of Ambon, residents and priests there said. A resident in the Galala area told AFP by phone he witnessed some 30 troops in the uniforms of the army's Kostrad strategic command attacking two churches in the area and leading a massacre of about 30 residents on Wednesday. "There were some 30 Kostrad members ... They led a mob of hundreds of Moslems to attack the Yabok church," the witness who preferred anonymity told AFP by phone from neighbouring Tantui area. "They were shooting at us and some of us ran and hid. There were about 30 people rounded up into the Yabok protestant Church, then the Kostrad shot from outside the church." The massacre and eight more people killed Thursday brought the death toll since renewed Moslem-Christian violence broke out in Ambon on July 27 to at least 97. The military said Wednesday 65 people have been killed and 242 seriously injured since July 27 but made no mention of the Galala massacre. In Wednesday's massacre, the bodies of the dead were dragged out of the church, cut up, and then burned, residents said. "I could see the smoke from afar but didn't dare move closer," the witness, who had been standing some 200 meters (668 feet) away from the church, said. Another Protestant church some 50 meters away from the Yabok church caught fire but there were no casualties, he said. Residents buried charred remains believed to belong to some 19 people on the following day and "picked up the shell casings from the ground and off the walls for evidence," he said. "Some officers from the military police assisted today's burial and collected data of the incident. We gave some of the shells for evidence to them," he added. Father Fred from the Yohanes Viane Catholic church said by phone from Ambon he estimated 25 people died, citing eyewitness reports. "Reports from eyewitnesses who live in a house across the street from the Yabok church said about 25 people were killed," the priest said. The Catholic church lies some 200 meters from the Yabok church in Galala, some three kilometers from the center of Ambon. Those eyewitnesses said the killings were carried out by four men in the uniforms of Kostrad and one mobile brigade policeman, he said. "Most of this is true," he said of reports the men were locked in the church, shot and their bodies dragged out and burned. "I don't know whether or not all the victims have been buried today ... but as of this morning, coffins were still being made," he said. "I heard there was a mass burial of 25 Christians in Galala today," another Catholic priest, Father Bohm, said by phone from Ambon. Bohm also said he had seen on the local state television Maluku police had arrested four "fake" Kostrad members. Maluku province police spokesman Major Philip Jekriel denied troops had been involved in any massacre. "No massacre took place," he said. "There was fighting between Moslems and Christians in the Galala area yesterday and a total of six people died, but not only in Galala," Jekriel told AFP by phone from Ambon. Fighting at the city's Air Besar, Karang Panjang, Aster and Batumeja neighbourhoods Thursday killed at least eight, staff from the Al-Fatah mosque and the Silo Protestant church told AFP by telephone. "Three men were shot in the head by mobile brigade police troops in Aster area ... some two kilometers (one mile) from downtown Ambon," said Malik Selang from the Al-Fatah mosque. Yosef Musila from the Protestant Silo church in Ambon said four Christians were killed by alleged "fake troops" in the Batumeja area. Earlier Thursday, a source with the governor's office, told AFP one man was shot dead with a makeshift weapon. Some 840 soldiers from two battalions in Central and East Java arrived by ship in Ambon Thursday to reinforce security there, said Captain Sutarno of the Maluku military information office. The new troops brought the number deployed from outside the province to four battalions, including a battalion of marines sent at the end of July. An Indonesian battalion numbers at least 600 men. Ambon and other islands in Maluku province were hit by months of Moslem-Christian violence earlier in the year which left more than 300 dead, drove tens of thousands to other provinces and caused massive destruction.
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