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300 Die in Indonesia Clashes The Associated Press Thursday, Dec. 30, 1999; 5:30 a.m. EST AMBON, Indonesia -- In the bloodiest religious violence in Indonesia in decades, fighting over five days between Christians and Muslims in the Spice Islands has killed more than 300 people, officials and media said today. Fighting on the island of Halmahera in North Maluku province broke out Tuesday when 400 Christians attacked a Muslim village, said Lt. Col. Iwa Budiman, spokesman for the local military command. Some 250 people have been killed since, he said. In the adjoining region of Maluku, 68 people, including three soldiers, have been killed in sectarian clashes that broke out Sunday, local newspaper Suara Maluku reported today. Fighting in both areas abated today, although tensions remained high throughout the scores of islands that make up the two provinces. The combined death toll is the highest in a year of savage fighting between Christians and Muslims in the two provinces that were known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial rule. Although the region used to be touted as a model of interfaith relations in Indonesia, tensions date back to 1950 when the Christians - many with ties to the Dutch colonial administration - battled Indonesian troops in a bid to secede from the predominantly Muslim nation. More recently, animosity between the two groups was stoked by an influx of Muslim migrants from other parts of the country. They have upset the numerical balance between the two communities and have come to dominate retail trading, siphoning off business from the Christians. Today, in Maluku's capital, Ambon, snipers remained active along the demarcation line in the commercial district of this once-thriving port city. Unidentified gunmen were seen sniping from the shore at ships ferrying passengers to the local airport, located on the opposite shore of Ambon bay. In a bid to clear snipers who were targeting troops, British-made Saladin armored cars fired 75 mm cannons directly into buildings where the gunmen were hiding. Army officers said two battalions of Indonesia's strategic reserve force - known as Kostrad - had arrived to reinforce the thinly stretched security forces. A battalion usually numbers 650 men. The Indonesian army has assumed control over all security forces in the province, including the local police force. Before this week's bloodshed, government statistics put the death toll for the year at 800. Unofficial estimates said the number was closer to 1,500. Christians in the embattled region urged the United Nations today to act to prevent a full-scale religious war. "The United Nations must intervene to separate and protect the two communities and ensure peace," said Chris Sahetopy, a Christian member of the provincial assembly. Other prominent Christian politicians and senior clergymen appealed last month to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for foreign troops. Indonesian commanders in the two provinces have urged that martial law be imposed. But President Abdurrahman Wahid rejected on Wednesday calls for a state of emergency. Wahid, who visited Ambon on Dec. 12, also ruled out foreign intervention saying the conflict was an internal affair. © Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
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