Word: sulawesi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
INDONESIA Spice Islands Deal Christian and Muslim leaders from the eastern Maluku Islands signed a deal to end sectarian violence that has killed thousands of civilians over the past three years. Negotiators met on neighboring Sulawesi island and signed an agreement to surrender all weapons and set up joint security patrols. But Laskar Jihad militants from Java, responsible for a sharp escalation in the fighting last year, were not represented...
...TIME: Have you sent any volunteers to fight in the Maluku Islands or in Sulawesi against Christians...
...study in contrasts, Mohammad Ichsan, deputy commander of Laskar Jihad's forces in Sulawesi, exudes a high-energy rage that reverberates in his hoarse voice, as he leans forward on the edge of a chair in the group's headquarters, a small house at the end of a narrow alley in Poso. Ichsan also denies that his forces are on the offensive. The town, a once thriving fishing port famous for its carving of ebony wood harvested from nearby forests, is now shuttered and virtually deserted but for Laskar fighters. Even police and army troops stay close to their base...
...have died down, but only after Christian sources reported that Laskar troops took over the last remaining road connecting Tentena to the outside world. That's when Christian community leaders like Pelima feared the worst and words like genocide began to appear on Internet list servers devoted to the Sulawesi conflict. "What is their intention in wanting to go to Tentena, wanting to cut it off from the rest of the world?" he asks. "People there are very, very frightened. They don't know what is going to happen to them...
...What happens next in Sulawesi depends in part on the young policeman stationed in Poso who calls himself Rudi. Despite being heavily armed?he carries a holstered pistol as well as an automatic rifle and a bayonet?Rudi is reluctant to stop at a Laskar Jihad checkpoint on the road outside Poso. "Do we have a letter of authorization?" he asks, keeping his finger on the trigger guard of his rifle. Although they muster only an antiquated shotgun and a homemade rifle among them, he hangs back from the villagers manning the makeshift wooden hut from which the black flag...