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ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday September 3, 2001
Police Arrest 47 For Separatist Mtg In Indonesia's Maluku
JAKARTA (AP)--Police have arrested 47 people, including two reporters, who were attending a meeting in the Maluku islands to discuss the possibility of seceding from Indonesia, security officials said Monday.
Regional military chief Brig. Gen. Sutopo said the meeting was organized by the outlawed Maluku Sovereignty Forum, a small secessionist group campaigning for independence for the southern part of the Maluku archipelago.
"We arrested them on Thursday at an illegal meeting in Kairatu on Seram island," said Sutopo, who like many Indonesians only uses one name.
Maluku's separatist movement is small and nonviolent, unlike in other Indonesian provinces such as Aceh and Irian Jaya where insurgencies have claimed thousands of lives.
The government banned the mainly Christian Maluku Sovereignty Forum last year.
Indonesia's new president Megawati Sukarnoputri - a staunch nationalist - has said she wouldn't tolerate any attempts by rebels to break away from Indonesia.
Sectarian tensions in the Malukus first erupted in 1950, when the Christians - many with ties to the former Dutch colonial administration - proclaimed an independent Republic of the South Moluccas. The uprising was eventually crushed by Indonesian forces.
The region of 2 million people, eventually became a popular tourist destination. It was considered to be a model of inter-religious tolerance in Indonesia, but sectarian fighting broke out in January 1999, leaving at least 5,000 dead.
The arrival of a Muslim paramilitary force known as Lasker Jihad, inflamed the situation whose 3,000 members have murdered hundreds of Christians in a series of raids against coastal villages.
The archipelago, about 2,600 kilometers northeast of Jakarta, was known as the Spice Islands in colonial times.
Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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