AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, Monday December 10, 2001 1:14 PM
Islamic militants 'not aiming to kill Christians' in Indonesia
PALU, Indonesia, Dec 10 (AFP) - Islamic militants involved in the bloody sectarian
unrest in Indonesia's Central Sulawesi are only defending their fellow Muslims and are
not an a mission to kill Christians, a leader said.
"We don't wish to kill anybody," said Abu Umar, 27, chairman of the Central Sulawesi
branch of the Laskar Jihad (holy war force) -- an Islamic militant group that has sent
hundreds of men to the province amid a rise in fighting between Christians and
Muslims.
Thousands of Christians in the Poso district east of the provincial capital Palu last
month fled an advance by Muslim militiamen who seized several villages.
The refugees alleged the attackers were armed with guns and yelled "God is Great"
as they bombed, burned and looted their homes. At least five Christians were killed,
they said, with church officials claiming some 13,000 people had fled.
Umar told AFP that fighters of Laskar Jihad, which is based on Indonesia's main
island of Java and has previously deployed thousands of fighters to help Muslims in
riot-hit Maluku province, had come to the area to defend fellow Muslims and not solely
to kill Christians.
"If we just want to kill, what do we need to go all the way to Poso for? In Java there
are a lot of Christians but we arent bothered by them because they don't attack us.
We came here because they attacked our brothers in Poso."
Muslims and Christians have been fighting in the Poso area since about May last
year, when Christian forces killed a number of Muslims. More than 300 people have
been killed in the violence.
Clashes between Christians and Muslims in the Malukus have left more 5,000 people
dead since January 1999.
After a period of relative calm, the conflict in Poso escalated in recent weeks with the
arrival of the Muslim militia.
Most of the some 1,000 Laskar Jihad militiamen now on the ground in Poso were from
Java, Umar said. The group intended to double this number "as fast as we can," he
said.
Jakarta has deployed extra troops to the area to restore law and order.
One of their tasks would be to expel "any individual or organisation who is not
supposed to be in Poso," Jakarta's top security minister Susili Bambang Yudhoyono
said last week, without naming any body but apparently referring to the Laskar Jihad
fighters.
Umar said Laskar Jihad's mission in Poso also included offering social services and
religious education. They operated a small medical clinic and a kindergarten in Poso
town, he said.
Among the Poso militia are about 20 men who have fought in the Afghan war against
the former Soviet Union between 1979 and 1989 and were from the Philippines, Umar
said.
He rejected reports that Afghans had joined the struggle in Poso.
"There are no Afghans who have deliberately come here to wage war," said the former
computer software marketer.
"What's more, they say there's an Osama bin Laden network here. There isn't," Umar
said. "We have different principles from Osama bin Laden and we are not sympathetic
to his struggle."
Bin Laden is accused of masterminding the September 11 terror strikes on the United
States that prompted US attacks on Afghanistan, where the fallen Taliban regime
sheltered the dissident.
Christians who have fled the unrest in Central Sulawesi have claimed that the Muslim
forces have military-style weapons, but Umar said the Jihad force only had homemade
guns and explosives, produced with help from Jihad members who have received a
technical education.
But he quickly added that weaponry was not what the force relied on.
"We depend on the strength of Allah," he said.
Laskar Jihad publishes a slick newspaper in Java, has a website and runs its Palu
office from a relatively large house. Financing comes from donations from home and
abroad, Umar said.
While Umar often smiled and spoke gently during his meeting with AFP and other
foreign journalists, the group's reception in Poso town, the area where the sectarian
conflict had began, was less welcoming.
Journalists were accused of arriving to help the Christians with one Laskar Jihad
leader warning reporters to get out of town "or get whats coming to you."
Copyright © 2001 AFP. All rights reserved.
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