Executions spark Indonesia Christian riot Poso, Indonesia (dpa) - Angry mobs rioted in Christian areas of Indonesia Friday after the government carried out early morning executions of three Christian men convicted of massacring Muslims during sectarian violence six years ago. In Poso district of Central Sulawesi province, where the executions took place early Friday, thousands of young Christian men roamed streets looking for Muslim motorists, forcing security forces to seal off the area, according to a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter on the scene. In West Timor, the main region of East Nusa Tenggara province, mobs attacked offices and houses, torched a car and destroyed the main gate to a local prison in the town Atambua, allowing hundreds of inmates to escape. "Some people expressed their anger after the executions by blocking some main roads and throwing rocks at the local attorney general's house," provincial police spokesman Major Marten Raja told dpa by phone from Kupang, the provincial capital. "The situation is now under control," he said. "There were 205 inmates who escaped but 20 have returned." The situation in other predominantly-Christian areas, including Central Sulawesi and the eastern island of Flores, where there were also reports of minor mob activity, were quiet but tense by Friday afternoon. Raja said security forces would remain on a higher state of alert through Sunday's Christian church services in case new protests erupted. A police firing squad in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi province, executed the three men, who were convicted and sentenced to death in 2001 despite international appeals for clemency. The condemned Christians - Fabianus Tibo, 60; Marianus Riwu, 48; and Domingus da Silva, 42 - were executed around 1:50 a.m. at an undisclosed location, the earliest moment that their sentences of capital punishment could be carried out, the state-run Antara news agency reported. The men had been found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks on Muslims in May 2000 in Poso district, including a gun-and-machete assault in which at least 70 people taking refugee in an Islamic school were killed. The massacre was one of the bloodiest incidents of sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims that swept through previously harmonious Central Sulawesi from 1998 to 2002, leaving more than 1,000 people from both communities dead and tens of thousands homeless. The convicted men maintained their innocence. They said prosecutors refused to investigate 16 people including military, intelligence and government officials, implicated by one of the defendants as the masterminds of the conflict. Defence lawyers said the death sentences were unfair because numerous Muslims convicted of religious violence, including scores of murders, only received prison sentences. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rejected 11th-hour appeals for clemency. A presidential spokesman rejected charges of discrimination, saying that Muslim militants who launched terrorist attacks on the resort island of Bali in 2002 would also be executed after their appeals process was exhausted. Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim-majority population, with some 190 million faithful, but also has Christian, Buddhist and Hindu minorities. The Jakarta government had postponed the Poso executions once after Pope Benedict XVI sent a letter to Yudhoyono - although authorities insisted the delay was for "technical reasons." The attorney-general and national police chief insist the men received a fair trial, with 28 witnesses providing testimony. Some legal experts, however, say the country's judiciary is corrupt and susceptible to outside influence. The European Union released a statement expressing "disappointment" and called on the Jakarta government halt future planned executions. On Friday afternoon, more than 2,000 people packed an airport in Morowali, Central Sulawesi, the hometown of Tibo and Riwu, for the arrival of their bodies, Antara reported. More than 80 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim, but the Christian and Muslim populations in Central Sulawesi are roughly equal. Sporadic bombings and killings in the region, about 1,650 kilometres northeast of Jakarta, have continued since Muslim and Christian leaders signed a peace accord in late 2001. |