_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Indonesia ________________

Peace talks; quiet Christmas
Fears remain as Muslim zealots organize
Christian and Muslim leaders in Indonesia’s Sulawesi province agreed late in December to join in efforts to stop the sectarian fighting that has killed more than 1,000 people over the past year.

Fifty people representing Christian and Muslim groups met for two days for government-sponsored talks. “The Muslim and Christian sides agreed to end the conflict and not to attack each other,” government mediator Hasan Limbo told the Associated Press after the negotiating sessions in the mountain town of Malino. The government promised to disarm and repatriate thousands of Muslim militiamen who have recently arrived in the area from Indonesia’s main island of Java.

The agreement does not affect the nearby Moluccas province, a majority Christian region where more than 9,000 people have been killed in Muslim-Christian fighting over the past few years. Last year, organized militias of Muslim holy war fighters entered the region with more sophisticated weapons and embarked on a campaign to eradicate Christians.

Still, the agreement in Sulawesi is significant in light of reports from Indonesia’s intelligence chief that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network had set up training camps on the island, and was providing aid to the Muslim paramilitary groups. Lt. Gen. Abdullah Hendropriyono said al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups had trained with the local Islamic militants. The admission was a reversal for the Indonesian government, which had previously denied speculation that al-Qaeda had links in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation.

Al-Qaeda set up training camps on Sulawesi two years ago but activity has quieted recently, Hendropriyono said. He said Indonesia did not need US assistance to eradicate the Sulawesi camps, and the camps had not been used by terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks on the United States. “We are monitoring al-Qaeda. When they come again for training we will ambush them,” he told Jakarta’s El-Shinta radio station.

Christians in Indonesia enjoyed a peaceful Christmas celebration, despite widespread tensions, with the help of strict security measures implemented by the government and their Muslim neighbors.

The Christmas season of 2000 was marred by a rash of bombings at Christian churches. And the weeks leading up to this year’s celebration saw several clashes, particularly in the Moluccas Islands and Sulawesi regions. Rumors had spread, earlier in December, that the militant Laskar Jihad organization was planning assaults on Christian parishes.

In fact, however, there were no reported disturbances. In many areas, Muslims took up positions as informal security guards to protect Christian churches during the Christmas celebration. In Jakarta, Surabaya, and Manado, where thousands attended Mass, tight security involved various Muslim youth organization members along with their counterparts from church associations. “It shows our solidarity to our Christian fellow citizens,” a Muslim youth leader told reporters from Manado.

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