Suharto, Wiranto linked to Maluku clashes

Suharto, Wiranto linked to Maluku clashes
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

JAKARTA, JAN 18: A team promoting reconciliation in strife-torn Maluku has identified four men suspected of stirring up sectarian violence and linked former president Suharto and ex-defence Chief Wiranto to the clashes, a report said on Tuesday. Year-long Muslim-Christian violence in the Maluku islands has left more than 1,700 people dead and thousands of refugees. Team member Tamrin Amal Tamagola said the names of four people suspected of provoking the violence have been handed to the Indonesian armed forces, the Jakarta Post said.

"I have told Indonesian armed forces' Chief of general affairs, Lieutenant General Suaidy Marasabessy, that the provocators of the sectarian clashes are Buce Sarpara, Yorris Raweyai, the Sultan of Ternate and former Ambon mayor Colonel Dicky Wattimena," said Tomagola, a sociologist. They possessed huge funds and used them to stir up trouble in the province, the spice islands.

Tomagola aired suspicions that Suharto and several of his business cronies had provided funds to theprovocators. Sarpara is a former chief of the land agency in Irian Jaya and Raweyai is deputy chief of a Suharto-era youth organisation. He has also been a key figure in the pro-independence drive in Irian Jaya, Indonesia's eastern-most province. Tomagola said Wiranto, now coordinating minister for political and security affairs, was a key figure "to whom we can trace all connections in the conflict".