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DATE=1/4/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDONESIA-MALUKUS (S/L)
NUMBER=2-257756
BYLINE=GARY THOMAS
DATELINE=BANGKOK
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO:  Fresh fighting has erupted in Indonesia's troubled 
Maluku Islands. An unknown number of people were killed 
Tuesday in the latest clashes between Christians and 
Muslims.  VOA Southeast Asia correspondent Gary Thomas 
reports.
TEXT:  Fighting erupted for the third straight day in the 
remote Maluku Islands.  Gunfire and bomb explosions shook 
the town of Masohi on Seram Island, some 26-hundred 
kilometers east of the Indonesian capital of Jakarta.
Army troops are reported to have fired on rampaging mobs.  
One report says dozens of people have been killed.  But in 
the confusion, it is not known for certain how many people 
died in these latest clashes.
AN additional eight thousand Indonesian troops were 
deployed last week to Seram and other spots in the Malukus, 
also known as the Spice Islands, to try to restore order.  
But the violence continues unabated.  Official figures say 
at least 400 people have died in the past two weeks, but 
other, unofficial reports, put the total far higher.  
            /// REST OPT FOR LONG /// 
One newspaper says two-thousand people died on Halmahera 
Island alone in the past eight days.
The clashes first broke out one year ago in the Maluku 
Islands, an area once known for religious harmony between 
Christian and Muslim communities.  In the ensuing year, the 
Malukus have been transformed into a vicious battleground, 
with thousands of people killed, wounded, or made homeless.
The violence in the Malukus has presented the government of 
new President Abdurrahman Wahid with an additional security 
headache, as it is already trying to deal with political 
separatist movements in Aceh and Irian Jaya.  Some 
politicians have urged the government to take a hard line 
in the trouble spots to keep Indonesia from splintering 
apart.  (SIGNED)
NEB/GPT/FC
04-Jan-2000 06:56 AM EDT (04-Jan-2000 1156 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.