Indonesia prepares to execute three Christian militiamen
Indonesian authorities were today preparing to execute three Christian militiaman found guilty of carrying out bloody attacks on Muslims during sectarian fighting in 2000.
The European Union called on the government not to carry out the punishment, scheduled for 0015 local time on Saturday (5.15pm Irish time) on Sulawesi island, and dozens of Christians in at least two Indonesian cities protested the plan to kill the men, witnesses said.
Two analysts said the government was under pressure from conservative Muslims to execute the men given that it was trying to speed up the executions of three Muslim militants on death row over the 2002 Bali bombings.
“This is a kind of crude barter so that the government can been seen as being fair to both communities,” said George Aditjondro, an academic who has studied the causes of the conflict on Sulawesi. “There is national politics behind this.”
Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva were found guilty of inciting and carrying out attacks in 2000 during religious violence that left 1,000 dead from both faiths.
“The firing squad, doctors and religious officials are ready to carry out their duties,” said Attorney General’s Office spokesman I Wayan Pasek Suartha. “The only possible postponement now is if there are technical problems.”
The three insist they are innocent, but their final appeal was turned down last year.
“The people want the law to be enforced,” Vice President Jusuf Kalla said when asked about the executions. “If it isn’t, I could be accused of protecting them.”
Amnesty International has expressed concerns about reports indicating their trial did not meet international standards of fairness.
“News of the imminent execution of three Indonesian citizens, which is all the more serious in the light of the fragile equilibrium that exists between different ethnic and religious groups, cannot fail to cause concern to Europe,” European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini said yesterday.
Thamrin Amal Tomagola, another expert on the conflict, said prosecutors had presented strong evidence the men were involved in violence, including a massacre of Muslim men, woman and children sheltering at a boarding school.
But he said the men, who were uneducated farmers, were not the ringleaders and killing them would mean the state was losing valuable witnesses in later prosecutions.
“I am concerned they are being made the fall guys,” he said.
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but it has significant Christian minorities. In Sulawesi and some other eastern regions, Christian and Muslim populations are roughly equal in size.
Violence between Christians and Muslims on Sulawesi had spread from the nearby Maluku Islands, where about 9,000 people were killed. Few people have been brought to justice from either community.
Indonesia most recent executions were last year, when three people were killed for drug smuggling and one for murder. Before that, its last executions were in 2001.
