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Indonesia Muslims demand holy war in spice islands

JAKARTA: Indonesian Muslims slaughtered a goat and smeared its blood on a wooden cross during a massive protest on Thursday demanding a holy war against minority Christians in the devastated eastern Moluccas islands.

Chanting "Jihad! Jihad!" (holy war), about 5,000 protesters mostly in traditional white Muslim clothes marched from a mosque in central Jakarta to the University of Indonesia campus.

A year of bloodshed across the Moluccas spice islands, which lie at the eastern end of this multi-ethnic and predominantly Muslim nation, has killed more than 1,500 people. The ongoing clashes have put the government under renewed pressure for its failure to end the killings, Indonesia's worst religious conflict in decades.

The protesters demanded the resignation of Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, who has been assigned to stop the violence but has since said or done little.

Before the march, the protesters gathered outside the mosque where they slaughtered the goat and smeared its blood on the cross amid loud calls of "Allahu Akbar" (God is great).

Most of the protesters said they had decided to demonstrate following reports by local daily Republika which said that more than 2,000 Muslims had been massacred in the distant island of Halmahera, on the northern part of the Moluccas.

The Indonesian military has diSmissed the reports but said they would investigate the allegations.

Most of the battles between Christians and Muslims across the islands had stopped by Wednesday, military officials and residents said.

In December, Megawati and President Abdurrahman Wahid called for peace during a visit to the island of Ambon where the clashes first erupted last January but their bid was followed by renewed violence in several islands of the territory.

In one of the latest outbreaks of fighting, around 400 people were killed in a week of clashes in Halmahera, the second largest island in the Moluccas.

The official news agency Antara reported that the Indonesian parliament was expected to send a letter to President Wahid asking the Muslim intellectual to take immediate serious steps to resolve the problems.

The leading Kompas daily also urged action.

"...Like a burning house, the first step to be taken is to put off the fire, this is what the government, security forces and national police must do. We all have to stop the conflicts in Moluccas," the paper said in an editorial.-Reuters