INDONESIA: MACHETE WIELDING MOB PARADE HEADS OF VICTIMS THROUGH STREETS OF WEST KALIMANTAN PROVINCE ON BORNEO ISLAND

Record ID: 450958

  • Title: INDONESIA: MACHETE WIELDING MOB PARADE HEADS OF VICTIMS THROUGH STREETS OF WEST KALIMANTAN PROVINCE ON BORNEO ISLAND
  • Date: 20th March 1999
  • Summary: SAMBAS AREA, WEST KALIMANTAN, BORNEO ISLAND, INDONESIA (MARCH 20, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. LV/SLV HOUSES BURNING/ PEOPLE STANDING AROUND (3 SHOTS) 0.24 2. VARIOUS OF GROUP OF MEN ON BACK OF TRUCK/ MEN DISPLAYING VICTIMS' HEADS, HOLDING HEADS UP (3 SHOTS) 0.58 3. SV YOUNG MEN/ BOYS WITH MACHETES 1.06 4. MV MEN ON BACK OF TRUCK WITH MACHETES 1.20 5. SLV PEOPLE LEAVING BURNT HOUSES 1.26 6. MV PEOPLE LEAVING WITH POSSESIONS 1.31 7. VARIOUS HOUSES DESTROYED BY VIOLENCE (4 SHOTS) 1.59 8. VARIOUS OF SOLDIERS INSPECTING VEHICLES AT CHECKPOINT/ ASKING DRIVERS FOR IDENTIFICATION CARDS (3 SHOTS) 2.17 Initials EDITORS PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS EDIT INCLUDES GRAPHIC PICTURES WHICH SOME MAY FIND OFFENSIVE - Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 4th April 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SAMBAS AREA, WEST KALIMANTAN, BORNEO ISLAND, INDONESIA
  • City:
  • Country: Borneo Borneo Borneo Indonesia
  • Reuters ID: LVA86W5U5VRXWHE2CS3XRL8HV5YC
  • Story Text: The situation in the Indonesian part of Borneo island
    has remained tense with ethnic groups torching houses and
    residents fleeing their villages.

    On Saturday (March 20), a mob wielding machetes and
    spears paraded the heads of their victims through the streets
    while several more houses were burnt down.

    Dozens of houses were burnt in a village in the Sambas
    region on Saturday (March 20).

    At least 64 people have been killed since the violence
    began on Tuesday (March 16) when indigenous groups including
    Malays and Dayaks battled with the Madurese minority.The
    Madurese are immigrants from another Indonesian island.

    Local leaders from West Kalimantan, some 900 km (500
    miles) east of Jakarta, said that the bloodshed was sparked by
    a dispute over a bus fare.But the conflict had been fuelled
    by long-standing rivalries among the different ethnic groups.

    Ethnic Malays make up 40 per cent of the population of
    West Kalimantan province.Madurese account for about two per
    cent and most arrived under a government scheme to resettle
    people from more crowded islands.

    Also on Saturday, dozens of indigenous Malays and Dayaks
    drove through the town streets with their victims' heads
    displayed on the roof of their pick-up truck.

    Men were cheering and children were seen running
    alongside the pick-up truck.It is unclear who the victims were.

    Several Borneo tribes used to be head-hunters.Others
    told Reuters that bridges in one town had been hung with
    victims' dismembered body parts.

    On Sunday (March 21), more houses were reported being burnt.

    The clashes were the latest in months of violence that
    has flared throughout Indonesia, where smoldering ethnic and
    religious rivalries have been ignited by mounting poverty as
    the country grapples with its worst recession in 30 years.

    Locals have set up roadblocks along a main road in
    Sambas but there were only scattered groups of police and troops.

    A provincial police spokesman insisted the situation,
    though tense, was under control on Saturday.

    He said more than 5,000 people had taken refuge in the
    provincial capital of Pontianak and put the death toll at 53
    since fighting began.Media reports, quoting local leaders,
    put the figure at 64.

    A weak central government and a demoralised military
    have largely been unable to contain the violence that has
    swept Indonesia in the past year, leaving hundreds, possibly
    thousands, dead.

    The country has not witnessed such large scale unrest
    since the mid-1960s when then Major-General Suharto rose to
    power after crushing what the government said was an abortive
    communist coup.

    Hundreds of thousands were believed to have died in a
    subsequent anti-communist witch-hunt.


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