-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today: August 11, 2006 at 9:0:39 PDT
Pope Appeals for Clemency in Indonesia By CHRIS BRUMMITT ASSOCIATED PRESS JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI made a last-minute appeal Friday to Indonesia's president to spare the lives of three Christian militiamen scheduled to be executed by firing squad. A telegram was sent by Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, on Benedict's behalf, hours before the scheduled executions early Saturday. In the telegram, Sodano extended his greetings to the president while "trusting that this appeal made on behalf of His Holiness will meet with a positive outcome." Spokesmen for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declined to comment on the appeal, which the Vatican said was made on "humanitarian" grounds. Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu and Dominggus da Silva were sentenced to death for inciting and carrying out attacks on Muslims in 2000 during religious violence on Sulawesi that left 1,000 dead from both faiths. The executions are scheduled for early Saturday. In the Christian-dominated town of Tentena on Sulawesi, dozens of people occupied the local prosecutor's office and said they would not move unless the executions were delayed, witnesses said. Prosecutors were not available for comment. The European Union has also urged the government not to carry out the punishment and dozens of Christians in at least two other Indonesian cities protested the plan to put the men to death. "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. A lawyer for the three men was quoted by state news agency Antara as saying he did not expect the execution to go ahead because prosecutors had not replied to his clients' final requests. He spoke before the pope's appeal was made public. However, a report on Detik.com news Web site said three coffins had been brought to the jail and showed to reporters there. It quoted a source at the prosecutor's office as saying the executions would go ahead as planned. George Aditjondro, an academic who has studied the causes of the conflict on Sulawesi, said the government is under pressure from conservative Muslims to execute the men after trying to speed up the executions of three Muslim militants on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings. Executing the Christian militants "is a kind of crude barter so that the government can been seen as being fair to both communities," he said. "There is national politics behind this." The three militants 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. 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, women and children sheltering at a boarding school. But he said the men, who are 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's 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. http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2006/aug/11/081103549.html Post message: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe : [EMAIL PROTECTED] List owner : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
