Sun, Feb 25, 2001 - Page 1 News List

Refugees flee ethnic riots

BORNEO The Indonesian navy has been tasked to evacuate terrified people from a town where Madurese immigrants have been subjected to a violent ethnic backlash

REUTERS , SAMPIT, INDONESIA

Police have arrested about 80 people over the violence, including three alleged masterminds, the official Antara news agency reported.

Long simmering tension between Dayaks and Madurese occasionally boils over in Kalimantan, stoked by land disputes and competition for jobs.

Hundreds have died in Indonesia's Borneo provinces in the past two years in unrest between Dayaks and mainly Madurese.

Tensions have been fanned by the now abandoned and widely discredited policy of resettling Indonesians from overcrowded areas, such as Madura and Java, in underpopulated provinces.

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