JAKARTA (Reuters) - Warring Indonesian Christians and Muslims from the ravaged Moluccas spice islands signed a peace deal on Tuesday aimed at ending three years of violence that has killed thousands, an official said.
"Yes, the document has been signed by both sides," a senior official in charge of the talks told Reuters from the hill town of Malino, South Sulawesi, some 1,425 km (890 miles) east of Jakarta where the two sides are meeting.
If the deal works it could be a step towards building investor and donor confidence in the government's ability to bring a measure of peace to the sprawling archipelago's trouble spots.
In the Moluccas, religious clashes, triggered by a dispute between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim boy in 1999, quickly escalated throughout the island chain, killing at least 5,000 people and wrecking the region's tourism industry and economy.
Both sides on Monday separately assured mediators at the two-day state-sponsored talks that they wanted to stop fighting.
The talks were modelled on a peace pact reached last December at Malino aimed at ending Muslim-Christian clashes in the Poso region of Central Sulawesi. It has held so far.
The two sides met face-to-face on Tuesday morning, but stumbled midday on the issue of outsider forces that have exacerbated violence in the Moluccas.
During the midday recess, the Muslim delegation came out of the negotiation room saying parties were still debating how to treat Laskar Jihad, the Java-based Muslim paramilitary force which has sent 3,000 men to the area to fight Christians.
ARGUING LASKAR JIHAD
"Laskar Jihad should not be ordered to leave Ambon with force because they are Indonesian citizens who have rights to stay wherever they want in the Indonesian territory," delegation leader Thamrin Eli told a news conference.
Christians have repeatedly argued the expulsion of Laskar Jihad was a prerequisite for peace while some Muslims considered the white-clad warriors their protectors from Christian attacks.
It is not clear how the pact reached later in the day dealt with the issue.
Analysts have said the arrival in mid-2000 of migrant Muslim militant groups exacerbated a rift between the two religions in the Moluccas island chain.
Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jamaah Forum, the mother body of Laskar Jihad, the best known of such groups, rejected earlier reports it sent a representatives to Malino and criticised the formation of the delegation.
"Many grass-roots figures have not been included because they asked for law enforcement first before negotiations. Their names were not put on the list issued by the regional government," forum spokesman Eko Rahardjo told Reuters.
Jakarta imposed civil emergency status on the region in June 2000. One level below martial law, that allowed security forces to search houses, detain suspects and impose a curfew.
Authorities have considered lifting this as violence has subsided in parts of the Moluccas, although fighting and bomb blasts in Ambon, the region's main city, are still fairly common.
In Ambon, residents quickly welcomed the pact which was the first truce covering the whole chain of islands. Past short-lived truces have been limited to individual towns and lacked the auspices of the central government.
"The Christian congregation here hopes to see the end to problems and the emergence of peace in the Moluccas after (the pact) has been signed," Reverend L. Lohi from the Protestant Church in the Moluccas told Reuters by phone from Ambon.
Indonesia has struggled to control communal violence along its outer reaches since former president Suharto stepped down in 1998, although there have been few major clashes in the Moluccas or Poso since Megawati Sukarnoputri took power last July.
Many analysts blame Suharto's authoritarian rule for keeping a lid on many of the resentments that sparked much of the anger.
About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim, but Christians make up roughly half the population in some eastern areas.