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The Islands of Hatred Stanislaw Grzymski A bird's eye view of the island of Ambon resembles a severed crocodile head with gaping jaws or an irregular horseshoe, half encircling the bay's navy-blue waters. At some point, these were probably two islands, connected later by a narrow isthmus of volcanic lava. Pattimura airport, where we have landed, is situated at the end of the northern Leihitu peninsula and the Moluccas' capital, Kota Ambon, located on the opposite, smaller Leitimur peninsula, could be reached from here by car, all the way along the bay. Yet no local driver would agree to go. Like wartime Bosnia, the island is divided into Muslim and Christian areas that form apatchwork across the countryside. A hostile area can only be bypassed by sea. Therefore, like everybody else, we choose to cross the bay by a motor boat. From the marina, a neutral area, just like the airport, water taxis push out one after another in various directions. Ones carry only Christians while others only Muslims aboard. We have joined a group of Catholics. We are accompanied by Freda, a young civil servant from the mayor's office responsible for food distribution. Even though she represents the authorities, she must cross the bay daily back and forth in a motor boat. She is wearing a gold cross on a chain around her neck. 'In the present situation, isn't it better to conceal one's religious affiliation?' 'We, Christians, do not renounce our faith, we show solidarity by identifying with our people', says Freda. In her opinion, Protestants and Catholics have to stick together. The resettlement of Muslims from overpopulated Java and Sulawesi has been going on ever since the inception of the Indonesian state. 50 years ago, Christians made up 90 per cent of the Moluccan population, as compared to a mere 40 per cent today, and in Indonesia, a country of 200 million, where 87 per cent of the population is Muslim, they are a drop in the ocean. 'So far, we have coexisted harmoniously with the Muslims, but now somebody is anxious to set us ones against the others. We stand no chance in armed struggle. They will crush us, and we have nowhere to escape', explains Freda, shouting to make herself heard above the roar of the engine. All of a sudden, the engine starts to interrupt, and finally stalls. Fear appears in the passengers' eyes. 'We are drifting towards the Muslim side. It's better to drown than to fall into the hands of the mujahedin from the Islamic Laskar Jihad death squads', a woman says. Fortunately, the engine started and we made it to the shore. They Are Beating Our People We crossed a huge marketplace stretching around the marina. It had been transferred there from the city centre after last year's riots. The old bazaar had been burnt down and looted. The entire district leading to the centre is devastated by fire. The main shopping street of Diponogoro with its bullet-riddled buildings, that only a short while ago housed the largest banks and shops, has turned into a sniper alley. A 'green line' cuts across it, marking the beginning of the Muslim district. Narrow roads off Diponogoro Street are divided by barricades built of sandbags and sand-filled iron barrels. They resemble volcanoes that were spitting fire a short while ago but now have calmed down for a time, only to explode once again any moment. A minor shock, a little spark, a slight provocation would be enough. The fuelling of antagonisms has become a handy tool for political troublemakers, economic mafiosi and religious fanatics of various shades. Nobody doubts that the bloody riots in the Moluccas have been provoked by that sort of people. Most of the people we have talked to claimed that the avengers were the family of deposed president Suharto and their supporters, losing comfortable positions in the political and economic world. It started on 19 January, 1999, from a trivial incident: a row between a jobless Muslim and a Christians bus driver. A fight ensued. Somebody in the street shouted: 'Help! They're beating Muslims!', and somebody somewhere else: 'They're beating Christians!'. The large downtown bazaar turned into a battlefield that spread to include other districts as well as the surrounding villages. Initially, stones and machetes were used in the fighting, then firearms appeared. Troops from the local garrison as well as policemen engaged themselves on one side or the other. Petrol bombs began flying. Hundreds of houses were burnt down. The effect of the first, several-day-long bout of fighting was tragic: over 200 killed. Mostly Christians, which reflected the balance of power. The seeds of hatred had been sown. The casualties' funerals turned into demonstrations of hostility, and the families' despair over the loss of their loved ones into a craving for revenge. Instigators did not remain idle. In the neighbouring islands someone was planting bombs in churches and setting mosques on fire. This summer the conflict spread to new corners of the Moluccas, scattered over 850 000 sq. kilometres of sea expanse. The situation was exacerbated by the arrival in the islands of a few thousand mujahedin from the Laskar Jihad paramilitary organisation. Islamic fundamentalists declared a 'holy war' against the infidels. Even the official Muslim organisation Muhammadiyah, whose leader Amien Rais has run for Indonesia's presidency, recruited volunteers throughout the country. 'Let us come to the aid of our brethren', urged banners in recruitment centres. A Book of Apocalypse 'What is going on now cannot be described as riots, a local conflict or even a war. Innocent people are murdered in cold blood. Jihad units, armed with modern weapons, launch operations designed to cleanse the Moluccas of anything that is Christian', says Ambon's Catholic bishop, P.C. Mandagi, just back from a trip to Geneva and Washington. He has submitted pleas for intervention in defence of the threatened Christians to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the White House. Close to the Catholic cathedral, there is a Protestant church where a crisis management centre is based, run by Pastor Bohm, an Austrian by origin. 'Christians assaulted by Islamic fanatics have little choice. All they can do is convert to Islam, die or go away', says the pastor. In Christian families there are a lot of conversions to save one's life or one's children. On the stairs, and in other nooks and crannies of the vicarage, refugees have settled themselves down with their bundles. There are about 250 of them here. 'Initially, they took refuge at the neighbouring police station. One day, Jihad fighters came and threatened to burn the station down unless the policemen got rid of the refugees. The policemen handed them over to us', relates the pastor, who is writing a chronicle of events, day after day. It reads like the Book of Apocalypse. Here are a few examples from this report, covering the period from 13 June to the end of August 2000: 'A few hundred Islamic fighters have attacked villages in a suburb of Kota Ambon. Dozens of houses and a church have been burnt down. The villages have been deserted, even the police have escaped, leaving their weapons behind at the station. They have fallen into the attackers' hands... In the village of Duma in Halmahera, the archipelago's largest island, the residents, attacked by some 200 Islamists armed with rifles, were defending themselves with petrol bombs, machetes and arrows from their bows. Most of the villagers were killed. Nearly 300 houses were burnt down... A ship carrying 450 refugees from Halmahera to Celebes is missing. It has probably been sunk. Neither the passengers nor any remains of the vessel have been found... Muslims have attacked the village of Waai in western Ambon from three sides. The residents have fled into the surrounding mountains. Waai has been razed to the ground... The buildings of the Catholic University of Pattimura on the northern coast of the bay have been burnt down.' The list is long, and the names of burnt villages so numerous they are hard to remember. Death statistics are rising. Church sources estimate the number of fatalities from January 1999 at 7000. The estimate includes Muslim victims of Christian revenge. Can We Talk? In a large refugee camp, situated within the precincts of the Indonesian Halong naval base, 10.000 Christians and Muslims are camping. Now they live in harmony once again, united by the common fate. In another refugee camp, in the town of Poso, 5 000 homeless Christians have been accommodated in two gigantic industrial halls. Whole families live their lives on a few square metres each. It is here, before everybody's eyes, that babies are born and old people die. The refugees are looking at us with an expression of stupefaction, helpless, confused and abandoned, like some objects that nobody needs. They do not know whether they will ever return home. In the Moluccas, having a population of 2 million, there are already as many as 200.000 refugees. At the office of the provincial authorities in the Christian part of the city we obtain a permit to cross the green line, a car, a guide and an escort. On the Muslim side less houses are destroyed. Refugees are unanimous in talking about provocations, about the conflict's political causes. 'Those guilty of our misfortune are to be found in Jakarta. It is Suharto and his people who are pulling the strings. We want to live peacefully, we have nothing against the Christians', says Suti Saraji, a 29-year-old refugee. We had persuaded our guide to bring us in contact with people from the Jihad. He took us to one of the force's posts. We were treated like intruders. The commanding officer of the post, wearing a white galabiya, ignored us, reading some Arabic magazine. He did not look like an Indonesian islander. 'Sabah-al-kheir. Ana min Bulanda (Good morning, I come from Poland), can we talk?', I addressed him in Arabic, pretending to know the language. After he sat down, I said I would prefer to talk in Indonesian. He summoned an interpreter. Consequently, I switched to English. I knew already that he was not Indonesian, but an arrival from another part of Asia or the Middle East. The interview ended with my question: 'Why are Muslims and Christians fighting each other?' The commanding officer of the mujahedin whispered something angrily to the interpreter who informed us: 'You have come to a wrong place, this is a medical centre', indicating a poster with the red crescent on the wall. 'Maa s-salamati (goodbye)', I said, stretching out my hand in a gesture of farewell. My hand remained suspended in a void. On our way back, we saw a line of graves stretching along a high concrete fence. 'This is a cemetery of Jihad fighters shot by the troops defending the Christians', said the guide. The words on a large green banner plastered to the concrete read: 'Honour and glory to our brethren, heroes of the Jihad. Your sacrifice for the region, the people and for this country--the Republic of Indonesia--we shall always remember. We shall go on fighting your fight.' Who Needs a Rifle? We return to the Christian district. Now we can understand the local residents' fear more easily. They feel besieged and deserted. The authorities call on the Christians not to let themselves be carried away by emotions, not to respond to provocations. Even so, on 23 June, after a sniper shot a 14-year-old secondary school student, a Catholic, in front of a post office, they could no longer control themselves and marched on the Muslim district. They were greeted by bullets shot by the mujahedin and sympathising Indonesian army troops. Gen. I Made Yasa, commander-in-chief of the government troops in the Moluccas, admits that 10 per cent of his soldiers have broken the oath, taking part in the fighting on the Islamist side. The Christians of Kota Ambon no longer believe anybody. Neither the army nor the police have been able to defend them. They must look after their safety by themselves. The islands are within reach of arms-trafficking Filipino pirates. An automatic rifle costs 4 million rupiahs ($500) in the bazaar. As the Ambonese cannot afford it, they turn the barrels and locks of primitive rifles in home workshops, make bazookas from water-supply piping and manufacture fitting rockets. We are leaving the island of terror. A colourful crowd of people with a variety of skin shades is milling about in the streets of Kota Ambon. The indigenous islanders are mixed-blood descendants of the Papuans, Polynesian peoples, Malays, Hindus, Arabs, the Portuguese and the Dutch. They have been united into a single community by the language, but divided by religion. Until January 1999, Christians had lived in harmony and friendship with Muslims resettled from Java, Sumatra or Sulawesi. Transmigration, originally Sukarno's idea, designed to integrate the Indonesian islands, with Java as the state's centre, has now become the source of conflicts leading to Indonesia's disintegration. These differences came to light once the period of authoritarian rule ended and the building of democracy began. Everybody knows how to take advantage of it, even criminals. Received via e-mail from : Alifuru67@egroups.com by way of kashnet2000  Copyright © 1999-2000  - Ambon Berdarah On-Line * http://www.go.to/ambon HTML pages designed and maintained by Alifuru67 * http://www.oocities.org/alifuru67 Send your comments to alifuru67@egroups.com