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NEWSWEEK - International
February 12, 2001
TERROR ISLANDS
A journey to the former paradise that now lies at the violent center of
Indonesia's Muslim-Christian conflicts
By Melinda Liu
Feb. 12 issue - Until recently Thomas Pury, 45, grew nutmeg and cloves on his four-acre farm on a remote island in the Moluccas, once called the Spice Islands. Like their parents before them, Thomas and his wife were Roman Catholics; so was virtually their entire village of 100 on the island of Kesui.
THEY HAD LIVED IN PEACE with Muslim neighbors for years, but all that changed in late November, when a group of Muslims from two nearby islands came to Kesui dressed in white and carrying swords. They demanded that the Catholics convert to Islam-or else risk an attack on their villages.
With dozens of others, Thomas felt compelled to become a Muslim. But he wasn't ready for what came next. On Dec. 5, some Muslim women came to his home and circumcised his 6-year-old daughter, Emiliana. "It was so painful for her," he recalls. Four days later it was Thomas's turn. After the procedure, he developed such a bad infection he couldn't bear to wear trousers. Thomas's incision had begun to fester, he says, because "the razor was too dull and they had to cut me two or three times." In mid-December Thomas fled to the island of Ambon with 69 other Catholic refugees from Kesui-63 of whom had been forcibly circumcised.
KEEPING A LID ON VIOLENCE
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has a lot of problems on his hands these days, and one of the biggest is keeping a lid on sectarian violence in the Moluccas. Not long ago Ambon was a thriving city and resort hub for the Spice Islands. Tourists flocked to the island to bask in the sun and enjoy the stunning natural scenery. But beyond the pretty beaches, there was simmering discord. Former president Suharto had encouraged Muslims to migrate to the Moluccas from other islands. The newcomers began to compete economically with the established Christians, and violence soon broke out. Two years ago Ambon (population: 270,000) erupted in Christian-Muslim bloodletting of an almost medieval intensity. Some 8,000 people have since been killed, and half a million people were left homeless in the Moluccas. Sociologist Thamrin Tomagola of the University of Indonesia calls it "the most terrible civil war in the world," with more deaths per capita than in Bosnia. Muslims and Christians, who had once lived together amiably, now regard each other with suspicion and paranoia.
The worst fighting has subsided, but atrocities such as those on Kesui are still taking place. Muslims and Christians, who had once lived together amiably, now regard each other with suspicion and paranoia. Ambon, the Moluccan capital, is now a totally segregated city reminiscent of Beirut. Just two weeks ago nearly a dozen people died in a shoot-out between a special-forces unit and renegade soldiers and police in Ambon. Both sides are battling for religious converts. Often, a majority community on one of the archipelago's more than 1,000 islands will persecute the minority, forcing it to renounce its religion or flee. Those who do not cooperate are sometimes killed, and their homes go up in flames.
Muslims felt defensive until last year, when some 3,000 Muslim fighters arrived in the Moluccas to defend their Islamic brethren. Many of the "holy warriors" belonged to the Laskar Jihad, whose members dress in white and follow an extremely devout form of Islam. "The Laskar Jihad came and taught us to be good Muslims," says Udin Aji, 32, who lost his left hand and part of his right one during a Christian attack on a Muslim village last July. "Without them, we Muslims might be losing the war." (A Laskar Jihad spokesman says its members are engaged in humanitarian works in the Moluccas, and are not extremists.) These days Udin Aji lives in a Muslim refugee camp in Ambon, having been driven from his village in the early days of the conflict. His two brothers have since converted to Protestantism in order to continue living in their Christian-dominated communities. "I've had no contact with them for two years," he told NEWSWEEK. "They may have changed their names."
ISLAM OR DEATH
In recent months Muslims have been fighting back-ruthlessly. Tommy Rusin, 30, recalls the day in late November when Muslims came to his Christian village on Kesui. "They asked us to convert to Islam," he recalls. "If we didn't, they said the Laskar Jihad would come. We'd be killed." When one villager, a teacher named David Balubum, refused, he was separated from the rest. Shortly afterward Muslims carried David's severed head around the village as a message to the Christians. Two other Kesui residents were also decapitated, and their heads placed on a table near a mosque.
Christina Sagat, 22, peeked at the severed heads through a window, and knew then she had no choice but to convert. She and dozens of others followed the Muslims' instructions to bathe themselves in a tub, and to tie a white bandanna on their head with Arabic writing that they couldn't understand. But that wasn't all. "The Muslims came at night, house to house, with a Gillette [razor]," said Maria Etlager, a 41-year-old woman with curly hair. The Catholics felt compelled to submit to the ritual of sunnat, or circumcision. Nearly everyone in the village-women, children of both sexes as young as 2 years old, even the elderly and the invalids who were too weak to get out of their sickbeds-fell victim to the Gillette. "I knew the razor blade wasn't clean; it was covered with dried blood," Etlager told NEWSWEEK, "and the pain was unimaginable."
A RAVAGED 'BORDER'
Perched on the edge of a crystalline bay, Ambon is an Asian Sarajevo. Barbed wire, sandbagged checkpoints and fire-ravaged storefronts now dominate Jalan A.Y. Patty, once a bustling business strip. The upscale downtown area was devastated by the 1999 bloodshed. A no man's land, simply called "the border," now divides the city into Christian and Muslim sectors. Billboards promote such well-known brand names as Fuji Film, Guinness and Marlboro. But those commercial symbols are now eclipsed by grim graffiti: Muslim power and no one can stop Islam.
Might the two sides learn to coexist again? Perhaps, if the Wayame model is emulated. Wayame is a village, not far from Ambon, where the 5,500 residents-55 percent Muslim, 44 percent Christian-still manage to live side by side cordially. At the military checkpoint leading into the village, a sign reads welcome to the neutral zone. A 20-person team of community leaders (split equally between Christian and Muslim) keeps the peace-and brooks no challenges. The village bars militant religious symbols, name-calling and sectarian violence. No-nonsense Protestant pastor John Sahalessy has personally beaten up local youths who dared to drink alcohol; even beer is banned. He and other Wayame leaders strictly prohibit the interference of outsiders. Last December, when five members of the Laskar Jihad showed up to "check on the welfare of local Muslims," Sahalessy asked them to leave. "They were polite and seemed well-educated," he told NEWSWEEK, "but I told them, 'Get out or I'll shoot you'." For now Wayame is an oasis of calm in a troubled island chain. But for how long? The heavy-handed government can keep the lid on for a while. But if authorities loosen their grip, even just for a moment (and they almost inevitably do), horrors might unfold. That's the sad reality in a once-idyllic Pacific chain.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/526120.asp
© 2001 Newsweek, Inc.
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