ASIA TIMES, May 4, 2002
Indonesia's deadly war games
By Richel Langit
JAKARTA - "By hook or by crook" seems to be the tenet that Indonesia's powerful
military and police hold dearly in pursuing their political ambitions.
Renewed religious conflicts in Ambon, Maluku, have increasingly been exploited by
the military and police to boost their bargaining position against President Megawati
Sukarnoputri and other civilian politicians in both the House of Representatives (DPR)
and the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR), with the ultimate goal of maintaining
their political role.
Indeed, MPR, the country's highest legislative body, is working on the fourth and last
phase of constitutional amendment, which is expected to put an end to the military's
political role. If the amendments are endorsed by MPR in its annual meeting in
August, the military and police's political role comes to an end in 2004, instead of
2009 as previously agreed. For the military and police, which have controlled the
country's political life for more than three decades now, the sudden change
constitutes an untimely political shock that has cost them huge economic privileges.
It is not surprising, therefore, that almost immediately after the bloody attack on the
Christian village of Soya, Ambon, last Sunday, which killed 14 people, calls have
mounted for the imposition of a military emergency in the province, where protracted
religious conflicts have claimed close to 10,000 innocent lives. The imposition of a
military emergency would practically mean allowing the military to rule the province.
The truth is the military and police have sabotaged efforts by the Maluku
administration to stop the conflicts by ignoring orders from Governor Saleh
Latuconsina. Latuconsina in particular complained about the navy's indifference to his
orders to beef up sea security and criticized security officers' reluctance to arrest
those responsible for instigating the violence.
"If we ask the navy why they do not provide sea security, they would say 'we lack
equipment', where in fact the Maluku administration has provided most of the required
equipment," Latuconsina said on Wednesday. "How can the situation in Ambon
improve and how can I take stern measures against the warring groups if my
instructions are just ignored by security personnel?"
Earlier, the military switched the religious conflicts in Ambon from horizontal conflicts
- between two social groups - to verticall conflicts between the state and the Republic
of South Maluku (RMS) by accusing the insurgent group of masterminding the bloody
violence in the province. By pointing their fingers at RMS, the military is practically
declaring war against the alleged perpetrators of the violence.
But what puzzles many outsiders is the fact that security officers have taken no
action against the Java-based Muslim paramilitary group Laskar Jihad, whose
presence in the province has only exacerbated the violence. No less an authority than
Latuconsina linked last Sunday's bloody attack on the Christian village of Soya to the
Laskar Jihad paramilitary and its leader Djafar Umar Thalib, who once fought against
the Soviets in Afghanistan in the1980s. Indeed, two days before the deadly attack, the
Muslim cleric addressed his fighters in a mosque in downtown Ambon, lambasting
security authorities for failing to prevent the alleged separatist group RMS from
hoisting its secessionist flag on April 25, and calling for a "people's war" and holy war
against the separatist movement.
The same Laskar Jihad has also been involved in confiscating lands belonging to
Christians and distributing them to its members and Muslims from outside Maluku
province. Legal owners of these lands were chased out by force and as a
consequence have had to escape into the jungles in order to save their lives.
Christians captured by the vigilante Laskar Jihad forces had to face the consequence
of simultaneously forced conversion to Islam and circumcision or death.
When leaders of warring groups came to a government-sponsored meeting in Malino,
South Sulawesi province, last year, Laskar Jihad leaders refused to come to the
"negotiation table". And when leaders from both camps signed a peace agreement in
the resort town of Malino last February 12, Laskar Jihad refused to recognize the
settlement. In fact, immediately after the meeting, Laskar Jihad leaders set up their
own radio station, through which they openly urged Muslims to wage war against their
Christian infidel enemies.
Speculations are mounting that the presence of Laskar Jihad in Ambon is fully
supported by the military and police as part of their effort to create "necessary
conditions" for the imposition of a military emergency in the territory. It is a
well-known fact that some elements in the military and police are actively supporting
certain Muslim fundamentalist groups, which often take the law into their own hands.
Meanwhile, by implicating RMS in the communal clashes, the military has, in effect,
sided with the Muslims and declared war against the Christians fighting for their lives.
As such, the end of the conflicts may come with a bitter reality - the perishing of
Christian communities in the province, either by forced conversion into Islam or
martyrdom. Either way, the conflicts would follow the plot sketched out by Muslim
fundamentalist groups that have persistently demanded the implementation of Islamic
law, or syariah, in Indonesia, the world's biggest Muslim country. In fact, the RMS
issue was first brought up by the Laskar Jihad in 2000, when it sent over 10,000
volunteers from Java to fight along their Muslim friends against the Christians in
Maluku.
RMS, a little-known secessionist group that finds its roots in the declaration of the
South Maluku Republic by Ch R S Soumokil on April 25, 1950, has been identified
with the Christians. But as a movement, RMS long ago lost its steam, with its support
base vanishing rapidly after the Dutch, who colonized Indonesia for more than 350
years, recognized Indonesia's independence in 1959. Since then, RMS has ceased to
be a threat to the country's unity. If many Christians now demonstrate support for the
rebel group, they are merely expressing their anger and disappointment over the
government's inability to put an end to the conflicts, which have displaced thousands
of innocent people.
Religious conflicts in Ambon are unmistakably communal conflicts that started out as
an ethnic conflict between migrants from Buton, Bugis and Makassar ethnic groups,
which are all Muslims, and the indigenous Maluku ethnic group, which is evenly
divided between Muslim and Christian communities. The migrants later successfully
exploited the conflict by appealing to Muslim brothers in the Maluku ethnic group,
shattering long-held social values such as "Pela Gandong", or mutual help and
brotherhood. Nevertheless, the conflicts remained communal violence until the
government and military announced the involvement of RMS in the conflicts.
According to Thamrin Amal Tomagola, a noted sociologist from Maluku, the switching
of conflicts from horizontal, or communal, to vertical conflicts and the recent bloody
clashes in Ambon were designed to allow the military to use a repressive, security
approach to putting an end to the conflicts.
©2001 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.
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