The Jakarta Post, April 30, 2002
Opinion
Reconciliation: Not just ending the violence
Ignas Kleden, Sociologist, The Center for East Indonesian Affairs, Jakarta
Conflict and conflict resolution used to be seen as very closely related. However,
between the two things there is a great distance, in which different problems emerge
and where some intermediate initiatives can be taken.
First, most of the horizontal conflicts since the end of the New Order have been
accompanied by violence. People are murdered, injured or harassed, houses are
burnt, hospitals and school buildings are destroyed, streets are closed, and waste
disposal does not function.
The conflicts might still go on for some time until the most important factors leading to
its occurrence have been satisfactorily settled. However, it does mean that no action
can be taken to stop violence in the meantime.
One should never look at the termination of violence as identical with conflict
resolution or reconciliation. People must wait for some time until real conflict
resolution can take place, but the government can and should take direct and quick
action to stop the escalation of violence.
Secondly, most of the conflicts originate in casus belli which often turns out to be
trivial affairs. If this casus belli can be identified, clarified and contained at the earliest
possible stage, many conflicts could have been prevented from escalating. Yet the
original cause is usually left in the dark though there is enough evidence to make it
publicly clear. This takes place so frequently that the question is whether it has been
done so intentionally. This uncertainty has brought about many rumors,
disinformation, action and reaction resulting in increasing insecurity which is very
liable to explode in violent conflict.
The role of the security apparatus, and the role of police in particular, is instrumental
in clarifying the casus belli and consequently in preventing people from getting trapped
in unnecessary disorientation, confusion and destruction.
Thirdly, given the fact that many horizontal conflicts could not be solved yet, some
rescue action should be taken to alleviate the sufferings and the hardships of those
who are victimized by the ongoing conflicts. These actions can also function to reduce
the destruction of infrastructure such as hospitals, schools, market places and
buildings for religious service. Therefore any rescue initiative should be taken right
away despite the fact that conflicts are still going on, this being necessary because of
two main reasons.
On the one hand, people affected by the violence have the right to relief and security.
Those injured not because of their own mistakes deserve help and relief service
though (or rather because) they are not in the position to pay for it.
Also, the destruction of physical infrastructures should be reduced gradually and
should be terminated eventually to prevent people living in conflict from believing that
they are trapped in an insurmountable abnormality. This impression is instrumental to
reduce the feeling of insecurity which becomes the very first prerequisite for being
ready and prepared for reconciliation.
On the other hand, rescue actions and rehabilitation initiatives can distract the
attention of the people concerned from being preoccupied with fighting one another. In
various places a great part of their time and energy is already used for this purpose
and they are less prepared to fight and to kill though they want to do so.
Of course there is a heated debate as to whether rehabilitation initiatives are of any
avail if conflict resolution has not yet been attained. What if all the energy has been
spent on rebuilding schools or restoring a demolished hospital, and right after that
another conflict explodes and the new building is destroyed?
Conflict resolution and rehabilitation cannot be treated as an either/or choice but
rather as a complementary package -- rehabilitation should be treated as a means for
conflict resolution.
The third problem regarding conflict and its resolutions is that people in many
communities are fairly familiar with conflict and have had their own conflict resolution
methods ever since time immemorial. There have always been conflicts pertaining to
land, marriage systems, or customary law. However, most of these conflicts could
have been solved through traditional conflict-resolution institutions.
Given the importance of these institutions, we must remember the different situation
between regions whose culture is fairly homogeneous and those where a great variety
of cultural systems exist. In the former case it is easier to rely on traditional
institutions because people refer and orient themselves to the same institutions.
In the latter case however, the institutions may be different from one place to another,
or the immigrants might stand aloof from their own traditional institutions. In this case
the role of the state law might be more important than the customary law.
However many of the traditional conflict-resolution institutions have been destroyed
during today's conflicts. The destruction of these peace-making institutions is
conducted not by the people in those communities, but rather by "external forces".
Why is it so difficult to identify and to capture these trouble-makers, who paralyze the
life of local communities by destroying their traditional institutions?
Fourth, the discussion about the top-down and bottom-up approaches in management
can never become more significant than in matters pertaining to conflict resolution.
The experiences with local and communal conflicts have given us a good lesson that
people's participation is essential to any effort for reconciliation.
This does not necessarily mean that the government should only wait and see. The
point is that the government can and should take initiatives to restore peace and
security, but these initiatives can be done if these can motivate and persuade people
to engage in the preparation and implementation of conflict resolution. It is no use to
see and to treat people living in conflicts as an objective of conflict management
engineered from outside or from up above. They are by no means a mere target but
the very agents of conflict resolution and reconciliation, whose involvement and
participation can never be done away with.
The failure of Malino II, the peace pact for the Maluku conflict, is to be attributed to the
conflict management bias of the initiators, in this case Coordinating Minister for
People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla, despite the government's good intention and serious
effort. The physical and psychological conditions which are to be restored are so
destroyed that any effort which tries to force a quick recovery would produce new
vulnerability, resentment and restiveness.
The only possible way is long, or lengthy, boring, and protracted dialog, in which the
facilitators should be prepared to listen to much anger, blame and misgivings before
they can win trust of those involved in conflicts, namely people who are more liable to
suspect than to believe, to discard than to listen, to take something seriously or to
look at it as nonsense.
In such conditions a real dialog is not necessary -- yet almost impossible because
every party tends to speak of their own case and are ignorant or indifferent towards
the affairs of the other party.
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