The Economist, Thursday January 31st 2002
Indonesia
TERNATE AND TOBELO
Settling the war of God and gold
Uneasy peace in the Moluccas
ACCORDING to Benny Doro, he was appointed commander of North Maluku's
Christian army by God. He says he once saw Jesus Christ soaring like a bird above
him while he was fighting Muslims. He caught a bullet in his hand. The 50-year-old
commander, whose real name is Bernard Bitjara-his adopted name Doro is the name
of his village-accepts that he is a sinner, although not, it seems, for killing so many
people that he has lost count, but for having two wives. God punished him, he says:
one wife and their four children were lost when a ship carrying Christians sank.
In 1999 and 2000 many people died in North Maluku, the northern province in
Indonesia's Moluccas island group-several thousand, according to some estimates.
Jafar Umar Thalib, leader of a Muslim militia called Laskar Jihad, wants Mr Bitjara to
face trial for his role in the slaughter. Some Christians, though, would put Mr Jafar on
trial. Laskar Jihad fought Mr Bitjara's army. It joined with other Muslim groups in a bid
to drive the Christians out of North Maluku or annihilate them. They nearly succeeded.
Today there is a sort of peace in the province. Soldiers enforce a state of civil
emergency. Can peace survive? It is hard to say. This is not simply a religious
conflict.
North Maluku is one of Indonesia's newest provinces, created in 1999, ironically to
isolate the region from religious violence in Ambon. The town of Ternate, on the tiny
island of the same name, is its capital. Mudaffar Sjah, the 48th sultan of Ternate, is
well-groomed and speaks impeccable English. A moderate, too: he says that Islam
does not oblige women to cover their heads in public. He is married to a Christian. He
long served as a legislator during the Suharto regime and wanted to be the first
governor of North Maluku.
In 1999 a dispute was raging next door to Ternate in Halmahera, the main island of
the province. In part it was a squabble between the people of the Kao district and
immigrants from the volcanic island of Makian over the control of a gold mine. Though
loyal to the sultan of Ternate, Kao is mainly Christian. It was at this point that Mr
Bitjara, alias Benny Doro, moved in with his army of God on the side of the Kao. The
fighting spread to southern Ternate, which is populated by an ethnic group close to
the people of Makian. The sultan's forces intervened but were driven back by the
southerners and their Makian allies. What had been a dispute over land and gold
became, at least in Makian eyes, a war of religion. The Christians were pursued and
their churches destroyed. Today the sultan is in danger in his own island.
At the end of 1999 and again in May and June 2000, a vast war between Christians
and Muslims raged across Halmahera and all the neighbouring islands. Probably the
worst fighting was around Tobelo, Halmahera's main town. Mr Bitjara's forces were in
the thick of it. They killed hundreds of Muslims who had taken refuge in mosques
around the town.
Laskar Jihad and other Muslim groups mustered their forces, and by June 2000 Mr
Bitjara's Christians were close to defeat. The president of the day, Abdurrahman
Wahid, imposed a state of civil emergency that is still in force. But not everyone is
convinced that the peace it has brought is real.
Thousands of Muslim refugees remain in squalid lodgings in Ternate, camping out in
churches or former nightclubs alongside paintings of Osama bin Laden. Thousands of
Christians are in barracks around Tobelo or in Christian-dominated North Sulawesi,
also scared to go home.
Christian leaders say this is not a civil emergency at all, but a military one. They are
pretty cynical about the army. During the fighting in 2000, many Muslim soldiers and
police joined the jihad forces. Others did nothing to stop the fighting. But removing the
state of civil emergency too quickly could be disastrous. Thousands of people who
have lost close relations in the violence, sometimes through beheading, could decide
to take revenge.
Some issues remain unresolved, in particular, that of the governorship. The sultan is a
non-starter these days, but an election was held last year in which a former Suharto
minister defeated an ethnic Makian, with support from the sultan and Christian
legislators. Almost immediately, allegations surfaced of bribery and the government
refused to swear him in.
In Ternate, graffiti calling for Christians to be wiped out or beheaded can still be seen.
Notices tell Muslims that spreading their faith is the duty of them all. Christians
believe the truth is simple: the Makian leaders and their allies covet their land and
want to control the local economy, using as tools religion and warfare by proxy. As
long as they believe that, the prospects for peace are, at best, mixed.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2002. All rights reserved.
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