CANBERRA (AP): Australia will send a delegation of lawmakers to monitor next week’s elections in Indonesia, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday….
“Australia has committed up to A$15 million ($US11 million) to support the Indonesian government in running this election,” Downer said.
Indonesians go to the polls on April 5 to elect a 550-seat legislature….
With nearly 17,000 islands to cover, Indonesian election officials have had to transport ballot papers to remote areas by air force planes, boat, and in some cases, donkeys.
Category Archives: Indonesia
Australians to Help Monitor Indonesian Elections
Filed under Indonesia
Malaysia’s Islamic Party Loses Ground in Elections
Jane Perlez reports in the New York Times:
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, March 21 — The major Islamic party in Malaysia lost significant ground in parliamentary and state elections here today as the governing coalition of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi coasted to victory.
The Islamic party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia, lost the state legislatures in the oil rich northern state of Terengganu and in the neighboring state of Kalantan. In a humiliating loss, the leader of the party, Ulama Hadi Awang, lost his federal parliamentary seat.
The fortunes of the Islamic party, which won control of the Terengganu state legislature four years ago, were being closely watched as a barometer of militant Islam in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, holds parliamentary elections early next month.
Since taking control in Terengganu, the Islamic party, popularly known as PAS, has imposed religious laws, including bans on alcohol and gambling.
“If this election says one thing it says that Malaysia is rejecting the Islamization policies of PAS,” said Bridget Welsh, assistant professor of Southeast Asia studies at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, who is visiting here. “PAS has been decimated.”
Mr. Abdullah, 64, who inherited the prime minister’s job in November from the longstanding incumbent, Mahathir Mohamad, ran on an anti-corruption platform. He presented a more benign tone than his brittle predecessor, and as a descendant of Muslim scholars, the new prime minister appealed to voters who support a moderate version of Islam.
That approach stymied the efforts of the Parti Islam SeMalaysia to build on its gains in the Malay heartland, in the northern part of the country.
Among the lessons to be drawn here, it seems to me, is that the best way to keep any one religious faction from dominating government is to clean up government while also allowing all religious groups to participate in the political process. Targeting particular (nonviolent) religious groups–whether the Islamic Party in Turkey, the Falun Gong in China, or the Christian Coalition in the U.S.– as in some sense “enemies of the state” seems only to backfire when the governing party itself loses credibility.
UPDATE: Head Heeb has more.
"It often takes a lack of education to be able to express things clearly"
Ian Buruma was visiting the island of Hainan in China in May 1998 when news arrived that General Suharto had been forced to step down as leader of Indonesia, partly as a result of massive student demonstrations.
“This is very important news for all Asian people,” said the keen young reporter for a local paper in Hainan. He was greatly excited, unusual in China when it comes to foreign news. We were sitting at the editorial office of a literary magazine. Most of the editors were there, as were some of the main writers. A young secretary passed around paper plates containing bananas and grapes. I was asked for my “foreign” view.
I could only repeat what I had read in the papers in Hong Kong. I said the Indonesian students had been inspired by the example of Tiananmen. This was received with nervous looks and polite laughter. One or two people scraped the floor with their feet. What did I think of the possibility of democratic change in China? It was not a question I relished, for I did not like to hold forth, in my imperfect Chinese, to people who knew the problems of their country better than I ever would. Still, I had to say something. So I said I saw no reason why Chinese could not handle a democracy if the Koreans, the Filipinos, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, and now, one hoped, the Indonesians could.
The usual discussion–usual among Chinese intellectuals, that is–about the peculiarities of Chinese culture ensued. It would take a long time for democracy to develop in China. China was too big. China was too poor. China was too complicated. Chinese history was too long. Chinese people needed to be more educated. They had little idea of democratic rights. If democracy came too suddenly, there might be chaos. And so on. The keen young reporter then asked me whether I could comment on a particularly “sensitive topic.” What about June 4, 1989, the Beijing Massacre? But one of the editors, the most senior person in the room, swiftly intervened, pointing out that I was a “distinguished foreign guest,” who had traveled far, so perhaps I could offer them some insights into the wider world outside China.
Later that same day, I went out on my own for a snack. Opposite my hotel was a half-finished concrete shell of a building. Much of Haikou, the main city of Hainan, was like that. The building boom of the early 1990s had come to a sudden halt, victim of the Asian financial crisis. Parts of Haikou looked as though they had been bombed. A kitchen had been improvised in one of the rooms of the half-finished building. Next door a jerry-built “beauty parlor” was a front for a brothel. A young man, his shirtless back shiny with sweat, was tossing noodles about in a large pot. After some diffidence, he wiped his hands on his trousers and came over for a chat. We were joined by two of his friends and a girl in a filmy evening gown, who worked at another “beauty parlor.” They stared at me and said nothing.
The cook had come down from a village in Sichuan with his sister, who was helping him run the food stall. But he was in debt to the businessman who paid his wages. That was the trouble with the economic reforms, he said. The rich bosses now controlled everything. I nodded, and slowly ate my noodles with garlic and squid. The chef then shifted in his seat and emptied his nose, by first blocking one nostril and snorting in a short, sharp burst, then repeating the procedure with the other nostril. His manners were far from elegant. But he was no fool. “You know,” he suddenly said, “in your country the individual has the right to control his own life. Not here in China. Everything is controlled from above. The Communist Party has complete power. That is why we have no rights here.”
The intellectuals at the literary magazine might well have shared the cook’s view. In fact, some almost certainly did. But one of the oddities in contemporary China is that it often takes a lack of education to be able to express things clearly. Or, to put it differently, it is those who live near the bottom of society who feel the lack of individual rights most keenly. That is why they generally get to the point more quickly.
SOURCE: Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing, by Ian Buruma (Vintage, 2001), pp. 232-233
Initiatives by Moderate Muslims in Indonesia
The East-West Wire of Honolulu’s East-West Center ran the following story last week while I was away.
MODERATE MUSLIMS IN INDONESIA USE IRAQ WAR PROTESTS, CIVIC EDUCATION TO UNDERCUT SUPPORT FOR ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS
HONOLULU (March 10) — Muslim moderates in Indonesia prevented Islamic extremists from using the Iraq war to gain support by focusing anti-war rallies on peace, a leading U.S. scholar of Islam and civil society said Tuesday at an East-West Center program. They have also helped contain extremism by initiating civic education in Muslim universities.
By organizing mass anti-war rallies like those seen in the United States in the 1960s, moderates “seized the (Iraq) issue from the extremists,” said Robert Hefner, an anthology professor and associate director of Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs. “Iraq, to my astonishment, had little impact. The moderates reasserted themselves.”
Hefner just returned from Indonesia, where he examined communications between the United States and Islamic communities. Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and the Bali bombing, moderate Muslims have mobilized radio programming and other networks to help Indonesians understand issues that might be used by extremists and terrorists to build support, he said.
“The moderate Muslims know there is a crisis, a struggle for hearts and souls, and they are looking for political and cultural tools to combat extremism,” he said.
After the Suharto regime collapsed in 1998, the moderates initiated the largest civic education program in Asia and in all the Muslim world. The course is required at all Muslim universities, reaching 18 percent of the country’s university students, and is funded by the United States through the Asia Foundation and by other international governments and agencies. Muslim educators have also started introducing the course into the upper grades at pesantren, Indonesia’s religious schools.
The course, using textbooks written at Muslim universities, looks at how democracy, plurality and human rights are compatible and vital components of Islam. Classes have triggered much student interest, Hefner said.
Hefner noted that Indonesians take great interest in the political process — 93 percent of voters cast ballots in the 1999 elections and a high turnout is expected at this year’s elections as well.
Such efforts are indeed praiseworthy, but this report, like so many purely academic reports, seems utterly to ignore how ineffective the moderates were in preventing the horrendous outbreaks of violence throughout the country–from Aceh to Maluku to East Timor to West Papua–much of it stoked by the brutal Indonesian military and inflamed by well-armed, hardcore extremists from the Laskar Jihad, which reached a crescendo in 1999-2000, well before the Iraq invasion, before 11 September 2001, and even before the U.S. presidential election in 2000.
The Jaringan Islam Liberal (Liberal Islam Network) needs all the support we can give it.
Filed under Indonesia
A Chronology of West New Guinea (West Papua) since 1945
The conflict between the Dutch and the Indonesions over the disposition of Netherlands New Guinea followed the Indonesian revolution of 1945-9. The Round Table Conference Agreement (1949) had left that part of the former Netherlands East Indies under Dutch occupation, as a concession to Netherlands nationalist feeling; in the succeeding decade the Netherlands devoted considerable attention to developing the area as an example of constructive colonial effort. The Indonesions, however, considered ‘West Irian’ an essential part of their state, and as the nationalist temper rose during the 1950s increasing emphasis was placed on forcing its concession.
In 1957 Dutch residents were expelled from Indonesia and the Netherlands-owned property was nationalized, and in 1961 military harassment of the colony began. The US entered the dispute as a mediator favourable to the Indonesion side, as a result partly to this, and partly of pressure by Dutch businessmen anxious to restore relations with Indonesia, the Netherlands agreed in August 1962 to relinquish control. After interim UN rule, West Irian was handed over to the Indonesians in May 1963, on the understanding that in 1969 the Irianese would be allowed to chose whether they wished to continue under Indonesian rule. Mismanagement, economic stringency, and the contempt with which Indonesians tended to regard the local Papuan population led to a series of uprisings under both Sukarno and Suharto. However, all non-Papuan parties to the dispute were agreed that the territory should remain in Indonesian hands, no international objections were raised when the 1969 ‘act of free choice’ was made a purely symbolic one.
1. The West New Guinea question resulted from the demands during the 1920s and 1930s of ultra colonial Dutch groupings to have the area declared as a separate Netherlands crown colony.
2. After the outbreak of the Indonesian revolution in 1945 it were especially the Eurasian group–now suffering Republican attacks and seeing their earlier superior social status being demolished–supported by conservative politicians again agitated for West New Guinea to be put aside as their new fatherland under the protection of the Dutch crown.
3. On 20 December 1946 the Netherlands parliament passed an amended Dutch-Indonesian agreement (Linggajati) in which West New Guinea was accorded a special political status. This clause was again included in the Renville agreement of 17 January 1948.
4. In order to avert for the West New Guinea question to cause the derailment of the Round Table negotiations, as a compromise the matter was shelved to further negotiations in 1950, and on 27 December 1949 the Netherlands transferred its sovereignty to Republic of United States of Indonesia.
5. During 1950 Dutch-Indonesian relations gradually deteriorated causing various meetings about West New Guinea to fail; and on 17 March 1951 the Dutch government decided to ‘freeze’ the issue.
6. After the failure of the Eurasian experiment the Netherlands government in 1951 directed its attention to the socio-economic development of the Papuan population and to guide Papuan nationalism towards to achievement of self government and finally independence.
7. Indonesia put the question to the United Nations, but during 10 December 1954 UN Assembly meeting failed to achieve the two-third quorum.
8. By 1956 the Dutch position regarding West New Guinea had grown irrevocably stubborn causing parliament to have the area enshrined in the constitution as part of the Netherlands kingdom.
9. By 1960 it is clear that the vast majority of Papuan leaders rejected to join the Indonesian Republic and instead called for the establishment of an independent Papuan state. A this time, however, the eventuality of this had become rather dim as the Netherlands had been unable to secure military support from the USA and Australia in the case of a threatened full-fledged Indonesian invasion.
10. Originally Australia was absolutely opposed to an Indonesian take over of West New Guinea. For example in March 1947 Dr. Burton, the head the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs, made a strong plea in the Netherlands embassy in Canberra for West New Guinea to be kept out of Indonesian hands. Similarly the succeeding Menzies government in February 1950 emphasised that West New Guinea was of same vital strategic interest to Australia as Papua-New Guinea.
11. Australian attempts to secure American agreement of military help in the view of war with Indonesia received the same vague responses as the Dutch have been given in Washington. As a result in January 1959 Prime Minister Menzies told Dutch ambassador Lovink that it was impossible for Australia to ally itself militarily with the Netherlands.
12. The USA only grudgingly tolerated continued Dutch control of West New Guinea. Washington took a neutral stand in Dutch-Indonesian dispute and never openly supported the Dutch position. American policy was solely concentrated on keeping Indonesia out of Communist hands and showed no interest in the human rights of the Papuan people. So in 1961 President Kennedy abandoned the American policy of ‘neutrality’ regarding West New Guinea forcing in 1963 the Netherlands to hand over the territory to Indonesia via an United Nations commission. In Washington the right of Papuans of self-determination had ended up in the wastepaper basket.
13. April 1962 Indonesians launch Operation Mandala under command of Benny Murdani and General Suharto. 1419 commandos dropped into West Papua. Most captured or killed.
14. Increasing US support for Indonesian position after US $450 million low-interest loan in 1960 to Indonesia from USSR. Indonesians playing US and USSR off against each other.
15. New York Agreement between Indonesia and Dutch (no Papuan representation) allows for United Nations Temporary Executive Authority to administer WNG from 1 October 1962 to 1 May 1963. Control then to go to Indonesia with change of sovereignty confirmed by ill-defined ‘Act of Free Choice’ within five years.
16. ‘Act of Free Choice‘ carried out in 1969 with 1025 hand picked and savagely coerced representatives voting unanimously for incorporation. Outcome accepted by UN as both Holland and Indonesia agree to process.
17. Large-scale uprisings throughout country against Indonesian rule. Put down by Indonesian military although widespread protests continue, for instance in Manokwari in the mid-1960s; Baliem Valley in mid-1970s and around Jayapura and border area in mid-1980s. [See map.] These result in many thousands of deaths and over 10,000 refugees in PNG. Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) formed gaining mass support for an independent future. Sporadic ongoing guerilla campaign commences.
18. Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA) report released in April 1995 detailing killings of villagers and a priest by ABRI [Indonesian government and armed forces] soldiers in the Freeport Mine operations area. Partially in response to expansion of the mine’s concession area from 10,000 hectares to 2.5 million.
19. Seven young European scientists kidnapped on 8 January 1996 by OPM Central Command under Kelly Kwalik. Held until May 9 when rescued by Kopassus troops.
20. July 6 1998 Biak Island massacre occurs when ABRI troops attack hundreds of unarmed Morning Star flag raisers demanding independence. Reportedly 20 killed and 141 injured in original attack, some 139 others, mostly women and children taken on board Indonesian naval frigates and reportedly killed at sea, many grave atrocities reported. No independent investigation into these events.
21. February 23-25 2000 Kongres Rakyat Papua, or Congress held in Jayapura where thousands of Papuans gather to discuss future. Plans made for a Musyawarah Besar (MuBes), or ‘large consultation’ later in year. President Wahid gives A$172,000 and his support as long as independence not declared. Name changed from Irian Jaya to Papua.
22. May-June 2000 MuBes held in Jayapura and attended by some 20,000 Papuans from across the country and social spectrum. 31 member leadership Presidium elected with Chief Theys Eluay emerging as Chairman and acknowledged leader.
23. Law No 21/2001 passed on Special Autonomy for Papua Province aimed at dealing with separatists’ grievances through increased local Papuan control over society and economic resources. Opposed by many Papuans who feel that Autonomy has been forced upon them. Widespread demands for independence continue.
24. Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri takes control of West Papua ‘issue’ after widespread criticism of Wahid for encouraging separatists. Military crackdown commences with banning of Morning Star flag, arrest and harassment of Papuan leaders. Assassination of Chief Theys on 10 November 2001 by Kopassus soldiers.
25. August 31 2002 Two Americans and one Indonesian killed and eight Americans injured in attack on a school teachers picnic near Tembagapura, support town for the Freeport Mine. OPM initially blamed by Indonesian military, although TNI remains suspect. FBI investigations continuing.
26. Presidential Instruction No1/2003 on the establishment of West and Central Irian Jaya Provinces, in addition to Papua Province. This decree contradicts the previous Autonomy law and has invoked fear and uncertainty amongst Papuans.
27. December 2003 Timbul Silaen, former police chief in East Timor during the UN sponsored referendum in 1999, is appointed as the new police chief for Papua. Eurico Guterres (who worked with Salaen in East Timor) announces plans to establish a branch of his pro-integration Red and White Defender Front militia in Papua. He has been convicted of crimes against humanity but is free pending an appeal.
28. January 2004 rumors abound about the declaration of a ‘State of Emergency’ to deal with separatists. Fears of an Aceh style military operation to destabilize Papua in the context of Indonesian presidential and parliamentary elections.
29. March 4 2004 U.S. officials believe local army commanders ordered the ambush that killed two American teachers near a gold mine in a case that has held up resumption of normal US-Indonesian military ties, two American officials told The Associated Press. “It’s no longer a question of who did it…. It’s only a question of how high up this went within the chain of command”. The officals say little doubt remains about who was responsible for the attack on vehicles driving down a road to a gold mine operated by New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold.
SOURCES: C.L.M. Penders. 2002. The West New Guinea Debacle (Crawford House/KITLV Press/U. Hawai‘i Press) [reviewed (pdf) in The Contemporary Pacific]; Jim Elmslie. 2002. Irian Jaya Under the Gun (Crawford House/U. Hawai‘i Press).
Chronology compiled by A. L. Crawford, Crawford House Publishing Aust. Pty Ltd., ABN 31 102 847 656, 14 Dryandra Drive, PO Box 50, Belair, SA5052 Australia; Tel: + 61 8 8370 3555; Fax: + 61 8 8370 3566; Email: tonycraw@bigpond.net.au
Filed under Indonesia, Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, U.S.
Major Security Concerns in Indonesia
USINDO Open Forum
Major Security Concerns in Indonesia
Sidney Jones – Indonesia Project Director, International Crisis Group – Jakarta
February 23, 2004
Washington, DCDirector of the International Crisis Group’s office in Jakarta, Sidney Jones, spoke to an overflow crowd about three major security problems Indonesia faces: Papua, Aceh and terrorism conducted by Jemaah Islamiah. She believes the most virulent form of JI terrorism may be brought under control in the short and medium term, but predicts long term lower intensity terrorism. She is not sanguine that violence in Papua and Aceh will diminish any time soon.
Papua: Sidney Jones noted that central government plans to divide West Papua into three provinces, which had caused such a furor, had now been modified to divide the province in half. The present situation calls for a province of West Irian and a province comprised of all the rest of the area, while plans for a central province have been frozen. But there remains no less outrage among Papuans most of whom — although not all — are concerned that the division undermines promised autonomy.
There is an additional problem on the horizon: the division of the provinces into multiple sub-districts divided along ethnic lines. Each would be headed by a tribal leader, each of whom would fill the local governing bodies with unqualified loyalists. Poor governance is liable to result and as Indonesia moves towards elections, competition among districts and ethnic groups over resources will increase. There will not necessarily be destabilization, but the TNI [Indonesian Military] will be sure to exploit divisions and conflicts in order to strengthen its own control.
Another source of concern in Papua is the explosion of HIV/AIDS. Five to ten percent are now infected and the situation is being exacerbated by substantial movement among the population.
Finally there are the problems posed by the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, or OPM) with members ranging across Papua and rebels supporting them from across the border. The prospect for increased tensions in Papua is increasing.
Aceh: Martial law continues with no resumption of negotiations that might end it in sight. Nor are there any incentives for Jakarta politicians to move toward negotiations while elections are underway.
The TNI is succeeding in sharply limiting access to the province by human rights and other humanitarian workers; only a few ICRC [International Committee of the Red Cross] members and none of their international employees have been allowed entry. The limited access together with blanket control over the media, means too little is known about what is actually going on and it has become impossible to make accurate assessments. That said, military operations appear to have become even more aggressive as raider battalions have been added to the mix and planned reductions among existing troops have yet to take place. Casualties would seem to be increasing.
In some areas such as the cities, where more is known, the TNI is getting better marks for handling security, but there is no evidence of that in areas where aggressive action is underway. The elite Police Mobile Brigade or Brimob’s reputation remains as bad as ever. Nor is there an exit strategy, although there has been some talk of a downgrading of the situation to a civil emergency. This option holds little promise either, however, since the provincial government which would take charge is immensely corrupt and inefficient.
Hostage negotiations have been underway for some time, with the GAM [Gerakan Aceh Merdeka = Free Aceh Movement] holding some 40 hostages. When one being held (Ersa Siregar, a senior reporter for RCTI [Rajawali Citra Televisi Indonesia]) was killed by the TNI, there was outrage among Indonesians generally that might have led to a change of approach by the central government. However, the GAM’s demands were studded with unacceptable conditions, the public turned against the GAM, and there are no prospects for release.
Nor are the TNI and the government making distinctions between GAM members and sympathizers, trials are unfair, no legal counsel is being allowed. The Acehnese negotiators arrested on their way to the Tokyo negotiations last year have been unfairly convicted of terrorism.
On top of it all, it seems the TNI is committing the same military mistakes and excesses made in the past, and it is no accident this is occurring as elections approach. Replacement troops are less well trained and equipped. GAM forces are bad also, but the TNI is worse.
Special autonomy legislation is dead as long as the TNI remains in control. No transition plan is in the works. It would seem in sum that neither the GAM nor the government have any interest in negotiating a solution, at least for now.
Jemaah Islamiah: Sidney Jones discerns separate levels of activity at work.
First there are the Bali and Marriott bombing faction of JI which was led by Hambali. Hambali and this group looked to Al Qaeda and in fact to a degree divided JI against itself as some followed the Al Qaeda crusade against the west and others stuck to JI’s original guiding purpose: creation of an Islamic state in Indonesia. As the result of good police work, only about eight or ten of the leaders of this first group remain at large; there is a good chance they will be caught; and the immediate threat of another Bali type attack against western targets should recede.
The second group is comprised of the non-bombing majority of JI, with goals similar to Darul Islam and its long term plan to create an Islamic state. But the apparent major split in JI may not in fact exist and this wider group appears to have become a home for Hambali types. Members of this group are being sent to Mindanao for weapons and explosives training and some may again resort to major violence.
Darul Islam members comprise a third group and it is itself sending people to Mindanao for training. This group has its own organization and capabilities. Jones thought it fascinating that those who commit violence are recruiters for the next group and there is a linear connection between events in 1983, 1989 and events today. She believes that even if there is a split among top leaders members at lower levels retain a lot in common.
Finally the major risk today comes from locally organized groups who are carrying out local bomb attacks. The bombings in south Sulawesi are attributed to such a group.
Questions and Answers:
The United States failure to date to provide direct access to Hambali or his taped interviews has become a big issue among Indonesians who conclude that the United States sees cooperation as a one way street.
JI members are recruited from certain mosques and are winnowed down to a select few through a rigorous process. They come originally from a small number of schools and colleges. Those selected come from conservative, modernist backgrounds – not just anybody is chosen and in fact there are no known NU members. It would be difficult to stem the flow from within Muhammadiyah since the leadership is conflicted due to internal rivalries. There is no correlation with socio-economic backgrounds.
No one in JI is working for a caliphate – only for an Indonesian Islamic state. Members see JI as a religious organization. Since they do not support democracy they do not work through existing political parties.
The Bali and Marriott bombing investigations have largely dispelled the conspiracy theories that contended the west was responsible. Still batting down conspiracy theory is a constant necessity.
Given the irreconcilable differences in Aceh, Jones sees no solution until Hassan diTiro is dead and GAM’s ground commanders gain greater say. Now GAM is not interested. The government needs to consider establishment of local parties. Not much pressure to cease as in the case of Vietnam can be expected.
via the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i
Filed under Indonesia
After 500 Years: Muslim-Christian Fratricide in Central Maluku
Two earlier posts about Muslim-Christian violence in Maluku, Indonesia, have summarized a three-year retrospective on 1999-2001 by reporters for the Jakarta Post and a ten-year retrospective based on my own travels in the area in 1991. This final post in a three-part series summarizes a 500-year retrospective by Dieter Bartels in an online draft of an article, “Your God Is No Longer Mine: Moslem-Christian Fratricide in the Central Moluccas (Indonesia) After a Half-Millennium of Tolerant Co-Existence and Ethnic Unity” (2000).
In the shadow of the recent carnage of the East Timor independence struggle and the equally vicious ongoing battle for Aceh, other parts of Indonesia are torn apart by pernicious strife and the huge and populous island nation is threatened with disintegration. One of the crisis hearths is the eastern island group of Maluku where there is an ongoing internecine struggle between Moslems and Christians. Some of the most heated clashes have been occurring between Ambonese Moslems and Protestant Christians in the Central Moluccas. Beginning on January 19, 1999 Moslems and Christians, seemingly without warning [but arising from a criminal incident perpetrated by outsiders], started to attack one another, burning down each others houses and killing one another in both the provincial capital of Kota Ambon (Ambon City) and villages on the islands of Ambon, Haruku, Saparua, Buru, and Seram. Similar incidents occurred also in the Northern and Southern parts of Maluku involving not only Protestants but also Roman-Catholics. Thus far, the seemingly senseless confrontation, which became known as kerusuhan (unrest), left thousands of people dead and precipitated the devastation of property worth millions of dollars, wiping out much of the economic progress made in the province since Indonesian independence.
It’s worth pointing out that January 1999 is when former President Suharto’s embattled successor, B. J. Habibie, agreed to an East Timorese referendum on whether to accept wide-ranging autonomy within Indonesia or to go for independence. The vote, in August 1999, was overwhelmingly (nearly 4:1) in favor of independence.
The conflict can be divided into two rather distinct phases: Phase I began in January of 1999 and closed at the end of April 2000. This phase was characterized by mutual attacks of native Christians and Moslems using largely primitive home-made weapons and bombs (rakitan). Generally, there was an equilibrium of strength. Phase II, having began in May 2000, is characterized by the massive arrival of non-Ambonese, mostly Javanese, Moslem vigilante group, called Laskar Jihad (“Holy War Forces”). They brought with them sophisticated modern weaponry and allied themselves with the Moslem personnel of the military which constitutes about eighty percent of the troops. These developments totally destroyed the previous balance, tipping the scale in favor of the Moslems.
From the very beginning, provocateurs, often said to be associated with the old Suharto regime, have been blamed for the unrest. The Army also has been accused playing a key role in triggering and fomenting the fratricidal violence in order to destabilize the Indonesian state as a means of restoring its political might and economic interests. Among the accusers is the Moluccan sociologist Tamrin Amrin Tomagola who believes that continuous riots will not only upgrade once again the status of the military, and tighten its territorial grip, but also derange President Abdurrahman Wahid and the National Commission on Human Rights which has implicated five generals, including former military chief and ex-cabinet minister, Wiranto, in the post-ballot atrocities in East Timor. Tomagola goes on to state that violence in Moslem areas triggers solidarity among Moslems and heightens their negative feelings toward the President and the commission (Jakarta Post 02/04/2000). Calls in January 2000 for a Jihad (Holy War) against Moluccan Christians at mass demonstrations in Jakarta and attacks of Moslem youths on Christian churches in Lombok seem to strengthen Tomagola’s arguments. The use of automatic weapons in the January 23, 2000 attack by Moslem villagers on their Christian neighbors in the villages of Haruku-Sameth on the island of Haruku further points to military involvement.
Bartels then outlines some of the key factors that led up to the recent violence.
- The influx of Moslems from outside the area, especially Bugis and Makasar migrants from Sulawesi into Ambon City, and Javanese settlers (‘transmigrasi‘) into rural areas. Initial Christian attacks were against these outsiders, not fellow Moslem Ambonese.
- The failed model of religious tolerance. “As recently as November 1998, during Moslem-Christian clashes in Jakarta, then President B. J. Habibie had singled out the Moluccas as the model of religious tolerance.” Moluccan exiles in the Netherlands and elsewhere “asked what happened to the traditional Moslem-Christian brotherhood and its safeguards like pela, the traditional inter-village alliance system.”
- Creeping religious polarization. “Actually, the only thing that should be surprising about these clashes is their vehemence and unbridled violence.” Some of this was visible even during the 1970s.
- The legacy of different colonizers. “The successive colonizers, Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese, all tried to manipulate Moslems and Christians, as did the latest, and current, rulers of the Moluccas, the Javanese.” However, “throughout most of colonial history, it seems that, at least at the village level, Moslem and Christians have coexisted in a climate where cooperation seems to have been more common than polarity and discord. Under duress, they have frequently closed ranks and as far back as the Portuguese period and in the early Dutch era, Moslem and newly converted Christian villages allied themselves against the foreign intruders who tried to force a spice monopoly onto them. Again, during the so-called Pattimura uprising in 1817, both religious groups were united in a last, failing effort to rid themselves of the Dutch yoke.”
- Christian rise to superiority in late colonial period. The Dutch favored “Christian Moluccans as soldiers and administrators, allowing them a certain amount of western schooling denied to the Moslems…. In some cases, Christian villagers had Moslem children live with them in order to give them access to schools denied to Moslem commoners by the Dutch while raising them according to Moslem customs.”
- Moslem ascendency during Japanese occupation. “During the Japanese occupation, the Christians suddenly saw the roles reversed as the Japanese seemingly favored the Moslem population. Christians accused the Moslems of collaboration.”
- The proclamation of an independent Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS) after Indonesia declared independence after WWII. “During the ensuing struggle with the Indonesian armed forces, Christian guerrilla forces attacked some Moslem villages which were suspected of being Indonesia sympathizers. There were also instances in which Christian soldiers prevented such attacks when their home village had an alliance with the Moslem village in question.”
- The breakdown of the pela alliance system. This is elaborated further below.
Some of these inter-village alliances have their origins in the distant past, long before Europeans invaded the Spice Islands in search of cloves and nutmeg. It probably started as an alliance system in the context of head-hunting, but during the Portugese and Dutch conquests in the 16th and 17th centuries, the system was utilized to resist the foreign intruders, and to help each other in times of need. As a matter of fact, quite a few of the still existing pela pacts were founded during that period, often binding Moslem and (recently converted) Christian villages together. Many new pela arose during the last desperate struggle against Dutch colonialism, the Pattimura war at the beginning of the 19th century. After this struggle was lost and the region experienced an economic depression, pela was utilized as an instrument gaining access to foodstuffs when many poor villages of Ambon-Lease established ties with the sago-rich villages of West-Seram. In the first three decades of Indonesian rule, pela was still in full bloom, mainly as a vehicle of Moluccan identity in the pan-Indonesian state and also to further village development without governmental aid….
Most alliances are between Christian villages but a considerable number are between Christian and Moslem villages, thus spanning religious boundaries. Purely Moslem pela do not exist. In contrast to Christians who use adat [local custom] rather than their common religion to establish formal ties between villages, Moslems consider themselves all part of the Islamic community (ummat) and thus find no need to further strengthen the ties among one another. However, there are a few pela, all based on genealogical ties, involving several Christian and Moslem villages and in this case the participating Moslem villages also consider each other as pela partners….
The system as described above worked still very well in the Central Moluccas from the end of World War II until about the 1980s. Attempts of the Indonesian government of political centralization and cultural uniformity since Independence led to a general fear of loss of a distinct Ambonese ethnic identity. Both Moslems and Christians had also become quite conscious about the threat that the ongoing religious polarization posed for Moslem-Christian unity. While urban politicians were fighting for the spoils offered by the new system, people at the grassroots level reacted to the twin threat of loss of identity and social disunity through placing a renewed emphasis on pela, whose dense web spanning across the islands and religious boundaries was traditionally the major force of integration. The earlier listed economic incentives, based on reciprocal mutual aid, further helped to cement the interfaith relationship.
- Elevation of global religion (agama) above tradition (adat). Increasing Christianization and Islamization after independence.
- Indonesization of Ambonese social system: Replacement of traditional village leadership. Globalization in a manner that benefitted the urban (often outsider) elite. Large-scale relocation of (Moslem) ‘transmigrasi’ from Java. Overpopulation, land scarcity, feuding and fission. Urbanization, with outsiders dominating commerce.
Bartels tries to find some hope for the future in his final section.
Mending the Torn Fabric
Once the fighting stops, Moslem and Christians will indeed have to come together and redefine their relationship and strive for a new intra-ethnic symbiosis in a contemporary context. First and foremost, the intertwined problems of overpopulation, land shortages, and immigration have to be solved. As a next step, it seems likely that the Ambonese in the Central Moluccas will have to do what the Ambonese exiles in the Netherlands have been doing ever since they arrived in the Netherlands in 1951, namely engage in a continuous process of reinventing adat to reflect contemporary socio-political reality. Pela on the village level can still have its uses in restoring overall harmony. Before visiting the Central Moluccas in June and July 2000, I was very pessimistic about the survival of interreligious pela. Most people who don’t have pela with a Moslem village believe that these pela are forever destroyed. However, people who do have such pacts are not as ready to pronounce their alliances dead. This was certainly the case in Haria. Villagers from Samasuru (Seram) who have pela with Islamic Iha on Saparua do not dare stay there overnight as they did before when visiting Saparua but it seems they do it more out of consideration for Christian villages adjacent to Iha but are still in communication with Iha. They had given Iha land in the 1960s which was laid to waste during the unrest by outsiders. Iha insisted that Samasuru was innocent and that their alliance is still intact. The heavy attacks and counterattacks between Moslems and Christians in North Saparua occurring between September 22 and 24 were apparently instigated by the Laskar Jihad. As a result, many villagers from Iha fled to some of nearby Christian villages, seemingly to trying themselves to escape the Laskar Jihad. Their peaceful reception in these villages is perhaps one of the indicators that not all bridges have been burned.
The following story also shows some hope, though it may not immediately apparent: After the total destruction of Christian Kariuw on Haruku in the early phase of the conflict by neighboring Moslem villages of Pelauw and Ori, their Moslem pela partner Hualoi (Seram) sent a delegation with food to the village of another partner in the same alliance, Aboru (Haruku), where many Kariuwans had found refuge. The wounds were still too fresh and the food was rejected. Hope also can be found in the example of Wayame, a non-traditional, mixed Moslem-Christian settlement across the bay opposite Ambon City, which thus far which had been untouched by the conflict until late November 2000. Even then, it was not an internal conflict but an attack from the outside by Laskar Jihad forces. However, attempts by surrounding Moslem villages to officially declare Waai, a Christian village destroyed in July 2000, as a Moslem village and the intention to rebuild the mosque at exactly the same spot where it supposedly stood in 1670 when Waai was still Islamic, will inflame passions again. The suggestion was made by the chief commander (panglima) of the Laskar Jihad, Ja’far Umar Thalib, and thus it is quite likely that this declaration was made under duress….
Perhaps, and rather ironically, the simultaneous suffering of the Ambonese Moslem community under the reign of terror of the Laskar Jihad and certain army factions, may soften the existing bitterness and hatred between the two indigenous groups and facilitate ethnic reconciliation.
Southeast Asia Picture Archive
Anyone interested in Southeast Asia who wants to do some online sightseeing will enjoy browsing through the huge picture archive of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam are particularly well represented, but there are also pictures from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Aging Asia
“The impending tempo of population aging in China is very nearly as rapid as anything history has yet seen,” says Nicholas Eberstadt in “Power and Population in Asia” in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review, No. 123. “Although China’s population will hardly be as elderly as Japan’s by 2025, its impending aging process promises to generate problems of a sort that Japan does not have to face. The first relates to its national pension system: Japan’s may be financially vulnerable, but China’s is nonexistent.”
At this juncture … sub-replacement fertility is thought to characterize every country and locale in East Asia save tiny Mongolia. In Southeast Asia, Singapore and Thailand are already sub-replacement societies, and Indonesia appears to be rapidly closing in on the replacement fertility level. As for South and Central Asia, Sri Lanka and Kazakhstan are outposts of sub-replacement fertility within the region.
Russia’s decline is much farther along.
Modern Russia has given the lie to the ameliorative presumption that literate, industrialized societies cannot suffer long-term health declines during times of peace. According to Moscow’s official calculations, the country’s life expectancy was lower in 2001 than it had been in 1961-62, four decades earlier. For Russia’s men, life expectancy had dropped by almost five years over that interim–but female life expectancy was also slightly down over that period. This anomalous circumstance could not be entirely attributed to the deformities of communist rule, for both male and female life expectancy were lower in 2001 than in 1991, the last year of Soviet power….
In absolute arithmetic terms, this Russian mortality crisis qualifies as a catastrophe of historic proportions. Over the extended period between 1965 and 2001, age-standardized mortality for Russia’s men rose by over 40 percent. Perhaps even more surprising, it also increased for Russia’s women by over 15 percent.
Another looming problem for East Asia is the sex ratio, expressed in terms of the number of males for every 100 females.
China’s tilt toward biologically impossible sex ratios at birth seems to have coincided with the inauguration of its coercive antenatal “one child policy,” which was unveiled in 1979. Is Beijing’s population control program responsible for these amazing distortions? A tentative answer would be yes–but not entirely. In other Chinese or Confucian-heritage populations where oppressive population control strictures were not in force–Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea–unnatural sex ratios at birth also emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. In these other spots, the confluence of son preference, low fertility, and sex-selective abortion likewise have distorted the sex ratio at birth–although nowhere so much as in China today. In most of those other locales, moreover, recent data suggest that sex ratios at birth are lower than they were in the early 1990s (Taiwan, South Korea) or even the 1980s (Singapore), while China’s rise shows no signs of reversing…. Only two provinces in the entire country–the non-Han regions of Tibet and Xinjiang–reported sex ratios within the biologically normal human range. At the other end, three provinces (Hubei, Guangdong, and Anhui) tabulated child sex ratios of almost 130–while three others (Hainan, Hunan, and Jiangxi) returned with ratios of over 130.
So where can we look to balance these trends?
Interestingly enough, the Asian Pacific power with the most strategically favorable profile may be one that we have not yet discussed: the United States.
By the UNPD’s [United Nations Population Division’s] medium variant projections, the United States is envisioned to grow from 285 million in 2000 to 358 million in 2025. In absolute terms, this would be by far the greatest increase projected for any industrialized society; in relative terms, this projected 26 percent increment would almost exactly match the proportional growth of the Asia/Eurasia region as a whole. Under these trajectories, the United States would remain the world’s third most populous country in 2025, and by the early 2020s, the U.S. population growth rate–a projected 0.7 percent per year–would in this scenario actually be higher than that of Indonesia, Thailand, or virtually any country in East Asia, China included.
In these projections, U.S. population growth accrues from two by no means implausible assumptions: (1) continued receptivity to newcomers and immigrants and (2) continuing “exceptionalism” in U.S. fertility patterns. (The United States today reports about 2.0 births per woman, as against about 1.5 in Western Europe, roughly 1.4 in Eastern Europe, and about 1.3 in Japan.) Given its sources, such population growth would tend, quite literally, to have a rejuvenating effect on the U.S. population profile–that is to say, it would slow down the process of population aging. Between 2000 and 2025, in these UNPD projections, median age in the United States would rise by just two years (from 35.6 to 37.6). By 2025, the U.S. population would be more youthful, and aging more slowly, than that of China or any of today’s “tigers.” (Furthermore, to state the obvious, neither a resurgence of HIV/AIDS nor an eruption of imbalanced sex ratios at birth look to be part of the U.S. prospect over the decades immediately ahead.)
Of course, such population projections always assume that humans will just keep doing what they always do, regardless of changing conditions. Fortunately, most humans have minds capable of adapting their behaviors to new circumstances.
Recap of Three Years of Violence in Maluku, Indonesia, 1999-2002
In January 2002, two reporters for the Jakarta Post, Edith Hartanto in Jakarta and Oktavianus Pinontoan in Ambon, published a special report entitled “Three years of bloody Maluku conflicts leave nothing but disaster.”
AMBON, Maluku (JP): Three years ago, a petty dispute between a local and two migrants in the Ambon capital of Maluku degenerated into a full-scale sectarian riot which up to this year has killed 9,000 people and forced more than 500,000 people out of their homes.
The involvement of outsiders and provocateurs in the ensuing violence worsened the tension among what was once a harmonious community of various races and religions. The community became divided by blood, rage and deceit.
It all began on Jan. 19, 1999 at 3 p.m. local time when local public minivan driver Jopi Leuhery, from Ahuru, Central Maluku, became involved in a quarrel with two male migrants from Bugis-Makassar [Sulawesi], named Nursalim and Tahang.
The two men apparently tried to extort money from Jopi at the Batu Merah bus terminal and threatened to slash him with sickle.
Upset by their action, Jopi ran back to his house, picked up a machete and along with several friends went after the two extortionists.
In their account before the court, where they were being tried for a purely criminal offense, both Nursalim and Tahang said they fled to the predominantly Muslim Batu Merah Kampung area near the bus terminal and yelled: “There is a Christian who wants to kill us”….
Nursalim’s action on that fateful day led to a fierce communal brawl, in which a group of angry Batu Merah residents went after Jopi, but failed to find him. The mass then burned a welding shop and a house belonging to a Christian in the border town of Batu Merah and the predominantly Christian Mardika [‘Independence’] area. [See map, photos.]
At around 5 p.m. local time on Jan. 19, 1999, the first place of worship, the Sinar Kasih Church in Waihaong, was set alight by rioters.
Rumors spread and tension began to take hold in the area, and unidentified people roamed the streets, spreading rumors of attacks. Who they were and what their roles were in the riots are still unknown.
Angered by the attacks, Mardika people with the rest of the Christian community conducted retaliation assaults on mosques in the area.
On the morning of Jan. 20, 1999 a false rumor spread that the Grand Al-Fatah Mosque was on fire. By this time people were already divided in their own respective areas according to their religion. People donned bandannas to signify their religion: red for Christian, white for Muslim….
Analysts have said that if the security forces and the intelligence units had been quick to respond to the situation in the early stages of unrest in 1999, widespread communal conflicts could have been avoided.
From a criminal dispute, the Maluku riots developed into sectarian conflict that was loaded with economic and political interests, while the players in the conflict freely roamed the islands.
The involvement of outsiders such as the Jihad Force, which pledged to wage a holy war in Maluku, and small elements of the outlawed South Maluku Republic (RMS) separatist movement, have also contributed to the already complex strife.
(The reference to the RMS is a lame attempt at moral equivalence. The RMS was supported by Muslims as well as Christians, but some of the jihadis have rechristened it Republik Maluku Serani [‘Christian Maluku Republic’].)
Frustrated by the prolonged violence and losses in both Maluku and North Maluku, in a desperate effort the central government imposed a state of civil emergency in the territory on June 27, 2000….
The implementation of the state of emergency, if not too late, was undermined by the fall of the police base in Maluku during the Tantui incident on June 23, 2000, by which time security forces on duty in the province were already divided by religion.
What undermined the state of emergency was not some chance incident. Instead, it was (in the words of area specialist Dieter Bartels) the “massive arrival of non-Ambonese, mostly Javanese, Moslem vigilante group, called Laskar Jihad (‘Holy War Forces’). They brought with them sophisticated modern weaponry and allied themselves with the Moslem personnel of the military which constitutes about eighty percent of the troops. These developments totally destroyed the previous balance, tipping the scale in favor of the Moslems.”
Having built up their forces since May, the Laskar Jihad entered the fray in force on June 23, mounting a combined land and sea attack on the elite Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) base in Tantui, a few kilometers from downtown Ambon. They attacked the police station to make sure the Christians were disarmed.
The assailants went on a rampage and burned the whole compound, including police housing complex, arsenal, hospital, provincial and high-ranking officers residences.
They assassinated the Brimob deputy commander in Maluku Maj. Edi Susanto (whose name is Javanese) and looted the police arsenal for weapons and ammunition. On July 1, with some wearing white robes and others in military-style uniforms, the thugs went on to attack three predominantly Christian communities, Poka, Rumah Tiga, and Waai, and to destroy the whole campus of Pattimura University.
The state of civil emergency was finally lifted in September 2003, by which time the Laskar Jihad militia had moved on to West Papua.
In the last few months there have been only a few minor incidents which can be attributed to the small number of militants still in the area. However, given that the investigation into the Bali bombing unearthed evidence of terrorists from Jemaah Islamiah and other organisations using Maluku as a training and recruitment area, the authorities need to remain vigilant for any renewed militant activity….
The Maluku conflict, which began in 1999, has left some 10,000 dead and over half a million displaced. Many areas remain segregated along religious lines. [See map.]
A Muslim-Christian interfaith council is slowly trying to piece the shattered community back together.
Filed under Indonesia
Far Outliers 
