The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday, March 6, 1999
AMBON VIOLENCE
'Island the key to Indonesian peace'
By LOUISE WILLIAMS
Herald Correspondent in Jakarta
For 10 days ships carrying essential supplies have refused to land at the
port of Ambon.
On shore thousands of soldiers are patrolling the battle-scarred streets
as warring Muslims and Christians run patrols of their own, armed with
spears, machetes, knives and petrol bombs. Beneath the uneasy quiet runs
the spirit of revenge.
The official death toll in six weeks of religious rioting across the
island in the remote Mollucas of eastern Indonesia reached more than 160
this week, with at least 350 injured and thousands of building destroyed.
In Jakarta, about 2,000 Muslims called for a holy war against Ambon's
Christians, bringing religious hatred back to the streets of the Indonesian
capital.
The Government of President B.J. Habibie promptly sacked the Ambon police
chief for failing to halt the violence, and ordered more soldiers deployed,
but few political analysts believe the cycle of violence can easily be
stopped. For Indonesia, the question is whether the cruelty on the streets
of Ambon is the start of the breakdown of historically fragile relationships
between Indonesia's majority Muslims and its religious and cultural
minorities, most of whom are indigeneous to the less populated outer islands.
Under the regime of the former president Soeharto, religious disputes
were taboo, and religious violence was punishable by harsh jail sentences.
The Government, the military, and the public service all adhered to the
principles of unity and consensus, but at the same time Mr Soeharto's
policies brought dramatic changes to outlying minority communities.
Ambon, once the capital of famed Spice Islands, was often held up as a
showcase of religous tolerance. Its historic role as a key trading point
meant its people came in contact with the influences of Islamic Arab traders
as well as the missionaries of the Dutch colonial administration.
An anthropologist at the University of Indonesia, Professor
Boedhihartono, said: "There is a long history of the two religions living
together in peace, and a local practice of each group helping the other in
the construction of churches and mosques. Now that has been replaced by
vengeance and resentment."
How past government policies have fanned resentment in Ambon is important
for other parts of Indonesia, as the Habibie Government maintains its shaky
hold on law and order.
Mr Soeharto presided over a massive internal migration program, known as
transmigration, which was based on the premise that the main islands of Java
and Sumatra were seriously overcowded and the demographic imbalance could be
corrected by shipping millions of people off to the relatively "empty" outer
islands.
But Java and Sumatra are predominantly Muslim and the less populated
islands like Timor, Kalimantan, Irian Jaya and the Moluccas were mainly
Christian.
The indigenous people of the outer islands also had far less contact with
technology and communications and were less likely to be able to compete
against new arrivals in bussiness.
Culturally, many of the people of the outer islands followed traditional
tribal law, and believed in collective land ownership. Land was simply
seized by the Government and carved up into two-hectare blocks to hand out
to the new arrivals.
With the transmigration policy came significant spontaneous migration.
Migration patterns to Ambon show there were no significant movements of
people in the 1970s, but in the 1980s, as transport services rapidly
improved and the economy expanded, at least 50,000 new arrivals from the
Muslim communities of South Sulawesi set up home in Ambon, with a population
of 300,000.
There, locals say, they took over the running of much of the transport
and marketing, marginalising the indigeneous people from as far north as
Aceh, to the east in Irian Jaya.
The chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Mr Marzuki
Darusman, said:"The new Muslim arrivals took over in trade, communication
and transport, and the local Ambonese were marginalised because of the
social and economic skills of the new groups. Migrants, generally, are more
cohesive and so they stuck together.
"The Ambonese tried to hold out in the local administration but there
were pressures from the centre government which reflected politics in Jakarta."
Those political pressures on Mr Soeharto were from majority Muslim groups
at a national level, frustated by the dominance of ethnic Chinese minority
in bussiness, and seeking more leadership roles for Muslims.
As part of a national policy of "Islamicisation" of local government, a
Muslim governor and vice-governor were appointed in Ambon two years ago, a
serious blow to the fortunes of the indigeneous people.
Professor Boedhihartono said:"I think the predisposing reason for the
violence is the pressure exerted by the government authorities which are
Muslim on those people who feel cast aside because they are Christians."
Another analyst said:"Clearly there is resentment of newcomers, and the
violence isn't going to stop....The Ambon problem is significant nationally
because it is fuelling a sense of disrespect for the political leadership
and stirring up the religious divide."
Mr Darusman said he hoped the localisation of resentments in Ambon over
jobs and access to power would prevent the riots from spilling over into
other areas with similar recent histories.
However, in the West Timorese capital of Kupang thousands of Muslim
settlers fled a smaller flare-up of religious violence last year in which
scores of mosques were burnt in the majority Christian community.
That was the immediate trigger to the Ambon tragedy. Supposedly to
avenge their Muslim brothers in Kupang, Islamic gangs in Jakarta publicly
tortured, mutilated and murdered six Christians and burnt another eight to
death.
Most of the victims were Ambonese Christians, and security forces at the
scene of the riots did nothing to prevent the mobs from setting up "Islamic
courts" and passing their own death sentences.
Professor Boedhihartono said:"In Jakarta Ambonese Christians were chased,
tortured and slaughtered. It is this incident which raised the spirit of
vengeance, so that the Christian Ambonese consider the Muslims their enemy,
but the predisposing factor is the power of the Muslims in Government and
business."
Mr Darusman warned:"Ambon is starting to become a national problem. The
Government needs to work faster to maintain it as a local problem. The
Government needs to work faster to maintain it as a local problem. The
danger of religous violence in the future hinges on how the situation in the
Moluccas is resolved."
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Thought this info will be useful for u guys.
Wass.,
Betty Pentury
