The players behind the Maluku madness
Jakarta Post July 20, 2000
Editorial and Opinion
By George J. Aditjondro
NEWCASTLE, Australia (JP): Thousands of people have died in
Maluku, once known as the Spice Islands, in what seems to be a
religious war between Christians and Muslims.
Official estimates have put the death toll at 3,000. However, Rev.
John Barr from the Uniting Church of Australia has put the death
toll at around 10,000, a figure that has been confirmed by this
writer's sources in Maluku and Australia. It includes the nearly
500 refugees whose boat capsized in the stormy waters between
North Maluku and North Sulawesi last month.
Unfortunately, this tragedy has not attracted much concern in
Australia, despite the fact that Maluku played a similar role to
East Timor during World War II. At that time over 1,100 Australian
troops were sent to Ambon, the provincial capital, to protect
Australia from the Japanese invasion.
The Australian war cemetery in the city of Ambon, near Pattimura
University, is a silent testimony to the sacrifices of hundreds of
Australian diggers that were killed in battle over Ambon.
Pattimura University itself, however, has recently been burned to
the ground by a new invasion; namely the invasion of reportedly up
to 10,000 Laskar Jihad fighters who sailed to Maluku with, it is
alleged, the tacit support of top ranking officers who seem to be
still loyal to the disposed Gen. Wiranto, supposedly to "liberate"
their brothers and sisters in Maluku from "religious cleansing" by
Christians in Maluku.
Despite the state of civil emergency decreed by President
Abdurrahman Wahid, the killings have still continued. Therefore,
it is important to dissect the forces that are behind the violence
and explore ways for the Indonesian government and its friendly
neighbors to rescue the remaining people of Maluku from further
extermination.
Early this month, Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said in
public that "based on our intelligence reports there are strong
indications that former cronies of Soeharto are supplying arms and
personnel to areas afflicted with conflict, particularly in the
Malukus, East Timor, West Irian and certainly in Aceh."
Later army officers and civilians linked to both Soeharto and B.J.
Habibie were mentioned. He said the aim was to undermine the
credibility of the President and the government.
As was the case in the postreferendum violence in East Timor, the
inter- religious riots in Maluku, which erupted in January 1999,
were reportedly well-planned and prepared by officers and
politicians loyal to Soeharto with, initially, two goals.
First, to destabilize one of the strongholds of Megawati
Soekarnoputri, who was then the strongest presidential candidate
to replace Soeharto's hand-picked successor B.J. Habibie.
Secondly, to create unrest in places where the then armed forces
commander Gen. Wiranto wanted to revive regional military commands
(Kodam) abolished by his predecessor, Gen. Benny Moerdani.
Indeed, four months after the inter-religious violence began in
Ambon, the old Pattimura Military Command was revived, covering
the entire Maluku archipelago. Similar attempts to revive regional
military commands in Kupang, Pontianak, and Padang have not been
that successful.
While the violence in Ambon and on the nearby islands continued,
and with more troops flown in from Java and South Sulawesi, the
old Maluku province was soon divided into the predominantly Muslim
province of North Maluku with its capital in Ternate and the
religiously balanced province of Maluku, with Ambon as its
capital.
After initially using Ambonese gangsters as a smokescreen,
paramilitary forces close to Soeharto and troops loyal to Wiranto,
sources say, maintained the momentum of killings and destruction
by continuously inflicting casualties on both sides that cried out
for revenge.
Exhausted and saddened by the killings, Christian and Muslim
leaders in Ambon repeatedly tried to make peace between the two
groups. Repeatedly, however, two intelligence officers in the
Pattimura Military Command, allegedly made sure that peace could
not be restored.
Sources say one of the colonels maintains links with the Christian
militia in Ambon, while the other maintains links with the Muslim
militias, who are currently strengthened by the Laskar Jihad
fighters from Java and South Sulawesi.
When Maj. Gen. Max Tamaela, the Christian Ambonese Pattimura
Military commander, was recently replaced by the Hindu-Balinese
Col. I Made Yasa, those two intelligence officers were kept in
their place by the powers that be in Jakarta.
In fact, the two men probably know Maluku better than the new
Pattimura Military commander, since they were both stationed in
Ambon before the Pattimura Military Command was revived under
Suaidy Marasabessy, a Muslim Ambonese officer close to Wiranto.
Currently, two other interest groups are allegedly involved in
maintaining the violence in Maluku. The first group are radical
Muslims who oppose Gus Dur's presidency and are allegedly
financially backed by a former finance minister under Soeharto.
The second group consists of Indonesian business conglomerates who
benefit from the troubles in Maluku to escape from their
obligations to pay trillions of rupiah of debt to Indonesian
banks.
The first group reportedly sent the Laskar Jihad to Maluku. The
bulk of these fighters are naive villagers who believe in the
existence of an international Christian plot to dismantle the
Indonesian Republic, which, in their eyes, began with the
liberation of East Timor.
They are assisted by soldiers and deserters from the Indonesian
Military and police.
It is alleged the second group consists of several conglomerates
which have close links to the Soeharto family.
With officers loyal to Wiranto deeply entrenched in the armed
forces, Gus Dur and his deputy have their hands and feet tied in
trying to end the violence in Maluku.
In fact, the ongoing violence is basically being maintained by
their opponents, who continue to play political football with the
lives of the Maluku people. It has been said that every time
Soeharto or Wiranto are interrogated, a new wave of violence
flares up in Maluku.
Therefore, Australia and the countries of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should seriously lobby friendly
nations without predominantly Muslim and/or Christian populations,
such as India, Thailand, South Korea and Japan, to play a more
active role in ending the violence in Maluku.
Australian military cooperation with Indonesia should be postponed
until the Indonesian Military can prove its impartiality in
domestic disputes such as in Maluku. A trade embargo with
Indonesian companies which benefit from the violence in Maluku is
also recommended.
Certainly, Australian military cooperation with Indonesia should
not be normalized as long as the perpetrators of human rights
violations in East Timor are not taken to court and are allowed to
foment unrest in Maluku and other parts of the Indonesian
archipelago.
Dr George J. Aditjondro teaches at the department of sociology and
anthropology at the University of Newcastle in Australia. He
specializes in the cultures of Papua, Maluku, Timor and Flores. He
carried out extensive interviews with sources in Jakarta, Maluku,
Germany and Australia regarding the unrest in Maluku.****
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