Tue, 23 Mar 1999

Affinity in danger

When reports of bloody clashes between Madurese settlers and local Dayaks and Malays in West Kalimantan's Sambas regency first reached Jakarta last week, a disquieting feeling of deja vu gripped many Indonesians. Similar incidents which occurred in late 1996 and early 1997 in approximately the same region and involving the same population groups were too ugly to be easily forgotten.

Even as the first burst of renewed violence exploded in Sambas last week, unrest of a no less extensive scale and no less savage nature was still smoldering in Ambon, capital of the eastern province of Maluku, although a semblance of normalcy appears to have returned.

In past weeks and months, Indonesia seems to have been engulfed in wave upon wave of mass violence and destruction that has prevented the nation from devoting all necessary resources and attention to overcoming the political and economic crisis tearing its once solid social fabric.

For those reasons, the renewed ethnic violence in West Kalimantan did not really come as a surprise to most Indonesians, portentous as it may be. What does seem rather startling given the scale and nature of the 1997 experience is that the local authorities appear to have been totally unprepared for last week's flare-up.

The bloodshed that began last Tuesday is all the more tragic since it was apparently sparked by a petty dispute over a bus fare. But rivalries that have existed for decades caused the incident to readily explode into a virtual tribal war.

As of the weekend, the reported death toll was 96. By Monday the figure was more than 100, though a precise figure remains difficult to ascertain while the number of evacuees seeking refuge elsewhere runs into the thousands. In the meantime, gruesome reports of people being slaughtered and severed heads paraded through the streets in macabre shows of public rejoicing have begun trickling in through the media.

Amid all this, the presence of security personnel in the area has reportedly been scarce, although reinforcements are apparently being flown in from other regions in the country.

The government's immediate task is obviously to restore peace. That done, an assessment of the underlying conditions that caused the recurrence of violence must be made in order to acquire the means for building the foundations of true harmony between population groups in the area. Participation of community leaders, both formal and informal, could be of invaluable value in the undertaking, as shown by experience gained elsewhere in the country.

Admittedly, a complete and comprehensive solution to the problem of inter-group violence which the nation is at present facing in Kalimantan and elsewhere takes time to accomplish. However, an immediate restoration of peaceful conditions, if not actual harmony, is of the greatest importance. It is easy to see that continued violence of a magnitude and character as witnessed in Ambon, West Kalimantan and other areas in the country could threaten the general election scheduled for June 7 or, in the worst-case scenario, disrupt it altogether.

As things are developing at present, it is difficult to dismiss those who believe all this violence is planned and executed by sinister masterminds bent on forestalling the elections and thus indefinitely preserving the status quo.