Affinity in danger
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.