Avoiding the mistakes of Ambon

By George J. Aditjondro

NEWCASTLE, Australia (JP): Indonesia has again been plunged into a new spate of ethnic violence. Since the first Dayak attack on Madurese settlers in the town of Sampit, Central Kalimantan, on Feb. 18, at least 400 people have been killed -- mostly Madurese.

Jakarta's response has, however, been deplorable. After first allowing the police and military to be passive onlookers, with only the Navy helping tens of thousands of Madurese migrants flee to East Java, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri has deployed 1,200 officers and soldiers from the 650 Battalion of the Strategic Reserve Command (KOSTRAD) to the troubled province.

Heavily outnumbered, they have not been able to stop the carnage, while Dayak vigilantes have occupied the province's capital, Palangkaraya, in their campaign to cleanse the province of all Madurese migrants.

Jakarta's uneasiness in dealing with this recent ethnic uprising indicates several points.

First, it shows how unprepared the National Police is in taking over the role of maintaining civilian peace and order from the military, after 30 years of living in its shadow.

Apart from Jakarta, where the Police's Special Brigade (Brimob) has enough water cannons and tear gas to deal with a massive uprising, in the outer islands -- especially in Aceh and West Papua -- Brimob troops have responded with the same brutal tactics as their military counterparts: shoot all troublemakers on sight.

That is, if they are not outnumbered by the troublemakers.

Second, the military commanders in Jakarta have not learned the bitter lessons from Ambon in Maluku.

Sending in Kostrad troops did not help to extinguish the ethnic flames in Maluku, but had instead fanned the flames, due to the military doctrine of treating all social unrest as treason and all troublemakers as enemies of the state -- to be exterminated.

Kostrad troops from Makassar, South Sulawesi, had proven to be not impartial in the interethnic and interreligious riots in Ambon, and openly sided with the Muslim locals and migrants.

Third, the central government has not realized the extent of bitterness which the Dayak people, the indigenous people of Kalimantan, feel toward those successive governments in marginalizing them on all fronts.

Certainly, the massive opening up of Kalimantan to foreign and national mining, forestry and plantation companies, as well as to planned and spontaneous migrants from Java and other islands, the poor, traders and laborers, have not benefited the indigenous people, who have been systematically evicted and alienated from their customary lands.

Then, all existing political parties have not seriously addressed Dayak concerns or included Dayak intellectuals in their national boards.

In fact, the political party law that determines that all political parties have to have branches in 13 provinces closes the door for the emergence of a Kalimantan-wide party, since there are only four provinces in this Indonesian part of the island of Kalimantan, or Borneo.

This is especially ironic, considering the fact that the Central Kalimantan province was created by the late president Sukarno in 1957 in response to aspirations expressed by the Pro Panca Sila Cutlass and Shield Movement (Gerakan Mandau Talawang Pro Panca Sila [GMTPS]).

This Ngaju-Dayak insurrection demanded a separate province for the Ngaju-Dayak people, separate from the existing province of South Kalimantan.

It broke out on Nov. 10, 1956, with an attack on the police station in Pahandut, the village that later became Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan's newly created capital.

This movement was partly triggered in reaction to the rising movement to create an Islamic state, Darul Islam, which was widely supported by Ibnu Hajar in South Kalimantan.

Apart from upholding the state philosophy of Panca Sila, GMTPS also supported a federative structure for Indonesia, rather than the unitarian structure that has been upheld with the military's iron fist for nearly five decades.

So, if Jakarta wants to find a fundamental solution to the Dayak rebellion in Central Kalimantan, and prevent it from spreading to the other Kalimantan provinces, and turn it into an island-wide movement for Dayak self-determination, Megawati and her military supporters had better fly over and start talking to the Dayak leaders, rather than simply using the Wild West style of "sending in the cavalry".

Dr. George J. Aditjondro teaches at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Newcastle, Australia.