Disarm militias, flush out military, says Maluku expert

Disarm militias, flush out military, says Maluku expert

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Flushing out military and police deserters while disarming
warring militant groups in strife-torn Maluku should be the first
steps in bringing an end to the three-year-old sectarian conflict
in the area, an expert says.

Noted sociologist Thamrin Amal Tomagola said on Thursday that
Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono needed to use the Indonesian Military (TNI) and
National Police to track down military and police deserters from
Maluku, long known for its ever-worsening feud between Muslim and
Christian communities.

"Deserters are dangerous, they become one with the community
that follows their religion ... like a Christian deserter who
enters a Christian community," he said.

"The same happens with Muslim deserters; they provide the
feuding communities with ammunition and training," Thamrin told
The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Thamrin, an expert in the social division of the Ministry of
Research and Technology, said that most deserters in Maluku were
locals who had witnessed the killings of their own families, and
believe that they have an obligation to avenge their deaths.

Thousands of innocent people have been killed in Ambon and
North Maluku since the religious conflicts first broke out there
in January 1999. Last Tuesday, the warring groups agreed to end
hostilities.

According to Thamrin, the government should deploy more troops
from the Army Special Forces (Kopassus) in Maluku.

"The deployment of ordinary military and police, especially
local ones, must be minimized since they are caught up in their
own religious and economic interests," Thamrin said.

More Kopassus troops must be deployed to work with existing
elite security forces to conduct regular "weapons sweeping"
operations in Maluku to disarm militias, he added.

In addition, Thamrin suggested that the government bring back
Battalyon Gabungan (Yon Gab), an independent team of selected
elite security forces to police Maluku.

Yon Gab, he noted, contributed greatly to a reduction in the
violence last year, even though Muslim communities in Maluku had
mixed reactions toward the Yon Gab, claiming that most of its
officers were largely Christians.

Thamrin said that a concentration of Kopassus and Yon Gab
officers should be first deployed for the short "critical" term
Maluku is currently facing, and again for the long term.

Once security conditions improve, he added, they should be
gradually pulled out, and replaced with regular police and
military officers.

There was an influx of largely Muslim migrants from Bugis,
Makassar, and Buton (BBM), who arrived in Ambon in the 1980s, but
they fled back to South Sulawesi during the conflicts.

In the end, the Christians represented a slight majority
population over local Muslims.

Not a single person has been sentenced to jail over the course
of the conflict, which has reportedly claimed over 6,000 lives.

By contrast, three Christians were sentenced to death last
April in connection with the Poso conflict in Central Sulawesi.

The sentencing itself led to an outbreak of violence.