Ex-Bombmaker turns peacemaker

Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

News mixing with rumors about loved ones being killed, houses ransacked and places of worship attacked swept across Ambon like a hurricane.

Nervous, everybody in Christian and Muslim neighborhoods prepared for war -- in the name of religion. They wielded weapons, erected road barricades and examined strangers' identity.

"My job was helping men make crude bombs and slingshots," said Baihajar Tualeka with a wry smile as she recalled the early days of sectarian conflict in Ambon in 1999.

Then the opposing Muslim and Christian mobs armed with machetes, molotov cocktails, catapults and stones screaming battle cries fought in the streets. The police officers, way outnumbered, could do little to stop the riot.

"Rival residents traded molotov cocktails, raining each other with stones. It was a horrifying scene indeed," said Bai, as the 28-year-old Muslim is affectionately called.

Like everybody else in Ambon, she saw the conflict as a crusade, believing that if they got killed, they would go straight to heaven.

"Everyone of us, men, women, adults and children, were so overpowered by that overzealous perception that we would do dangerous things like making crude bombs, guns and molotov cocktails."

But, thank God, there eventually came the fateful day that changed her mind-set for good. It was the day when she saw a man being brutally lynched to death after he was captured by a rival mob.

"Since then I haven't been able to stop wondering what all this conflict is about and why people cut each others' throats in the name of religion?" she recalled.

"All the killing, burning and rape that became the order the day only convinced me that all the violence was generated by certain groups who manipulated the conflict for their own ends."

It was this newfound awareness that led Bai, born in the Central Maluku subdistrict of Pelau on Feb. 4, 1974, to join forces with others from both communities who shared the same concern. Late in 1999, they started Lembaga Mitra Berkarya (LMB), a forum aimed at promoting peaceful coexistence.

After all the efforts to bring peace and order back to Ambon turned futile, she cofounded the Institute for Empowerment of Women and Children (Lappan) focusing on helping the education of children at refugee camps and providing counseling for the traumatized displaced people from both the Christian and Muslim communities.

Lappan has become part of Care the Children Network (JPA), a lose forum of numerous local non-governmental organizations, the church and Koran recital (Pengajian) groups.

JPA activists -- Bai is one -- cling to the belief that through children, the message of peace is easy to convey because, unlike adults, they generally do not harbor religious hatred.

"Children are the best agents of change," as Bai puts it.

Now studying agriculture at Pattimura State University and one of the 11 core activists of the interreligious Center for Peace Building Studies (PSPP), Bai thinks that conflict is only "natural" but must be properly managed so that it results in better understanding of each other instead of enmity.

Assisted by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and international non-governmental organizations, PSPP had its first six activists, three Christians and three Muslims, trained in Yogyakarta in 2001.

"We have special concern for children because they have to bear the brunt of the conflict even though they know nothing about it," Bai said.

The three-year-old sectarian conflict has forced thousands of children to live in makeshift barracks in various camps erected for the displaced families across Maluku.

"A great number of children have dropped out of school because their parents lost their homes and their jobs. Nobody will take responsibility for the children's future," she said.

The painful efforts to bring peace and order back to Ambon have brought about an encouraging degree of success despite the occasional violent incidents.

In central and southeast Maluku regencies, Christians and Muslims have begun to mix, thanks to the efforts of the activists.

The peace activists have been trying to build awareness in the community that the conflict has been engineered by outside forces.

They strongly assert that the Maluku civil emergency administrator should reduce military presence in Maluku and entrust the peace-building process to civilians.

"People don't see the use for the deployment of dozens of companies (each consisting of 100 soldiers) with dubious missions in Ambon," Bai said.

The government's credibility in handling the conflict in Maluku has been ebbing after the numerous peace deals it had brokered crumbled.

"The best statement came from Dr. Farid (an assistant to the coordinating minister for people's welfare) that the government wants to end the conflict and resettle all refugees by the end of 2002. We will see if his statement is credible," she said.