Flashpoints engulf Indonesia

Bantarto Bandoro Editor, The Indonesian Quarterly Center for Strategic and Indonesian Studies Jakarta

Indonesia has had four presidents in just four years (1998- 2002) and each of them has experienced a turbulent period during their presidency. The sources of the turbulence in the country are the quite potentially dangerous flashpoints of Maluku, Aceh, Papua, Sulawesi and Kalimantan, and perhaps to certain extent Jakarta.

There are a number of unconnected regional rebellions. Some are ethnic or religious conflicts, other regions want nothing less than independence. In Sulawesi in 2000, religious violence spread to the remote Poso region of central Sulawesi. The violence continues in spite of the 2002 Malino I peace accord. Aceh is still far away from becoming a stable region as the separatist GAM army continues its push for independence for the province. In Riau, there was no open warfare, but there were feelings of injustice among Riau's 4.5 million inhabitants. Such feelings have led them to call for Riau's independence based not on politics but on economic grievances.

In Papua, guerrillas of the OPM are fighting for independence while the political struggle is advanced by the Papuan Presidium Council (PDP). Sectarian conflict in the Maluku islands, especially Ambon, continues unabated, putting at stake the Malino II peace accord for Maluku. The government is now thinking of imposing martial law in the region if the security situation deteriorates further.

Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago of more than 13.000 islands and the government in Jakarta now faces a constant challenge to keep the country together and stable. Indonesia now seems to be besieged by a these flashpoints. It is perhaps against this background that President Megawati Soekarnoputri, at the Ansor congress opening ceremony last month, urged all sectors of the society to be aware of the threat of national disintegration. This is in fact not her first statement on the disintegration issue.

Sometime in October 2001, Megawati repeatedly warned Indonesians of the possibility of the country's breakup if ethnic and religious issues remain unresolved. She even used the former Yugoslavia as an example and linked Indonesia to the Balkans.

Indonesia's challenges are enormous. How serious is this threat of disintegration in our country and does Megawati's statement reflect that she is now up to dealing with the issue of disintegration more seriously?

Megawati's concerns over the consequences of the destabilized and warn-torn archipelago has touched on the real sense of the huge problems Indonesia is now facing. Part of it is injustice. This is the experiences suffered by many groups in eastern as well as western parts of Indonesia, and those also experienced by the minorities.

Such arguments continue to be put forward by those who happen to be treated indiscriminately by the policies of the central government. Violence has then become the way to advance justice. Ambon is a case in point. It is reported that one of the warring groups in Ambon has been treated unequally by the local government, causing further violence.

Disintegration is not only about separation. Disintegration can also mean, among other things, imbalances in central and local institutions. This balance is necessary to facilitate development or peace building. There is skepticism that the government's policy on decentralization will result in a more stable archipelago because of the strong sentiments of ethnic and religious elements.

Thus, there was an idea, from the government, to slow the process of decentralization so that the issues of ethnicity and religion could not be used by the local elites to boost their position in many local governments. The concerns are about the excessive use of ethnic or local symbols and ethnic pride to support regional autonomy. But in order for us to have a democratic state and society, we have to decentralize the government. This is perhaps the proper way to promote justice provided that the government is wise enough in handling the ethnic and local symbols sentiments.

Those flashpoints will still be in existence and might move in more dangerous directions. Stricter but indiscriminate policies are therefore imperative to start reducing the degree of damage which could be caused by these flashpoints. But the policies should not be one that would hinder the democratization process in the country.

The government of Megawati must resolve what some understood as "predemocratic problems" as a precondition of democratic life as they cannot be solved by the normal process of democracy. Sadly, as we have been witnessing in the past two years, violence played a major role in their resolution. Democracy is thus a source of disintegration.

If Megawati means disintegration is the total detachment of the local and national elements, be it political, economic and territorial, from the Indonesian unitary state, then the disintegration takes place both at the micro and macro level of the state, and this is precisely because there had been no integration at the level of national society as a whole. In other words, there had not been a degree of integration needed to create a self-sustaining community with which people identify, that is, a nation. Megawati must also realize that Indonesia is not yet a corrupt free country, a factor that is also responsible for disintegration.

Megawati's government must take stern policy action against those who seek to break away from Indonesia and manage those flashpoints in such a way that would prevent Indonesia from disintegrating into a "junk nations". This terminology, used by Christopher Dickey in his article in Newsweek on November 27, 1995 to characterize the falling apart of a country, means "bits and piece falling away from an old state without quite managing to form new ones".