Flores island a potential hot spot: ICG
Agencies, Jakarta
Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) warned here on Friday that communal conflicts, military-police rivalry and corruption could turn Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara into another hot spot in the Indonesian archipelago,
"Aceh, Papua, Maluku, and Poso may be the hot spots now, but some of the factors fueling those conflicts have the potential to cause violence elsewhere in Indonesia," Sidney Jones, director of ICG's Indonesia projects, was quoted by Deutsche Presse-Agentur as saying.
Decades-old separatist movements have plagued Aceh and Papua provinces, whereas sectarian clashes have been rife in Maluku and Poso (Central Sulawesi) since 1999.
All four hot spots are rich in natural resources, and are the bases for large contingents of Indonesian military and police forces, ostensibly there to keep the peace but in fact, according to the ICG analysis, forming a major source of the insecurity.
ICG released in Jakarta a briefing paper titled, Tensions in Flores: Local Symptoms of National Problems, drawing attention to events that occurred in the Flores' town of Maumere in July and August this year.
Maumere was shaken by a riot in July sparked when a Protestant sailor offended parishioners in the overwhelmingly Catholic town. The rioters reportedly tried to vent their anger not on local Protestants but on the local mosque.
Flores, first colonized by the Portuguese in 1566, boasts one of Indonesia's largest Catholic communities.
"On 18 August 2002, a fight broke out between the police and military that revealed the hostility between the two agencies, the depth of local animosity toward the police," said the ICG report.
During the same month, a well-connected local official went on trial for smuggling lumber, highlighting problems of local corruption.
Indonesia's policy of decentralization in the provinces, launched by former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid, has given provincial authorities greater autonomy but has also led to more corruption at the provincial level.
According to ICG, the problems in Flores, and the lessons that can be drawn from them, illustrate in microcosm the difficulties Indonesia faces more broadly about how to reduce the influence of the military in local politics; how to reduce the predatory practices of both the military and police; how to upgrade police capacity; how to use the decentralization process to strengthen local capacity to prevent violence; and how to prevent communal conflict elsewhere from worsening communal tensions locally.
"All this underscores the fact that the problem of managing conflict in Indonesia is not simply one of crafting better policies for Aceh, Maluku, Poso, Papua and other hot spots. The potential for violence exists throughout much of the country. The solutions go back in many cases to police and military reform," ICG said.