Flores island a potential hot spot: ICG

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.