Home is still far away for Maluku refugees

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

Whether and when the state of civil emergency was lifted in Maluku was not really of any great importance to many residents.

The final lifting of the emergency status on Sept. 5. was merely official recognition that residents have long been capable of being in charge of their own safety.

Trust in each other has taken root again, though not to the point that Muslims and Christians again want to live among each other ("Maybe in 10, 20 years," says one refugee).

With returned confidence of being able to cross the lines which earlier defined life and death, even well after dark, people shrug off questions about how things are different now than they were under the emergency status.

Earlier this year people were already grateful that they could use land transportation instead of the more expensive speedboats to reach "Muslim" or "Christian" areas.

Now they are more concerned about how the government is taking care of the provision of basic needs.

The housing problem remains unresolved for an officially estimated 63,971 families, or 332,548 people. The capital houses refugees from other areas affected by the war which broke out in 1999 -- and Ambon residents themselves have moved from one area to another within the city.

Scores of families are still occupying buildings and shops, the interiors divided up by planks to separate families. Lawyers and journalists are among those spending their fourth year returning from work to cramped quarters and neighbors' screaming babies.

Only a fraction of new homes have been built by the government compared to the number of refugees -- and many of them have remained empty.

Therefore a new scheme was introduced; the provision of financial aid for families to build their own homes.

Since homes often accommodate up to five families under one roof, the 21-square-meter studio homes built by the government were far from appealing. Moreover, only a few refugees trusted authorities' claims that their home villages or neighborhoods were safe enough for them to return.

For thousands of families, it's a long wait to get the promised aid of a few million rupiah (the amount differs according to location) to help them rebuild their homes.

The priority is for refugees outside Ambon, and those whose neighbors in their home villages have said are welcome to return. This confirmation of welcome is crucial because "neighbors" often means those of the same religion as people who attacked the villages, though the attackers may have come from outside the area.

Given this slow development, victims have sought their own solutions -- and part of these efforts could become new sources of conflict.

Refugees recall how they escaped fires only with the clothes on their backs -- but eventually some were able to gather enough money to buy abandoned homes.

In a number of neighborhoods such as Batumerah in Ambon, Muslims asked neighbors to buy or sell homes for them.

Problems may arise in the cases of those who have not sold their homes, which have been occupied by others since the buildings were abandoned. This is apart from the refugees living in stores whose owners seem to have no choice but let them live there for free, rather than face resistance from a dozen families or so in each of the three to four-story buildings. And also scores of families living in the Army's dormitory in Tantui district -- leaving soldiers to seek shelter elsewhere, including in shop-houses.

The Army has already asked the refugees to leave, only to get the stubborn, standard answer: "Find us a home first."

Refugees are being asked to leave all government facilities, and other problems related to the occupation of buildings and homes are likely to arise in a matter of time.

Lawyers at the new Baku Bae Legal Aid Office are particularly concerned with the possibility of property disputes. "This will be a new source of conflict," says its director, Anthoni Hutane.

At the moment, occupying empty homes and buildings seems to be the only choice in the long wait for assistance. But sooner or later an increased feeling of safety might lead to more people returning to their homes -- and squabbles with the occupants.

As in a number of cases, the owner should expect to pay a "guarding fee" to persuade the occupant to leave, amounting to several million rupiah for guarding the house for a number of years.

Hutane's office is preparing an inventory of land ownership in case of disputing land claims.

These, then, are some of the issues feared to divide people again in the future. For now, there are several encouraging signs of a community coming together again, as reflected in the vegetable and fish markets, and on the sports grounds where aspiring soccer players practice.

Issues under the past illusion of harmony among communities of different religions are being addressed such as alleged discrimination at the state-owned Pattimura University.

What about the need for justice? While Jakarta activists have encouraged people to "demand the state's responsibility" for letting the violence continue for so long in such a relatively small area, this seems far from the preoccupation here.

On the surface, people do not expect the state to take care of the justice that should be meted out to those responsible for Maluku's war, nor the healing of their trauma.

Says judge A. Hehamoni, "People are just grateful that by some miracle, they survived the selection of massacre."

Residents have long realized that a big mystery lies behind the conflict that changed the lives of everyone here: the sense that there was "a big scenario" outside their capacity to understand and deal with.

They say they do not need soldiers to ensure their safety either. "Ambonese love to quarrel, after which they will make up and hug each other again, but how could we have done that with the security lines dividing us?" Hutane says.

But people do need the government for the intervention that is crucial to restarting life. Given the failed home assistance scheme and the slow wait for aid, the judge says simple loans would be eagerly accepted and homes could be built much more quickly.

The judge himself would benefit from a better night's rest -- "We hear stones thrown about every night during squabbles among the refugees," he said.

It is the precise sense that practically everyone's a refugee that has also brought people together. B. Talea escaped attacks near his home not far from the airport district of Laha, and fortunately acquired a home from Muslims who escaped in Batumerah.

"Locals here had a makan patita (farewell party) for the Muslim neighbors who had to leave for safer areas," he said.

Batumerah was one of the city's many mixed settlements of Muslims and Christians, and the Christians were asked to buy or help seek a buyer for the Muslims' homes. Talea has looked up his property where he found someone already occupying his partly damaged home and planting vegetables in his garden.

"I couldn't ask him to leave -- he and others there had heard on television that refugees from this area were preparing to come back, so they started to clean up the place. I told him he and his family could stay as long as they didn't have a place, my house is big enough."

Such stories on both sides illustrate that mutual help among former "enemies" is bringing Maluku's survivors together. However, these efforts must be supported by the government if a sense of security is to return.