Hope in Maluku

Skeptics may question how long the latest Maluku peace agreement, which was signed by Muslim and Christian representatives in the South Sulawesi hill town of Malino on Tuesday, will really hold. After all, the agreement brokered by the government is only the latest of similar deals struck by the two communities in Maluku in the last three years.

Since many earlier peace agreements fell apart even before the ink dried, skeptics would be justified in asking what chance does this latest one have of restoring peace. Is it so different from the earlier ones, that it can assure us, and especially the people of Maluku, that peace will soon come to Maluku?

Whatever reservations we have about the Malino agreement, we should all give support to any effort to restore peace in Maluku. Any agreement is almost always better than no agreement at all, and this one is no exception. Besides, conditions on the ground suggest that Maluku is ripe for this kind of peace deal.

For starters, both the Muslim and Christian communities appear to have run out of steam, after fighting endlessly for more than three years. With no one camp gaining the upper hand, the conflict has come to a stand off. Tensions remain high in some areas, but physical clashes have become few and far between in recent months.

Since the first fighting broke out in January 1999, the Maluku conflict has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced more than 700,000 people, or more than a third of the population of Maluku and North Maluku. Fighting continued even after the two provinces had been put under a state of civil emergency in June 2000.

Surely by this time, more and more people in Maluku must feel that enough is enough. There seems to have been a growing realization among the two warring communities that the conflict was not going anywhere, and that more casualties would ensue unless they mended fences. In short, they now realize that they have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not forging a peace deal.

Then there is also the active involvement of the central government in brokering the peace pact, an ingredient that was missing in the earlier peace deals when Jakarta insisted that this was a problem for the Maluku people to solve.

With the conflict becoming so complex, and particularly with the participation of outsiders such as the Laskar Jihad forces from Java since early 2000, the government role has became pivotal in prodding the conflicting camps, brokering a peace agreement, and later on, enforcing the agreement.

The peace agreement between Christian and Muslim leaders in the Central Sulawesi regency of Poso, signed last month also in Malino, has certainly added pressure on the Maluku leaders to start working toward peace. If Poso can do it, so can Maluku, so the logic goes.

Granted, two days of negotiations in Malino could hardly be expected to address all the contentious issues, or bridge their differences. It certainly could not erase the animosity that has developed between the two communities that have been killing each other for the last three years. But what is most important is that all sides to the conflict and the government have shown the spirit and goodwill to work toward peace.

The 11-point peace agreement still leaves many unanswered questions, and we hope that the government and negotiators will not stop their efforts here, and that they will meet again soon to follow up on their commitment toward peace.

The devil is always in the details. All the goodwill and the good spirit in the world cannot prevent further violence from breaking out again, unless leaders of the two communities and the government do some real work on the ground to sustain the peace.

Real and sustainable peace in Maluku is still a long way away, and eliminating the hatred and healing the wounds will probably take even longer. The failure of the earlier peace agreements should have taught us that there are so many pitfalls ahead, and that it will require patience, perseverance, hard work and real commitment to make everlasting peace a reality.

The Malino deal is only the beginning of that long road. But it has offered us, and the people in Maluku, a renewed hope. Let's not squander what is probably our last chance to bring peace to Maluku for a long time.