Improve troops' mobility in nearly lawless Maluku

Siswo Pramono, PhD Candidate, Australian National University, Canberra

A modicum of "peace" has been attained in Maluku and cemented in the Malino II peace agreement. The incident in Soya coined a question of how to protect the fragile peace. If technicality matters, the business of keeping the "peace" in Maluku is difficult due to geographical and demographical factors. This must be addressed.

Taken together, the total area of Maluku (including the North Maluku province) is about 74,000 square kilometers and it is the only Indonesian region in which the land mass makes up just 10 percent of the province's total surface area.

It has a population of two million inhabits and more than a hundred islands.

The average population density is 19 people per-square kilometer but the distribution is uneven. Maluku has only 160 kilometers of roads.

Those who attempt to sabotage the Malino II agreement might exploit these geographical and demographical "disadvantages" by instigating sporadic violence in remote areas and waterways.

Has Indonesia deployed enough troops, transport and surveillance equipment in Maluku? In the heyday of communal conflicts in mid-2000, about 14,000 military and police personnel served in Maluku. The then issue of impartiality aside, commanders complained that they did not have enough personnel and transports to sustain the troops' mobility. This is a typical problem faced by peacekeeping forces elsewhere. Bosnia is one such example.

The total area of Bosnia is 51,000 square kilometers and thus smaller than Maluku.

There are, however, stark differences. Bosnia is landlocked; Maluku is archipelagic. Bosnia has a total population of 4.4 million, or twice that of Maluku's. Nonetheless, the nature of conflicts in Bosnia and Maluku are similar -- politicization of sectarian conflicts -- although the magnitude and the political triggers are different.

The United Nations deployed nearly 40,000 peacekeepers in Bosnia (while part of the troops also served in Croatia) and the number was considered too small. In 1995-96, a NATO-led international peacekeeping force of 60,000 troops served in Bosnia to implement and monitor the Dayton peace agreement.

Since Bosnia is a mountainous country with poor transport infrastructure, the peacekeepers faced tremendous geographical challenges. The troops hardly responded to sporadic violence instigated by radical groups in remote areas. The UN Security Council (through Resolution 998 in 1995) then improved the rapid reaction capacity of the troops and introduced airborne early- warning aircraft over Bosnia. Unfortunately, the TNI/Polri in Maluku does not have such a luxury.

With the military embargoes imposed by some Western suppliers, the TNI/Polri in Maluku is unlikely to be able to improve its mobility and monitoring capacities. But the need to protect the Malino II agreement is pressing.

Article 1 of the Malino II agreement obliges the people of Maluku to end the conflict and all kinds of violence. Yet the death toll of more than 6,000 is growing since Soya is unlikely to be the last incident. As demanded by the agreement (particularly article 8), the government is taking the initial steps of the rehabilitation program, including rehabilitation of psychological damage. However, a new cycle of violence can disrupt this program. Bosnia's experience is worth considering.

If counted from the signing of the Dayton peace agreement in 1995 to the initial signs of socio-economic recovery in 2000, Bosnia then needed five years of relative peace to give the rehabilitation program a chance to work. As such, one of the main tasks of the civil emergency authorities in Maluku is to carry out an effective peacekeeping operation for at least five years.

The major reduction of violence is a precondition of a robust socio-economic recovery in Maluku.

While acknowledging that a heavy-handed security approach is not the best solution for Maluku, the experience in Bosnia indicated that a rapid reaction capacity assumes the central role in peacekeeping operation and hence in controlling violence. After all, speed safes lives.

Maluku has 32 seaports and 20 airports. But, the lack of personnel aside, the security forces are in shortage of transport helicopters, patrol aircraft, and patrol boats, which are vital to sustain their mobility and surveillance capacity. As a comparison, Bosnia has 28 airports and transport helicopters made up the backbone of the peacekeepers' mobility.

As such, the lack of military transport and (aerial) surveillance in Maluku must be addressed immediately. Indonesia, the largest archipelago in the world with acute violent conflicts in at least five regions, has only about 100 military helicopters, 110 transport aircraft, and less than 60 patrol and coastal combat ships, about half of which are coastal and inshore patrol boats (IISS, The Military Balance 1997/98).

The government can move from other parts of Indonesia a portion of the existing military equipment to Maluku at the risk of weakening troops' mobility in other conflict regions. Alternatively, Indonesia can seek outside help.

Since purchasing new equipment is unlikely, due to the national economic crisis and the military embargo, Indonesia must explore the possibility of "borrowing" the equipment from China, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and some ASEAN states.

There is precedence to follow. For instance, in 1993 a Pakistani battalion was equipped and trained in Slovakia by the German Army before being deployed as peacekeepers in Bosnia. And the U.S. was then prepared to provide transport to troops from any country joining the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia (Shawcross, 2000).

Peacekeeping in Maluku is already a matter of international concern and surely one of the most important matters on Indonesia's agenda. At least 17 foreign governments pledged assistance to help rehabilitate Maluku. Australia has donated five patrol boats to Indonesia (to help solve the problem of people smuggling). Australia also supplied 20 transport aircraft (Nomad) to Indonesia in 1997.

Thus, there is a window of opportunity to be further explored in attempts to improve the mobility of the troops in Maluku and hence the effectiveness of its peacekeeping mission. If the borrowing of equipment from friendly countries is an option, the lending agreement can be concluded under strict conditions that the equipments will solely be used for peacekeeping purposes in Maluku. The diplomatic representatives of the lender countries (i.e. the embassies) can act as the monitoring agents.