Intra-regional conflicts haunt Indonesia
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The conflicts between indigenous people and incoming inhabitants in several regions will pose a more serious threat to Indonesia's stability and integrity than religious conflicts unless democratic values are fully adopted by the nation, a noted scholar says.
Franz Magnis Suseno, a professor of political ethics from the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, said last week in Jakarta that the probability of such conflicts loomed high in many areas such as Kalimantan, Aceh, Maluku and Papua.
"About 20 percent of the Indonesian population live outside their ethnic groups. That means more than 40 million people could be involved in conflicts," German-born Franz said.
"Religious conflicts are communal and religious leaders are all aware of the dangers of such conflicts. That's why, religious conflicts were contained in respective regions," he said.
Indonesia has been hit by many conflicts that are seen by many experts as a mixture between ethnic and religious conflicts since the fall of Soeharto in 1998. The clash between the Dayaks, the native people of Kalimantan, and the Madurese in 1999, for example, claimed 200 lives, mostly Madurese and forced 10,000 others to return to their ancestral island.
In Aceh, native Acehnese attacked and expelled thousands of migrant Javanese in almost every area in the province since the separatist movement reignited in 1999.
In Maluku, the conflict between religious groups was initiated by the initial clash between native Ambonese and immigrants from South Sulawesi in January 1999. More than 5,000 people had been killed since then.
A similar case in Poso, Central Sulawesi, has the same cause and impact. The clashes have left about 2,000 people dead since 1999, and about 11,000 families have become refugees.
To make the problem worse, Franz noted there was a tendency for local politicians to exploit the situations for their own interests in winning the support of local people for their political objectives.
The ethnic conflicts in various regions have been made severe, particularly, after the issuance of Law No. 22/1999 on regional autonomy that gives more authority to local administrations. The law also opens the possibility to the phenomena of tribalism, in which local people tend to put their ethnic interests in front of national ones.
"There is a strong pressure to choose local people as government officials in every region. Moreover, the conflicts could displace a huge number of incoming inhabitants out of the region where they live, and create a severely chaotic situation for the country," he said.
He also said that the Indonesian Military (TNI) would not be able to control the chaos if clashes erupted in more than four big cities at the same time.
"The 300,000 military personnel could only handle conflicts in four big cities at the most. If there were conflicts, say, in Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya and Medan or Ujung Pandang simultaneously, Indonesia would disintegrate," he argued.
Franz said that as a consequence, force could not be used as a means to solve the problem either because of the inadequate number of military personnel or because most ethnic groups chose deliberately to be a part of Indonesia.
"Indonesia is still there because people still have the willingness to integrate," he said.
The professor proposed democracy as the answer to the problem. It would be impossible to have an authoritarian regime like Soeharto's anymore because people were wiser now. Therefore, there would be no other alternatives outside the system of democracy.
"Democracy allows people to manage conflicts in a non-violent way. It encourages people to raise their own proposals openly if they don't like certain policies or actions. Any proposed regulation or action will be better if it is discussed publicly," he argued.
Even though he admitted that democracy in Indonesia was still at a critical juncture, he argued that democratization in the country should be continued at all costs.