Isolating Maluku?

Isolating Maluku?

At last, the government is losing its patience. Frustrated by
20 months of bloodshed and violence, President Abdurrahman Wahid
banned all travel by "outsiders" to the eastern Indonesian
province of Maluku yesterday.

The government's concern over what is happening in Maluku is
entirely justified. Since January 1999, some 2,000 people are
said to have lost their lives in the never-ending string of
clashes between communities in the provincial capital of Ambon
and elsewhere in the province, notably in the north.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and are
living in miserable conditions in refugee camps in safer areas
elsewhere.

A few months ago it looked as if it were possible to bring
back peace to the troubled province. At the urging of civilian
and military leaders, local religious and community elders met
and agreed to try to keep their flocks in reign.

Unfortunately the peace didn't last. Only the day before the
travel ban was announced, clashes left at least 11 people dead in
Ambon. In one skirmish, thousands of people attacked a police
barracks in Ambon with some of the attackers arriving in
speedboats. By Thursday the violence had spread to the center of
the city. Two Army soldiers and two policemen died in the
attacks.

In the north, an armed mob attacked the village of Duma last
Sunday and killed more than a hundred people, forcing hundreds of
refugees had to flee riot-torn Halmahera Island for safer areas.
There are no signs that the situation is going to get better
anytime soon and unless drastic action is taken it probably has
no chance of improving.

Obviously, all this violence has caused the complete
disruption of all economic activity as well as most other normal
activities of everyday life in the province. But how bad is the
situation in Maluku actually?

Bad enough for old separatist sentiments to have been revived
among an apparently growing number of people who feel that
severing ties with the Republic of Indonesia is the only way to
give them the safety umbrella they need.

The military, though still not openly advocating the
imposition of martial law in the province, for their part regard
such a step with favor as it could help the security officers to
restore peace on the islands.

"Although martial law will not necessarily solve the problems
in Maluku, it will provide a conducive situation for us to
conduct operations to put an end to the unrest," military
spokesman Rear Admiral Graito Usodo said.

As things stand at present, with no end to the conflict in
sight, even the United States government has felt compelled to
openly express its concerns over the situation in Maluku.

What especially troubles the U.S. government, according to the
statement issued by State Department spokesman Philip Reeker in
Washington on Wednesday, is "that the security forces have proven
either unwilling or unable to stop the large-scale attacks on
communities." So, the American government is asking the
government of Indonesia "to take immediate and effective measures
to prevent further bloodshed."

Coming so soon at the heels of the U.S. State Department
statement, Friday's announcement by President Abdurrahman Wahid
of the travel ban to Maluku may appear to be a somewhat overhasty
response. But whether or not this is indeed the case, questions
could be asked as to the effectiveness of the measure.

One may recall that a few months ago the President ordered the
police and military to prevent any Laskar Jihad fighters from
traveling to Maluku, where they had vowed to wage a holy war
against the Christians. The ban was never implemented, as
evidenced by the reported presence of thousands of Laskar Jihad
fighters in Maluku. Military authorities have admitted that it
does not have the means to control ship movements in the waters
of Maluku's hundreds of islands.

In the meantime, Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono believes
that the trouble in Maluku may be directed, or at least financed,
by "elements of the old regime" in Jakarta. If this is true --
and, coming from the Minister of Defense, it must have been made
on the basis of solid intelligence information -- it would seem
that any "immediate and effective measures" such as the U.S.
State Department has in mind should be taken in Jakarta, rather
than Maluku -- by attacking the scourge at the source.