JP/6/SANTI

JP/6/SANTI

North Maluku, a greater disaster in the waiting

Santi W.E. Soekanto
Contributor
Ternate, Maluku

Ridwan Miraj, the chief of Muhajirin district in Ternate City,
fought back tears. He was watching the Loloda and Galela refugees
sheltering in his neighborhood pack their meager belongings
accumulated over the past three years of their displacement. The
next day, from Ternate Port, they would crowd into two ferries --
Nur Jaya IV and Elite Perkasa -- that would take them back to the
villages that they abandoned at the height of the Christian-
Muslim conflict in North Maluku.

"I am sad to finally see all of them go home, because I don't
know what awaits them. These people have been wounded to their
core. Their souls have been hurt," said Ridwan, who has been, in
essence, caring for more than 1,300 refugees in his district
alone.

Many of those refugees have been living in cramped quarters --
half-burned buildings and abandoned warehouses -- where
tuberculosis, malaria, and respiratory tract infections haunted
them and poor sanitation and lack of clean water caused repeat
outbreaks of diarrhea.

"No, I feel no relief that these people are finally leaving.
They have been a responsibility for me," Ridwan said. "But
there'll be other responsibilities awaiting me."

This includes the possibility of this particular batch of
refugees -- sent off home by acting governor Sinyo Harri
Sarundayang on Aug. 19 -- returning to Ternate for shelter if
they find that their homeland is not yet the friendly place they
used to know before the outbreak of violence in 1999.

That has happened with earlier attempts at returning refugees
to certain areas where conflicts have yet to really die down such
as in Tobelo regency.

"Who can guarantee the two most important things for refugees,
namely security and adequate living facilities?" asked Ummi Baba,
an eloquent 37-year-old refugee from Dufa-dufa who has been
sheltering in an abandoned Ternate nightclub. "We know how
contractors hired to provide us with living quarters have cut
corners and built shelters that crumbled after only one year."

Saadah, 50, looked down at the grave of her son-in-law who
died in one of the eruptions of violence in 2000, and asked,
"What will happen when we return in large numbers and the 'people
next door' refuse to relinquish the barracks that they now
occupy?"

Saadah from Tobelo took shelter in Ternate 2000. She returned
to her village recently and fled again to Ternate shortly
afterward when armed assailants attacked the Muslim villages and
killed three men in August. The quaint expression "people next
door" is used by North Maluku Muslims for their erstwhile
Christian neighbors.

Following the first eruption of violence in North Maluku in
late 1999, thousands have been killed and many more thousands
have been scattered in various refugee camps. As of September,
more than half of the initial 90,000 refugees sheltering in
Ternate City have been returned to their home villages. Thousands
more remain, especially those from Tobelo, contributing to a
powder-keg situation.

Disease, abuse, drugs, alcoholism and prostitution are on top
of social burdens such as street children. Mito, 10, is one among
those children begging on the streets of Ternate: He lost not
only his parents in a bomb blast but also his right hand while
scars marked his limbs.

"Girls as young as 15 years old have become prostitutes, as
have some widows of the syuhada (Muslim martyrs) because life as
a refugee is unbearable," said Ummi Baba.

"Prostitution and alcohol are being sold blatantly in several
spots of the town and some cafes, backed by unscrupulous security
officials," said Habib Muhammad, a local Muslim teacher, who
leads Amar Ma'ruf Nahyi Munkar, a force of hundreds of Muslim
youths ready to fight social vices. The local security, however,
sees them as illegal pam swakarsa or independent security forces.

"In September last year we raided one cafe in Bastiong area
where there was prostitution and alcohol. We destroyed the place.
The owner came out and shot one of the youths. He was later
stabbed but survived," Habib said. "But, last February, the cafe
was reopened and it is now thriving."

"These refugees must leave soon. All of them," said Abdul Gani
Kasuba, another Muslim leader, last August. "This town is simply
no longer able to take care of this burden," he said, echoing the
determination of chief social welfare minister Jusuf Kalla that
"the problem of 1.3 million of internally displaced people must
be solved by the end of 2002."

The same determination is shown by the administration of
acting governor of North Maluku, Sinyo Harry Sarundayang.

However, sending refugees home is no easy matter not only due
to the lack of facilities but because there is no guarantee for
their security (this, after all, is an administration where a
leading official is being accused of embezzling Rp 79 billion of
aid for the refugees).

Neither is it an easy matter in a conflict where, it is known,
the security authorities are split into two camps. Many people
feel that the police elite force Brimob, regardless of the small
number posted in North Maluku, are siding with the Muslims while
the Indonesian Military (TNI) troops have been suspected of
siding with the Christians.

"This creates a situation of 'controlled calm' in Ternate,"
said a local Muslim fighter. "Anything could go off any time.
Fighting could break out again, and we'd have more bloodshed,
especially if the government forces the repatriation of Tobelo
Muslim refugees because the Tobelo Christians have clearly
rejected them."

"They'll start killing us again," said Saadah.

The same could be said for any Christian wishing to return
home to Ternate, which is now controlled by the Muslim side and
where abandoned churches have became refugee camps. Not many
Christians -- who fled the unrest to Christian-dominated regions
such as North Sulawesi -- would dare return to Ternate and
reclaim their properties.

"You're dead!" one Muslim youth hissed at a passing Christian
man who returned to Ternate because as a civil servant he had to
work. Before the unrest, the two were close friends.

In the meantime, a 17-year-old Muslim boy who found the
decapitated head of his father and his worn-out jacket, still
spends any spare time sharpening his machetes. Hatred in his
eyes, he vowed: "I'll be ready this time around."