Last chance in Maluku
Last chance in Maluku
The imposition of a state of civil emergency in Maluku and
North Maluku on Monday may be too little and too late. This is
certainly the case for the 3,000 people who have died in, and the
hundreds of thousands of others displaced by, the sectarian
clashes which first began in January 1999.
Both former president B.J. Habibie's and President Abdurrahman
Wahid's governments have done very little to try to end the
violence. President Abdurrahman showed his gullibility when, at
the start of his presidency in October, he insisted that the
Maluku problem was essentially a local problem that required
local solutions. Thus for the last nine months, he has virtually
let Muslims and Christians on these islands kill one another,
with minimum attempts of interference from Jakarta.
Now, the conflict has escalated to a point where even the
United States, at the risk of being accused of meddling in
Indonesia's internal affairs, last week made a strong appeal to
Jakarta to take firm action in the Maluku islands. President
Abdurrahman's failure to stop the violence has raised questions
about his ability to govern, not only from the Indonesian public,
but also, and increasingly, from the international community.
Time will tell whether the imposition of a state of emergency
will end the ugly conflict on the Maluku islands. But at the very
least, this token gesture is a sign that the central government
has finally come to its senses and realized the gravity of the
problem.
Under a 1959 law, the President as head of the Civil Emergency
Authority is given virtually unlimited powers to do whatever
necessary to restore peace and order. These powers include
imposing curfews, news blackouts, banning public speeches and
gatherings, isolating regions and arresting people. Whether or
not these measures can stop the senseless killing in the Maluku
islands, however, depends to a large extent on the credibility of
the local authority entrusted with enforcing them.
The President could have declared a military emergency, which
would have given him essentially the same powers except that
their execution would have been in the hands of the military. The
fact that he opted for a civil emergency underscores the
lingering public suspicions of anything that gives too much power
to the military, an institution that has a long history of human
rights abuses. But giving the power of execution to the local
civil authorities in the two provinces will mean little if they
too no longer command the respect of the people they govern.
The declaration of a state of emergency by itself will not
likely be effective in stopping the violence. This is especially
true if the source of the conflict, as the government has
repeatedly stated, comes from people in Jakarta, or more
precisely, from supporters of former president Soeharto. The
presence of Laskar Jihad members in Maluku may have complicated
or widened the conflict, but it is not the real problem.
Isolating Maluku and shipping these warriors back to Java may
ease the situation slightly, but it will not end the fighting.
If the government is serious about ending the conflict, then
it must have the courage to clamp down on those "provocateurs"
whom it says are behind the campaign to destabilize the country.
To this date, in spite of making repeated accusations, the
government has not even had the courage to reveal their real
identity beyond simply defining them as Soeharto supporters.
For all intents and purposes, imposing a state of emergency
may be Jakarta's last opportunity to shore up its respect and
credibility. If, after a reasonable length of time, the killing
continues, then there will be serious questions about the ability
of the central government to rule. If that is put in doubt, not
only will we have to consider bringing in an international
peacekeeping force, something already being sought by some
sections of the warring communities in the Malukus, but we will
also have to reconsider the ability of Jakarta to govern
effectively this vast archipelago.