Law enforcement most vital step for Maluku

Yogita Tahilramani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Stricter law enforcement through the disarmament of militant groups from the two warring factions -- Muslim and Christian -- in the strife-torn province of Maluku is badly needed to help stop the three-year sectarian conflict in the area.

Sociologist Ignas Kleden underlined the importance of stricter law enforcement because it constituted the key to the settlement of the conflicts.

It was up to law enforcers to disarm militant groups in Maluku, he told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

Ignas made the remarks in response to a peace agreement reached by the two opposing factions in Malino, about 70 kilometers to the northeast of the South Sulawesi provincial capital of Makassar on Tuesday.

The agreement, which was designed to end the violence in Maluku, rejects the presence of all militias, including the Muslim militant group, Laskar Jihad. It was the latter that, with the reported blessing of security forces, sent thousands of fighters to Maluku in May 2000.

The peace deal also calls for an independent inquiry into the activities of Laskar Jihad as well as into two Christian separatist movements -- the Front for the Sovereignty of Maluku and the South Maluku Republic (RMS).

The pact says all unauthorized armed groups should surrender their weapons or be disarmed.

The fact, however, was that "the officers sometimes do not have the will to disarm the militant groups due to vested interests or due to certain factors .... The officer might be a Christian and told to disarm the Christian groups which he supports, for instance. Or officers might not be courageous enough to disarm militant members," Ignas said.

"The officers need to bridge (religious) differences between themselves first ... before taking action against militants," he reminded.

Another sociologist Thamrin Amal Tomagola shared Ignas' remarks, saying that those who instigated the violence in Maluku should be tried in court but not in the "near future".

"Muslims and Christians who instigated violence in Maluku should be tried, but not now and not in the near future," Thamrin said, adding that a certain amount of trust should be encouraged and allowed to develop between the rival communities before people were tried for violence in Maluku.

"Trying Muslims or Christians in Maluku courts now would prove to be disastrous ... past experience has taught us this," he said.

Thamrin was referring to the fact that like Maluku, Central Sulawesi also was plagued by religious rivalries between the Christian and Muslim communities, particularly in Poso.

The conflict, which was on the verge of resolution, suddenly exploded into full-blown violence when the Palu District Court sentenced three Christians, charged for their role in the bloody violence of Poso, to death in April 2001.

The death sentences sparked fresh violence in Poso because Christians regarded the sentences as biased, as Muslims had not been tried.

In comparison, not a single person has been sentenced to jail over the three-year Maluku sectarian violence, which has reportedly claimed over 6,000 lives and displaced at least 700,000 people.

Failure to uphold the law in court is mainly caused by the fact that most of Maluku's judges and prosecutors fled from the province during the violence. The judges and prosecutors who remained sometimes could not deliver proper verdicts, Thamrin said.

"If the judge or prosecutor is Muslim, for instance, and the defendant is Christian, an appropriate verdict will not be issued. Likewise, if the judge is Christian and the defendant is a Muslim, again, a proper verdict is not issued ... hundreds of cases have piled up in the courts. The courts have been paralyzed due to the conflicts."

The National Police Headquarters stated in 2000 that nearly 900 suspects had been arrested over the sectarian violence, but there was no way that the trials could be held due to the limited availability of judges, court clerks and prosecutors.

The government's fear of the militant groups also seemed to play a role in the failure in bringing such cases to court.

A classic example is the release of Laskar Jihad Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jamaah commander Ja'far Umar Thalib, a murder suspect, from police custody on June 13 last year. Ja'far was arrested in May last year at Juanda Airport in Surabaya, East Java, on charges of inciting religious violence and ordering the murder of one of his followers, Abdullah, who was stoned to death in Maluku earlier last year for adultery.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saleh Saaf said on Wednesday that the case was still being processed by the National Police.

"We are still collecting evidence to build a case," Saleh told The Post.