Local concentration of social violence in Indonesia
Mohammad Zulfan Tadjoeddin Research Associate United Nations Support Facility for Indonesian Recovery (UNSFIR) Jakarta zulfan.unsfir@un.or.id
Indonesia is often characterized as a troubled country ridden with conflict and violence in every region. Is this characterization correct? To answer this question, we need to examine carefully data relating to violent social conflict. In this context, violent social conflict is defined as conflict between two distinct social groups that cannot be institutionalized and which turns into violent actions.
The preliminary results of a recently developed social conflict database for Indonesia compiled by the UN Support Facility for Indonesian Recovery (UNSFIR), a join project of the Government of Indonesia and UNDP, show that social conflicts and violence in Indonesia are locally concentrated in only a few provinces and districts, although their social, political and economic impacts are nationally felt.
A preliminary analysis of this database reveals two interesting features. First, communal violence is the most severe category of social violence, followed by separatist violence. Between 1990 and 2001, the data show that communal and separatist violence caused maximum fatalities, accounting for 77 percent and 22 percent of total deaths in social violence, respectively. Here, communal violence is defined as social violence between two groups of the community, or one group being attacked by the other. Communal groups can be based on ethnicity, religion, social class, political affiliation or simple village differences and so on.
Second, social violence in Indonesia is primarily locally concentrated. While separatist violence only occurred in Aceh and Papua, communal violence was concentrated in several districts or cities. Based on the conditions before the formation of new administrative regions by the ongoing decentralization, only eight regions (7 districts and 1 city) account for an enormously disproportionate distribution of communal violence in the country; approximately 65 percent of total deaths in communal violence. Based on the 1995 Inter-Population Census (SUPAS), however, these eight regions represent a mere 1.9 percent of Indonesia's population. The eight regions are four districts and one city in Maluku (the districts of North Maluku, Central Maluku, Southeast Maluku and Central Halmahera, and the city of Ambon), plus three other districts; namely Poso of Sulawesi, and East Kotawaringin and Sambas of Kalimantan. More than ninety- eight percent of Indonesia's population has not been "communal riot-prone".
The local concentration of social conflicts in a large country is not a phenomenon unique to Indonesia. India, the world's second largest country after China in terms of total population, also shows a local concentration of communal conflicts -- in this case Hindu-Muslim violence. The local concentration of communal violence in India is one of the most interesting findings in the research done by Prof. Ashutosh Varshney, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. The study was published by Yale University Press, 2002, under the title of Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India.
Professor Varshney concludes that, first, the share of villages in communal rioting turned out to be remarkably small. Between 1950 and 1995, rural India, where two-thirds of Indians still live, accounted for about 4 percent of the deaths in communal violence. Hindu-Muslim violence is primarily an urban phenomenon. Secondly, within urban India too, Hindu-Muslim riots are highly locally concentrated. Only eight cities account for a hugely disproportionate share of communal violence in the country; approximately 46 percent of all deaths in Hindu-Muslim violence. As a group, however, these eight cities represent a mere 18 percent of India's urban population, and about 5 percent of the country's total population, both urban and rural. Eighty- two percent of India's urban population has not been "riot- prone".
In contrast to India, however, communal violence in Indonesia tends to be less concentrated in urban areas. Even though the data needs some refinement, the incidents of social violence mainly occurred in districts and small towns. Communal conflicts in Maluku, Poso, Sambas and East Kotawaringin (Sampit) are more a battle between communities in rural areas.
Understanding of such facts -- that social violence in Indonesia, like in India, is locally concentrated -- should bring significant implications in analyzing conflicts and exploring Indonesia's policy choices.
Although characterized by high local concentration, social conflicts (mainly communal conflicts) in Indonesia have resulted in nationally distributed impacts. This can be seen from the following indicators: internally displaced persons (IDPs), budget pressure, the destroyed image of the country and the exhausted national energy to overcome this problem.
There are now approximately 1.3 million IDPs spread across 21 provinces, largely victims of highly location-specific social violence. Their existence will certainly put pressure on local governments economically, politically and socially. IDPs from Aceh are mainly spread in North Sumatra, and partly in Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, and up to West, Central and East Java. East Java and especially Madura are the main destinations of IDPs from Sambas and Sampit. Poso IDPs flood its neighboring regions. Maluku IDPs spread in all Sulawesi, Papua and up to Java. Furthermore, the remaining East Timorese IDPs are still left in East Nusa Tenggara. All of them need housing, jobs, social infrastructure and other economic, social and cultural rights that have disappeared because of conflicts.
The required intervention for humanitarian aid and post- conflict recovery has caused severe budgetary problems for both national and regional governments. It adds to the current budget pressure due to the economic crisis and the mountain of public debt.
Violent conflicts in Indonesia have destroyed the image of the country in international eyes with adverse consequences for tourism and investments. Even though Indonesia has a large domestic market, the perception of an unsafe country, a brutal society and an inefficient police and military unable to control law and order is driving away investors and tourists.
In general, conflicts have exhausted national energy for reconciliation and rehabilitation efforts, humanitarian aid, as well as efforts to prevent conflicts erupting into violence in other regions. The recovery, rehabilitation and reconciliation in conflict prone areas are becoming more complicated due to the reality that sometimes, local conflicts cannot be isolated from politics at the national level.
The knowledge that social conflict in Indonesia has a high degree of local concentration should improve the common understanding of conflict in this country. Even though locally concentrated, conflicts have produced nation wide economic, political and social impacts. Therefore, national efforts are needed to overcome those conflicts. As part of such efforts, UNSFIR, in collaboration with several other institutions, is now pioneering the establishment of social conflict database for Indonesia to be used by a number of users.
The views expressed herein are entirely personal