M. Taufiqurrahman The Jakarta Post Jakarta
A senior United Nations official in Jakarta said on Monday that economic hardships contributed greatly to the outbreak of a spate of sectarian conflicts in the country, and that the world body had committed itself to improving the livelihood of those people affected by the conflicts.
Head of the Office for the Coordination of the Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Michael Elmquist said despite a myriad of problems that had ignited sectarian conflicts in Poso, Central Sulawesi, Sambas, West Kalimantan and Maluku, in the end, most of them boiled down to economic problems.
"Saying that ethnic or religious affinity is the primary cause of the conflicts is too simplistic an explanation, because the underlying cause builds up when a certain group are marginalized by the presence of other groups that pose challenges towards its domination," he told a seminar to commemorate the International Day of Peace here.
Consequently, most of the projects undertaken by the UN and concerned non-governmental organizations in support of peace- building efforts were aimed at improving the livelihood of the victims of the conflict, he said.
"Simply put, when a village population is busily engaged in a food-for-work project, they do not have the time nor inclination to start fighting the neighboring village," he said.
Currently, several UN agencies are making efforts to build peace in a number of regions that were ravaged by sectarian conflicts.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is conducting a large-scale recovery program for Maluku and North Maluku, which involves over 50 individual projects totaling US$12.5 million.
The UN's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is presently providing livelihood support to resettle internally displaced persons in North Maluku province, while OCHA is ensuring effective coordination among agencies involved in the peace- building campaign.
The UN official made a note, however, that building peace in such a volatile environment could not be accomplished overnight.
For example, he said sectarian clashes in Ambon recurred even after both sides agreed to sign a peace accord, and that this pointed to a need to involve the grass roots in the peace process.
After the fall of the Soeharto regime, bloody sectarian conflicts broke out in a number of areas where religious or ethnic groups were evenly distributed within the population.
The sectarian conflict in Maluku has taken its toll with the deaths of up to 6,000 people and displacing more than 350,000 others. In neighboring Poso, the conflict between Muslims and Christians has killed some 2,000 people.
"It is more efficient to start at grassroots level, but be persistent and let the process take the time it needs," Elmquist said.