Maluku people need moral movement

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The majority of people in conflict-ridden Maluku reject the government top-down approach to end the prolonged conflict and instead favor a local moral initiative called the Bakubae Movement to stop the violence, according to an opinion poll.

The poll results presented here on Friday show that most respondents, Moluccan people both in Maluku and Java, are disappointed with the way the government and security authorities have handled the conflict since it erupted on Jan. 19, 1999.

The poll was jointly conducted by the Babubae Movement and the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) in March and April. The results were presented by Ichsan Malik and Abubakar Riry, both of the Bakubae Movement and Irianto Sub of YLBHI.

Of 1,400 respondents in 70 locations in Maluku and 30 areas in the provincial capital of Ambon, almost 26 percent said that security personnel had acted excessively and worsened the conflict while 24.6 percent said security personnel were neutral in handling the conflict. Only 23 percent said security personnel had acted fairly.

Abubakar said the government had carried out a series of top- down actions, including the peace talks in Malino, South Sulawesi in February and the recent appointment of Maj. Gen. Djoko Santoso as new chief of the security restoration operation, but they were ineffective.

"In fact, the people gave no response to the government's new move, meaning the people no longer care for the government's top- down approach just because they see no more conflict at the grassroots level," he said.

Ichsan said that according to the poll, with the ineffective civil emergency administration, the state represented by the central government and the provincial Maluku administration had failed to fulfill its main tasks.

"According to respondents, the conflict is latent in nature, and therefore, must be responded to with various programs to educate the people and empower them. People from both sides should be encouraged to take the initiative to interact with one another to create peaceful conditions in their own social environment," he said.

Ichsan pointed out that according to the poll, 52 percent of respondents felt desperate, scared and disappointed with the presence of both police and military personnel on one side and armed militias on the other.

"Almost 75 percent of respondents said the military involvement would never be able to solve the conflict which has claimed more than 6,000 lives and displaced more than 750,000 people," he said.