Maluku traditional leaders face daunting challenge

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Ambon

While the parties responsible for three years of communal conflict in Maluku have yet to be made accountable, residents welcome the many peace initiatives, including one involving the raja or traditional leaders. They held a large gathering last month, and the following is a report.

Villagers in Muslim-dominated Seith on the western tip of Ambon island watched in bemusement as their main guest, a Christian traditional leader, enjoyed durian with the other guests on one rainy January day. Months ago they had thronged to see the arrival of this guest, Theresia Maimutu, the rare female raja or traditional leader of the Passo village, which was feared as a hardliner Protestant base.

Seith and other neighboring villages along the Jezirah Leihutu coast had been the "sending" areas of Muslim "troops" involved in "war" with the Christians during the Maluku conflict, which started in January 1999. An unofficial estimate puts the lost lives at 9,000.

It was nearly impossible to imagine the scenes of bloodshed during this welcoming party of Jan. 12, hosted by the Seith raja, Mahfud Nukuhehe.

The welcoming gathering around papeda (boiled sago) and grilled fish seemed natural, but it was only possible after a slow process begun in 1999, with the help of the Ambon-based Pattimura University and the Jakarta-based Baku Bae movement.

Six Muslim and six Christian raja, including the above two, were approached gradually by unrelenting facilitators including former war lords who had earlier undergone a similar process -- confronting each other, yelling accusations at each other before they could listen to possible alternatives to avoid further loss.

Both leaders had recited how they faced resistance from their people who could only think of vengeance. Meetings were held in Java and Bali given that all participants and organizers would be exposed to risks in Maluku.

However, along with peace making attempts by other groups in society, they slowly built up support -- until on Jan. 9 a three- day gathering of 110 Muslim and Christian raja started in Ambon.

Pledging to rebuild Maluku, they vowed to take an active role in promoting pluralism despite differences. Apart from urging several measures in areas such as refugees, education and law enforcement, they also raised the need to revive the role of the raja -- whose territory, the negari, would be more or less equal to a subdistrict of a population of a few hundred to a few thousand people.

As in other areas in the country, the raja and the traditional system of government was forcefully replaced by the uniform system of civil and military administration of the New Order. However residents of Ambon island and also the Kei Kecil islands further south said these leaders are still respected.

Nevertheless, "outside forces were too strong", said an activist, Yos F. Rettobjaan in Langgur town in Kei Kecil (Little Kei), of the clashes which also hit these islands.

A number of Muslim and Christian raja of the Ambon island had said they had immediately issued joint statements following the first days of the violence in January 1999, but the appeals against being dragged into what quickly became a "religious" war was drowned in the daily attacks.

The Kei Kecil islands have often been cited as a unique example -- killings and attacks ended in barely three months. Here, blood is thicker than religion, locals say.

"Religion only came yesterday," says Jance Renoat of Elaar Lumngoran, a village a few hours from Langgur town. Among their elders there are still those who are not attached to any major religion, another resident said. When propagators of different religions came, in the sake of "fairness", locals say, families split up offspring into Muslims, Catholics and Protestants, who settled in neighboring villages. Hence the unspeakable pain when villagers found their own in-laws among those attacking them, just a few months after violence erupted in Ambon in 1999.

The raja say their role is now essential given what they say is the failure of several peace attempts in Maluku, though they acknowledge positive results of government-sponsored measures such as the Malino peace agreement of February 2001 and the ongoing civil emergency status. The link to the grass roots remains the raja, historians said in the gathering.

Although the colonial Dutch rule used the traditional structure to secure rights to trade and exploit local resources, historian R. Leirizza said that after the Dutch rule, "the role of the raja as a means of social integration was maintained".

However he said this legacy must somehow be reinvented to meet today's sweeping changes in Maluku.

Another historian, Saleh Putuhena, said that in the old days, in the event of a violent dispute in a village, traditional leaders could reject the presence of police or security forces.

"The raja would say, 'these are my people, I will take care of the matter and summon you if I need to'," Saleh said.

Apart from reinforcing the raja, many want the revival of the traditional inter-village ties which bonds people of different religions, the pela gandong. The clashes are proof to many how weak this tradition was; while people knew they were of the same marga or extended family, as indicated by their surnames, any remaining traditional ties went up in ashes as religious identities were reinforced, it seems, with the identification of each victim that was either killed or evicted from his home, or the stories of refugees flowing into the villages.

However tradition must be reinvented; the pela gandong, some researchers point out, did not really embrace the thousands of largely Muslim migrants who came to dominate Maluku's economy, and who were into the third generation in Maluku before many were driven out back to their "original" areas where many no longer have family connections.

Among Muslims and Christians, "The pela gandong was largely limited to building mosques or churches together", wrote Jamal Bake, M. Abas and Rinusu in their book on communal conflicts.

The historian R. Leirizza said one immediate challenge of the leaders would be to ensure that Maluku's estimated 25,000 refugees return to their villages in Maluku -- an almost impossible task where Christians or Muslims are minorities.

This is a crucial condition to other efforts to improve education, the economy, law enforcement and security, Leirizza said. "A solid customary administration would ensure social integration and peace in Maluku," he told the January gathering.

Any attempt to revive the role of the raja would entail strict public screening of the person's integrity and abilities. Traditionally hereditary, today's raja also share the blame for the environmental damage and poverty in Maluku.

In Kei Kecil, much of the land has been sold to developers with little compensation to locals, a transaction made possible by the traditional leaders. Neighboring villages also have a traditional right to benefit from land and sea resources, the limits of which are determined by the raja, Rettobjaan, who chairs the Hivlak environmental NGO, said.

But without the intervention of NGOs such as Hivlak, he said a significant portion of the coast and the sea in the forefront of a Langgur village might have been sold to a developer, despite the fact that many residents of the village and its neighbors fish in the waters.

For now, as leaders have made peace, people can go about their daily business with more confidence. The reconciliation of the raja, one local said, would at least help guarantee safety in crossing Muslim or Christian predominant areas by land.

"We wouldn't have to spend so much time and money on the speedboats," she said.