Party is over for Indonesia's Banda isles

Party is over for Indonesia's Banda isles

By Chris McCall

BANDANEIRA, Indonesia (Reuters): The rich and famous once came to this island paradise to get away from it all.

Then the blood craze came. The islanders started to kill each other, the churches were smashed, hundreds fled, and the beautiful people couldn't get a flight any more.

Welcome to Indonesia's Banda Islands.

The king of Banda, Des Alwi, keeps a sketch of Princess Diana on a wall of his Maulana Hotel signed "To Des, all the best, Diana."

He rolls off stories of the other famous visitors who have stayed in his hotels in the beautiful islands -- French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, Diana's sister-in-law Sarah Ferguson, Rolling Stone Mick Jagger.

Alwi relates how Jagger gave a crowd of Bandanese autograph hunters the slip by telling them in Indonesian "Mick Jagger masih tidur" -- Mick Jagger is still sleeping.

They came to dive, or to climb Gunung Api, the volcano that sits across a beautiful blue lagoon from Alwi's hotel. Or just to swim in the deep, inviting waters of the Banda Sea.

Diana only managed to stay a day as the press pack caught up with her. But Alwi, chuckling, says he gave them the slip twice for Fergie, to the chagrin of British diplomats in Jakarta.

"The British embassy was ringing up about it," he said.

But then Banda got rough.

As a wave of religious unrest swept through Indonesia's eastern Maluku this year, the Bandas did not escape untouched. First there were waves of refugees from Ambon and the distant Kai islands. Then things got nasty in Banda itself.

Five members of an old colonial family were killed on Banda Besar, the largest island, and the killing of a Moslem youth on Hatta island sparked ugly scenes.

Churches were smashed up and in a dramatic scene Alwi faced off a Moslem mob, and helped hundreds of terrified Christians to get off the islands safely.

Most have not been back.

The flights have pretty much stopped now and islanders use Indonesia's publicly owned Pelni liners to get around. Security forces brandish automatic weapons at the dock when they arrive, to keep order.

The ships tie up right outside Alwi's Maulana Hotel, where the rooms that once housed royalty now stand glaringly empty.

Now 71, Alwi has had quite a life, having been adopted as a child by two of Indonesia's independence heroes. He subsequently fared well in business under former president Soeharto.

Perhaps the end of Banda's tourist trade is not such a bad thing, he muses, as he prepares to drive his boat around his beautiful archipelago. He recalls unpleasant cases of paedophiles visiting Banda, or foreign tourists bringing in narcotics. When will the jetset be back?

"I don't know. I have not the faintest idea," he says.

And how is life without them?

"Quite pleasant."