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."