Peace mission in Ambon

Peace mission in Ambon

The decision by Armed Forces Commander Gen. Wiranto to send a
high-powered delegation to Ambon must come as a relief to many
that someone in the government is finally doing something,
instead of simply trying to talk their way out of this national
catastrophe. Comprising senior and middle ranking officers who
hail from Maluku and are members of all major faiths, the team is
in addition to the fresh battalion of troops deployed to try to
quell unrest in the southern part of the province.

The team can combine persuasion with coercion in its mediation
efforts to restore peace in the province, once regarded as a
model of harmonious coexistence between people of different
religions, more specifically between Muslims and Christians.

Time will tell whether this military team can succeed where
local public and religious leaders have failed, but the presence
of the team, and of the extra troops, should at least put an
immediate end to the senseless killing in the provincial capital
Ambon. The death toll since the communal conflict erupted on Jan.
19 has reached more than 170; many were beginning to wonder how
many more deaths it would take before the government acted.

Wounds inflicted on both sides run so deep that it is
difficult to envisage peace returning overnight. Healing will be
a long and painstaking process, and the military team cannot do
the job alone. If it was that simple, the problem would have been
solved within days of the first clash erupting in January. At
some stage, preferably sooner than later, civilian leaders must
take over the mediation role from the military and the troops
withdrawn, lest the people of Maluku accept the militarization of
their province, with all its dire consequences.

The longer term solution does not lie in the province, but in
the hands of the central government in Jakarta. The conflict in
Ambon is a symptom of the growing distrust the public has of
authority. Many people are losing confidence that the government,
the police, the military and courts of law could protect them and
uphold justice. If the Ambonese had confidence in the authority
and the law in the first place, they would have turned to the
police at the first sign of trouble in January. Instead, they
decided to take the law into their hands.

This problem is not specific to Ambon. We have seen similar
signs of distrust in other provinces, albeit on a smaller scale.
But that is hardly comforting because it raises disturbing
questions of where the next conflict will erupt, how violent it
be and the resulting toll in lost lives.

The list of unresolved cases of injustice is growing by the
day. We are not simply talking about the piles of abuses -- not
to mention miscarriages of justice -- committed during the 32-
year rule of president Soeharto. Many incidents that occurred
during the 10 months of B.J. Habibie's presidency are unresolved,
further undermining what little credibility his government has.
Unrest in Ketapang district in Jakarta, Kupang in East Nusa
Tenggara, killings in Aceh, East Timor, Irian Jaya, the
investigation into the kidnapping of political activists, the
shooting of students at Trisakti University and near the Semanggi
cloverleaf in Jakarta, the slow-moving corruption probe of
Soeharto, his children and cronies, are just some of the recent
examples which the government has shown no firm intent in
resolving. By doing this, it is sending the tacit message that
here you can get away with murder, literally if not figuratively.

Habibie's government was beset by questions of legitimacy from
the start. His only redeeming point was credibility. But if Ambon
is a real test of this quality, then he has failed miserably. The
team sent by Wiranto is a last-ditch attempt to resuscitate that
waning credibility.

Although we all pray that peace will soon be restored in Ambon
and the surrounding islands, we should not rule out the
possibility of bringing in outside mediators should the military
team fail in its mission. At this advanced stage of the conflict,
every possible channel to pursue peace must be kept open, even if
it means sacrificing a little sovereignty. Professions of
national pride ring hollow when too many of our people have died
at the hands of their compatriots.