Recent incidents of unrest 'not caused by religious conflict'

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Leading sociologist Loekman Soetrisno has disclaimed the notion that incidents of unrest in Indonesia over the past few years were sparked by religious conflict.

While religious sentiments could serve as an effective means to mobilize people, conflict was more likely to emerge in communities where members felt severe economic and political frustration, he said in a discussion here Wednesday.

"Religious sentiments can easily be used to mobilize people for negative purposes such as conflict, if the people are already severely frustrated economically and politically," he said revealing the result of a study conducted by Gadjah Mada University's Center for Research and Rural and Regional Development.

Loekman is the head of the center, and the study was financed by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Loekman said that many of the violent incidents evolved around three core problems. The first was the domination of the state over its subjects, leaving the latter feeling helpless before the power.

The second was people's lack of trust in the bureaucracy, due to the latter's insensitivity and poor service. The third, Loekman said, was the massive penetration of capital to rural areas which had robbed the community of control over their own natural resources.

"The granting of forest concession rights to big businesses and the expansion of oil palm plantations in several regions outside of Java has not only reduced people's living space, but also their forest income," he said.

The three problems had triggered people's outrage even over seemingly trivial matters, he said.

In the past two years, Indonesia has been rocked by a number of riots, many of which left a trail of death and destruction. Public properties and houses of worship were also targets in the violence.

The riots occurred in West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Java, West Java, Central Java and some regencies in Irian Jaya.

In Sanggau Ledo regency in West Kalimantan, for instance, thousands of Dayaks people went on a burning and looting rampage on Jan. 2, the aftershock of an earlier ethnic tension that claimed five lives. Thousands of migrants from Madura Island in East Java fled the region which had a long history of feuds between the ethnic groups.

There was no official statement about the actual number of casualties in the unrest, but some people estimated it reached "hundreds."

A participant in Wednesday's discussion questioned Loekman's notion that the unrest was not sparked by religious sentiment, saying that in most of the riots churches were burned and Moslem minorities in some areas also became victims.

Loekman said that the churches and Moslem minorities were turned into an object of people's outrage over a greater, oppressing power. (23)