Reconciliation: Not just ending the violence

Reconciliation: Not just ending the violence

Ignas Kleden, Sociologist, The Center for East Indonesian Affairs,
Jakarta

Conflict and conflict resolution used to be seen as very
closely related. However, between the two things there is a great
distance, in which different problems emerge and where some
intermediate initiatives can be taken.

First, most of the horizontal conflicts since the end of the
New Order have been accompanied by violence. People are murdered,
injured or harassed, houses are burnt, hospitals and school
buildings are destroyed, streets are closed, and waste disposal
does not function.

The conflicts might still go on for some time until the most
important factors leading to its occurrence have been
satisfactorily settled. However, it does mean that no action can
be taken to stop violence in the meantime.

One should never look at the termination of violence as
identical with conflict resolution or reconciliation. People must
wait for some time until real conflict resolution can take place,
but the government can and should take direct and quick action to
stop the escalation of violence.

Secondly, most of the conflicts originate in casus belli which
often turns out to be trivial affairs. If this casus belli can be
identified, clarified and contained at the earliest possible
stage, many conflicts could have been prevented from escalating.
Yet the original cause is usually left in the dark though there
is enough evidence to make it publicly clear. This takes place so
frequently that the question is whether it has been done so
intentionally. This uncertainty has brought about many rumors,
disinformation, action and reaction resulting in increasing
insecurity which is very liable to explode in violent conflict.

The role of the security apparatus, and the role of police in
particular, is instrumental in clarifying the casus belli and
consequently in preventing people from getting trapped in
unnecessary disorientation, confusion and destruction.

Thirdly, given the fact that many horizontal conflicts could
not be solved yet, some rescue action should be taken to
alleviate the sufferings and the hardships of those who are
victimized by the ongoing conflicts. These actions can also
function to reduce the destruction of infrastructure such as
hospitals, schools, market places and buildings for religious
service. Therefore any rescue initiative should be taken right
away despite the fact that conflicts are still going on, this
being necessary because of two main reasons.

On the one hand, people affected by the violence have the
right to relief and security. Those injured not because of their
own mistakes deserve help and relief service though (or rather
because) they are not in the position to pay for it.

Also, the destruction of physical infrastructures should be
reduced gradually and should be terminated eventually to prevent
people living in conflict from believing that they are trapped in
an insurmountable abnormality. This impression is instrumental to
reduce the feeling of insecurity which becomes the very first
prerequisite for being ready and prepared for reconciliation.

On the other hand, rescue actions and rehabilitation
initiatives can distract the attention of the people concerned
from being preoccupied with fighting one another. In various
places a great part of their time and energy is already used for
this purpose and they are less prepared to fight and to kill
though they want to do so.

Of course there is a heated debate as to whether
rehabilitation initiatives are of any avail if conflict
resolution has not yet been attained. What if all the energy has
been spent on rebuilding schools or restoring a demolished
hospital, and right after that another conflict explodes and the
new building is destroyed?

Conflict resolution and rehabilitation cannot be treated as an
either/or choice but rather as a complementary package --
rehabilitation should be treated as a means for conflict
resolution.

The third problem regarding conflict and its resolutions is
that people in many communities are fairly familiar with conflict
and have had their own conflict resolution methods ever since
time immemorial. There have always been conflicts pertaining to
land, marriage systems, or customary law. However, most of these
conflicts could have been solved through traditional conflict-
resolution institutions.

Given the importance of these institutions, we must remember
the different situation between regions whose culture is fairly
homogeneous and those where a great variety of cultural systems
exist. In the former case it is easier to rely on traditional
institutions because people refer and orient themselves to the
same institutions.

In the latter case however, the institutions may be different
from one place to another, or the immigrants might stand aloof
from their own traditional institutions. In this case the role of
the state law might be more important than the customary law.

However many of the traditional conflict-resolution
institutions have been destroyed during today's conflicts. The
destruction of these peace-making institutions is conducted not
by the people in those communities, but rather by "external
forces".

Why is it so difficult to identify and to capture these
trouble-makers, who paralyze the life of local communities by
destroying their traditional institutions?

Fourth, the discussion about the top-down and bottom-up
approaches in management can never become more significant than
in matters pertaining to conflict resolution. The experiences
with local and communal conflicts have given us a good lesson
that people's participation is essential to any effort for
reconciliation.

This does not necessarily mean that the government should only
wait and see. The point is that the government can and should
take initiatives to restore peace and security, but these
initiatives can be done if these can motivate and persuade people
to engage in the preparation and implementation of conflict
resolution. It is no use to see and to treat people living in
conflicts as an objective of conflict management engineered from
outside or from up above. They are by no means a mere target but
the very agents of conflict resolution and reconciliation, whose
involvement and participation can never be done away with.

The failure of Malino II, the peace pact for the Maluku
conflict, is to be attributed to the conflict management bias of
the initiators, in this case Coordinating Minister for People's
Welfare Jusuf Kalla, despite the government's good intention and
serious effort. The physical and psychological conditions which
are to be restored are so destroyed that any effort which tries
to force a quick recovery would produce new vulnerability,
resentment and restiveness.

The only possible way is long, or lengthy, boring, and
protracted dialog, in which the facilitators should be prepared
to listen to much anger, blame and misgivings before they can win
trust of those involved in conflicts, namely people who are more
liable to suspect than to believe, to discard than to listen, to
take something seriously or to look at it as nonsense.

In such conditions a real dialog is not necessary -- yet
almost impossible because every party tends to speak of their own
case and are ignorant or indifferent towards the affairs of the
other party.