The players behind the Maluku madness

The players behind the Maluku madness

By George J. Aditjondro

NEWCASTLE, Australia (JP): Thousands of people have died in
Maluku, once known as the Spice Islands, in what seems to be a
religious war between Christians and Muslims.

Official estimates have put the death toll at 3,000. However,
Rev. John Barr from the Uniting Church of Australia has put the
death toll at around 10,000, a figure that has been confirmed by
this writer's sources in Maluku and Australia. It includes the
nearly 500 refugees whose boat capsized in the stormy waters
between North Maluku and North Sulawesi last month.

Unfortunately, this tragedy has not attracted much concern in
Australia, despite the fact that Maluku played a similar role to
East Timor during World War II. At that time over 1,100
Australian troops were sent to Ambon, the provincial capital, to
protect Australia from the Japanese invasion.

The Australian war cemetery in the city of Ambon, near
Pattimura University, is a silent testimony to the sacrifices of
hundreds of Australian diggers that were killed in battle over
Ambon.

Pattimura University itself, however, has recently been burned
to the ground by a new invasion; namely the invasion of
reportedly up to 10,000 Laskar Jihad fighters who sailed to
Maluku with, it is alleged, the tacit support of top ranking
officers who seem to be still loyal to the disposed Gen. Wiranto,
supposedly to "liberate" their brothers and sisters in Maluku
from "religious cleansing" by Christians in Maluku.

Despite the state of civil emergency decreed by President
Abdurrahman Wahid, the killings have still continued. Therefore,
it is important to dissect the forces that are behind the
violence and explore ways for the Indonesian government and its
friendly neighbors to rescue the remaining people of Maluku from
further extermination.

Early this month, Minister of Defense Juwono Sudarsono said in
public that "based on our intelligence reports there are strong
indications that former cronies of Soeharto are supplying arms
and personnel to areas afflicted with conflict, particularly in
the Malukus, East Timor, West Irian and certainly in Aceh."

Later army officers and civilians linked to both Soeharto and
B.J. Habibie were mentioned. He said the aim was to undermine the
credibility of the President and the government.

As was the case in the postreferendum violence in East Timor,
the inter-religious riots in Maluku, which erupted in January
1999, were reportedly well-planned and prepared by officers and
politicians loyal to Soeharto with, initially, two goals.

First, to destabilize one of the strongholds of Megawati
Soekarnoputri, who was then the strongest presidential candidate
to replace Soeharto's hand-picked successor B.J. Habibie.

Secondly, to create unrest in places where the then armed
forces commander Gen. Wiranto wanted to revive regional military
commands (Kodam) abolished by his predecessor, Gen. Benny
Moerdani.

Indeed, four months after the inter-religious violence began
in Ambon, the old Pattimura Military Command was revived,
covering the entire Maluku archipelago. Similar attempts to
revive regional military commands in Kupang, Pontianak, and
Padang have not been that successful.

While the violence in Ambon and on the nearby islands
continued, and with more troops flown in from Java and South
Sulawesi, the old Maluku province was soon divided into the
predominantly Muslim province of North Maluku with its capital in
Ternate and the religiously balanced province of Maluku, with
Ambon as its capital.

After initially using Ambonese gangsters as a smokescreen,
paramilitary forces close to Soeharto and troops loyal to
Wiranto, sources say, maintained the momentum of killings and
destruction by continuously inflicting casualties on both sides
that cried out for revenge.

Exhausted and saddened by the killings, Christian and Muslim
leaders in Ambon repeatedly tried to make peace between the two
groups. Repeatedly, however, two intelligence officers in the
Pattimura Military Command, allegedly made sure that peace could
not be restored.

Sources say one of the colonels maintains links with the
Christian militia in Ambon, while the other maintains links with
the Muslim militias, who are currently strengthened by the Laskar
Jihad fighters from Java and South Sulawesi.

When Maj. Gen. Max Tamaela, the Christian Ambonese Pattimura
Military commander, was recently replaced by the Hindu-Balinese
Col. I Made Yasa, those two intelligence officers were kept in
their place by the powers that be in Jakarta.

In fact, the two men probably know Maluku better than the new
Pattimura Military commander, since they were both stationed in
Ambon before the Pattimura Military Command was revived under
Suaidy Marasabessy, a Muslim Ambonese officer close to Wiranto.

Currently, two other interest groups are allegedly involved in
maintaining the violence in Maluku. The first group are radical
Muslims who oppose Gus Dur's presidency and are allegedly
financially backed by a former finance minister under Soeharto.

The second group consists of Indonesian business conglomerates
who benefit from the troubles in Maluku to escape from their
obligations to pay trillions of rupiah of debt to Indonesian
banks.

The first group reportedly sent the Laskar Jihad to Maluku.
The bulk of these fighters are naive villagers who believe in the
existence of an international Christian plot to dismantle the
Indonesian Republic, which, in their eyes, began with the
liberation of East Timor.

They are assisted by soldiers and deserters from the
Indonesian Military and police.

It is alleged the second group consists of several
conglomerates which have close links to the Soeharto family.

With officers loyal to Wiranto deeply entrenched in the armed
forces, Gus Dur and his deputy have their hands and feet tied in
trying to end the violence in Maluku.

In fact, the ongoing violence is basically being maintained by
their opponents, who continue to play political football with the
lives of the Maluku people. It has been said that every time
Soeharto or Wiranto are interrogated, a new wave of violence
flares up in Maluku.

Therefore, Australia and the countries of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should seriously lobby friendly
nations without predominantly Muslim and/or Christian
populations, such as India, Thailand, South Korea and Japan, to
play a more active role in ending the violence in Maluku.

Australian military cooperation with Indonesia should be
postponed until the Indonesian Military can prove its
impartiality in domestic disputes such as in Maluku. A trade
embargo with Indonesian companies which benefit from the violence
in Maluku is also recommended.

Certainly, Australian military cooperation with Indonesia
should not be normalized as long as the perpetrators of human
rights violations in East Timor are not taken to court and are
allowed to foment unrest in Maluku and other parts of the
Indonesian archipelago.

Dr George J. Aditjondro teaches at the department of sociology
and anthropology at the University of Newcastle in Australia. He
specializes in the cultures of Papua, Maluku, Timor and Flores.
He carried out extensive interviews with sources in Jakarta,
Maluku, Germany and Australia regarding the unrest in Maluku.