Traditional leaders meet to help end Maluku strife

Ati Nurbaiti, The Jakarta Post, Ambon, Maluku

More than 100 rajas (traditional leaders) from the Maluku islands will begin a three-day meeting here on Thursday in a bid to bring a complete end to four years of sectarian fighting in the troubled islands following a peace deal.

Taking place at the Pattimura University in the Maluku capital of Ambon, the meeting is part of efforts to restore peace on the islands, where Muslims and Christians have been embroiled in religious conflict since early 1999.

It will bring together at least 110 out of around 210 significant kings and queens from, among other islands, Ambon, Haruku, Saparua, Buru and Banda.

The convention is aimed at bringing about a "master plan" for the conflict-torn province in the areas of education, law, security and small-scale businesses.

Ichsan Malik, coordinator of the meeting, said on Wednesday that the role of traditional leaders was to revive and strengthen the "bottom-up" approach in resolving the conflict and its aftermath, given that they are considered the grassroots leaders in Maluku.

"It is also to fill in the cultural gap, in which the political and economic approaches have failed to stop the bloodshed," he told a news conference ahead of the meeting in Ambon.

The traditional leaders have been sidelined since the autocratic New Order regime of former president Soeharto, whose policy of administration uniformity ruined the rajas' roles in resolving communal conflicts in the country's eastern islands.

The three-day meeting follows months of efforts by the Baku Bae Peace Movement to bring as many of the rajas together to help end the conflict.

The movement had first organized a peace dialog involving a number of Maluku tribal leaders in December 2000 in Yogyakarta to discuss efforts to end the fighting. The second meeting of this kind took place in Bogor, West Java, last year.

Yogyakarta Governor Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, who is also the monarch of the Yogyakarta province, is scheduled to address Thursday's convention. National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar will appear on the final day of the meeting on Saturday.

"The sultan is the only one of the four musketeers. The three others will be Megawati Soekarnoputri, Abdurrahman Wahid and Amien Rais, on whom we can have hope," Ichsan said.

The forum will also highlight the role of intellectuals "who also hold responsibility" for the future of Maluku, said a statement released during the news conference.

Other speakers include noted anthropologist Teuku Jacob, historian R. Leirissa and psychologist Sarlito Wirawan, as well as senior officials such as former Maluku deputy governor Paula B. Renjan.

Religious violence first broke out on Jan. 19, 1999, in Maluku, has since claimed the lives of some 6,000 people. More than 500,000 others were forced to flee their homes.

The rival factions signed a peace deal in February, 2002 in Malino, South Sulawesi, to end the long-standing conflict. It did significantly reduce clashes but sporadic violence has occasionally erupted, especially since the Laskar Jihad militia refused to accept the Malino accord.