Will Malino peace deal effectively end Poso conflict? OR Will Malino peace deal be effective? OR Can Malino peace deal end Poso conflict? OR Can Malino Declaration bring peace to Poso? OR Can Malino Declaration return peace to Poso?
Jupriadi The Jakarta Post Malino
Since the Poso conflict erupted in early December 1998, warring factions in the restive regency have signed five peace agreements, including the Malino Declaration signed last Thursday in Malino, a historical town some 77 kilometers northeast of Makassar, the provincial capital of South Sulawesi.
The failure of the previous four peace agreements signed by warring factions was due to the absence of mutual trust.
The death toll has risen from one day to the next and from one clash to the next. So far, according to conservative data from the Poso administration, the prolonged conflict -- which was triggered by an argument between two youths of different religions -- has claimed 577 lives, destroyed 7,932 houses, 27 mosques, 55 churches and one temple. A score of locals has gone missing and thousands of others have been left injured. But according to the Revolutionary Front for Muslim Solidarity, the death toll has reached more than 2,000 and more than 150,000 locals have taken refuge in other regencies and provinces.
Soon after the unrest turned into to a sectarian conflict between local Muslims and Christians, the Poso administration held the first reconciliatory meeting among religious and tribal leaders in Tagalu on Dec. 26, 1998. The religious and tribal leaders held another such a meeting in Tarulemba on Dec. 28, 1998 after the Tagalu peace agreement was breached only one day after it was signed.
South Sulawesi took the initiative to bring delegates of the two warring factions to a reconciliatory meeting in Sayo in July 2000 following clashes in Poso town between April 16 and April 21, 2000, but the peace agreement signed by both sides was found ineffective in halting the conflict as both sides claimed to have been attacked. With the absence of mutual trust among warring factions, their supporters attacked one another. The attacks spread from village to village.
The Central Sulawesi Provincial Police launched the Sadar Maleo Operation to disarm militias while Poso Deputy Regent Abdul Malik Syahadat set up a team to resolve the conflict after the Christian Bat Force, led by Fransiskus Tibo, attacked several predominantly Muslim villages in the regency. Tibo and two others were sentenced to death for their roles in the attacks.
South Sulawesi Deputy Governor Ruly Lamadjido employed a cultural approach by inviting all religious and tribal leaders of the two warring factions to a meeting in Maraso on Aug. 22, 2000, which former president Abdurrahman Wahid attended, but that also failed to end the conflict.
Afterward, the Wirabuana Military Command overseeing Sulawesi launched the Love of Peace Operation by deploying until October 2001 four infantry battalions to restore security and order.
Tension had been mounting since early November when hundreds of Laskar Jihad militiamen from Java entered the regency, while at the same time infantry battalions were pull out. The militiamen, who were equipped with AK-47 guns, rocket launchers and machetes as well as bulldozers, killed hundreds of Christians and burned down thousands of houses and other buildings in the absence of security personnel over the last two months.
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla, who represented the government to mediate between the warring factions in the Malino meeting, has expressed hope that the Malino Declaration will be effective in ending the conflict since 48 delegates of the two warring factions, including field commanders of rival militias, signed it and agreed to seek a comprehensive solution to the conflict.
"The first four agreements were not effective because those who signed them were only religious and tribal leaders instead of field commanders," he said.
Reynaldi Damanik, coordinator of a Protestant crisis center in Tentena, concurred and said that the most important thing was that both sides' leaders and field commanders signed the deal to end the conflict and apologized to one another.
"We've learned from the previous agreements that we need to establish mutual trust and better communication in order to prevent the conflict from recurring," he said.
Yahya Al Hamrie, a field commander of the Muslim White Camp militia, hailed the Malino Declaration as an opportunity to rebuild ruined Poso.
"We all came here to make peace and rebuild Poso because we are fed up with the conflict that has brought suffering to our people. And this reconciliatory meeting must be permanent and the last for all of us," he said.
He said all sides participating in the meeting had agreed to set up a task force to follow up the declaration.
"The police and military have their main task of restoring security and order, and law enforcers will process all past law violations, the local administration will rehabilitate all damaged assets and handle refugees, and field commanders will disarm their members and dissolve their organizations," he said.