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Indonesia: Islands of
conflict
By John Gershman
Foreign
Policy In Focus
Indonesia is the world's
fourth-most-populous nation. An archipelago of more than
17,000 islands, of which 3,000 are inhabited, Indonesia
has 360 tribal and ethno-linguistic groups, about 25
language groups, and over 250 different dialect groups.
The Javanese (in central and eastern Java) constitute
about 40 percent of the population, the Sundanese
(western Java) about 15 percent, with the remainder
divided among various outer island communities including
the Acehnese (1.4 percent), and the Melanesians and
Sino-Indonesians (3 percent). In religious terms,
Indonesia is about 90 percent Muslim, 8 percent
Christian, 1-2 percent Hindu, and 1 percent Buddhist.
In addition to conflicts over democratization
and class conflict, there are two major types of violent
conflicts in Indonesia:
Self-determination conflicts.
Communal conflicts.
Self-determination
conflicts are those in which major political
organizations raise demands for independence or
significant autonomy. These have occurred in Aceh, West
Papua and, previously, East Timor. Communal conflicts
involve violent conflict among groups typically
organized along ascriptive (ethnic, religious, or
cultural) lines. The issues at stake in such conflicts
are not typically cultural, but may involve struggles
over economic, environmental, and political resources.
Demands for autonomy or secession are typically not
central to such conflicts.
The human costs of
these conflicts have been severe. In addition to the
dead and wounded, estimates of the internally displaced
due to these conflicts range from 750,000 to 1.3 million
nationwide. Although the violence associated with the
separatist and communal conflicts have increased since
the collapse of the Suharto's "New Order" regime in
1998, the transition to a more democratic government did
not cause the increase in violent conflicts in
Indonesia. Conflicts in Aceh, West Papua, and East Timor
had earlier roots and the increase in political violence
associated with communal conflicts dates back to the
early 1990s in some cases. Nevertheless, the change in
government, and the consequent weakening of state
authority has, arguably, created conditions conducive to
increased conflict in the short term.
Both types
of conflicts are embedded in grievances over the
distribution of economic resources. This sense of
economic injustice arises from perceptions of Jakarta's
(or outsiders') control and exploitation of regional
economic resources in such a way that local people reap
minuscule rewards compared with outsiders, or suffer
significant losses to their livelihoods from the
exploitation of such resources by others. These
grievances have been shaped by a number of development
policies: centralized and elite ownership and control of
natural resources, transmigration, and the displacement
of indigenous inhabitants from their sources of
livelihood, typically land and forest resources.
Until recently, natural resources were owned and
controlled by the central government, and access to
resources and the distribution of benefits from their
exploitation was determined by alliances with the ruling
elites in Jakarta. Since 1999, local and regional
governments have more control over regulating access to
and sharing the benefits from natural resources. In many
cases, however, local elites have simply displaced
national elites as the beneficiaries, and the basic
inequalities have not been addressed. The
decentralization of control over local resources has
also raised the stakes of competition for local office.
Transmigration began as a policy in the 1930s
under Dutch colonial rule as a strategy to depopulate
Java by transferring people to more sparsely populated
islands in the archipelago. After independence it was
continued (and expanded to include other densely
populated islands such as Madura, Bali, and Lombok).
Under the New Order, transmigration was a central
program with a cabinet-level office, and the destination
of transmigrants shifted from Sumatra to Sulawesi,
Kalimantan, West Papua (then Irian Jaya), and Maluku,
all of which are areas where self-determination or
communal conflicts were ongoing or have subsequently
emerged. The inter-island transmigration program was
reportedly terminated in late 2000. In some areas,
transmigrants and development activities such as
commercial logging or plantations have dispossessed
indigenous communities from control over land and forest
resources.
The context for conflict
Under the New Order, challenges to the
territorial integrity of Indonesia were dealt with
primarily through repression. This, combined with a
degree of shared economic growth, an ideology of
tolerance and multiculturalism, and a form of
corporatism through Golkar, enabled it to stay in power.
The New Order's veto on discussion of racial, ethnic,
and religious issues (termed "SARA" issues) combined
with pervasive administrative control from the center
maintained a veneer of national unity. (SARA refers to
Suku, Agama, Ras, and Antar-golongan - basically
ethnicity, religion, race, and inter-group relations;
public discussion of any of which was taboo during the
New Order.)
Self-determination
conflicts
There are two main types of
self-determination conflicts in Indonesia:
Self-determination conflicts that include
independence movements engaged in armed combat with the
Indonesian military. This includes Aceh and West Papua
as well as East Timor's recent successful independence
struggle.
Self-determination conflicts that do not include
armed independence movements. This includes campaigns
for independence in which there is no armed wing (of
which there is only one significant movement, in the
province of Riau) as well as a larger set of conflicts
led by regional movements whose interests and demands
are more diffuse, but share a desire for greater
autonomy from central government control. Some seek to
carve out their "own" province or district from existing
political units, while others demand the right to choose
their leaders without interference from Jakarta, a more
generous share of national government revenues, and more
authority to determine how regional revenues are spent.
Among the many regions where economic grievances
exist, two major conditions have shaped the degree to
which secessionist/autonomist movements have resorted to
violence to advance their claims. The first is a
historical one: violence has been more common in regions
that were not deeply integrated into the Netherlands
East Indies, the colony that was the foundation for
Indonesia. Since East Timor became a country in May,
there are now two major self-determination conflicts in
Indonesia: Aceh and West Papua. Two of the three areas
where armed secessionist movements existed or currently
exist were not part of Indonesia at the time of
independence: East Timor and West Papua. Aceh was only
weakly integrated into the Netherlands East Indies
during Dutch colonial rule and engaged in a nine-year
campaign to establish an Islamic republic after
Indonesian independence.
The second factor
shaping the degree of violence in the conflicts is the
degree to which there is a legacy of severe human-rights
abuses committed by the Indonesian military. Armed
secessionist groups have emerged in those regions where
Indonesian military violence has been the most sustained
and forceful. In all three cases (East Timor, Aceh, and
West Papua), Indonesian and international human-rights
organizations documented repeated and widespread
incidents in which Indonesian troops have engaged in
rape, arbitrary execution, detentions without trial, and
other gross violations of human rights. The fact that
these abuses occurred over a long period of time, and
are not associated with a single specific event, creates
a powerful legacy of conflict between the national
government and a very broad range of local society, not
just small, radical groups. Jakarta's use of military
coercion against rebel forces in each case has produced
more atrocities that have spurred even greater
opposition to its rule. In the more open political
environment since the collapse of the New Order regime
in 1998, the legacy of human-rights abuses has become a
powerful mobilizing force for self-determination
activists.
The most dramatic case of separatist
conflict that actually resulted in the creation of a new
state occurred in East Timor. The success of the
separatist struggle in East Timor was not due to a
battlefield victory or even a military stalemate.
Rather, it was in large part due to the fact that a
large number of powerful countries never recognized the
legitimacy of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor
(Australia being a major exception). The combination of
Suharto's departure and the economic crisis provided the
political opportunity and leverage for external actors
to demand redress for the Timorese.
The
referendum in East Timor had ripple effects in West
Papua and Aceh, the other two main regions where
separatist movements are active. Most advocates for
self-determination in both West Papua and Aceh utilize
non-violent means to advance their objectives. Some
groups push for independence while others call for a
greater degree of autonomy.
Communal
conflicts
Communal violence includes violence
against the Sino-Indonesian community as well as violent
communal conflicts in West and Central Kalimantan,
Central Sulawesi, and the Malukus. Although violence
directed against Sino-Indonesians has not involved
issues of self-determination, violence in other areas
has implications for the emergence of more well-defined
claims for self-determination.
Sporadically
since late 1996, Muslim immigrants from the island of
Madura clashed with mostly Christian, Dayak people in
the province of West Kalimantan. Most recently, violent
attacks occurred in Central Kalimantan in March 2001. In
December 1998, violence broke out in Poso in Central
Sulawesi and sporadic violence continues. In January
1999, conflicts between Christians and Muslims on the
island of Ambon in Maluku province began and have
continued through the present. Smaller-scale outbreaks
of inter-religious or inter-ethnic violence have
occurred in other parts of the country, giving rise to a
sense that these conflicts may be indicative of a
broader deterioration in social cohesion throughout the
country.
There are important differences among the
three sets of events. The killings in West Kalimantan
preceded the economic crisis that began in 1997 as well
as the last general election of the Suharto era. In
Ambon, the violence began only during the transitional
government of president B J Habibie. Another critical
difference concerns the contribution of political and
policy factors to the violence. In West Kalimantan,
there were no serious allegations that political
maneuvering at either the national or local level had
prompted the violence (although there are accusations
that the military did not act quickly to stop the
violence once it had broken out). In West Kalimantan,
the conflicts primarily concern economic resources and
political power, layered over a communal conflict.
Although the conflict is often presented as simply
ethnic conflict, the fact is that the Dayaks have
focused their anger against the Madurese and not other
ethnic groups on the island, such as Javanese and
Chinese.
The communal conflict in the Malukus
began in January 1999 with economic and ethnic as well
as religious undertones, and quickly polarized into
Christian-Muslim conflict. Transmigration under Suharto
was responsible for relocating Muslims to the Malukus
from other parts of the country, altering the religious
balance and displacing the Christian elite. Although
there have been occasional lulls in the violence and
weak attempts at mediation by the central government,
the clashes have always resumed and the situation has
steadily deteriorated. Some Christian leaders have
called for United Nations and US intervention, while
many Muslim leaders have rejected such initiatives. The
situation has been exacerbated by the arrival of members
of Laskar Jihad (Islamic militia), most of whom are from
Java. There is a widespread belief that supporters of
former president Suharto are behind the continued
conflict. Laskar Jihad has also been involved in the
conflict in Central Sulawesi.
These are often
framed as ethnic or religious conflicts, which disguises
what are often political and resource-based conflicts.
In Sulawesi and the Malukus, the conflicts have largely
been between Muslims and Christians, while in Kalimantan
the conflicts are between Dayaks (who may be Muslim or
Christian) and the Madurese (who are Muslim), but not
other ethnic groups in the region. There is a history of
pro-independence activity in the Malukus, where a small
group of Christian-based separatists (but loyal to Dutch
colonial rule) declared the South Maluku Republic (RMS)
in 1950. RMS activists, most of them now living in the
Netherlands, have continued their campaign for
international recognition. The FKM is affiliated to the
RMS.
In all these cases a combination of factors
contributed to the emergence of the violence. Common
elements in each include the breakdown of consociational
forms of governing (such as alternating leadership of
local communities between Muslims and Christian
leaders), increased struggles over control of local
resources under the decentralization law, or
dispossession of traditional land and resource rights.
In all of the locales where conflict emerged, the
historic balance was altered by the state-sponsored
program of transmigration. Development programs in
Sulawesi and Kalimantan have undermined traditional land
use systems and deprived indigenous communities of
livelihood opportunities. In all cases, military and
police forces contributed to the violence either
directly (as in the Malukus), or indirectly by failing
to halt the violence quickly and holding people on all
sides accountable for committing violent acts.
Efforts to forge peace agreements among
representatives of the key actors in each conflict have
met with uneven success. The violence in Kalimantan has
largely ended as the Madurese population has fled. In
Sulawesi there is recurring violence despite several
efforts to forge peace agreements. In Sulawesi and the
Malukus, Islamist militias have been involved, the most
prominent being the Laskar Jihad, which has complicated
conflict resolution efforts. In the Malukus there have
been two agreements (Malino I and II, reached December
2001 and February 2002 respectively), which have not yet
been successfully implemented.
In all the
regions where communal conflict has taken place, there
is significant variation in the intensity of violence.
The violence is concentrated in a few areas, whereas
neighboring areas may experience much less or virtually
no violent conflict. This suggests that there may be
important lessons to be drawn from the leadership
exercised by local political and traditional leaders in
some regions, as well as previously ignored institutions
and mechanisms of local governance and conflict
resolution.
Policy responses
Federalism would be one possible response to
both secessionist demands as well as those for greater
regional autonomy and decentralization. But federalism
in Indonesia has a negative association with Dutch
colonial rule.
Since the fall of Suharto, two
sets of laws have been passed that have tried to address
concerns regarding autonomy. In April 1999 Habibie
signed two laws, which went into effect in 2001, to
promote regional autonomy and fiscal balance between
Jakarta and the regions. Legislation granting greater
autonomy for Aceh and West Papua took effect on January
1, 2002. This legislation provides the legal basis for
the two provinces to have greater control over the
regions' economy, politics, and security, as well as the
cultural and religious life of its people. The laws
cover revenue sharing for the oil and gas sector, where
the regions are to receive 70 percent, the freedom to
set up a people's council, the freedom to have their own
anthem and flag along with the Indonesian national
anthem and flag, and the implementation of shariah or
Islamic law in Aceh. The passage of the autonomy
legislation, however, has failed to dampen mobilization
because it does not provide justice for the victims of
military repression, fails to create the conditions for
effective democratic control over local governments, has
strengthened unaccountable and often corrupt local
elites, and was drafted by a small elite.
Role of the United States
Numerous US administrations have stated that
maintaining the territorial integrity of Indonesia is in
the national interest of the United States. Indonesia
was seen as a key ally under the New Order regime and US
military assistance to Indonesia was significant until
the violence following the 1999 referendum in East
Timor. Since the end of the Cold War, Indonesia's role
as a moderate Muslim-majority country was important.
Also increasing its importance are its strategic
location astride sea lanes in Southeast Asia, as the
centerpiece of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), in its efforts to build an alliance to
contain China, and as a key target in the war on
terrorism after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon
of September 11, 2001.
No US administration has
ever supported any of the demands for independence by
movements in Aceh or West Papua. Although it did not
officially recognize the annexation of East Timor by
Indonesia, the US government gave a green light for the
invasion when it happened. The Indonesian government has
labeled both Aceh's GAM and West Papua's OPM as
terrorist organizations, but the United States has not
made any steps to add those groups to its list of
official terrorist organizations and continues to
support negotiations between the Indonesian government
and these organizations.
The policy arena most
open for raising concerns about human-rights violations
that is associated with self-determination and communal
conflicts in Indonesia has been through the US Congress.
Human-rights advocates and supporters of
self-determination for East Timor combined to support
legislation that impose human-rights conditions on US
military aid to Indonesia. In the context of the war on
terrorism, officials of the current administration of
President George W Bush are seeking to lift those
restrictions.
Both economic and strategic
interests loom large in shaping US policy toward
Indonesia. US companies are major investors in
extractive industries and since the 1980s, large numbers
of US companies have established manufacturing firms or
contracting arrangements with firms in the footwear,
textile, and other light manufacturing industrial base
in Indonesia. US corporations are notably active in Aceh
(ExxonMobil) and West Papua (Freeport McMoran).
Activists have attempted to bring charges against these
companies for complicity in human-rights violations and
for causing environmental destruction (in the case of
Freeport). The Bush administration has intervened to
make it more difficult for Indonesians to bring court
cases against US corporations operating in Indonesia
(most notably ExxonMobil in Aceh), in part because it
was believed that such efforts could undermine efforts
Indonesia's potential role in the war on terrorism.
The war on terrorism has given new life to the
Bush administration's efforts to restore ties with the
Indonesian military. Those ties were severed because of
Indonesian military complicity in the violent riots in
East Timor in 1999. The efforts to restore those
military ties is driven by two concerns: that Indonesia
may be a major node in the al-Qaeda network (a concern
that many analysts believe is overblown), and the
objective of building a strong military alliance in
Southeast Asia that can be used to contain China. The
ongoing self-determination and communal conflicts are
seen as weakening Indonesia's ability to play such
roles.
The danger of expanded US support for the
Indonesian military is that it is precisely the military
that has been a principal cause of much of the violence
associated with self-determination conflicts. Any hope
of a peaceful resolution to these conflicts involves
holding military personnel accountable for their
complicity in human rights violations in those regions.
Such accountability is also central to strengthening
Indonesia's fragile civilian democratic institutions. In
terms of communal conflicts, research by the
International Crisis Group among others has indicated
that elements of the military have ties to Laskar Jihad,
whose involvement in the Malukus and Central Sulawesi is
correlated with a significant increase in violence in
those regions. In the absence of any sign of significant
reform within the military with respect to a
demonstrated commitment to an end to impunity,
increasing support for the Indonesian military would
increase the likelihood of violent conflict within
Indonesia, weaken democratic institutions, and result in
continued instability.
John Gershman
(e-mail john@irc-online.org)
is a senior analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center
and Asia-Pacific editor for Foreign
Policy In Focus.
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