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Indonesia's hot spots heat
up
By Fabio Scarpello
JAKARTA - While negotiations between the
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and Indonesian government
officials in Helsinki, Finland, have given rise to
a moderate optimism, fighting continues unabated
in Aceh. At the same time, two bombs exploded in
Central Sulawesi killing 22 people and threatening
the fragile peace between Christians and Muslims
in the province. Across the sea, in the Maluku
Islands, the killing of eight people by radical
Islamists and unruly police officers has brought
back memories of sectarian violence. Meanwhile,
news filtering out of far-flung Papua province
paints a dramatic picture of continuous violence
and rising tension.
Aceh
The
fourth round of peace negotiations between GAM
separatists and a delegation of Indonesian
government officials ended in Finland on Tuesday.
Both sides said discussions went well and agreed
to meet again in Helsinki on July 12. Yet on the
same day, three alleged GAM rebels were killed
when their boat was blown up by the Indonesian
military (TNI) off the coast of Aceh's northern
district of Pidie. The dead are among the more
than 260 alleged rebels killed by the TNI since
peace talks began in January.
While
negotiations have brought positive results, doubts
remain about the likelihood of reaching a final
settlement for the 30-year-long conflict. Neither
GAM nor Jakarta seem to have full control over
troops on the ground in Aceh, and it is feared
that an eventual peace agreement would not be
respected by some factions of the warring parties.
The Indonesian government has shown little
will to compromise during the negotiations. Latest
indications have revealed that GAM will not be
allowed to organize itself into a political force
and contest regional elections soon after an
eventual peace agreement is signed. Such demands,
considered a "must" by the rebel group, require a
constitutional change that Jakarta seems unwilling
to make.
In the meantime, the political
mood in the capital is shifting toward an even
more uncompromising position. The House of
Representatives, dissatisfied with the
"insignificant" results of the latest peace talks,
demanded an end to the negotiations, and the House
Defense Commission is said to be against the
possible involvement of the European Union and the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations in
monitoring the implementation of an eventual peace
deal - as vented in Helsinki.
Jakarta's
offer is still a hazy "special autonomy", which
reads as "status quo" in Banda Aceh. In the past
months, between negotiation rounds, GAM has
dropped its claim to independence while Jakarta
has lifted the civil emergency status weighing on
the province for the past year. The latter move,
however, was not followed by a partial withdrawal
of troops - as demanded by GAM - and has not led
to any significant change on the ground.
Central/West Sulawesi
The
specter of international terrorism and sectarian
violence returned to Central Sulawesi after two
bombs exploded in a crowded market in Tentena on
May 28. The blasts' 22 victims marked the highest
bomb death toll in Indonesia after Bali, where 202
people were killed nearly three years ago.
Although police have been active in
pursuing several leads, it remains unclear who was
behind the bombing. It is generally assumed that
the perpetrators' aim was to reinitiate the
sectarian violence that led to the deaths of more
than 2,000 people in the area during 1999-2001.
Tentena is a predominantly Christian town
in a region equally split between Muslims and
Christians. The religious divide makes Central
Sulawesi particularly susceptible to provocations.
Still, the only retaliation recorded to date is
the stoning of Tentena's mosque by a group of
angry Christians, shortly after the bombing.
Yet tension remains high. After all, Central
Sulawesi, and Poso in particular, is thought to be
a fertile ground for radical Islamic groups. Among
the bombing suspects is a group headed by a man
called Yani, who is accused of leading recent
attacks on a Christian village in Western
Sulawesi. In a recent report, the International
Crisis Group highlighted the risk of Poso-based
radical Islamic groups moving to Mamasa, West
Sulawesi, to stir sectarian violence.
Tentena's remoteness and the virtual
absence of Westerners seems to exclude the direct
involvement of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a Southeast
Asian regional terrorist group known to have run a
training and recruitment camp in the Poso district
a few years ago. Hours after the May 28 bombing,
Vice President Jusuf Kalla said the attack could
have been perpetrated by fugitive Malaysian JI
members Azahari Husin and Noordin Mohammad. The
two bomb-makers are wanted in connection with
several attacks in Indonesia.
A
particularly disturbing scenario that has emerged
in the last few days points to a group of local
politicians who might have masterminded the attack
to divert attention from their case. The
politicians, all former Poso government officials,
are currently in jail for having siphoned billions
of rupiah destined to those internally displaced
during the regional unrest.
Maluku
Islands
Violence escalated on this eastern
island chain after radical Islamists and unruly
members of the police led a punitive expedition
against a police barrack on Seram Island on May
16. The attack, which left eight people dead, was
meant to punish officers perceived to be
protecting a Christian village. It also brought
back memories of the 1999-2001 Muslim-Christian
battles that killed up to 9,000 people on these
shores.
The Malukus, or Spice Islands, are
split along religious and ethnic lines. The latter
is partly due to former president Suharto's
transmigrasi (relocation) project that
moved thousands of Muslim Javanese to - among
others - the predominantly Christian Maluku
Islands. Those Muslims quickly climbed the social
ladder, fueling discontent. The added spice was
provided by a moribund secessionist movement
supported by Christians but opposed by most
Muslims. When fighting broke out, some soldiers
sided with the Muslims while some elements of the
police sided with the Christians. Laskar Jihad,
apparently now a disbanded paramilitary Islamic
group, sailed from Java to fight alongside the
local Muslims with the tacit - and not so tacit -
support of the TNI. Some of Laskar Jihad's former
affiliates are believed to have joined JI.
The attack in Seram is the first major
attack in the region since a grenade was thrown by
two unidentified motorcyclists into the
predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Batumerah, in
the Maluku capital, Ambon, on March 22. The
explosion injured five people and was soon
followed by a reprisal in which Muslims destroyed
the back of a minivan carrying Christians in
nearby Kapaha and clubbed its passengers,
including a mother and her child.
Violence
was also recorded in February. Two people were
gunned down at a beachside karaoke club in Ambon
and two more were injured in a separate attack,
when a ship sailing off Buru Island came under
fire by gunmen traveling in a speedboat.
The Malukus' latest major unrest began
just more than one year ago, when 41 people were
killed during last April's sectarian clashes
sparkled by the 54th anniversary of the outlawed
South Maluku Republic. During that celebration
Christian separatists rallied and came into
contact with Muslim nationalists. In the several
days of violence that followed, hundreds of
buildings were torched and bombs were detonated,
while unidentified snipers - believed to be rogue
members of the TNI - shot civilians and police
officers.
West Papua
On May 26,
a Papua district court sentenced separatist
leaders Philep Karma and Yusak Pakage to 15 and 10
years, respectively, in jail for treason. Their
crime consisted of holding a separatist meeting
last year. Their trial sparked violent clashes
between locals and police.
The disturbance
was just the latest in the endless series of
reports trickling out of Papua, where
international observers, journalists and aid
workers are forbidden to enter.
The region
seems on the verge of exploding. Church groups and
local media report that the TNI is preparing to
intensify its ongoing crackdown against the Free
Papua Movement (OPM), a political organization
with a military wing fighting for independence.
On March 10, the houses and the livestock
in Nggweyage village were entirely plundered and
burned down by the TNI. The attack was part of the
ongoing offensive in West Papua's central
highlands, where 6,000 people have been forced to
flee into the mountains. Such TNI tactics have led
to a shortage of food and - according to local
reports - some displaced people have died of
starvation.
To heighten the tension, news
has surfaced of the "presumed-disbanded" Laskar
Jihad Islamic group setting up training camps in
the area. And reports continue to emerge of
human-rights violations by Indonesian security
officials, accused of torture, rape and illegal
detention. Unofficial figures say 800,000 people
have been killed in Papua since the region was
incorporated by Indonesia on May 1, 1963.
Papuans' 40-year-long fight for
self-determination is compounded by ethnic tension
with Muslim (mainly) Javanese relocated in the
area in the transmigrasi program. Muslims now
account for 770,000 of Papua's 1.8 million
inhabitants. In Papua, ethnic Javanese are
virtually in control of the local administration,
and many Papuans, who are predominantly Melanesian
Christians and Animists, feel they have been
reduced to second-class citizens on their own
land.
The Indonesian government has said
recently it intends to divide Papua into five
provinces by 2009. Locals argue that the move
violates the 2001 Special Autonomy Law designed to
give Papuans full democratic rights and a larger
share of the province's vast natural resource
wealth. Yet some of its crucial points are yet to
be implemented.
Fabio Scarpello
is AKI-ADN Kronos International Southeast Asia
correspondent. He can be reached via
www.fabioscarpello.com
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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