Maluku: The Challenge of Peace, Samsu Rizal Panggabean, Searching for Peace in Asia Pacific, European Centre for Conflict Prevention, 22 April 2005

Maluku has been the scene of horrific intercommunal violence since early 1999, with thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands driven from their homes. At the outset, the violence was primarily between an indigenous Christian community on the island of Ambon, and Muslim immigrants, but it evolved into more general violence between the Christian and Muslim communities on Ambon, and subsequently spread to many other islands in the provinces of Maluku and North Maluku. For the most part, order was restored throughout the archipelago by 2000, with the exception of Ambon. Despite leaders of both communities signing the government-sponsored Malino Declaration in February 2002, tensions remain high (as the sudden outbreak of new violence in late April 2004 showed) and few of the provisions included in that declaration have been implemented. A variety of other conflict transformation efforts involving some traditional approaches, as well as interventions from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society, could serve as examples of strategies that hold out the promise of reducing tensions.

The eastern Indonesian island group known as Maluku (also called the Moluccas in English) forms the nation’s largest archipelago, consisting of approximately 1,000 islands. Divided in 1999 into two provinces, North Maluku and Maluku, the archipelago is largely composed of the forested tops of volcanoes rising out of the sea. The two provinces, with a total population of about 2.1 million inhabitants, have been plagued by serious intercommunal violence since January 1999, particularly severe on the island of Ambon and in Ambon city, the capital of Maluku and the administrative center of the region.

Known to Chinese, Arab, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch traders as the “Spice Islands,” Maluku was at various times colonized by Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Britain beginning in the sixteenth century, and occupied by the Japanese during World War II. Early contacts with Arab traders led to the introduction of Islam in the fifteenth century. The Portuguese brought Roman Catholicism to the islands in the sixteenth century, and the Dutch then introduced Reformed Protestantism in the seventeenth century.

Although much has been made of a long history of peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims in Maluku, the historical record available, writes anthropologist Dieter Bartels, “points to a much more complex picture filled with manipulation, intrigue, and rivalry.” The Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese all tried and “frequently succeeded with manipulation of the elites on [the] basis of religious affiliation, pitting Moslems against Christians.” Over the years, and especially during the long Dutch colonial period, the divisions between Christians and Muslims were exploited for political purposes, with the Dutch colonial administration giving Christians preference in filling positions in the bureaucracy and military and, equally important, access to modern education. During the brief Japanese occupation, the situation was reversed. Nonetheless, writes Bartels, except when they were coerced by outside forces, “there seems to be little evidence that [the colonizers] ever instilled deep religious hatred into the general Ambonese population [and] there was never before a situation in the early colonial period when either Ambonese Moslem or Christian villages unified to fight . . . one another.”1

The manipulative practices begun under colonialism, especially when leadership positions and jobs were at stake, were continued after Indonesian independence. For example, toward the end of President Suharto’s long years in office, he used the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI), established in 1990, as a means to co-opt middle-class Muslims, and correspondingly, ICMI members used the association as a steppingstone to power. In the 1990s, in order to win support from Muslim groups, Suharto twice appointed Ambonese Muslims to the governorship, rather than giving the jobs to military officers who had previously enjoyed his favor.2 On both occasions, the other candidate for the job was a Protestant. While Maluku has traditionally had a very mixed population, the balance between Christians and Muslims has been shifting steadily over the past three decades, primarily due to the “transmigration” policies encouraged under Suharto, which resulted in a steady flow of predominantly Muslim immigrants from more densely populated islands moving to less densely populated regions, including Maluku. The Muslim population in Maluku increased from slightly less than 50 percent of the total in 1971 to nearly 60 percent by 1999. During the same period, the Christian population declined from about 47 percent to roughly 40 percent.3 The impact of immigration is clearly evident in the increase in nonnative Muslims, from about 5 percent of the total Maluku population in 1971 to more than 14 percent in 1995, with that trend continuing. A substantial proportion of these immigrants came from South Sulawesi, and most of them were ethnically Buton, Bugis, or Makassar.

As part of the transmigration policy, these new arrivals were given land that had usually been taken from the indigenous population. The government also built facilities such as markets, roads, schools, and health centers for the transmigrants. From 1969 to 1999, 25,319 households (almost 100,000 people) were transmigrated to Maluku and North Maluku, with more than half settling in Central Maluku, especially on the islands of Ambon, Seram, and Buru. Additional migration not related to the government policy also took place, though the number of these unofficial migrants is difficult to estimate. Most of these migrants also came from South Sulawesi, with substantial numbers also immigrating from Java. Again, the vast majority of these immigrants were Muslim.

Not surprisingly, the transmigration policy and unchecked migration have been an important source of tensions and discontent in Maluku society. The loss of large tracts of land with little or no compensation, and the economic success and domination of the newcomers, have resulted in long-smoldering resentment among the native population. Most of the affected villages were Christian, whose the inhabitants felt their way of life threatened by the influx of so many Muslim immigrants. In the 1970s, when transmigrasi was barely under way, the old villages were sleepy and for the most part only accessible by sea. By the late 1990s, they were all connected by roads along which many new businesses and settlements were located, almost exclusively owned by nonindigenous Muslims.4 During this same period, Maluku was being rapidly urbanized, a factor that some observers believed added to the sense of insecurity felt among Christians, especially those living in Ambon city.5

Another contentious issue in Maluku has concerned the issue of representation. As noted above, under the Dutch colonial administration, Christians had a privileged position with more opportunities for good jobs and education. The result was that when Indonesia became independent, Christians were better prepared than Muslims to participate in many walks of modern life in Maluku, and could more easily move into professional jobs. Denied access to education or positions in the bureaucracy, Muslims came to dominate the marketplace during the colonial period. After independence, when Muslims and Christians had equal access to education and more opportunities for social mobility, the situation began to change, and gradually more and more Muslims were able to compete for positions at all levels of society. The struggle between the two communities for economic and political power was set in motion.

For a long time, Muslims placed a priority on securing representation in government and the bureaucracy. They perceived that they were underrepresented in civil service jobs, especially in Ambon city, and also complained that Muslim students and lecturers suffered from discrimination at the Christian-dominated University of Pattimura. For their part, Christians also felt aggrieved as Muslims, over time, came to occupy more and more government jobs at the provincial level. Christians feared that they were losing the dominant role they had traditionally played.

Another factor that may have contributed to the violence was the breakdown in the traditional structures of governance as a consequence of Indonesian policies on local government. In the 1970s, the central government of Indonesia introduced laws to establish uniform institutions of local government throughout the country. As a consequence, the traditional village leaders (called Raja, Bapa Raja, or Latu Pati) were replaced by village heads and traditional authority was replaced by village government. The traditional role of the Rajas as conflict managers and arbitrators was significantly weakened. In addition, the status of land also changed. In previous times, the land usually belonged to the clan. With the new arrangement, however, land could be registered and bought and sold. As a result, the sale of land was practiced widely, including sale to migrants from South Sulawesi.

The replacement of the clan-based system with a village government system headed by a low-ranking official of the Indonesian bureaucracy was more egalitarian and did make it possible for migrant communities of ethnic Bugis, Butonese, and Makassarese to be represented and to have members of their own communities serve as village head. But these village heads lacked the authority the old Rajas had enjoyed, and when conflict broke out, there were fewer people at the local level with the ability to stop it.

Especially during the “New Order” regime under Suharto, religious education within both the Muslim and the Christian communities tended to emphasize the internal and exclusive dimension of religion at the expense of the external and inclusive dimension. Religious leaders “enjoined their congregations to abandon remnant traditional beliefs.”7 The Christianization process within the Christian community and Islamization process within the Muslim community weakened the adat, or customary.

At the same time, this process of religious revitalization increasingly brought religion to center stage in society, with language and religious symbols assuming greater importance with respect to matters such as citizenship, ethnicity, and competition for economic and political power. Within this context, communal and local identity (Ambonese Christians on the one side and Ambonese and non-Ambonese Muslims on the other), national identity (Indonesian Christians and Indonesian Muslims), and international/global identity (Maluku Muslims as part of Islamic universalism and Maluku Christian as part of Christian universalism) took on renewed importance.

The violence in Maluku took place within the context of the Asian economic crisis and the New Order’s collapse. With the central government weakened and discredited by economic and political crisis, it was incapable of playing a useful role as conflict manager or of maintaining security, and was unable to intervene, when violence first broke out, to restore order. At the beginning of the riots in 1999, it was primarily the migrant ethnic groups who were the targets of violence perpetrated by Christians. But as the violence continued, and as most of the migrants escaped, it became more and more a conflict between the Christian and Muslim communities. Thus it was the early failure of the police and military to control the situation that transformed the conflict in Ambon from an unfortunate but possibly containable one directed at the migrants into a far more widespread and dangerous “intercommunal” or “interreligious” conflict.

As the violence in Maluku dragged on, the parties to the conflict faced the need to mobilize supporters and resources in support of their struggle. Here again, religion and religious symbols, idioms, and doctrines were used and abused for mobilization purposes. Religious leaders preached defamatory sermons, portraying, for instance, the “enemy” not only as the enemy of God but also as the enemy of the state. Christians were accused of supporting a separatist political movement known as Republik Maluku Selatan (RMS; Republic of South Moluccas). Mosques and churches were drawn into the quagmire and turned into armed fortresses. Holy books and traditions were exploited to persecute members of the opposing community and to point accusing fingers at coreligionists who were not considered “militant” enough; some were labeled as traitors. Hence the violent process of dehumanization intensified within the religious communities in Maluku. Voices advocating peaceful coexistence and tolerance were increasingly viewed with suspicion and suppressed. Just when cooperation and communication between advocates of peace in the different communities was most needed, it was stifled because of the very real risk facing those trying to achieve reconciliation.

Another consequence of the failure to quickly resolve the conflict and restore order was the involvement of forces coming from other parts of Indonesia, and even from outside Indonesia, in what had been a relatively localized conflict. In particular, the arrival in May 2000 of fighters equipped with modern weapons from Laskar Jihad (Holy War Forces) in support of the Muslim community, fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict. Laskar Jihad’s arrival reflected, among other things, the inability of the security apparatus to control entry to Maluku and betrayed a pro-Muslim bias among some elements within the military and the government. Similar militias were subsequently organized in the Christian community.

Conflict Dynamics
The violence in Maluku is usually portrayed in sweeping generalizations. The general image produced is of an all-consuming war involving Christian and Muslim communities everywhere in Maluku and North Maluku and continuing unabated from 1999 onward. The true situation has been quite different, with the nature, intensity, and duration of the violence varying significantly from place to place. While continuing violence occurred in the city of Ambon from 1999 to 2002, violence in some districts occurred only during 1999 and order was quickly restored, while in other districts violence only erupted for a relatively short period in 2000. There have been few attempts to differentiate between the nature and extent of violence in different parts of Maluku, to identify which villages and which subdistricts were most severely affected, or to quantify casualties (both deaths and injuries) according to where and when they occurred.9

The violence involving members of Christian and Muslim communities in Ambon city was sparked by an argument between a Christian bus driver and a Muslim youth from the Bugis ethnic group on January 19, 1999, coinciding with Idul Fithri, the biggest Muslim holiday in Indonesia, a time when police forces are understaffed because officers take leave for the holiday. This seemingly minor altercation spun out of control and turned into uncontrolled rioting throughout Ambon city, which continued until January 23. Surrounding villages were also drawn into the violence, which included surprise attacks on members of the opposing community, arson, and pitched battles with stones and machetes. Initially, the fighting was mainly between Ambonese Christians and Muslim migrants from South Sulawesi. Later, Ambonese Muslims were also involved in the fighting. In the following months, more incidents took place in the Ambon city and later in other parts of Ambon island.

Just days before the outbreak of violence in Ambon, between January 15 and January 17, Christian and Muslim communities had clashed in Dobo, in the district of Southeast Maluku. The local security apparatus had been unable to manage the violence and requested support from Ambon. The provincial police had responded by sending a mobile brigade on January 19—just hours before the violence broke out in Ambon city.

After the communal riots in Ambon city, violence spread to Central Maluku in February 1999, although the number of incidents was much lower than in the Ambon city. Then, in March, violence spread to the Kei Islands of Southeast Maluku. Here, the most serious incidents, those resulting in deaths, only took place during 1999. Beginning in June 1999, North Maluku was also afflicted by communal violence, but once order was restored in early 2000, the violence ceased altogether. Clearly, the conflict dynamics have been quite different in North Maluku and the Kei Islands as compared to the ongoing violence that has plagued Ambon, including Ambon city, and the nearby Lease Islands. In fact, even in Maluku province, the great majority of serious violent incidents (violence-related deaths, arson, ambushes, shootings, bombings, lynching, violent demonstrations, etc.) occurred in Ambon city, where, in addition, destruction of property was also especially severe.10

As violence continued in Ambon city, the conflict became more “weaponized,” with more incidents involving handmade guns and bombs. Indeed, incidents involving the use of guns and bombs quadrupled between 1999 and 2001, from nineteen to seventy-six, before a reduction to fifty-two in 2002. Bombings in 1999 numbered eighteen and increased steadily each year to sixty-nine in 2002. But even as this weaponization was occurring, the frequency of violent incidents was decreasing outside Ambon city. Clashes involving Christian and Muslim villagers decreased from sixty-six in 1999, to thirty-two in 2000, to seven in 2001, and to one in 2002. And attacks by one village on another followed a similar pattern, decreasing from twenty-nine in 1999 to just two in 2002.11

As the conflict escalated and became increasingly weaponized, the role of security forces took an unfortunate turn, with police—especially local police—and troops drawn into the conflict. In Maluku, these “contaminated” security forces fought alongside their coreligionists; served as patrons, suppliers, and sellers of guns and ammunition; and provided intelligence. They also trained militias and taught them how to make bombs, including, for example, using leftover bombs from World War II found in the coastal waters around Maluku. In addition, as conflict continued, these security forces developed vested interests in the conflict. Members of the security apparatus became involved in economic activities and profited from the conflict, by engaging in trade, providing intervillage and interisland transportation/escort, and selling protection. As reported by the International Crisis Group, “While security forces have no desire to return to the all-out conflict of 1999–2000, their financial interests are served by a high level of public nervousness. Occasional bomb explosions and shootings are sufficient to persuade businesspeople and property-owners to pay for special protection. On several occasions bomb explosions in Ambon have been traced to low-ranking military.”12

Where the police and the military ended up taking sides in the conflict, as occurred in Maluku, the result was that the violence persisted, and segregation within the security sector was reinforced. Mistrust and suspicion pervaded the police and the military forces, and was prevalent between police and the military, between different police units, between different military units, and between the police and the military on the one hand and the Christian and Muslim militias on the other hand. On several occasions, the Civil Emergency Authority created joint stations where the military and the police were directed to serve together to avoid clashes between security sector units.13 Such disarray within the security sector served to reinforce the public sense of insecurity and vulnerability.

On the other hand, the military played a far more constructive role in North Maluku and thus contributed to the relatively quick cessation of hostilities there, with no serious incidents after mid-2000. This can be attributed to both the presence of security forces in the area and the efforts of local community leaders and local government. On many occasions after the violence ended, the Indonesian armed forces and the Indonesian police facilitated and supported reconciliation processes, by conveying, for instance, invitations to community leaders in different towns and kecamatan, escorting community leaders who sought to initiate the reconciliation process, and providing security at reconciliation meetings.15

One of the most serious negative impacts of the conflict was on the healthcare system. Health workers including doctors, nurses, and paramedics, who were identified by their religion, had difficulties moving from village to village. Ambulances were similarly denied free access. The violence also caused shortages of drugs, problems of access to health centers and hospitals for individuals and whole communities of the “wrong” religion (many hospitals and health centers only provided service for one religious community), changes in the referral system for medical treatment, and higher prices for medicine and health services. Beyond, that, many hospitals and health centers were damaged or destroyed.

As the conflict escalated, several important developments crucially influenced the course of events. One of these was the arrival of Laskar Jihad in Maluku, beginning in May 2000. Estimates of its numbers vary from fifteen hundred to several thousand. Laskar Jihad forces were moved into the Muslim neighborhood in Ambon city as well as other villages on the island. Some Laskar Jihad forces also reached Seram and Buru islands and North Maluku. Laskar Jihad believed that the central government was incapable of protecting their fellow Muslims and that the situation for Muslims was worsening as the conflict continued. Through radio broadcasts, publications, and public statements, Laskar Jihad mobilized both humanitarian and armed support for the Muslim cause in Maluku. They also advocated the arrest, trial, and conviction of the Christians they accused of instigating the conflict in January 1999. Although at the beginning few Muslims were enthusiastic about the presence of the Laskar Jihad and most did not identify closely with the militia, many were grateful to it for its role in fending off Christian militias and shifting the balance of power between the two conflicting communities.

Christian leaders saw the presence of the Laskar Jihad, especially the armed elements, as a key obstacle to a longer peace. One response was the establishment of Front Kedaulatan Maluku (FKM; Maluku Sovereignty Front) in June 2000. The Civil Emergency Authority, which had been installed to govern Maluku on June 26, 2000,17 recognized that Laskar Jihad was impeding efforts to reestablish order and attempted on several occasions to persuade the Jihad forces to scale back their presence in Maluku and to end their incitement to violence. Toward the end of 2000, the Civil Emergency Authority demanded that the central government of Indonesia prevent Laskar Jihad forces from departing from the harbors in Java and South Sulawesi. But the presence of Laskar Jihad continued in Ambon city and in other parts of Maluku until it dissolved itself in October 2002.

Within the Christian community, the FKM engaged in provocative behavior, and the presence of thugs and militias such as Laskar Yesus also exacerbated the conflict in Maluku. Like Laskar Jihad, the FKM concluded that the government of Indonesia was unable to provide security in Maluku and demanded a humanitarian intervention by the international community.

Accounts of the number of conflict-related deaths between 1999 and 2002 vary widely. Official figures put the toll at 1,451 deaths (including 66 troops and 25 police) and 2,140 injured,18 with about two-thirds of the deaths and injuries in Ambon city.19 Other estimates of the death toll go as high as 10,000.20 The local government estimated in June 2001 that the conflict had resulted in 329,818 internally displaced persons (IDPs), while others cite a figure of about 400,000. Approximately 75 percent of the IDPs remained in Maluku, while an estimated 100,000 fled to Southeast Sulawesi. The violence also resulted in the destruction of some 6,488 houses and 243 shops, as well as 66 churches and 36 mosques, and serious damage to the state provincial university and other schools, governmental offices including the governor’s office, and as mentioned above, healthcare facilities.21 Finally, as a result of the conflict, many islands have become strictly segregated along religious lines.

Almost two years of relative peace came to an abrupt end in late April 2004, with a sudden week of violence and a death toll of 38. Hundreds of buildings were torched and thousands of people again fled their homes. The Christian-Muslim clashes in Ambon were sparked by a parade and the raising of their independence flag by the hard-line group of Christian separatists, the RMS, celebrating the anniversary of their movement. Twenty-four hours later, 20 people lay dead. Controversy grew, as the violence was widely blamed on the security forces for not taking preventative measures and appearing unable to stop the fighting. Amidst breakdowns in peace talks and anticipated reprisals, officials attempted to restore order by replacing the Maluku police chief, while deploying hundreds of reinforcements and arresting leaders of the RMS.

Official Conflict Management
The conflict in Maluku started during the presidency of President Habibie, after the thirty-year regime of President Suharto ended in May 1998. Habibie’s presidency, however, lasted only until October 1999. Abdurrahman Wahid replaced Habibie but soon delegated the responsibility for dealing with conflict in Maluku and North Maluku to Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri. President Wahid was skeptical about her chances, however, stating that only the conflicting communities in Maluku could bring the violence to an end.

One of the most significant measures taken by the central government of President Wahid was to declare a civil emergency in Maluku and North Maluku on June 26, 2000. This emergency status provided a wide range of powers to the governors of Maluku and North Maluku, the regional military commander, the regional police chief, and the office of the prosecutor so that they could effectively act to restore order and security. A “Civil Emergency Authority” was given the power to issue decrees, and to limit civil rights and individual freedom.

In Maluku, the local government tried to mitigate the violence through dialogue and reconciliation. In 1999, for instance, the government brought together community leaders from different backgrounds and religions several times. Each time, the participants and the representatives of the local government issued declarations pledging their commitment to restraint and the termination of violence.22 Several times during the course of conflict, local government also created reconciliation teams with representation from various communities. For instance, in March 1999 the local government created Pusat Rujuk Sosial (PRS; Center for Social Reconciliation) with a mandate to assist the peace and reconciliation efforts of the government in Maluku. The PRS suggested that the root causes of the violence in Maluku need to be examined and that community-based peaceful coexistence efforts should be strengthened, and recommended the establishment of security posts in violence-prone villages.23

The Civil Emergency Authority failed to end the violence, contributing to the perception among the Christian and Muslim communities in Maluku that the violence had in fact been engineered from Jakarta. In early 2002 the central government engaged in discussions with both the Christian leaders and Muslim leaders of Maluku, during which leaders from both communities agreed to attend meetings scheduled for February 11–12, 2002, in Malino, South Sulawesi, where they would discuss issues related to ending the conflict and rebuilding the violence-torn society. This was the highest-profile meeting to date, and was attended by thirty-five Muslim and thirty-five Christian participants. The government’s mediation team included the coordinating minister of welfare, the coordinating minister for political and security affairs, the national police head, the governor and deputy governor of Maluku, the governor of South Sulawesi, the regional police chief, the regional military commander, the head of the Maluku legislature, and the mayor of Ambon.

At the end of the two-day talks, the participants agreed to the following:

· To end all conflicts and disputes.

· To abide by due process of law enforcement fairly, faithfully, honestly, and impartially, supported by the communities, with an understanding that security officers were also committed to carry out their duties in a professional manner.

· To reject and oppose all kinds of separatist activities that might threaten the unity and sovereignty of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, including support for the Republic of South Moluccas (RMS).

· That as citizens of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, the people of Maluku have the right to live and work legally and fairly anywhere in the Republic of Indonesia nationwide, and others have the right to live and work in Maluku, as long as they respect local culture and law, and maintain order.

· To ban and disarm illegal armed organizations, groups, or militias, in accordance with existing law. Outside parties that disturb the peace in the Maluku will be expelled.

· To establish an independent national investigation team to investigate among other things, the tragic incident on January 19, 1999; organizations including the Maluku Sovereign Front, the Republic of South Maluku, the Christian Republic of South Moluccas, Laskar Jihad, and Laskar Kristus; the practice of coercive conversion; and human rights violations.

· To call for the voluntary return of refugees to their homes, and the return of their property.

· To rehabilitate social, economic, and public infrastructures, particularly educational, health, religious, and housing facilities, with support from the Indonesian government.

· That the maintenance of law and order depends on the military and the police coordinating their efforts and pursuing their mission with firmness and resolve; and that the proper functioning of the security services requires reorganization and reequipping of some units and facilities.

· That to ensure good relations and harmony among all communities and religions in Maluku, all evangelical activities must respect the diversity of its peoples and acknowledge local culture.

· That to support the rehabilitation of Pattimura University for the common good, recruitment of staff and students should be transparent, based on the principle of fairness and a commitment to maintaining quality standards.

Although the Malino Declaration provided a framework for moving forward, implementation was beset by problems. The committees formed in Malino, consisting of representatives of the local government and the communities, failed to implement their mandate because the central government and the Civil Emergency Authority failed to provide them with the support they needed and did not possess the political will to ensure success. The central government failed to fulfill its promises to provide funds for the committee to implement programs such as rehabilitation and reconstruction, and the local governments under the Civil Emergency Authority continued to work independently of the committees. Beyond that, members of the committees did not even manage to meet as intended in the agreement.

Lack of support from the security apparatus was also evident from several crucial incidents that sabotaged the Malino peace process. On April 3, 2002, a bomb exploded in the Christian part of the city of Ambon, killing six people and injuring many others. Several hours later, the office of the governor and provincial government of Maluku was burned. On April 25, a flag-raising incident, with the flags of the Forum Kedaulatan Maluku and the RMS displayed in many parts of heavily guarded Ambon city, also undermined confidence in the Malino Declaration. Three days later, an ambush at the predominantly Christian village of Soya caused twelve deaths. Christian thugs, deeply infiltrated by the security apparatus, were believed to be involved in the ambush.

Besides these official efforts to resolve the conflict at the national and regional levels, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, both present in Maluku to address the humanitarian crisis, were also engaged in peripheral ways in conflict resolution activities.24 Agencies working under the UN umbrella included the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Children’s Fund, the UN Development Programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, and the World Health Organization (WHO). Their activities and programs, some of which were implemented in cooperation with NGOs, included projects to bring Muslims and Christians under the same programmatic umbrella, and peacebuilding and conflict resolution programs, such as WHO’s Health as a Bridge for Peace program in Maluku in 2000–2001. The activities and programs of the UN in Maluku, however, were hindered by the several violent incidents that resulted in the UN withdrawing its representatives from Maluku and only returning when tensions eased.

Multi-Track Diplomacy
As decentralized responses to the violence, conflict resolution approaches drawing on traditional values and institutions have been widely discussed and debated in Maluku. One of the traditional systems for containing conflict within the pluralistic society characteristic of Maluku is the pela system, or an “intervillage alliance system.”25 The pela system can be found in most villages on Ambon, Haruku, Saparua, Nusalaut, and Seram islands. Similar alliance systems can also be found on many other islands of Maluku and North Maluku provinces. On the islands of Maluku, most villages are monoreligious in the sense that the entire population of the village is either Muslim or Christian. Therefore, the intervillage alliance can be, in effect, an interreligious alliance.26 According to Bartels:

Pela alliances are concluded between two or more villages and, in a few rare cases, between clans from different villages. With the exception of the Leitimor mountains on Ambon Island where several neighboring villages are engaged in such pacts, pela partners live usually far apart and are often located on different islands. Most alliances are between Christian villages but a considerable number is between Christian and Moslem villages, thus spanning across religious boundaries. Purely Moslem pela do not exist.

Historically, the pela system has played an important role in containing conflict between Muslim and Christian villages. To quote Bartels again:

Because of the existence of the pela system, any potential antagonism between Ambonese Moslems and Christians was held to a minimum, as opposed to internecine strife so common between the adherents of these religions throughout the world. On the practical level, there was a marked increase of economic exchange and many churches, mosques and schools were being built with the generous help of pela partners who supplied labor, work material, money and/or foodstuffs to make those undertakings possible without governmental aid. After a project was finished, the pela partners arrived for its inauguration, and, in case of a church or mosque, both Christians and Moslems entered it together for a common service.28

Unfortunately, the pela system has no relevance to the villages and neighborhoods of migrants who came from other ethnic groups, notably Makassar, Bugis, and Buton who migrated to Maluku. Nor does the pela system apply to the relatively new villages and residential areas that contain families from different religious backgrounds. Moreover, as a mechanism for containing conflict, the pela system has been further weakened by two processes: religious education that tends to undermine traditional adat (customary beliefs and cultural norms handed down by the ancestors), and the increasing centralization that occurred under the New Order.29

In 1999 a new law on local government was introduced that replaced the centralized approach of the New Order with greater autonomy at the village level. While in several provinces of Indonesia this law has facilitated the reemergence of traditional and local forms of governance, violence in Maluku has delayed the implementation of local government reforms. In early 2003, with the support of Baku Bae, a local organization advocating reconciliation, a gathering of Rajas and Latu Patis (traditional leaders) in Ambon ended with the creation of the Latu Pati Forum to discuss governance at village level.

In at least one case, in the village of Waiyame, a less traditional approach was used with considerable success to maintain order. Waiyame (whose name means “water of life”) is a village of 5,000 people and Ambon island’s largest oil depot. Originally a Christian village, Waiyame now has both Muslim and Christian residents, most of whom are educators, civil servants, and middle-class families. In the older section of the village, there are also residents who are less well-off. The village serves as a commercial hub for surrounding villages and is known for its popular vegetable market. Although it received a significant number of Christian and Muslim IDPs after the riots, Waiyame was the only village on Ambon that was not hit by communal violence. To prevent the conflict from spreading to the village, local Christian and the Muslim leaders created a crisis team, referred to as “Team 20,” composed of ten Christians and ten Muslims.31 According to some, the government’s need to protect the oil depot meant that it applied pressure to encourage the community leaders to maintain order. As conflict resolution specialist Christopher W. Moore writes:

The mission or purpose of Team 20 was to prevent, manage and resolve inter-religious differences in Waiyame, and to stop the spread of violence that had divided the rest of the country from destroying the village. Team 20, as an informal organization, initially based its credibility and strength on the reputation and respect held by members of each community for its individual members, but its leaders believed that they needed formal legitimacy and authority to be more effective.32

Team 20 developed a set of behavioral norms for the Waiyame community, including sanctions and penalties for the violators. These norms explicitly embraced freedom of religion and condemned any type of harassment because of religious belief or affiliation, required all rumors about religious conflict to be reported to Team 20 for investigation, and banned all weapons, fighting, defacing of religious buildings, and alcohol consumption in the village. Notably, the norms also specified that a person could not be buried in the village if that person had been killed because of his or her participation in the interreligious conflict. Enforcement reverted to the community; that is, if Muslims broke the rules, they were punished by Muslim leaders, and if Christians violated the norms, their cases were handled in their own community.33

Since the outbreak of the conflict in Maluku, NGOs have played an increasingly significant role. In Ambon city, the number of NGOs has increased from about 30 or 40 in 1999 to more than 500 in 2002. Most of the new NGOs are concerned with emergency relief and humanitarian assistance, including the provision of food, water, shelter, and sanitation to IDPs. Many of the local NGOs in Maluku have received substantial support from international NGOs.34

During the first year of the violence, there were efforts at the local level and within the NGO network to organize regular meetings between Christian and Muslim leaders and representatives of the NGOs. One of these forums is TIRUS, a humanitarian volunteer team, which was very active at the beginning of the violence. More than sixty NGOs from the Christian and Muslim communities participated in TIRUS activities. The forum has three coordinators, representing the Muslim, Protestant, and Catholic communities respectively. Another intercommunal network is the Caring Women’s Movement (GPP), a prominent civil society group formed in September 1999 as a moral movement against violence. More than forty women activists from the Protestant, Muslim, and Catholic communities are involved in the GPP. In addition to organizing rallies against the violence in Maluku, the GPP has also supported women and children victims of violence.

In addition to its work described above on local governance, the Baku Bae movement, formed in March 2000, has been engaged in other ways to bring together local NGOs and community leaders. With the support of civil society organizations in Jakarta, Baku Bae has been an important civil society response to the violence and conflict in Maluku, organizing reconciliation workshops attended by participants from different backgrounds, and promoting intercommunal engagements and economic transactions.

Baku Bae also created several “neutral zones” with the help of the villagers in Maluku. These neutral zones created safe areas on the borders between Christian and Muslim districts for business, education, and the delivery of health services. One zone was established at Nania village, near the Christian town of Passo at the isthmus between the predominantly Muslim Leihitu peninsula in the north of the island and the predominantly Christian Leitimor peninsula in the south.35 A second zone was at Pohon Pule near the center of Ambon. Sidewalk markets were set up at both Nania and Pohon Pule, where Christians and Muslims participated as vendors and shoppers.

In the Pohon Pule area, Pattimura University was able to establish a temporary campus (to replace the campus destroyed in July 2000) and the army hospital was open to Muslims and Christians seeking medical treatment.36 Another informal market sprang up in a narrow “neutral” zone at Mardika.37 Neutral zones, however, have not gone unchallenged. During the latter part of 2001, several bombs exploded near markets, killing some and wounding others.

Baku Bae also facilitated meetings between journalists and lawyers from the two communities, who gathered to discuss ways they might support the peace process. In cooperation with Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI), Baku Bae supported a meeting of Muslim and Christian journalists in March 2001 in Bogor, West Java. This meeting resulted in the establishment of the Maluku Media Center in the neutral zone at Mardika, in Ambon city. This program contributed remarkably to more balanced reporting in Ambon. In January 2002, Baku Bae also held a workshop for Christian and Muslim lawyers in Jakarta. Among other groups for which workshops are planned are intellectuals, teachers, military and police personnel, NGOs, religious leaders, and businesspeople.39

Beyond these local efforts, a Jakarta-based NGO, Go-East Institute, also engaged in peacebuilding activities focusing on Maluku, with its sponsorship of the “National Dialogue of the Maluku and North Maluku Community,” held near Tual on the Kei Islands in Southeast Maluku. The event was attended by 1,500 Muslims and Christians from all parts of the region. The conference issued a statement promising to continue peace efforts and proposed “the use of local traditions as a meeting point for accommodating the interests of the different groups in the province.” It also proposed that “all local traditional leaders, or Bapa Radja, once again take the lead . . . but at the same time support state law and guarantee the acceptance of all migrants living in the province.”40 During the meeting, however, some Muslim representatives from Ambon refused to sign the agreement. The head of the Muslim students’ association Himpunan Mahasiswa Islam (HMI) in Ambon said that those representatives “could be rejected by our members” if they signed.

In addition to local and national NGOs and civil society groups, international NGOs are also very active in providing aid and other resources to the communities and local NGOs. These include Save the Children (emergency education programs, child protection programs, and peacebuilding among children), CARDI (shelter, water, and sanitation projects as well as education and economic empowerment programs), and the ACF (food distribution, water and sanitation program, and seeds and tools distribution). Among the many international NGOs coming to Maluku, Mercy Corps International (MCI) is noted for its activities in building the capacity of local NGOs in Maluku. It also runs a water and sanitation program and has organized workshops on disaster response. In the field of community development, MCI provided microcredits and organized training on microfinance and financial management for local NGOs. It also supported the establishment of an NGO center in the city of Ambon, to provide a neutral place for broad-based NGOs to operate. In Central Maluku, International Medical Corps helped to reactivate a hospital affected by the violence and to start up an outpatient clinic in August 2001. The presence of the hospital facilitates further reconciliation between the two communities.

As the incidents of violence have decreased and the emergency situation has eased, many NGOs and international NGOs have shifted their activities toward peace advocacy and peacebuilding. More and more NGOs are trying to bring together different ethnic and religious groups under the same program or activity. After the Malino Declaration, many local NGOs became involved in peace and reconciliation promotion. Some served bridging functions between state and civil society.

The experience of NGOs working in Maluku during the past four years raises several issues for consideration. First, with regard to the relationships between NGOs and local government, differences in working styles and organizational culture sometimes create difficulties. NGOs in Maluku sometimes have to play by the rules set by the local bureaucracy, which tries to extort money from their programs in the same way it did when dealing with development projects during peacetime. Second, capacity building is badly needed among the NGOs working in conflict areas such as Maluku. The local NGOs view themselves as important actors in public education and catalysts of peaceful change in Maluku, but to succeed, they require skills and knowledge in conflict management, facilitation, and community organizing. Third, NGOs need to say up front what they can do and what they cannot do in Maluku in order to avoid creating unrealistic expectations. The image of NGOs as charity organizations delivering services to the communities should be avoided.

Prospects
Poor governance, a weakened central government, demoralized, divided, and indecisive security forces, outside intervention, and unresolved social tensions brought about by changing demographics all contributed to the tragic communal violence in Maluku.

Although the Megawati government did finally bring the parties together to produce the Malino Declaration, the basic tenets of this agreement have not been implemented. This failure has several sources: the central government failed to make necessary commitments for implementation of the declaration, the communities were too fragmented to be able to work together to implement the agreement, and both the local government and the representatives of the communities did not work out the details of the relationships between themselves. The deadline to hand in the weapons set by the Penguasa Darurat Sipil Daerah Maluku was initially March 31, 2002. Nevertheless, this could not be accomplished and most weapons still remain in the hands of the society. A sense of extreme insecurity has prevented people, especially youth, from handing in their weapons, and there have not been any meaningful efforts to deal with these problems. The Malino Declaration has also been opposed by several groups. On March 1, 2002, the Forum for Moslem Baguala Women organized strikes to protest the shutting down of the Suara Perjuangan Muslim Maluku radio station. They also denounced TVRI Station Ambon and RRI Ambon as acting provocatively during the conflict and demanded that their activities be halted. Clearly then, despite the relative lack of violence currently, the situation remains extremely volatile.

Another issue facing post-Malino Maluku is the resettlement of internally displaced persons. Many IDPs have returned to their houses only to find that they have been occupied by new settlers who moved into them during the conflict. This has often triggered open confrontation and remains a source of potential violence. There have also been cases where certain groups refuse to allow members of other religious groups to return to their villages. Again, these issues must be addressed if peace and stability are to be restored.

Recommendations
In order to address prospects, taking into account the conflict dynamics, and to increase successful conflict transformation the following recommendations are made:

· The central and local government should push the implementation of the Malino Declaration, especially by specifying its general statements and working out the details of monitoring the implementation. Particular emphasis should be put on the principles of reconciliation, tolerance, mercy, justice, and truth contained in the declaration. The resettlement of IDPs mandated by the declaration should also be implemented by using a comprehensive approach.

· A new, revived pela arrangement should be established. Many people still believe in the traditional institution of pela as an alliance and cooperation agreement involving villages. It is also important considering its potential as a decentralized mechanism of conflict management. It can be modified and reinvigorated as an alliance system involving villages without regard to the religious and ethnic backgrounds of the populations in those villages. By using territory and place of residence as bases of alliances and not religion or ethnicity, the traditional institution can be adapted to the new situation in Maluku.

· The Waiyame model should be emulated. In contrast to the pela system, which focuses on intervillage cooperation, the model is appropriate for conflict management at the village level.

· The city of Ambon, with its two subdistricts of Sirimau and Nusaniwe, should be treated differently. As an urban area where the influence of traditional leaders is weaker, and the traditional norms and customs do not hold sway over much of the population, the city needs other forms of governance based on the participation of civil society, religious leaders, the police, and local government.

· Reforms of the police should be pursued. Police in Maluku suffered from corruption, poor training, low salaries, lack of discipline, and abuse of power. Nevertheless, police are indispensable for maintaining law and order and protecting citizens in Maluku. Significant changes are needed within the police organization. The police need to view their role in society differently—not just as security apparatus and law enforcers but also as “problem solvers.” Skills, knowledge, and practice in community policing, especially in postconflict communities, should be introduced to the police forces in Maluku.

· Reforms of military institutions should be intensified. During the conflict, the number of troops deployed to Maluku was much greater than the number of police officers. In mid-2002, there were about four times as many members of the army (more than 4,100) in Ambon as there were police. At the provincial level, one and a half police battalions were deployed, compared to ten army battalions. Many within the military were corrupt and lacking in discipline. There were indications that army special forces personnel were involved in instigating violence prior to, and soon after, the Malino Declaration. The army also upgraded the status of its headquarters in Maluku. As a consequence, the army played a greater role in dealing with security affairs in Maluku, although the formal authority was in the hands of the police. While Indonesia was committed to demilitarization of its society, the reverse occurred in Maluku, so military and political reforms suffered a setback. Therefore, efforts to reduce the military’s role in Maluku and to improve the performance of army personnel should be a priority.

Resources
Reports

· European Commission Conflict Prevention Assessment Mission. “Indonesia.” By Nick Mawdsley, Monica Tanuhandaru, and Kees Holman. March 2002.

· Human Rights Watch. “Indonesia: The Violence in Ambon.” March 1999; “Mollucan Islands Communal Violence in Indonesia.” June 2000.

· International Crisis Group. “Indonesia: Overcoming Murder and Violence in Maluku.” ICG Asia Report no. 10. Jakarta/Brussels, December 19, 2000; “Indonesia: The Search for Peace in Maluku.” ICG Asia Report no. 31. February 8, 2002; “Indonesia’s Maluku Crisis: The Issues.” ICG Briefing Paper. Jakarta/Brussels, July 19, 2000.

· Project Ploughshares. “Indonesia-Molucca Islands (1999 First Combat Deaths).” Armed Conflict Report 2002. Last update January 2002. Available at www.ploughshares/ content/acr/acr00/acr00-indonesiamoluccaisland.html

· United Nations. “Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal 2001.”

· United Nations Inter-Agency. “Appeal for the Maluku Crisis.” Jakarta, March 2000.

Other Publications

· Atlas Maluku. Utrecht: Landelijk Steunpunt Educatie Molukkers, 1998.

· Bakubae: Breaking the Violence with Compassion. By Ichsan Malik, et al. Jakarta, 2003.

· “Building Peace in Indonesia: Religion Is Both a Help and a Complication As Country Struggles with New Democracy.” By Paul Jeffrey. National Catholic Reporter, June 6, 2003.

· The Community Based Movement for Reconciliation Process in Maluku. By Ichsan Malik. Jakarta: Bakubae Maluku, 2003.

· Developing a Village-Level Conflict Management System to Handle and Resolve Religious Conflicts: The Wayame Experience in Ambon, Indonesia. By Christopher W. Moore. 2001.

· “Guns, Pamphlets, and Handy Talkies: How the Military Exploited Local Ethno- Religious Tensions in Maluku to Preserve Their Political and Economic Privileges.” By George Junus Aditjondro. Revised paper for the proceedings of the conference “Conflicts and Violence in Indonesia,” organized by Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Department of African and Asian Studies, Humbolt University, Berlin, July 3–5, 2000.

· “Indonesian Political Developments and Their Implications for the U.S., with Special Reference to the Maluku Crisis.” By R. William Liddle. Paper presented to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Hearing on the Maluku Islands, Washington, D.C., February 13, 2001. Available at www.geocitie.com/paper/williamliddle.htm.

· “Islam and Asian Security.” By Robert William Hefner. Strategic Asia 2002–2003: Executive Summary, National Bureau of Asian Research.

· “The Maluku War: Bringing Society Back In.” By Gerry van Klinken. Indonesia 71 (Cornell University, April 2001).

· “Pela and the Failure of Reconciliation.” By Dieter Bartels. Maluku World Wide, July 27, 2000. Available at www.geocities.com/chosye/paper/dieter-Barstels.htm.

· “Why Local Conflict Becomes Indonesia’s National War.” By Dan Murphy. Christian Science Monitor, September 20, 2000. Available at www. csmweb2.emcweb.com/durable/2000/09/20/p8s1.htm.

· “Your God Is No Longer Mine.” By Dieter Bartels. 2000 Unpublished paper.

Websites

· www.hawaii.edu/cseas/conf/links.html

· www.websitesrcg.com/ambon/index.html

Resource Contacts

· M. Adnan Amal, North Maluku, tel: +62 921 24011

· M. Najib Azca, e-mail: najibazca2002@yahooo.com.au

· Dieter Bartels, www.geocities.com/chosye/paper/dieter-barstels.htm

· Konrad Huber, e-mail: konrad_huber@unicef.org

· Gerry van Klinken, e-mail: gerryvk@ykt.mega.net.id, editor@insideindonesia.org

· Ichsan Malik, Baku Bae Movement, e-mail: bagjanet@indo.net.id

· Imam B. Prasodjo, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia, e-mail: budipras@dnet.net.id

· Arifah Rahmawati, e-mail: arifah.rahmawati@csps-ugm.or.id

· Daniel Sparingga, Departemen Sosiologi Fisip Universitas Airlangga, Jl. Darmawangsa Dalam Selatan Surabaya,
tel: +62 31 503 4015 ext. 262.

· Tamrin Amal Tomagola, Jakarta

· Lambang Trijono, e-mail: lambang@csps-ugm.or.id

Organizations

· Bakubae Maluku Movement
Jl. Mendut no. 3
Jakarta Pusat
tel/fax: +62 021 315 3865
e-mail: bakubaemaluku@hotmail.com

· Forum Komunikasi Nusaniwe-Sirimau (Forkonussi)
Ambon
contact: Conny Lelapary
tel: +62 911 351 854

· Institut Studi Arus Informasi
Jl. Utan kayu no. 68H
Jakarta 13120
tel: +62 21 857 3388 ext. 125
fax: +62 21 856 7811

· Kantor Berita Radio 68H
Jl. Utan Kayu no. 68H
Jakarta 13120
tel: +62 21 857 3388 ext. 132
fax: +62 21 857 3387

· Lembaga Pemberdayaan Perempuan dan Anak (LAPPAN)
Ambon
contact: Bai Tualeka
tel: +62 911 314 176
e-mail: bai_lmb@yahoo.com

· Mercy Corps
Aman’s Building
Jalan Pantai Mutiara no. 53
Ambon
tel: +62 911 315 390
fax: +62 911 315 391

· UN Support Facility for Indonesian Recovery (UNSFIR)
Surya Building, 9th Floor
Jl. M.H. Thamrin Kav. 9
Jakarta 10350
tel: +62 21 392 4320
fax +62 21 392 1152

2.      International Crisis Group, “Indonesia’s Maluku Crisis: The Issues,” ICG Briefing Paper, Jakarta/Brussels, July 19, 2000, p. 2.

3.      These statistics are derived from official census figures of Survei Penduduk Antar Sensus for 1991, 1985, and 1990.

4.      Bartels, “Your God,” .

5.      Lance Castles, “Census Data in Time-Depth Which May Be Relevant to the Conflicts in Maluku,” 2000, unpublished paper, pp. 1–2.

6.      Human Rights Watch, “Indonesia: The Violence in Ambon,” March 1999, p. 9.

7.      International Crisis Group, “Indonesia’s Maluku Crisis,” p. 2.

8.      Bartels, “Your God,” p. 21.

9.      UN Support for Indonesia’s Recovery in Jakarta is creating a conflict database for these purposes.

10. See Pemerintah Darurat Sipil Maluku, Laporan Konflik Maluku [Maluku Conflict Report], Ambon, November 2002. According to this report, released by the Civil Emergency Authority, 920 out of 1,189 violent incidents (77.4 percent) that took place in Maluku from early 1999 to November 2002 occurred in Ambon city. In addition, 726 out of 1,359 of the violence-related deaths (53.4 percent) occurred in Ambon city. The figures regarding destruction of property also reveal a disproportionate concentration in Ambon city for houses (damaged, burnt, or destroyed; 2,320 out of 6,488, or 35.8 percent), churches (18 out of 66, or 27.3 percent), mosques (15 out of 36, or 57.7 percent), shops and kiosks (213 out of 243, or 87.6 percent), and government buildings (15 out of 22, or 68.2 percent).

11. Pemerintah Darurat Sipil Maluku, Maluku Conflict Report, app. tabs. 1.1.a– 1.4.a.

12. International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: The Search for Peace in Maluku,” ICG Asia Report no. 31, February 8, 2002, p. 21.

13. Pemerintah Darurat Sipil Maluku, Maluku Conflict Report, pp. 83–84.

14. Muhammad Najib Azca, “The Role of the Security Forces in Communal Conflict: The Case of Ambon,” master’s thesis, Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University, July 2003.

15. Chris Wilson, “Examining the Successful Reconciliation Process in North Halmahera,” 2004, unpublished preliminary research report.

16. On Laskar Jihad, see Kirsten Schulze, “Laskar Jihad and the Conflict in Ambon,” Brown’s Journal of World Affairs, 9, no. 1 (Spring 2002), available at www. watsoninstitute.org/bjwa/archive/9.1/indonesia/schulze.pdf.

17. It stood down in mid-2003.

18. Pemerintah Darurat Sipil Maluku, Maluku Conflict Report, app. tabs. 2.1.b.– 2.4.b.

19. Ibid.

20. Nick Mawdsley, Monica Tanuhandaru, and Kees Holman, Report of the EC Conflict Prevention Assessment Mission: Indonesia, European Commission, March 2002, p. 71. A team of researchers in Maluku and North Maluku is participating in creating the statistics of casualties and damages sponsored by the UN Development Programme and UN Support for Indonesian Recovery.

21. Pemerintah Darurat Sipil Maluku, Maluku Conflict Report. app. tab. 8.

22. Ibid., pp. 21, 23.

23. Ibid., pp. 10–11.

24. United Nations, Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for the Maluku Crisis, 2001.

25. Bartels, “Your God,” p. 9.

26. Another traditional institution is gandong. If pela is a contract-based alliance, gandong is based on ancestral or genealogical bonds. Two villages that are bound by gandong believe that they share a common ancestor.

27. Bartels, “Your God,” p. 10.

28. Ibid., p. 14.

29. International Crisis Group, “Indonesia’s Maluku Crisis,” p. 2.

30. M. Shaleh Putuhena, “Kerusuhan Maluku: Pengalaman dan Renungan dari Makassar,” and R. Z. Leirissa, “‘Encounter’ Sebagai Mekanisme Gerakan Baku Bae, Maluku,” in Ichsan Malik, et al., Baku Bae: Breaking the Violence with Compassion (Jakarta: Yappika, 2003).

31. Tempo, December 25–31, 2001.

32. Christopher W. Moore, “Developing a Village-Level Conflict Management System to Handle and Resolve Religious Conflicts: The Waiyame Experience in Ambon, Indonesia,” 2001, unpublished paper, p. 11.

33. Paul Jeffrey, “Building Peace in Indonesia: Religion Is Both a Help and a Complication As Country Struggles with New Democracy,” National Catholic Reporter, June 6, 2003.

34. Mawdsley, Tanuhandaru, and Holman, Report of the EC Conflict Prevention Assessment Mission, p. 30.

35. Kompas, September 8, 2001.

36. Forum Keadilan no. 15, July 15, 2001.

37. Ibid.

38. Koran Tempo, September 28, 2001.

39. Joint Committee of Baku Bae Maluku, The Community-Based Reconciliation Process of Baku Bae in Maluku, Bogor, 2001.

40. “Maluka Dialogue Ends with Peace Commitment,”Jakarta Post, March 20, 2001.

41. Ibid.