"Peace is a big word," says C. J. Boehm, a Dutch missionary working at the Catholic Crisis Centre Diocese of Amboina. Nevertheless, he hopes that the mid-February peace agreement signed in the town of Malino will end religious strife extending back to January 1999.
Not that the path to peace is easy. In late April Muslim militants murdered 14 Christians, including a six-month-old baby, in a village just three miles outside of Ambon, the provincial capital of the Moluccas Islands. That gruesome incident follows a spate of post-Malino bombings and shootings largely directed at Christians.
Ambon is still largely quiet, blanketed with police and military personnel. The remains of war are omnipresent, however. Barricades separate Christian and Muslim sections of town. In no man's land sit ruined buildings which once housed Christians and Muslims, as well as a thriving Chinese business district. A large bank building at the corner sits vacant. A makeshift wooden cross marks the spot where a church once sat, now a vacant lot between the two camps.
With an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 people dead and as many as 700,000 refugees, war-weariness pervades the Moluccas. Many remain in refugee camps, relying on outside assistance from groups such as Christian Freedom International, with which I traveled. War-weariness may offer the best hope for peace. As part of the Malino agreement, 70 Christian and Muslim delegates called for investigation of the start of the conflict, respect for religious freedom, disarmament of communal forces, and the return of refugees.
But the peace process remains fragile. "Now we are in round five or maybe round six. We finish one, have reconciliation, then it starts again," observed Theny Barlola, a Christian hotel manager.
After the negotiations, Boehm said "on the whole the agreement has been received fairly well." If the gains "can be consolidated, we will have a good future." After the latest murders he was no longer so sure, though more recently he has seen "an undeniable tendency towards an improving mutual trust" among Christians and Muslims.
The barriers to reconciliation are enormous. The first round of violence grew out of a spat in January 1999 between a bus driver and passenger. Many who lived on the islands quickly lost their taste for killing. But upwards of 6,000 fighters of the Laskar Jihad, or "Holy Warrior Troops," flocked to the island.
Religious sites were targeted for attack, with some 400 churches destroyed.
Human casualties include not only dead and wounded, but also forced
conversions, principally to Islam, and coercive male and female circumcisions.
Jafar Umar Thalib, the Jihad commander, called for the imposition of Islamic
law in
areas cleared of Christians.
Religion also split the security forces. "In most cases individuals and in some cases whole units, because they were afraid, or cowards, did nothing," said Boehm. The Jihad couldn't have arrived without the military's complicity in his view. Other soldiers turned over their weapons to Muslims. Finally, "some were among the attackers," says Boehm. Although Muslims appeared to be the chief beneficiaries of outside intervention, some police, who tend to be drawn locally, were more inclined to help the Christians. There were even clashes between military and police.
Inter-communal distrust remained rampant after fighting sputtered out. For instance, Agus Wattimena, head of a Christian militia, complained last year: "Christians and Muslims are talking about reconciliation. Okay, but the Muslims fight and shoot Christians. Until today, we don't believe they mean it." There have been Christian as well as Muslim atrocities. But the bulk of the blame seems to fall on the Muslim side. Last year Boehm told me: "Christians haven't done any attacking over the last half year. Only the Muslims. The Christians say they have had enough."
Unfortunately, however, the communities "are quite divided themselves" about reconciliation, explains Pastor Boehm. Muslim factions have squabbled violently. Thus, it is "hard to make peace with the Muslims, since one agrees, but one says no," says Boehm.
Haddi Abdullah Soulisa, the 81-year-old head of Ambon's Muslim community, acknowledged the problem, but contended that it is "the same, Christian and Muslim, all the same. Many, many want to make reconciliation. Many groups say no reconciliation because there has been conflict for a long time, with too much damage done."
Few Christians or Muslims credit the central government, which was unable to prevent ethnic and religious violence there or elsewhere in the island nation. Today the authorities seem both more effective and evenhanded. Moreover, the accord has sparked inter-communal contact and moved the government to begin removing the physical roadblocks within Ambon.
But tensions remain. A small number of Christians favoring secession; however, the decades-old Christian separatist movement is largely moribund. A larger share of the Muslim community opposes reintegration — every member of the Muslim Malino delegation has been threatened and the home of delegation head Thamrin Ely was burned down in mid-May.
The Lasker Jihad remains a particular stumbling block with murderous
potential. It was not part of the peace delegation and denounced the accord.
Two days before the slaughter of 14, which the Moluccas governor linked to the
Laskar Jihad, Thalib, an Afghan war veteran, declared at an Ambon rally:
"from today, we
will no longer talk about reconciliation." The Lasker Jihad "clearly
wants to make Indonesia into a Muslim state," worries Boehm.
Back in mid-2000 a group of Christian leaders, ranging from pastors to retired generals, agreed that these fighters had to be removed. Last year Agus argued that only "without Laskar Jihad we can have reconciliation."
Most Christians continue to view the Laskar Jihad as the main barrier to peace. "They are still around, but how many, where they are, we don't know," says Boehm. After the most recent murders a group of Catholic and Protestant leaders called on the central government to remove the Muslim militants from the province.
Yet Thamrin Ely has opposed removing the group's members from the Moluccas: "they are Indonesian citizens who have rights to stay wherever they want on Indonesian territory." Last year Haddi Soulisa defended the Jihad: "There is no problem with the Laskar Jihad." They "come to help Muslims," he said, and "not only for war." And they "are still helping."
Finally, after the murder of 14, Jakarta proved less forgiving, arresting Thalib and ordering Jihad forces from the islands. Its action sparked Muslim protests across Indonesia and Vice President Hamzah Haz broke with his government, visiting Thalib in jail. But Jakarta appears to have succeeded in disarming at least some of the Jihad fighters.
What of American policy? Barlola notes that during the fighting Christians signed petitions and mailed letters to American and foreign officials asking for help. Most Christians wanted foreign peacekeepers or, failing that, evacuation. My meeting with Christian leaders was filled with demands that the international community in general and the U.S. in particular do something — some pointed to America's intervention in Kosovo as a model. The recent Christian petitioners sent their letter to President George W. Bush as well as Indonesian government and international religious figures.
Jakarta naturally resisted any outside involvement and Muslims are even more emphatic. Observed Haddi Soulisa: "The U.S. shouldn't police the world. Give us time for Indonesia to make it by ourselves. Democracy, Indonesian democracy, not by any country imposing it on Indonesia."
But Indonesian democracy, a fragile creature in the post-Suharto era, may not survive. Moreover, every new spurt of violence threatens to destabilize the peace — the very goal of some perpetrators.
"Don't forget us," pleaded Agus. "We are a brotherhood. Go back to America, and tell Christians that they must help us here." But any help will be too late for Agus, who was shot and killed shortly after I interviewed him. And there's precious little America can do for anyone else. Only the Indonesians can find peace.