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Titel	Guns, Pamplets and Handy-Talkies
Auteur	George J. Aditjondro, Ph.D.
Datum	5 ocktober 2000

How the military exploited local ethno-religious tensions in Maluku to preserve their political and economic privileges

Revised paper for the Proceedings of the Conference on "Conflicts and Violence in Indonesia", organised by The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Department of African and Asian Studies, Humbolt-University in Berlin, July 3-5, 2000)

It can be concluded that the ongoing inter-religious violence in Maluku was fomented and maintained by a network of retired and active military officers, supported by certain politicians from the 'Central Axis' coalition of Muslim parties. These intertwined military and militant Muslim networks exploited the simmering ethno-religious tensions in Maluku using gangsters from Java and Ambon to trigger communal violence and later deployed of thousands of Muslim militants after the internal fighting in Maluku were declining.


Introduction

The violence in the Maluku (Moluccas) islands has taken between 4 000 and 10 000 lives since January 1999 000 (Ivan A. Hadar, pers. com., June 17, 2000; Barr, 2000; Deutsche Presse-Agentur, September 26, 2000), out of a total population of 1,19 million people in 1997. This death toll is approximately evenly distributed between North and South. About forty percent of the casualties, or around 4000 people, have died in North Maluku, another forty percent in Central Maluku (Seram, Ambon and the Lease islands), and twenty percent in Southeast Maluku, especially in the Banda, Aru and Kei islands (Alhadar 2000: 15; Dodd 2000).

This wide range of the death toll is caused by the fact that many fatalities have not been accounted. The victims might have died in burning houses and other properties, were unceremonially buried after being slashed to death, or drowned in the sea while trying to escape on overloaded ferries, as has happened on June 31, 2000, when Cahaya Baru sank during its voyage from Halmahera (North Maluku) to Manado (North Sulawesi), drowning nearly 500 refugees (International Herald Tribune, July 1-5, 2000; Sydney Morning Herald, July 3 & 5, 2000).

In several cases, Moluccans were intentionally killed and their bodies dumped into the sea during voyages to and from Ambon (see Appendix I). Such type of executions are similar to the ones applied to dozens of Timor Lorosa'e students on a state passenger ship, KM Dobonsolo, before and after the UN-supervised referendum (ETHRC 1999: 15, 20).

In addition to the death toll, up to 860000 people have been displaced, with around 280000 persons living in refugee camps in Southern Maluku and around 78000 persons in North Maluku. The only totally mixed shelter in Halong Naval base, six kilometres east of the city of Ambon, accommodated around 10000 refugees (Tempo, August 7-13, 2000; Jakarta Post, August 29, 2000; Indonesian Observer, September 20, 2000).

The majority of the refugees fled to the neighbouring islands, with North Sulawesi being the main destiny for Christian Moluccans. Muslims displaced from Maluku were predominantly Bugis and Makassarese migrants and have returned to their respective homelands in South and Southeast Sulawesi. The number of Butonese returnees has swollen to 107000 people, around 22% of the pre-existing population (Collins 1999; Antara, May 17, 2000; Jawa Pos, June 16, 2000; walhi@pacific.net.id, April 6, 1999). Meanwhile, the total number of Christian Moluccan refugees in North Sulawesi has reached 16,293 persons.

After Jihad ('Holy War') fighters from Java and other islands began to ransack Christian villages on Ambon, new waves of Christian Moluccan refugees have fled their home islands. Between 18000 and 30000 refugees fled to West Papua (South China Morning Post, July 29, 2000; Kompas, July 31, 2000; Tempo, August 7-13, 2000), and about 4000 refugees fled to East Nusa Tenggara. The Netherlands is now home to between 500 to 600 Moluccans who fled on tourist visa (Infomaluku, August 8, 2000), and a family of five fled on a 25-metre fishing boat to Australia and is currently living in Adelaide (The Age, July 27, 2000).

This sectarian violence has left a deep scar on the social fabric of the people that inhabit the archipelago: the new province of Maluku, which covers the former Central and Southeast Maluku districts, and North Maluku, which covers the four sultanates (Ternate, Tidore, Bacan and Jailolo) that once dominated the entire archipelago and the North-western coast of New Guinea (Ellen 1986: 57).

The violent social upheaval has created severe effects on the Moluccan children. It has left many families fatherless, or separated fathers and other able-bodied males from women and children, many of whom live as refugees in the forest and in refugee camps in the towns of Maluku. As has happened in nearby Timor Lorosa'e (Galvao-Teles 1999; Aditjondro 2000a, 2000b), the intense militarisation of Moluccan society has inflicted a culture of violence, with elementary and secondary school children becoming skilled producers of crude yet deadly weapons from commonly available materials (Australian Financial Review, Canberra Times, Sydney Morning Herald, March 16, 1999). Between 2000 to 4000 children aged 7 to 12 years have also taken part in raiding "enemy" villages and protecting their own villages from "enemy" raids. They are known as Pasukan Agas, or 'sandflies troops,' and have fought lethal battles on both sides of the community (Tapak Ambon & LERAI 2000: 31; AP, February 24, 2000; Tempo, January 23, 2000: 23).

This adverse psychological impact on the psyche of young Moluccans has been aptly illustrated by an architecture student, Umelto Labetubun, 25, as follows: "Everyone has become hard. Even girls don't play with dolls any more; they play with guns. In the future, when we have disputes, we will solve them with guns. All of us in Ambon have experience now in defending ourselves in a hard way. Even me, I am sorry to say, I can tell you now, that's the sound of an M16, that's the sound of an AK47." As Roman Catholic priest Agus Ulahayanan further added, describing the despair that have driven so many people into religious warfare: "No one can stop them any more. A boy goes and burns down a house and he come to me and says proudly. 'I burned down a house.' And already for him the burden is lifted from the frustration and depression. There is nothing left for me to say to him" (Mydans, 2000a).

Tertiary education has also badly suffered. Muslim villagers supported by Jihad fighters and soldiers have destroyed the campuses of the Maluku Christian University (UKIM, Universitas Kristen Indonesia di Maluku ), the state-owned Pattimura University (UNPATTI) and the Pattimura Polytechnic University (Tapak Ambon 2000; AFP, June 23, 2000).

Finally, Maluku and the island and city of Ambon, and even the shipping service linking Maluku with the rest of Indonesia have become a society segregated by religion. Christians have to board ships from the state shipping company, Pelni, which are considered to be saving for Christians, such as KM Dobonsolo, while Muslims have to board KM Bukit Siguntang and KM Lambelu. Practically, no Christian Moluccan dare to sail on those so-called 'Muslim ships', after several Christians were stabbed to death and their bodies thrown overboard from KM Bukit Siguntang.

This form of 'religious apartheid' also applies to the use of speedboats and ferries in and around the city of Ambon. Being on a ship, ferry or speedboat, however, does not fully guarantee one's safety, since gun battles have also been fought recently between passengers and people on land, especially when a vessel associated with one religion passes too close to land marks associated with the opponent's religion.

To deal with this complicated and sensitive subject, I have constructed this chapter in the following order. After outlining my research methodology, I will outline the background of the inter-ethnic and inter-religious violence in Maluku. Then, I will outline the main outside actors, which channelled the inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions into an ever-widening spiral of violence. Consequently, I will expose the agenda of the security forces in maintaining this so-called 'low level insurgency,' and conclude the chapter with recommendations for further action and research.

Research methodology

Conducting research about such a sensitive topic has not been easy, especially being based outside Maluku. In addition, having Christian background makes being labelled as "biased against Muslims" a challenge, which I continuously have to face. To overcome those obstacles I have complemented my library research with attempts to elicit information from as many and as varied respondents in Maluku as well as among Moluccans living outside their homeland, employing two levels of crosschecking.

First, I crosschecked each important piece of information from each key informant by asking for confirmation and further elaboration from other key informants unknown to the first one, also making sure that information coming from Christian respondents has been crosschecked by Muslim respondents and vice versa.

Then, I further crosschecked information from Moluccan respondents with human rights activists and academics who are either knowledgeable about the situation in Maluku or are knowledgeable about similar cases of human rights violations in Indonesia and Timor Lorosa'e. I collaborated in particular with journalists and social scientists associated with Tapak Ambon (Team Advokasi Penyelesaian Kasus Ambon), or Advocacy Team for the Resolution of the Ambon Case, an alliance of seventeen non-governmental organizations in Jakarta and Ambon, which takes a non-partisan humanist approach to the whole issue.

Tapak Ambon has been assisted in their field investigations by members of AJI (Aliansi Jurnalis Independen), or the Independent Journalists Association, and two human rights watchdogs, namely KontraS (Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan), or the Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence, which was then led by a young dedicated lawyer, Munir, and LERAI (Lembaga Rekonsiliasi dan Perdamaian Indonesia ) or the Institute for Reconciliation and Peace in Indonesia, which is led by Tamrin Amal Tomagola, sociology lecturer at the University of Indonesia, who hails from North Maluku. This enabled me to benefit from the data that had already been collected and analysed by AJI, KontraS and LERAI activists.

This 'interactive' and 'snowballing' mode of open-ended interviews were carried out mostly through email and partly through phone interviews, with one in-depth face-to-face interview with a key human rights activist conducted during the 'Conflicts and Violence in Indonesia' Conference organised by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Department of African and Asian Studies of Humboldt University in Berlin on July 3-5, 2000. In addition, my media articles about the political economy of the violence in Maluku as well as my media interviews about this topic enabled

Background

The background of the violence has to be found in Maluku as well as in Jakarta with its large Moluccan diaspore. In this section I will first deal with the internal conflicts in Southern Maluku, what is now the new province of Maluku, then with similar factors in Northern Maluku, and finally with tensions between Christian and Muslim Moluccan gangsters in Jakarta, which eventually 'spilled over' to their homelands.

Southern Maluku:

By the end of 1999, Maluku - then still a united province -- was a powder keg waiting to explode, ridden by numerous vertical and horizontal conflicts. The previous year, Ambon, the provincial capital, had been rocked by student protests, which had lasted for months. Echoing the demands of the student-led reformasi movement in Java, which had forced General Suharto to step down, the Ambonese student movement also demanded an end to the military's political role (Bhakti 1999: 175).

These student demonstrations reached its climax on November 18, 1998, involving up to 7000 students from several institutes of higher education, including Unpatti, Ukim and the Institute of Public Administration (STAIN). This massive demonstration in front of the headquarters of the Pattimura Army Resort Command, or Korem 174 Pattimura ended in a physical clash between students and soldiers, injuring 63 students, one academic staff, 24 soldiers, and three bystanders. One student activist eventually died. The Army, however, also suffered a blow to their reputation in Ambon. Its Javanese army commander, Col. (Inf.) Hikayat, was reprimanded by provincial officials and religious leaders at the Governor's office. Hikayat was eventually replaced by an Ambonese officer, Col. Karel Ralahalu (Ecip 1999: 49; Kastor 2000: 185, 197-207; Hohe and Remijsen 2000; Kelompok Solidaritas Reformasi di Maluku (KSRM) Press Release, November 25, 1998; Berita KontraS, No. 3/1999: 12).

This 'anti-state' uprising, which echoed the December 28, 1977 protest of about 600 Pattimura University (Unpatti) students against the killing of a Muslim Unpatti student, Abdul Kadir Nurlete, by the son of an army police (Salemba, January 23, 1978), also has its roots in the three decades history of Maluku's economic marginalisation under Suharto's New Order. To understand this history, it is important to contrast the treatment of Maluku by the central government under Sukarno and Suharto (see Aditjondro 1990, 2000a).

After crushing the South Maluku Republic or 'RMS' (Republik Maluku Selatan) rebellion in Ambon in 1950, Sukarno located several national development projects in Maluku, namely the Wayame shipyard on Ambon, the Oceanography Research Institute at Poka, Ambon, and the huge sugar mill at Makariki, on Seram. Also, Sukarno appointed several top Ambonese Christian intellectuals in his cabinet, and named Indonesia's first research nuclear reactor after an Ambonese engineer, Siwabessy.

After Suharto replaced Sukarno, Jakarta's attitude towards Maluku changed radically. One by one, Sukarno's 'prestige projects' in Maluku, according to the New Order, were dismantled and moved to Java. The Wayame shipyard was moved to Surabaya, East Java, and became the Navy shipyard, PT PAL. The Makariki sugar mill was dismantled and re-installed at Jatiroto, also in East Java. Finally, the status of the Oceanography Institute in Ambon was reduced to become a station of the Jakarta-based National Oceanography Institute (LON). Construction of the institute's main laboratory in Ambon was discontinued.

Consequently, Suharto-linked conglomerates began to feast on Maluku's abundant natural resources (Aditjondro 1990; Aditjondro & Marlessy 1987). The Banda Sea, abundant with its tuna fish, was leased out for 25 years to a Japanese fishing cooperative, but was discontinued after eight years after protests by local fisher folks, environmentalists, and nationalists (Marten et al 1987).

This is when the Moluccan intelligentsia began to feel deprived and marginalized, becoming 'stepchildren of progress' and guests in there own house. Strong regionalist feeling began to emerge, and Ambonese intellectuals began to join environmental watchdogs, after Suharto began to use environmentalism to woo young radicals away from campus-based and Jakarta-oriented politics.

Unfortunately, while this emerging environmental awareness was fully endorsed by the State Minister of Environment, Emil Salim (Aditjondro 1983), it was differently perceived by the military in Maluku. In 1988, Pattimura University academics that assisted local villagers in defending their land rights against economic interests of the Djajanti Group, were arrested and accused of being members of the outlawed 'RMS' movement (Fakta, July 15, 1988: 44-45).

In addition to exploitation by Suharto-linked conglomerates, such as the previously mentioned Djajanti Group which has Suharto's cousin, Sudwikatmono on its board (IBRA 2000), the Barito Pacific Group which cooperated closely with two of Suharto's children (Brown 1999: 14-16) and the Banda Sea fishing fleet of Suharto's middle son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, with his business partner, Tomy Winata, and a Taiwanese company (Swa, August 22-September 11, 1996: 128-129), Maluku's wealth was also syphoned away by two Javanese generals appointed to govern the province, namely Brig.-Gen. Sumeru (Tempo, June 4, 1975: 22, July 12, 1975: 5, January 21, 1978: 38) and Brig.-Gen. Hasan Slamet (AMP 1980). These generals were both from the Brawijaya Army Command in East Java.

These vertical conflicts let to the horizontal conflicts. According to Dieter Bartels (2000), five internal factors created the fertile ground for the ongoing Muslim-Christian fratricide. First, the influx of non-Ambonese Muslims; second, the destruction of the traditional village government system based on local customs (adat ) with the introduction of the Village Government Law No. 5 of 1979; third, the increasing land scarcity caused by urbanization; fourth, the emergence of western-style gangs among less-educated Ambonese youngsters; and fifth, the erosion of the

As Bartels points out, Protestant-Christian Ambonese had long been apprehensive about the large influx of Muslims from other parts of Indonesia, as were the small minorities of other Protestant denominations and Catholics. In the 1970s, this apprehension was also shared by many Ambonese Muslims. This influx of non-Ambonese Muslims, which was officially encouraged by the nomination of Central Maluku's largest island, Seram, as a transmigration destiny, did not only skew the population balance in favour of Muslims, but also added to the already critical urban and rural population pressure on land.

The swelling numbers of non-Ambonese Muslims also contributed to diminish the traditionally strong influence of Christian Ambonese in the provincial political structure. This, in turn, aggravated the power struggle on provincial level. During the Sukarno era, the Christian political elite could be satisfied by the appointment of two governors and one military commander from their ranks. In the Suharto era, their loss of power is symbolized by the fact that no Christian Ambonese was ever appointed to these two key positions. In total, the Muslim Ambonese have had three

Beyond its symbolism it does not really matter, since the power of provincial leaders was quite curtailed by the central government in Jakarta. Also, with the introduction of Law No. 5/1979, Moluccan provincial leaders became even more uprooted from their own local constituency.

Increasing population density caused by natural growth and migration from other islands increased the pressure on land in urban and rural areas, which have been indicated by an increasing frequency of inter-village feuds over border disputes and ownership of real estate. How important land is in the current struggle is pointed out by Bartels in the following example from Saparua: in the Muslim village of Iha, the village secretary lamented Iha's land loss in the 17th century when they were defeated by the Dutch who then divided most of Iha's land between its neighbouring Christian

Another internal factor, which Bartels mentions, is the emergence of Western-style gangs among the less-educated youngsters in various districts of Ambon City, which fought one another. After the social upheaval, these gangs, according to Bartels, metamorphosed themselves into 'freedom fighters' defending their neighbourhoods against outside attacks and invading those of their enemies to burn them down. Before the upheaval, these youngsters hedged resentment against their parents, teachers and the government but had to repress their feelings because of the social strong control in the Suharto era. In the freer atmosphere that followed the period of Reformasi , says Bartels, they felt free to rebel against traditional values of adat, politics, and religion.

This description gives the impression that 'western-style gangs' had to operate clandestinely during the Suharto era, and could only surface after the former dictator had been forced to step down. This is quite different from the picture, which I have obtained through my library research and interviews with sources in Ambon and elsewhere, namely that gangs of thugs have been operating 'normally' during the Suharto era in Ambon and in other cities with high concentrations of Ambonese migrants. In fact, these gangs later provided the excellent cover for professional trouble-makers, recruited from the Indonesian army and the Suharto family's 'private army', to initiate the spark that blew the Moluccan powder keg up. In other words, it was the presence of these thugs - in Ambon and in Jakarta - which enabled the masterminds of the Moluccan violence to 'indigenise' - or more accurately, 'Ambonise' - the state-sponsored violence in Maluku.

Contrary to Bartels' image, this use of violence is deeply rooted in popular Ambonese culture. It is embedded in the Pattimura cult, developed by Indonesian independence fighters to symbolise one of the earliest resistance against Dutch colonial rule, but was equally embedded in the Captain Jonker cult, used by the Dutch colonial army, KNIL (Koninklijke Nederlands Indische Leger ) to recruit Ambonese soldiers (Nanuilaitta 1966: 90-116).

Also, contrary to Bartels' belief, Suharto's New Order did not repress the emergence of gangs, but rather transformed them into instruments of political thuggery. This, in turn, has its roots in the Indonesian military practice of using civilians to advance its political ambitions, dating back from the failed coup d'etat of October 17, 1952, which was successfully repeated thirteen years later (Pontoh 2000: 165-171, 174; Aditjondro 2000: 10-11).

During the Suharto era, the most well known political thugs were organised under the banners of Pemuda Pancasila, or Pancasila Youth. Political thuggery is also not limited to the Suharto family, but practically all main political actors - including the current President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri - are involved in this practice (Loren 1998; Hadar 2000; Simanjuntak 2000).

In this city of Ambon with its nearly 350,000 inhabitants (LSEM, 1998: 32), the underworld was dominated by two top figures, Berty Loupatty and Agus Wattimena, who vied for the leadership of the largest gang, called Coker. This gang was set up the early 1980s in the Kudamati neighbourhood, near the Dr. Haulussy public hospital by Berty Loupatty, after returning from Makassar. As the amalgamation of smaller gangs in Ambon with exotic names, such as Van Boomen, Papi Coret, Sex Pistol, Coker had about one hundred members, including Muslims and women. Literally meaning 'Handsome Boys' (Cowok Keren) some people also called provided another meaning for Coker, namely Cowok Kerempeng ('Skinny Boys'), since most of its male members were actually rather skinny young men. Later, after its Christian members got involved in defending Christian neighbourhoods from invaders, Coker obtained another meaning, namely Cowok Keristen , or 'Christian Boys' (Tajuk, April 1999).

The intertwining problems of overpopulation, land shortages and immigration are compounded the erosion of the traditional Ambonese inter-village alliance system, called pela. According to Bartels, pela alliances, which originated long before Europeans invaded Maluku in search of spices, are concluded between two or more villages and in a few rare cases, between clans from different villages. It is conceived as an enduring and inviolable brotherhood between all peoples of the partner villages or clans, who have to assist each other in times of crisis caused by war or natural disasters. "If Ambonese customs and beliefs would not have been subjected to the systematic destruction discussed earlier and people on both sides would still have considered themselves as Ambonese first and Moslem or Christian second," says Bartels, "I believe the pela concept could have had some soothing influence on the conflict."

Tanja Hohe and Albert Remijsen suggested an opposite view about this traditional custom. By analysing the myths and ceremonies in upholding this tradition, which balances the two contrasting values of fertility and violence, they argue that "pela is the instrument through which existing tensions may be amplified" (Hohe and Remijsen 2000). The unity between two parties bound by this pact is based on opposition towards a third party. Pela thus intensifies divisions by strengthening existing conflict potential. One source of tension is the relation between the indigenous Ambonese and the Buginese and Butonese migrants from South and Southeast Sulawesi. Only by establishing a relation of violence towards an 'outsider' the indigenous Ambonese establish the value of solidarity between themselves. Hence, the foundations for an ethnic conflict are created.

If this analysis is correct, than the campaign to popularise pela and even to uplift it to provincial level, as proposed by law scholar M.G. Ohorella (cited in Bartels 2000), may have also contributed to escalating the inter-ethnic violence in Maluku.

Northern Maluku:

The new province of North Maluku was officially split of from Maluku on September 16, 1999, after sectarian violence had erupted on the island of Halmahera less than a month earlier. Here the violence began when the district administration of North Maluku was planning to inaugurate the establishment of a new subdistrict, Malifut, on August 18, 1999, as stipulated by the Central Government Regulation (PP, Peraturan Pemerintah) No. 42/1999.

This new subdistrict was supposed to consist of sixteen villages of migrants from Makian, a volcanic island west of Halmahera, five villages of Kao people who are indigenous to this geographic area, and six villages of Jailolo people. The Makianese are predominantly Muslim, and so are the Jailolo people, while the Kao people are divided between Christians and believers of their native religion. The Kao and Jailolo villagers refused to be included in the new subdistrict of Malifut, since they would clearly become a minority on their own ancestral land. On the other hand, the Makianese settlers insisted that PP No. 42/1999 should be implemented without further delay. Communal violence then erupted between the Makian settlers and Kao villagers, with casualties from both sides (Jong Ambon 2000; Tomagola 2000a, 2000b).

Hence, one of the root causes of the sectarian violence in North Maluku was the decision in 1975 of the Moluccan provincial government, to evacuate the Makianese to the transmigration area of Malifut at the Kao Bay, on Halmahera's northeastern peninsula. By 1980, about 6,000 Makianese had been relocated to Malifut, far away from their traditional circulatory migration villages on the western coast of Halmahera (Lucardie 1985: 70).

Long before the social conflict erupted, criticism of this program had already been expressed by Ronald Lucardie (1985). His 1979-1981 field work on Makian and Malifut identified two trends that were endangering the success of the resettlement scheme: first, the Makianese settlers in Malifut increasingly resented the entire project; and second, many settlers were secretly returning to their home lands, leaving their plots at Malifut in the hands of relatives or friends. One of the reasons why the settlers disliked the scheme was the poor reception from the local, mainly Christian

The fact that 15 years later, the Makianese settlers in Malifut strongly defended the establishment of the new subdistrict, is certainly related to the fact that gold mining had began in this area. This Gosowong gold mine is operated by PT Nusa Halmahera Minerals, a joint venture of the Australian company Newcrest Mining Limited with the state-owned PT Aneka Tambang. It began to produce its first ore in July 1999. After suspending mining in early 2000 because of the violence, in mid 2000 it was producing at a rate of 20,000 troy ounces of gold a month, with long-term production forecasted at 154,000 ounces a year (Dow Jones Newswires, June 20, 2000).

Hence, Tamrin Amal Tomagola rightfully states that competition over control of the gold mine and its revenues is one of the local factors underlying the inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts in North Maluku. Two other factors according to Tomagola are competition between the elites of the two most powerful sultanates - Ternate versus Tidore - for the seats of governor of the new province, and competition for areas for religious expansion (2000a, 2000b). The first factor, I believe, carries more water than the second one, and has also been raised by other North Maluku analysts (Raimadoya 2000; Arianto Sangaji, pers. com., January 4, 2000). In fact, power struggles for governorial seats will become more prevalent in Indonesia in general in the coming years, since two new laws, Law No. 22/1999 which grants more autonomy to local administration and Law No. 25/1999 which provides a larger proportion of revenue for the provinces, districts and municipalities, will provide more real power to the governor than it has been for three decades during the Suharto era.

The other factor, territorial competition for religious expansion is more doubtful, especially since Tomagola bases his argument on opposition of a Pattimura University soil scientist against the Malifut resettlement scheme for the Makianese who had to be evacuated from the volcanic eruption in their home island. Tomagola explicitly states that the soil scientist was a Christian who hails from Kao (2000a). As I have discussed earlier, opposition against the Malifut resettlement scheme has been raised not only from an agronomical, but also from an applied anthropological angle by Lucardie. In addition, further investigations have shown that the soil scientist in question was indeed a Christian, but did not hail from Kao.

One fact that has not been raised by Tomagola, Raimadoya and Sangaji is that opposition against Muslim domination in North Maluku has not only come from Christians, but also from Halmahera's indigenous people, the Togutil, who have mostly retained their traditional, non-Semitic belief. They also fought against Muslim militants, motivated firstly by solidarity with Christian relatives who were killed by Makianese, and secondly to reject domination by non-Halmaheran migrants from Tidore or Makian (Jong Ambon 2000; Jubilee Campaign 2000). This Togutil opposition against outside control should also be seen in the light of other forms of indigenous Halmahera peoples' resistance against successive waves of outside domination by the Tidore sultanate, North Sulawesi-based Permesta rebels, Javanese transmigrants and lately, timber concessions (Leith 1998; Bubandt 1998).

Jakarta:

In the 1980s, a Christian Ambonese gangster in Jakarta, Onki Pieters, commanded respect and fear among the Ambonese youth, regardless of their religion. Despite eking a living from their brawns rather than brains, Ambonese gangsters in Jakarta still respected the pela tradition and often wore red bandanas, which was more as a symbol of their Ambonness - rooted in the Alifuru culture -- rather than of their religion. This differs radically with the current meaning given to 'red' to symbolise being a Christian and 'white' to symbolise being a Muslim (Tanja Hohe, pers. com.,

After while, another Christian Ambonese youth, Milton Matuanakotta, appeared on the scene. He was claimed to have many younger supporters among both Christian and Muslim Ambonese, and was rapidly becoming more popular among Ambonese in Jakarta than his predecessor.

At hat time, the Muslim Ambonese reckoned that they also need to have their own 'hero', so they chose Dedy Hamdun, an Ambonese of Arabic descent, as their leader. Dedy was a contradictory character: on one hand he actively campaigned for the only Muslim political party permitted during the Suharto era, PPP (Partai Persatuan Pembangunan, or United development Party), but on the other hand he used his fighting skills to clear land for the real estate business of Ibnu Hartomo, a brother-in-law of then President Suharto(D&R, Aug. 9, 1997 : 96 - 99).

Whether it was because of his political or business activities, in early1998 Dedy Hamdun's name also on the list of 'disappeared persons, 'together with a group of student activists and leaders of Megawati Sukarnoputri's party, in a clandestine operation involving the Indonesian Army's Special Forces, Kopassus. Dedy Hamdun's disappearance caused a major shift in the political and scape of Ambonese gangsters in Jakarta. he leadership of the Moluccan Muslim out was taken over by Ongen Sangaji, a Muslim Moluccan gangster who is also a member of Pemuda Pancasila (Jubilee Campaign, 1999 : 4).

Ironically, competing for loyalty among Moluccan youngsters in Jakarta drove the two gangster leaders also to compete for access to the Suharto children's private security business opportunities. Milton obtained access to the Suharto children through Yorris Raweyai, the Pemuda Pancasila deputy leader who hails from West Papua and is close to Bambang Trihatmodjo, Suharto's middle son. While Ongen was closer to Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, Suharto's eldest daughter, through Abdul Gafur, whom we will further encounter in this chapter. Ongen's 'boys' mainly came from the villages of Pelauw and Kailolo on Haruku (SiaR, January 26 & February 5, 1999; Xpos, January 28-February 3, 1999, February 4-10, 1999; interview with sources in Maluku and Java, February 1999).

In the wake of the Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat) in November 1998, when Suharto's successor, B.J.Habibie sought a legitimate mandate for his presidency, certain politicians, generals and business people created a new vigilante group to counter the student demonstrations. It was called Pam Swakarsa, which consisted of the Muslim Ambonese gangsters recruited by Dedy Hamdun and Muslim villagers recruited from various areas in West Java. Financial support for these vigilante groups came from the Suharto family and from a North Moluccan businessman of Arabic descent, Fadel Muhammad, whose businesses were closely linked to the Suharto family. While political patronage for those groups came from then Defence Minister, General Wiranto, MPR Deputy Speaker, Abdul Gafur, who hails from North Maluku, and the Jakarta Military Commander, Maj.-Gen. Djadja Suparman (Tempo, November 30, 1998: 44, 48, 50 ; Hadar 2000).

A former Minister for Youth and Sport under Suharto, Gafur had consistently tried to divide the Moluccan community in Jakarta along religious lines. On May 15, 1995,when the Ambonese community in Jakarta were commemorating the day that Pattimura launched his rebellion against the Dutch in 1817,Gafur boycotted the all-Moluccan celebration in Gedung Joang in the Menteng neighbourhood, where both Christian and Muslim religious leaders said their prayers. He organized instead an exclusive celebration for Muslim Moluccans at Mrs.Suhartinah Suharto's Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park, by organizing a Pattimura torch run. On another occasion, Gafur claimed that Pattimura was Islam, refuting a well-documented fact that the national hero, whose real name was Thomas Matulessy, was a Christian (see Chauvel 1990:111,369; van Kaam 1977 : 11 - 37).

Returning to Ongen Sangaji's group, four of them who hailed from Kailolo (Haruku), Tulehu and Hitu (Ambon), and Kei (Southeast Maluku) were killed by locals who rushed to defend the student activists from attacks by the Muslim vigilantes. It is also important to note that to raise the militancy of these poor and lowly educated vigilantes were brainwashed to believe that the student activists were "Communists" and were supported by Christian generals and businessmen. Many vigilantes thus saw their mission as a 'holy war' (jihad ) against "infidels." The fact that the fiercest

So, when four Muslim Moluccan gangsters were killed, the ground was laid to provoke Muslim Ambonese revenge not against the student movement, but against Christian Moluccans gangsters in Jakarta. That opportunity emerged during the riots in the Ketapang neighbourhood on Sunday and Monday, November 22-23, 1998. What began as a relatively harmless brawl between Christian Ambonese security guards of a gambling centre and locals instantly developed into a massive anti-Christian riot, where dozens of churches, schools, houses, banks, shops and dozens of motor vehicles were burned and destroyed.

Further investigations show that outside forces were involved in turning this local conflict into an inter-religious conflict. These outside forces included a group of 'Ambonese-looking' men, who raided the Ketapang neighbourhood at 5.30 am at dawn. They were paid Rp 40,000 plus three meals a day to terrorise Muslims. Although one of them was a Batak person from North Sumatra who was executed by the locals, the majority of these gangsters turned out to be members of the Muslim Ambonese vigilantes who had joined Gafur's PAM Swakarsa forces. They attacked all local residents who were seen moving around, and burned down a motorcycle parked in front of a local mosque, causing some of the mosque's windows to be broken. This then became the 'apparent spark' that turned the local conflict into an inter-religious riot, since rumours were spread around that a mosque was burned down by 'infidels.' The local Muslims began to counter-attack those earlier outsiders, supported by members of a Muslim paramilitary group, FPI (Front Pembela Islam ), who had been brought in from various places around Jakarta. During these riots, six people found their death in raw justice handed out by local Muslims and their outside supporters, and seven died after being burned alive in the local entertainment centre which was the original cause of the conflict. Three of the victims were Christians from Saparua and Haruku (Simanjuntak 2000: 54-55; Tempo, November 30, 1998: 30-31; SiaR, November 24, 1998, January 26, 1999; Waspada, November 24, 1998; RAPwashjp@aol.com, November 27, 1998; interviews with sources in Ambon and Java, February-June 2000).

It is unclear whether the successive killings of Muslim and Christian Ambonese gangsters in Jakarta were permeated by political allies of Suharto. The Ketapang riots in particular, however, created a monopoly for another gambling centre on Jalan Kunir, Jakarta. Claimed to be one of the largest gambling centre in Southeast Asia, this 'Paradise entertainment centre' is managed by Tomy Winata, a Sino-Indonesian business partner of Suharto's middle son, Bambang Trihatmodjo, and close friend of Yorris Raweyai of Pemuda Pancasila (SiaR, November 24, 1998; Tempo , June 6, 1999: 39-51).

Regardless of the motive behind the burning of the Ketapang gambling centre, the killings of Muslim and Christian Ambonese gangsters did provide both groups -- unaware of the forces 'higher up' manipulating them - with strong motivations to take revenge on each other later in their homelands, Maluku.

Using the Ketapang riots as an excuse, the security authorities rounded up all Moluccans in Jakarta who had no proper identification papers (KTP) and put them on passenger ships as well as Navy ships bound to Ambon. According to a respondent who sailed on KM Bukit Siguntang to Ambon in December 1998, a group of Ketapang gangsters travelling on the ship's public space loudly expressed their intention to take revenge against their Christian rivals. They had taken their knives and machetes with them, which was kept by their leader, a tall man who travelled on the ship's third class for tourists, in the large drawer below his bed.

These measures by the Indonesian security apparatus did not look suspicious because many of Christian Ambonese was returning home for Christmas, while Muslim Ambonese were also planning to spend the Muslim fasting month (Ramadhan) and Idul Fitri holiday with relatives. Hence, between 165 and 600 young Ambonese men were later identified of having sailed to Ambon during the end of 1998. Among them was Christian Ambonese gangsters, who were involved in the dawn raid at Ketapang, as well as Sadrakh Mustamu, the head of the security guards of the Ketapang gambling centre (Tempo, February 8, 1999: 37; Forum Keadilan, February 8, 1999: 25; Humor, September 1995: 45; interviews with sources in Ambon, Java and Australia, February-June 2000).

The two archrivals, Ongen Sangaji and Milton Matuanakotta were also among the Ambonese gangsters that returned to Ambon at the end of 1998, to create the initial spark for the Ambon riots. Their return to Ambon was co-accidental with the assignment to Ambon of between 50 and 100 West Javanese volunteers by Yayasan Kesejahteraan Masyarakat Indonesia (Yakmi). This foundation is led by Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana and Abdul Gafur. Its volunteers are officially called Satgas Tebas (Satuan Tugas Tenaga Bantuan Sukarela ), which literally means 'Volunteers Taskforce', but the abbreviation 'Tebas' can also mean 'Slash,' so, Satgas Tebas can also mean 'Slashing Taskforce.' They had previously also been involved with Ongen's boys in the PAM Swakarsa militias, which fought pitch battles with the student activists in November 1998. Ten Satgas Tebas members were caught by the police in Ambon, but were probably soon released (SiaR, December 2, 1998, January 26 & 29, 1999; Xpos, January 28-February 3 & February 4-10, 1999; interviews with sources in Jakarta and Ambon, July - August 2000).

External actors:

Following Bartels (2000), the conflict in Maluku can be divided into two distinctive phases. The first phase began in January 1999 and ended at the end of April 2000. This phase was characterised by mutual attacks of native Christians and Muslims using largely primitive homemade weapons and self-made bombs (bom rakitan ). Generally, there was an equilibrium of strength. Then, the second phase began in May 2000, characterised by the arrival of non-Moluccans, mostly Muslims from Java, Sulawesi, and Sumatra, called Lasykar Jihad (Holy War Forces). They brought with them sophisticated modern weaponry and allied themselves with Muslim personnel of the military which constituted about eighty per cent of the troops stationed in the Spice Islands. These developments totally destroyed the previous balance, tipping the scale in favour of the Muslims.

During the first phase, when relatively fewer people had been killed and the level of inter-religious hatred had not been reached its climax, carefully planned intelligence operations conditioned both communities to jump at each other's neck as soon as a social spark had been ignited. These intelligence operations included the distribution of provocative pamphlets among the ordinary population, and the distribution of handy-talkie phones among ringleaders, to ensure that the riots could be triggered simultaneously over a wide range (Nation, February 19, 1999). Some anonymous pamphlets which circulated in Ambon prior to the January and February 1999 riots warned both parties that the other party was planning to burn their houses of worship, and others warned one ethnic group that another ethnic group was planning to annihilate them (Nation, February 19, 1999; Warta Berita Radio Nederland, January 12, 2000; Sydney Morning Herald, January 15, 2000; Forum Keadilan, January 30, 2000: 19, 25).

Similarly, pamphlets were circulating among Muslims in North Maluku, prior to the August and November 1999 riots, ostensibly signed by Protestant church leaders in Ambon, urged Christians to convert or annihilate all Muslims. One of these pamphlets was brought to the attention of a village administrator in Tidore. A meeting was called and when the local minister, Ari Risakotta, did not turn up to explain the letters content, he was attacked and killed in his house. With fighting still going on in Ambon, it is most unlikely that any church leader would want another conflict in the

Eventually, after the fratricide had been going on for several months, and enough victims had been killed on both sides, calls for waging the 'holy war' (jihad ) were aired by militant Muslim organizations, supported by several of the most highly ranked Muslim politicians in a mass rally on January 7, 2000 at the Monas square in Jakarta, which became the platform to mobilise jihad forces to be sent to Maluku.

On the surface, all these developments looked very spontaneous, but deep below the surface, one can see two interlinking networks, a military network, and a militant Muslim network, each with their own agenda, but joined by the common aim of sabotaging the government's aim to roll back the military power and to create an open, tolerant society, free from any religious domination.

Military network:

The military network, which links the two phases discussed by Bartels, stretches from Jakarta to Pattimura officers in Ambon, who worked hard to provoke Muslims and Christians to fight each other. This nation-wide network includes two retired Army and Navy officers and once active Police officer in Ambon. They belong to the military faction, which strongly opposes any reduction of the political power and business interests of the military (Pereira 2000b).

One retired and three active generals have been named by Moluccan sociologist, Tamrin Amal Tomagola, as leading this network. They consist of (Ret). General Wiranto, Lieut.-Gen Djadja Suparman, Lieut.-Gen Suaidy Marasabessy, and Maj.-Gen, Sudi Silalahi (TEMPO Interaktif, June 29, 2000; Jawa Pos , August 5, 2000; NRC Handelsblad, June 23-24, 2000; Sydney Morning Herald, January 19, 2000).

Wiranto was the Indonesian Armed Forces commander who oversaw the post-referendum orgy of violence and destruction in Timor Lorosa'e in September 1999, and also oversaw the outbreak of violence in Ambon eight months earlier.

Djadja Suparman was the commander of the Jakarta Army Command that oversaw the formation of the Muslim militias under the banner of PAM Swakarsa to fight the student activists in November 1998. He was eventually promoted to command the Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad), and had ordered the Kostrad troops in Makassar (South Sulawesi), to fly to Ambon, only hours after the first clash between a Christian Ambonese public transport driver and a Muslim Buginese passenger broke out in Ambon on January 19, 1999.

Suaidy Marasabessy, a veteran from the Timor war, was then the commander of the Hasanuddin Army Command in South Sulawesi, who approved the sending of these troops to Ambon, despite the fact that their would emotionally biased against the Christian Ambonese and defending the Bugis and Makassarese migrants in Ambon, driven by ethnic solidarity.

Marasabessy was consequently moved to the Armed Forces Headquarters and promoted to TNI Chief of Staff of General Affairs (Kasum) by President Abdurrahman Wahid. Both his as well as Djadja Suparman's promotions were based on recommendations from Wiranto, who was then still Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security. Wiranto then appointed now Marasabessy to head a team of 19, predominantly Moluccan, officers, to investigate the background of the violence in Maluku and suggest ways to solve the problems.

During both phases of the conflict, Sudi Silalahi has been the commander of the Brawijaya Army Command in East Java, and has overseen the deployment of Brawijaya troops - side by side with Kostrad troops - in escalating the inter-religious violence in Maluku. In his capacity as Brawijaya commander, he has also allowed thousands of Jihad militants to board passenger ships to Ambon, in spite of President Wahid's call to the armed forces to block them.

Interestingly, during the early months of the violence, the entire Moluccan archipelago was still subordinated under the Trikora Army Command with its headquarters in Jayapura, West Papua. However, instead of sending Trikora troops from West Papua to Ambon, Wiranto sent troops from Java and South Sulawesi, who were predominantly Muslims, to deal with the troubles in Maluku. Then, on May 15, 1999, with tens of new battalions deployed in the archipelago, the status of the Pattimura Sub-Regional Military Command, or Korem (Komando Resort Militer ) was upgraded to become a full-fledged Regional Military Command, or Kodam (Komando Daerah Militer ) (Tempo, January 23, 2000: 25).

In Maluku itself, two Colonels based at the Kodam headquarters in Ambon fanned the flames of animosity between Christians and Muslims. The Pattimura Territorial Assistant, Col. Budiatmo, nurtured links with Christian thugs, especially Agus Wattimena, to maintain their rage against their Muslim neighbours, while Intelligence Assistant Col. Nano Sutarno, kept the flame alive among Muslim thugs (Aditjondro 2000f; Tomagola 2000b; TAPAK Ambon 2000).

Those two colonels, who had already been stationed in Ambon under Suaidy Marasabessy as Korem Pattimura commander, also had friends in high places. A brother of Nano Sutarno, Mariner Brigadier General Nono Sampurno, is the commander of the security guards of Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri. This has made her practically 'captive' to the military agenda, although she was the one assigned by President Wahid to solve the Maluku problems.

Apart from those two colonels, who were removed from Maluku after their names were exposed in my articles in Sydney Morning Herald (July 18, 2000) and Jakarta Post (July 20, 2000), several retired and active officers living in Ambon also played a role in 'fanning the flames.' They are (Ret). Brig.-Gen. Rustam Kastor, (Ret). Police Lieut.-Col. R. Hasanussi. and ex- Navy officer, M. Jusuf Elly.

Born in Ambon on July 9, 1939, Rustam Kastor was the former Chief of Staff of the Trikora Army Command in Jayapura (West Papua) and had also been stationed at the TNI headquarters in Jakarta. He can rightly be called the 'ideological father' of the violence in Maluku. He gave a pseudo-scientific justification to invite 'holy war' (jihad ) forces to Maluku to save Muslims from annihilation by Christians Moluccans, by accusing the Christians of trying to revive the banned 1950-1964 'South Moluccan Republic' rebellion. Not only the Protestant Church of Maluku, or Gereja Protestan Maluku (GPM), but also the Moluccan chapter of Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI Perjuangan) does support this RMS ideal, according to Kastor.

Actually, this conspiracy theory was first raised on January 28, 1999, in a press conference organized by two militant Muslim organizations, KISDI (Komite Indonesia untuk Solidaritas Dunia Islam) and PPMI (Persatuan Pekerja Muslim Indonesia) (SiaR, January 29, 1999). It acquired some sense of credibility when it was officially adopted and disseminated by Ret. Maj. Gen. A.M. Hendropriyono, then Minister for Transmigration, in a public meeting with the Maluku governor, religious and other informal leaders, students and youth in Ambon on Tuesday, March 9, 1999 (Kompas, March 10, 1999). Another retired general, Feisal Tanjung, instantly underlined Hendropriyono's accusation (SiaR, March 11, 1999).

The theory then spread like bushfire as it was disseminated by the Muslim controlled media in Indonesia, where the abbreviation of 'RMS' became distorted to mean 'Republik Maluku Serani', or the 'Christian Moluccan Republic', thereby distorting the fact that Ambonese Muslims had also taken part in founding this liberation movement, which goal was not to set up a Christian state (see Chauvel 1990).

After nearly a year of being propagated by certain Muslim and pro-New Order media, this theory was formalised by Rustam Kastor into his book (2000), which has become a best seller not only among certain Muslims circles in Maluku, Java and Sulawesi. Apart from its provocative language about Christians, the book blames the massive Moluccan student demonstrations in November 1998 for preparing the ground for the so-called 'RMS-led Muslim-cleansing operation.' This was, according to Kastor, a conscious attempt to weaken the military so that they would not be able to crush the subsequent 'RMS-led rebellion’, which aimed at cleansing Maluku from its Muslim population (2000: 33-34, 185, 197-207).

Kastor also accuses Christians of manipulating the student-led Reformasi movement to destroy the Indonesian economy and thereby to promote the Republic's disintegration by separating the Christian-dominated provinces in Eastern Indonesia -- including East Timor --, which would then form a new Christian-dominated country with fantastic natural resources, since it will include West Papua, and the current province of Maluku (Kastor 2000: 108).

What Kastor's book omits is the fact that Timorese and Papuan freedom fighters have Muslims in their leadership ranks, which are certainly not fighting to create a greater Christian alliance. Besides, separatism is certainly not a Christian monopoly as is shown by the Achehnese people .

Apart from writing a book to justify an anti-Christian war in Maluku, Kastor was personally involved in inviting the jihad forces from Java to Maluku (Kompas, April 7, 2000), and built up their fanatics through his sermons calling for the 'holy war' to liberate Muslim Moluccans from their Christian oppressors (zulfan@iname.com, April 9, 2000; AgungPrimamorista@tpj.co.id, May 30, 2000).

The next person , H. R. Hasanussi is one of the few -- if not the only -- police officer who heads a provincial branch of the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI, Majelis Ulama Indonesia). In July 1999, Hasanussi went to Makassar (South Sulawesi) to recruit about sixty Muhammadiyah members and ship them to Ambon to join the local Muslim militias (TPG, 1999). Ironically, he lost his son, Alfian ("Eki") Hasanussi (19), a Police Sergeant who was fatally wounded by a sniper on Wednesday, May 17, 2000 (Detik.com & Tempo Interaktif, May 18, 2000).

The third person, Mohammad Jusuf Elly, related through marriage to Hasanussi, is a retired Navy officer who served in East Timor from 1975 to 1983. He claimed even to be in East Timor before the invasion, and seemed to be closely linked to Indonesian commandos who were stationed in the territory during the Indonesian occupation. His hatred against Australian InterFET troops that had pushed the Indonesian occupation forces out of Timor Lorosa'e showed up, when he accused the Australian mining joint venture in Halmahera of supplying helicopters to Christian groups for weapons and ammunitions transport. "Those Australians think they can send in Interfet to do as they wish, just like they did in East Timor," so Jusuf Elly told The Australian of January 13, 2000.

Then, after many people had put the blame on the jihad forces for the troubles and called for their expulsion from Maluku, Jusuf Elly has strongly opposed those calls. He event threatened to kill the Governor of Maluku, Saleh Latuconsina, a Muslim, if the governor was going to order their expulsion (AFP, May 25, 2000). However, by August 2000, the former Naval officer who is married to a Javanese woman ceased his attacks on Christians and was even recorded as aiding Christian humanitarian workers who needed protection in the Muslim quarters (Sanubar 2000).

With so many high-ranking army figures involved in inciting the troubles in Maluku it is no wonder that the soldiers could operate without impunity in the twin provinces, where until May 2000, 70 per cent of the victims on both sides were killed or injured from gun shots by the military and police (Tomagola 2000c). Basically, three Army and one Police units have taken part in the carnage, namely the Kostrad, Brawidjaja, Kopassus and Brimob troops.

The Kopassus' involvement has not been so obvious as the three other troops, which has been well documented by foreign journalists. The Kopassus soldiers often disguised themselves, using Arabic robes and false beards, the trade marks of the Muslim militias or using Laskar Maluku t-shirts, the trade mark of Christian militias. Some of them were intercepted before reaching Ambon, such as what happened when five long-haired Kopassus soldiers were arrested aboard KM Lambelu, on Sunday, July 29, 2000, before entering Ambon from Buru (The Australian, August 2, 2000). On the other hand, however, on August 5, 2000, about 70 Kopassus officers were spotted by journalists and humanitarian volunteers leaving Ambon boarding a Hercules military aircraft, pushing a large wooden box of their gear on the plane. They wore their military uniform, wearing their military stripes as well as their Kopassus badges. In addition, the presence of Kopassus members in Ambon had already been noticed by journalists since January 1999 (Sanubar 2000; other sources in Ambon, pers. com., July-August 2000).

Kopassus presence among the paramilitary forces could also be deduced from the typical combat skills - such as shooting and throwing grenades from within empty oil drums, pushed by Jihad militants who attacked the UKIM campus - or by the prevalence of snipers, who often took deliberate care to take equal number of victims from both communities in each inter-religious confrontation. Given that fatal head shots are not a monopoly of the Kopassus soldiers, and have also been mastered by other special forces of the Navy and Police, the Army special forces have had more time and occasions to develop this mortal skills in their assignment in Timor Lorosa'e and in their training exercises with the Australian SAS sharp shooters.

Without this military backup, the Jihad forces themselves could impossibly on June 21-22, 2000 break into the police headquarters in Tantui, Ambon, burn down a housing compound occupied by about 2,000 police members and their families, break into two ammunition warehouses, and steal 832 guns, 8000 bullets, and dozens of Mobile Brigade (Brimob) uniforms (Djari 2000; Republika, June 24, 2000; Straits Times, June 25, 2000).

The militant Muslim network:

This brings us to the militant Muslim network, which cooperated with the previously described military network to send up to 100000 young Muslims to Maluku - about 8 000 in the Northern half and about 2000 in the Southern half, according to Tamrin Amal Tomagola (InfoMaluku, June 12, 2000) -- supposedly to 'liberate their Muslim brothers and sisters from their Christian oppressors.'

Many of the leaders of the masses recruited to wage the 'holy war' in Maluku came from a new stream of Muslim militants, which follows the teachings of the Wahhabi movement. This international movement to return to Islam of the first generation is funded by members of the House of Saud. It is named after its founder, Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab (1703-1787), whose teachings were adopted by Ibnu Saud when he founded the Saudi monarchy in 1925 (Aburish 1994:12-13; Jansen 1979: 87).

In Indonesia, they found a rapidly growing support -- outside the two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah -- in the Tarbiyah Movement, which formed congregations or jamaah salaf, among students in several prestigious state universities, such as the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Their goal is to establish an Islamic state, hence they are also known as the 'neo-NII [Negara Islam Indonesia ]' movement', to distinguish them from a prior clandestine movement linked to the army's intelligence operations.

One well-known NII-campaigner is Al-Chaidar, an Achehnese who organised the gathering of between 100000 and 400000 people at the National Monument park in Jakarta on January 7, 2000, calling for Muslims to wage the holy war to Ambon. This gathering was addressed by the chair of the People's Consultative Council (MPR), Amien Rais, a former minister in Wahid's cabinet, Hamzah Haz, and a former minister in Suharto's cabinet, Fuad Bawazier, and was attended by 22 militant Muslim organizations, which include Kisdi, PPMI, FPI and Ongen Sangaji's Muslim Maluku Association (Xpos, January 22-30, 2000; Jubilee Campaign 2000).

The commander of the jihad forces in Maluku, Ustadz (Teacher) Ja'far Umar Thalib, also comes from the Wahhabi movement, who after studying in Madinnah joined the Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan, that odd tactical alliance between the US CIA and the Wahhabi businessman, Osamah bin Laden (SiaR, January 28, 2000; zulfan@iname.com, April 15, 2000; sources in Jakarta and Sydney, April-October 2000).

In the Spice Islands, and especially in the predominantly Muslim North, there exist a strong bond between the Jihad movement and one of the militant Islamic parties, the Justice Party (Partai Keadilan). In areas currently under control of the local and national jihad forces, the Wahhabi ideals of establishing Muslim societies with the first generation of Muslims as model is currently being carried out.

The close links between the Jihad forces and the Justice Party (PK) is through PK's ideologue, Abdi Sumaiti alias Abu Rido. This former Islamic religion lecturer at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) pursued his education at the Madinah University where he joined the Wahhabi movement. A strong anti-Semitic and anti-Christian figure, Abu Rido also opposes other Islamic sects which he feels do not teach the right doctrine.Sabili, the magazine which he started while still in the underground neo-NII movement in 1989, is currently one of the most vocal mouthpieces of the Jihad movement.

Meanwhile, support for the jihad forces within the armed forces has not only come from the Wiranto faction in the Army. They also have enjoyed tacit support - if not active backing - from factions in the Police and Navy. Despite President Wahid's order to all the forces and the police to block the jihad forces from leaving Java, the East Java Police commander, Mayor General Da'i Bachtiar did nothing to stop them from boarding a state-owned ship, KM Rinjani, in Surabaya to sail to Ambon. They were also allowed to ship their weapons on another ship, Tanto Sakti, hidden in soapboxes in 200 containers, which reached Ambon after the arrival of the troops. In Ambon, the authorities allowed these containers full of weapons to be disembarked at the Muslim-controlled Yos Sudarso harbour in Waihoang, instead of in the Navy harbour of Halong.

Military agenda:

Judging from the perseverance of the inter-religious killings in Maluku, the rapid deployment of Jihad forces in the twin provinces, the open involvement of soldiers in siding with the villagers and the jihad forces, and the perseverance of military officers linked to the Wiranto faction, none of whom have been court-martialled or even investigated for ordering the atrocities in Maluku, one cannot argue that these are just 'rogue elements' in operation, as has been the standard line in Indonesian official rhetoric. The explanation for the continuing troubles in Maluku has to be found in a more systemic way in the interests of the TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia), the Indonesian armed forces.

From analysing the data and studying the way of thinking and operation of the military, one can say that there are five points on the military agenda in perpetuating the conflict in Maluku. The first point and the most immediate agenda was to counter the students opposition against the military's dual function by turning that vertical conflict into a horizontal conflict; the second point is to defend the archipelago concept, or Wawasan Nusantara ; the third point is to defend the territorial

First of all, as pointed out by Munir (2000), triggering the horizontal conflicts in Maluku and elsewhere was a deliberate act by the military to divert the attention away from the demand of the students in Ambon and elsewhere in Indonesia to reject the military's dual function.' This has been achieved, not only by the destruction of two campuses where the students had been on the forefront of the reformasi movement in Maluku, but also by driving the religious wedge between Muslim and Christian students in the province, and to a certain degree, also in Indonesia in general.

Secondly, as pointed out to the author by military analyst, Ingo Wandelt, the forced retreat of the Indonesian state apparatus from Timor Lorosa'e, after the East Timorese people overwhelmingly voted for independence, has left a big gap in the chain of defence in the Eastern Indonesian region. According to the Indonesian defence doctrine, Wawasan Nusantara, islands protect an inland sea, in this case the Banda Sea. With East Timor breaking lose, in the TNI eyes, the islands chain of defence in Eastern Indonesia has been seriously opened and weakened. Maluku, which lies just north of East Timor, is thus directly exposed to potential threats from the South, especially the perceived threats by the UN forces, dominated by the Australian Defence Forces, currently based in Timor Lorosa'e.

Apart from the geo-strategic break away of half of the Timor island, the large Christian population in Maluku is seen as less trustworthy in the military's eyes to defend the south-eastern flank of the Republic, believing that they may have the same separatist tendencies as the predominantly Catholic East Timorese people.

Hence, strategic demographic adjustments were made by the military by settling pro-Indonesian East Timorese in West Timor, to act as a buffer against future incursions into the West from the Eastern part of the island. On the same time, pro-Indonesian East Timorese incursions into the East, backed by regular Indonesian soldiers may in the future force East Timor into becoming a satellite state of Indonesia, as Lebanon currently is in relation to Syria, thereby mending the broken link in this archipelagic chain.

In the light of these strategic demographic adjustments, the deployment of thousands of jihad militants, who may eventually settle down in the Spice Islands and bring in their relatives from Java and elsewhere can be seen as population shift to prevent Maluku from following East Timor's example. In other words, the deployment of thousands of Muslim militants into the Christian areas of Maluku had to be expected as early as January 1999, when the independence option was offered by then President B.J. Habibie to the East Timorese people. It eventually took fifteen more months, since the military had first to concentrate on reshuffling Timor's population, in the wake of the UN-supervised referendum.

The third point on the military agenda, namely defending TNI's territorial structure, was raised by Tomagola, noticing how quickly General Wiranto upgraded the Pattimura Korem to Kodam, thereby justifying the stationing of more troops in Maluku (Tempo, January 23, 2000: 20).

To clarify the meaning of this changes, it is important to understand the Army's territorial structure, where the line of command flows from the Chief of Staff of the Army to the commanders (Panglima) of the Kodam (Komando Daerah Militer), where the commander is a two-star general. Each Kodam consists of four to six Korem (Komando Resort Militer ), headed by a colonel. Below the Korem are the District Military Commands, or Kodim (Komando Distrik Militer ), headed by a lieutenant colonel (Kammen & Chandra 1999: 20-26).

Each Kodam has a number of associated battalions representing the different service specialisations within the Army. Commanded by a major or lieutenant colonel, these battalions are, according to Douglas Kammen and Siddharth Chandra, "the real troops behind the Army's territorial structure." In addition to these territorially based units, there are the Kopassus and Kostrad battalions (1999: 28).

Under then Armed Forces Commander General Wiranto, the Army planned to re-establish the seventeen Kodams, which his predecessor, General Benny Murdani, had reduced to ten, due to the lack of adequate officers at that time (Kammen & Chandra 1999: 20-21). According to Wiranto's plan, apart from reviving the old Kodam Pattimura, other Kodams, which had existed between 1958 and 1985, were also going to be revived (Forum Keadilan , March 29-April 4, 1999: 18).

To find a rationale to recreate those dormant military commands was to show that the troops were needed to deal with unrest in those regions, and after the troops had been deployed, they needed to be stationed there permanently. In other words, to justify the presence of fire fighters, the fire has to be created.

The importance of this territorial structure and its expansion by Wiranto can not be underestimated, since it is the backbone of the military's claim to carry out its function as a political force, in addition to its function as a defence force, the well-known 'dual function' doctrine. This territorial structure is parallel to the government's structure, a type of state within a state, were orders flow down from the top (the national capital) to the bottom (subdistrict), while bribes to facilitate promotions flow from the bottom to the top.

Speaking about bribes is speaking about the fourth point on the military's agenda to perpetuate the violence in Maluku, namely to defend its economic interests. This point has been raised by Amir Hamzah, a former columnist for the armed forces newspaper Angkatan Bersenjata . He says certain officers, both active and retired, feel threatened by the prospect of decentralisation. If Jakarta implement plans for regional autonomy and local revenue-sharing in 2001, local parliaments would have the power to cancel or refuse to renew lucrative contracts with military-backed companies engaged in fisheries, forestry and mining. Riots, he argues, would delay such losses (Cohen 2000).

Maluku was indeed ridden with military business interests, which was mostly through charities, which had shares in the conglomerates operating in Maluku, through joint ventures with members of those conglomerates, or by using certain Sino-Indonesian business people as their financial operators. These economic interests are also not limited to the Army, but also to the Navy and Air Force. PT Green Delta, a company owned by the Air Force, supplies logs from their 74 000 hectares concession on the island of Morotai to Barito Pacific's mill on another North Maluku island (Brown

Maluku is, however, not the only region ridden with military business interests, since this is a nation-wide phenomenon. As a study by the International Crisis Group (ICG) has concluded that the military raises funds to cover around 75 per cent of its expenditures through business enterprises and other means. These fund-raising activities are generally not subject to public scrutiny: military commanders have access to large sums of money that could be used to finance future political manoeuvres (2000: iii). The Rp 189 billion (US$ 22 million) corruption scandal at Kostrad's Dharma Putera Foundation, which was only uncovered after Lieut.-Gen. Djadja Suparman was replaced by the pro-reformasi Lieut.-Gen. Agus Wirahadikusumah, is just the tip of the iceberg. Still, it had cost Wirahadikusmah his job, since he then was removed from the Kostrad command after exposing that corruption scandal (Australian Financial Review, August 1, 2000; Jakarta Post, September 22, 2000).

Ironically, when the violence began to perpetuate by itself, troops deployed in Maluku began to find ways to make big bucks for themselves from the unrest. In Ambon, soldiers offered protection for shops and travellers, who had to make the dangerous routes through warring villages to and from the airport and harbour. Soldiers from the 321 Battalion of Kostrad, who reportedly attacked three banks in Ambon on Sunday, July 16, 2000, and tortured the banks' security guards when they were not given the keys to the banks' cash deposits (Antara, July 17, 2000). In North Maluku the Brawijaya troops stole coconuts from Muslim farmers and forced Christians workers to produce copra, which the soldiers exported to Manado (Tomagola 2000b). And in both provinces, the military became the main source of weapons and ammunition to both warring sides, and offered their shooting skills to whoever paid the best wages.

Last but not least, the fifth point on the military agenda is the observation that the fighting in Maluku often flare up, whenever interrogations of former President Suharto for his corruption, or interrogations of former General Wiranto for his role in the post-referendum mayhem in Timor Lorosa'e, takes place (Jawa Pos , August 5, 2000).

Unfortunately, until September 2000, the military were not looking forward towards reducing their role in the Spice Islands. On the contrary, they were looking towards expanding their role. Pattimura Military Commander, Brig.-Gen. I Made Yasa, made the revealing statement that the military was considering to open a military district (Kodim) for two new regencies of Buru and Maluku Tenggara Barat (Jakarta Post, September 2, 2000).

Conlusion

It can be concluded that the ongoing inter-religious violence in Maluku was fomented and maintained by a network of retired and active military officers, supported by certain politicians from the 'Central Axis' coalition of Muslim parties. These intertwined military and militant Muslim networks exploited the simmering ethno-religious tensions in Maluku using gangsters from Java and Ambon to trigger communal violence and later deployed of thousands of Muslim militants after the internal fighting in Maluku were declining. In this second phase of the conflict, the nature of

This situation parallels the war between pro-independence fighters and pro-Indonesian militias, backed by the Indonesian police and soldiers, before and after the UN-supervised referendum in Timor Lorosa'e. While in Timor Lorosa'e the Indonesian armed forces chose Catholic Timorese paramilitary forces and in Aceh former Acehnese guerrilla fighters as their collaborators, in Maluku the military chose to side with militant Muslims shipped in from Java and other islands.

For the armed forces, the social upheaval in Maluku fulfils several strategic goals, which ultimately aimed at consolidating their political and economic power, which is deeply threatened by the reformasi movement, and the new political trend towards real devolution of power to the regions.

Most probably, the militant Muslims and the politicians backing them in the national parliament are aware of the 'temporary' nature of this alliance, and have also been trying to turn this to their benefit, by using the unrest in Maluku to incapacitate the administration of President Abdurrahman Wahid, whose views about the role of Islam in Indonesia's political system differs radically from the views of the politicians who support the jihad movement. At the end of the day, however, it is still the military that calls the shots, as proven in the latest MPR sitting where the seats for the military and police were not scrapped but instead extended for another five years.

Considering the fact that the current regime in Jakarta is practically hijacked by the forces which refuse to end the violence in Maluku, there seems to be no alternative than to exert international pressure on the Indonesian government - especially on the armed forces and their parliamentary supporters -- by the United Nations and all is its agencies, including the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and the Security Council in New York, to end the sufferings of the twin provinces of Maluku.

This political pressure should be accompanied by economic pressure aimed at the financial sources of the Indonesian military, to deter them from instigating proxy wars in faraway regions, from Aceh to Maluku and West Papua, and even in supporting militia incursions into Timor Lorosa'e.

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