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Background Paper Lobbying Material, Session of UN Commission for
Human Rights, April 2003 Agenda
: Internally Displaced People Region
: Maluku and North Maluku Introduction Maluku archipelago is one of the largest islands in
Indonesia. The archipelago consists of two provincial regions i.e., the
Province of Maluku and the Province of North Maluku, and they are located
between 3° North Latitude, 8-30°
South Latitude, and 124°45”- 135°East Longitude. In addition, its
geographical borders are the Pacific Ocean in the North, Arafura Sea in the
South, Maluku Sea (Sulawesi Island) in the West and Papua Island in the East. The area of the Maluku islands is
approximately 721,479.69 km2 where the extent of the sea is around 658,294.69
km2 and the land area is74.505 km2 (Central Bureau of Statistics). Violence and its impacts caused by a huge communal
riot in the Province of Maluku and North Maluku (January1999-October 2002),
had taken a lot of victims and material lost. At least, 15,000 people died,
8,000 wounded in the two provinces. In North Maluku, it was recorded that until 2002,
187 units of Primary, Secondary and High School buildings, 103 government
offices, 39 units of community health facilities, 13 units of doctor houses,
and other facilities had been burnt. Also, at least 23, 600 houses were burnt
and 144 cases of deliberate burning of churches and mosques. Similar to the
condition in North Maluku, the Province of Maluku also suffered the same. This horrifying situation as the impact of
the conflict had also resulted in around 425,679 refugees in Maluku and North
Maluku; in addition 80,686 people left the region. Based on the Social Survey
of National Economy (SUSENAS) in 1999, the total population of the Province
of Maluku was 1,061,663 people, where 497,908were male and 518,755 were
female. The continuing conflicts has
broken the local social system and stagnant the economic activities. It will
bring the people of Maluku and North Maluku to the whirlpool of poverty and
violence. They may become a negative energy which is ready to amplify the
wave of violent actions, both intentionally and unintentionally. The
situation is sometimes worsened by the weaknesses of coordination between the
government and security forces (the army and the police) when trying to
eliminate and to find the resolution for the anarchy and destructive potency
in the society. The significant effect of the tragedy of humanity in
Maluku and North Maluku is the emergence of the wave of refugees. These
refugees were coming from various professional backgrounds. They range from
village farmers, city vendors, civil servants from all level, students, etc.
The huge number of refugees has collapsed the social and economic activities
of the society and forced the Moluccan and North Moluccan people into two
groups of refugees based on religious identity (Moslem and Christian) and
reaffirmed the line of segregation of the region between the two communities.
The pattern of this kind of segregation seems to justify the legitimacy of
the conflict as the conflict of religion, and not as the conflict caused by
the fight for natural resources, political interest or bureaucratic interest among local political elites (Maluku),
Jakarta and Indonesian military which are on the front line (DR.George Junus
Aditjondro, Tapak Ambon 2001). II. A number of problems A. The impact of the refuge Based on TAPAK AMBON’s observation, the huge riot in
Maluku and North Maluku has caused disturbances in a number of sectors i.e.
economy, social and the security of local people in the areas. The impacts
were the decrease people’s income in the conflict region including the
vendors from the surrounding provinces who used to sell their products and
services to the region; indirectly the availability of jobs has decreased
especially for small industry workers and trade sector; the decline of income
has happened among vegetables peasants in the regency of Minahasa (North
Sulawesi), port workers and ships’ crew in Bitung regency (North Sulawesi);
the decline of income has occurred among merchants of goods and electronic
products from Makassar (South Sulawesi) because they could not sell their
products to Maluku and North Maluku anymore.
The effect of the refuge is also significant, a number of conflicts
between the local host people where the refugees stay and the refugees have
occurred. These conflicts are mostly caused by social envious of the host
people. The envious is frequently caused by discriminative or unfair
treatment between the refugees and the host citizens. During the riot in
Moluccan islands, the host citizen felt that they did not receive a proper treatment
especially when trying to fulfil their daily needs, such as food supply and
health services. In fact, before the arrival of the refugees, they had lived
in the same standard of living as the refugees. A number of refugee’s camps seemed so tragic. On several camps,
the situation looks like a localisation for prostitution, there are many
refugees whose jobs are commercial sex workers. Such view is common in some
locations of refugees in Ternate city (North Maluku), especially at night. They openly offer their service to the men
who pass by the refugees locations. In addition to operating in these
locations, many of them operate in public places and hotels or lodging. From
their face, they seem to be from the age teenagers and young adults (below thirty
years old). The impact of the tragedy
of humanity also suffered by children. Many of them have to work or become
beggars. This view can be seen easily in public places such as shopping
centres, ports and markets. The kind of jobs they involve are range from
manual labourers, car parking tenants, or newspaper vendors. They had to
leave their school as the result and they cannot enjoy their basic education
well. Many educational facilities were destroyed or burnt and a lot of
teachers who left Maluku and North Maluku have worsened this situation. B.The Pattern for Handling the Refugees Generally, the handling pattern of the refugees
faces four crucial problems; The First, the local host government has to
handle the refugees from Maluku and North Maluku who arrived without bringing
anything, as its consequence, they have to provide extra cost from their
budget. The Second, the influence of conflicts occurred in Maluku, has raised
the level of worry of the host citizen. They are worried because the conflict
may also spread to their area anytime. The Third, indirectly, the income of
the host citizen is decreasing, their agricultural products and other
services cannot be sold to Maluku and North Maluku anymore, these places has
been their priority market for the distribution of their goods. The Fourth,
provocation carried out by certain groups in shelter places of the refugees
with the intention to sustain the conflict using the “package” of religion
has created more susceptibility in the security condition. Ironically, in the refugees’ homeland, not
all of the places have received any security guarantee. Although the security
officials admitted that they will work hard to realize it. For example, the
plan to return the North Moluccan refugees to their original places in sub-district
Tobelo had been cancelled because of the shooting incidents which caused
another victim. The lack of response
among the local government of Maluku and North Maluku for the handling of the
refugees has created the problem of data about the number o refugees. This
problem is a common issue when discussing about the efforts for handling the
refugees, this happens in Tual, Southeast Maluku. The number of refugees has
become a debate between the members of the house of representative and the
officials of the Social Service.
Members of the parliaments are doubt about the number of Moluccan and
North Moluccan refugees in the area which is released by the office of Social
Service where the number is 9,729 households or 51,175 people. They feel that
the number is fictitious; they accuse the office of Social Service for
deliberately developing the data to take benefits from the assistance
distributed by the government through the Coordinating Unit (Satkorlak) of Maluku. Along with the number of refugees, their life in
camps seems to be very miserable. Humanitarian aid to the refugees are
sometimes never arrive at the hands of the recipients, the insufficient handling of the refugees
can be identified through a number of
problems suffered by them such as, bad sanitation, unavailability of
health facilities, and the lack of food. Often, the refugees have to pay for the health service. Several diseases
have developed among the refugees i.e., malaria, diarrhoea and vomiting, infection
of upper respiratory tract, malnutrition among underage children have caused
ill or even death. For example,
medicine supply from WHO through Dept. of Health to the refugees in Tobelo,
Galela and Ternate, as reported by mass media was “disappeared” from the
storage place when a joint team of doctors from the police and the army in cooperation
with the head office of Health Department were checking and distributing the
medicine to Tobelo, Galela, Morotai and Bacan island. Weaknesses in access and coordination
between the NGOs and the government when handling the refugees have resulted
in poor distribution of humanitarian aid. This is worsening by the
segregation of the region, where every refugee’s camp is only filled by one
group of people from certain religion. Besides, it is difficult for
humanitarian and human rights workers to obtain security protection or guarantee,
they had to pay the security (army/police) for protection, this problem is
classic and latent. The insufficient
budget from the local government is the main factor for the lack of good
service to the refugees. Food, education and health assistance to the refugees
are not adequate. The local government is very depended on the central government
as its financial resources. In addition,
food and construction aid for the refugees camp allocated through the local
government using project package are corrupted. It has created debates among
the people. There are many cases where the food supply is cut, and the quality
of the refugees barracks are far from being adequate. Water and sanitation
are not available, the building is very narrow and dark. As an example, the
corruption had occurred in the rice for the refugees worth 1,4 billion
rupiahs, the suspect is an official in Social Service of Ambon municipality
government, the city dwellers are discussing this case now. The case has any
links to a number of leaders in Ambon municipality such as the major, head of
the social service and other officials (as reported by Siwalima daily, March
12th 2003). Continual handling towards
the mothers and children especially when dealing with the traumatic
experiences is still an unfinished homework. The crew of Baileo Maluku Network
(Tapak Ambon’s participant in Maluku) have found a lot of these experiences
when accompanying children refugees. When the children are asked to make
drawings, most of their drawings reflects the violent actions around them.
These children are accustomed to the sounds of gun shots, mortars, cocktail
Molotov or other similar sounds in their daily live. When they hear such
sounds, with reflex they will grab any sharp things around them in order to
protect themselves. In this case, even the children have to overcome their
own worry and not only their parents. The refugees suffer great mental pressure because they have lost
their houses, families or witnessed the slaughter. Several doctors in the field admitted that the
psychological condition of the refugees tends to worsen. Easily get
suspicious and feel useless are the main symptoms of the refugees who enter
mental hospital. Until now, there have not any psychiatrists who are
continually travelling around the refugees camps in Maluku and North Maluku
for counselling. To gather with the
loosen of conflict scale, the security situation in several places are getting
better although they are still unstable, this hampers the mobility o individual
or groups. The feel of insecure is continued, it influences their access to
other places of the cities or work such as going to market, garden, or work
places where the location is separated by threats of riot. It hampers the income of a number of people within
the community and the refugees. Therefore, they cannot fulfil their daily
needs for food, education, health and etc. Those who have begun to gain
access to their garden and market, face another obstacle such as the lack of
money to restart their business activity .They are not able to begin as
vendors or they haven’t got agricultural equipment and the seeds. Unfortunately, there are a number of cases
where the refugees with various reasons gain access to resources in several
places (wood, field, river, and etc.) that used to be the resources of the
local people; it creates competitions and increase the tension between them. There are a lot of demands from the society
and the refugees to bring the doers of violence during and after the conflict
to the law but their cases haven’t been responded properly. They become
disappointed and do not trust anybody, including the conflicting society.
This is also one of the factors of the continuation of current tension. There is still a lack of adequate and accurate
information about the current policies, aid, security and the condition of
the original villages, property left behind, and etc. from the sources
(Kesos, Kimpraswil, Nakertrans, Satkorlak/Satlak, NGOs,etc.) to society. Also
information from the society about their consideration, their will,
suggestion, and etc., can not be continued to the officials who hold the
responsibility. The causes are various, they can be the mechanism or organization
of the people that are not available or functioning, or there are obstacles
from individuals/groups who claim to represent the refugees but in fact they
don’t. It seems that this case has been a big obstacle for every individual
who want to reclaim their rights and make a better decision for the future of
the refugees themselves. This has
always placed the refugees to insufficient, continuing miserable positions, where
the society cannot do anything, and are getting weak. Meanwhile, the policy of the government offers three
options i.e. 1) back to their original land, 2) transmigration and 3)
relocation, are the policy to eliminate refugees in Indonesia, the deadline
has been cancelled until the end of 2003 (Letter of President Decision No.
51, 2001). In the implementation of the policy, there are deviations where
the cases have not been handled properly. Such as the cutting of aid
allocation, the aid given only in half, or the aid is received by those who
are not eligible. It seems that the execution
is only to “reach the target’ (distributing the aid allocation)and is not
trying to find a proper and sustainable resolution. Meaning, by finding
participative way which enable the society to return to their self sufficient
and sustainable live. Data about the
number of refugees and their locations, mobility, the sick and death rate,
and etc. are not available now. The unavailable of the data causes the refugees
who suffer from the tragedy cannot be recorded, they will be unprotected, especially
(the women, children, parents and those with physical effects). In addition,
the absent of data can cause the humanitarian activity from various
organization become unaccountable, one of the reason is that the aid cannot
reach the people who are eligible. II. Closing Based on the above condition, the handling of the
refugees is not an easy matter, especially when there is not any
comprehensive and integrated concept from the government and other social
organisation for taking care the refugees. In fact, new conflicts and
violence may emerge anytime, both in the host province who shelter the
refugees or any place where the refugees stay, if the psychological trauma is
not handled properly. The government only think about physical
rehabilitation, the refugees will find difficulties in their life after
passing the traumatic experience. From
this description, it can be concluded that the tragedy of humanity in
Moluccan islands has brought very complicated impacts on the surviving level
of the society, especially in sectors of economy, social, culture and
security. So, the problem in Maluku and North Maluku should obtain adequate
attention from the people, the government of Indonesia and international
community. The loss created by the conflict is very much. Attention on the government’s performance
related to the handling of the refugees should be observed. Until now, the
local governments always solve the problem by only supplying the logistic
needs, without conducting serious assistance process. Therefore, the level of
dependency of the refugees is very high. In addition, the final resolution to
relocate the refugees to transmigration areas needs further studies. Because
the relocation policy is taken sometimes without the approval of the
surrounding people who own the land, it may create new potential conflicts. Based on the above consideration, we ask the United
Nations to urge the government of Indonesia to:
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