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Map of Southeast Asia |
CIAO DATE: 05/04
Indonesia: The Search for Peace in Maluku
February 8, 2002
Abstract
The fighting that broke out between Christians and Muslims in Ambon, the capital of Indonesia's Maluku province, on 19 January 1999 triggered a virtual civil war that soon spread to other parts of the province. At least 5,000 people (perhaps as many as 10,000) have been killed and close to 700,000 Ð almost one-third of the population of 2.1 million Ð became refugees. Peace has yet to be achieved although violence has declined sharply during the last year. Refugees are beginning to return to predominantly Muslim North Maluku (which was separated from the old Maluku province in September 1999) but tensions remain high in Ambon and surrounding islands that are the core of the new Maluku province.
During the initial phase, each side inflicted heavy casualties. But in mid-2000 there was a qualitative change when a Java-based fundamentalist Islamic militia, Laskar Jihad, responding to the perception that Muslims were getting the worst of it, sent several thousand fighters to Ambon. They had received basic military training from a small group of sympathetic officers within the Indonesian National Military (TNI Ð Tentara Nasional Indonesia) and were supplied with modern weapons after their arrival in Maluku.
Supported by elements in the security forces, the Laskar Jihad put the Christian militias on the defensive, inflicted casualties on the Christian community and forced thousands of Christians to flee, causing the national government to impose a civil emergency in the two Maluku provinces in June 2000. Although Muslim offensives continued, by early 2001 the level of violence was declining and most of the population had been partitioned into Christian and Muslim zones.
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