Religious Violence and Conciliation in Indonesia

Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas

Sumanto Al Qurtuby

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780367875169
• eBook ISBN: 9781317333289
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Estudios étnicos

Maluku in eastern Indonesia is the home to Muslims, Protestants, and Catholics who had for the most part been living peaceably since the sixteenth century. In 1999, brutal conflicts broke out between local Christians and Muslims, and escalated into large-scale communal violence once the Laskar Jihad, a Java-based armed jihadist Islamic paramilitary group, sent several thousand fighters to Maluku. As a result of this escalated violence, the previously stable Maluku became the site of devastating interreligious wars.

This book focuses on the interreligious violence and conciliation in this region. It examines factors underlying the interreligious violence as well as those shaping post-conflict peace and citizenship in Maluku. The author shows that religion—both Islam and Christianity—was indeed central and played an ambiguous role in the conflict settings of Maluku, whether in preserving and aggravating the Christian-Muslim conflict or supporting or improving peace and reconciliation.

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and interviews as well as historical and comparative research on religious identities, this book is of interest to Indonesia specialists, as well as academics with an interest in anthropology, religious conflict, peace and conflict studies.

1 The Moluccas sectarian unrest

Religion, history, and local dynamics

DOI: 10.4324/9781315659183-2

This opening chapter begins with the depiction of the local dynamics of the Moluccas sectarian unrest, with special attention to the communal conflicts in Ambon and other areas of Maluku province.¹ In this regard, this chapter describes chronologies, stages, and changes concerning the nature of the Maluku carnage from religious-driven collective conflict (i.e., early phases of the violence, roughly from 1999 to 2002) to separatist movement (waged by the Alex Manuputty-led separatist Front Kedaulatan Maluku (Moluccan Sovereignty Front)—see, for example, Rukmy 2006; Salatalohy 2004), and terrorism-motivated violence (such as the cases of the Ongen Pattimura and Jamaah Islamiyah-linked terrorist groups operating in Ambon and Seram in 2005).

Explaining phases of the Maluku conflict is imperative because the violence involved various actors or agents, roots, and motives.² Although some, if not most, analysts of the Maluku strife tended to homogenize or generalize the conflict, the true situation has been quite different, however, with the nature, dynamics, shifts, intensity, and duration of the violence varying significantly from place to place and from time to time (see ICG 2000a, 2001, 2004). Giving the variation seen in the Maluku violence, it is thus misleading to conclude that the communal conflict was driven by a single root cause (e.g., disappointment of the military elites) or purpose (e.g., to destabilize the Indonesian nation-state), and committed by a single actor (e.g., the security forces). The violence, known in Ambon as kerusuhan (unrest, riots), as Jeroen Adam (2010: 29) rightly states, cannot be viewed as a period of steady warfare but “should be understood as a communal conflict that occurred in different waves at different places” with different driving motives and objectives obviously.

In the beginning of 1999, when elsewhere in some Indonesian towns several churches and mosques had been damaged already as a result of interreligious communal riots, Ambon and Maluku in general were still free from civil uprising. The areas were still relatively peaceful and stable. Placards promoting interreligious harmony even appeared throughout Ambon city by the end of 1998, weeks before communal violence erupted. These placards were distributed by a couple of nongovernmental organizations following the church burnings in the Ketapang district of Jakarta and anti-Muslim campaigns in the city of Kupang of Nusa Tenggara Timur on November 30, 1998. At the end of 1998, at ecumenical meetings in the Maranatha church in Ambon city, measures were openly discussed in case unrest would break out (Adam 2009, 2010). Prior to the eruption of the communal conflicts, many people in Ambon and Maluku believed that the famous Ambonese traditional systems and social institutions of intergroup brotherhood (see Chapter 4) would prevail over any threat of violence. Ambon has also been famous for its jargon, Ambon Manise (Sweet Ambon, signifying the warmth, hospitality, and harmony of local society) which is the common trope in everything from official speeches to pop songs (Dean 2000; Deane 1979). However, in 1999, it turned out otherwise, and Ambon finally descended into bloody wars for more than four years. These horrifying events were undoubtedly a shock to the wider Indonesian public.

Outbreak of Christian–Muslim communal violence

The outbreak of mass violence in the Moluccas was initially sparked by a small quarrel in a crowded bus terminal in Ambon city between an Ambonese Christian minivan driver named Jakob Lauhery (nickname: Yopi) from Mardika and a Bugis Muslim migrant passenger named Nur Salim from Batumerah on January 19, 1999. That day coincided with the Muslim holy day of Idul Fitri (Indonesian: Hari Raya Lebaran) or Syawal 1, 1419 H. in the Islamic calendar, which is, for Indonesian Muslims, the biggest Islamic holiday marking the end of Ramadan—the Muslim month of fasting. The incident took place in the region of Batumerah, a predominantly Muslim neighborhood of Ambon city.³ Initially built by the Dutch for Muslim workers, Batumerah (whose population today reaches more than 45,000 people, making it Ambon’s largest village and one of Maluku’s crowded areas) is the only—and the oldest—Muslim negeri (village, district) in Ambon, where many Muslim migrants have settled.

Christians residing in Ambon city were mostly Ambonese coming from what Dieter Bartels (1977a, 2003a) calls the “Ambonese cultural areas,” namely the islands of Ambon, Lease (Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut) and Seram. In contrast, Muslims living in the town were from various ethnicities: Ambonese, which composed the major group, Butonese, Buginese, Makassarese, Javanese, Arabs, Chinese, Seramese, Keiese, Ternatans, Bandanese, and other Indonesians. Some Muslim families had been there before European colonial times, but many since early VOC times. They had intermarried with each other and with the Ambonese. Ambon city had long been an arena of contention not only between Christians and Muslims but also among Muslims and Christians themselves. It was in urban Ambonese society that the rivalry for positions between Christians and Muslims in particular was most keenly felt and where the common bonds of local adat (customs) and pela (native social institutions of brotherhood) were weakest. It was also in urban settings where people from diverse ethnic groups coming from various regions in Indonesia live, and compete with one another for positions in political and economic domains (Goss 1992; Loveband and Young 2006). It was also the urban Christian and Muslim groups of Ambon city who were initially involved in the brutal warfare.

Historically, as noted by Franz and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann (1994), fights between neighboring districts and villages are common in Ambon and the Moluccas more broadly. Equally important, clashes were also normal between the lower-class Batumerah and Mardika suburbs so that at first no-one took much notice. Many Ambonese informants told me that interpersonal and intergroup fighting between the people of Mardika (predominantly Christians) and those of Batumerah (predominantly Muslims) were normally easily resolved by local authorities, elders, village chiefs, or community/religious leaders (see also Acciaioli 2001). However, this time it was different. What makes the fight on January 19, 1999, different from previous ones lay, among other things, in its rage, its speed (it rapidly spread to other parts of the city and the province), the way it targeted particular religious symbols, communities, and areas, and the way it used religious identity for mobilizing masses and marking particular groups.

This small quarrel, tragically, quickly turned into major rioting between Christians and Muslims in the area. Some informants said that the early phase of communal riots took place after the proliferation of rumors of attacks by Muslim rioters on the revered Gereja Silo (Silo Church), one of the main GPM churches. This false alarm triggered both Muslim and Christian groups to get ready for a large-scale fight. At the time, Muslim fighters wore white headbands while Christians used red ones; they were therefore called “the whites” (for Muslims) and “the reds” (for Christians). It is unclear who organized Christian and Muslim rioters to wear red headbands and white ones. It is also remains mysterious as to how the hundreds of young men and ordinary people had been mobilized to take part in the initial onslaught. As Gerry van Klinken (2001, 2007) has suggested, the mobilization of the masses probably did not come from above, from Jakarta’s political or military elites, but more likely the local masses were organized sporadically from below, from “local players” in the Moluccas, based on existing neighborhood solidarity, of which religion became its primary component and a vital source of motive.

For days, in multiple neighborhoods in Ambon city, local Christians and Muslims clashed with each other, thereby causing heavy infrastructural damage. What was initially a conflict between natives (Ambonese/Moluccan) and migrants (especially those from Sulawesi or the Celebes), however, was now quickly defined in religious terms, as attack and counter-attack led to the burning and destructions of churches, mosques, and other religious buildings. The burning of mosques by Christian rioters, in particular, enraged Ambonese or Moluccan Muslims, who allied themselves with their co-religionists rather than their ethnic brothers (see, for example, Lange and Goss 2000; Salampessy and Husain 2001; Trijono 2001). In other words, Ambonese or Moluccan Muslims “joined forces” with non-Ambonese/Moluccan Muslims, not with Ambonese/Moluccan Christians.

The following day rumors spread that Al-Fatah mosque (Masjid Al-Fatah), Ambon city’s main and largest mosque, was being burnt by the Christians, and that many Muslims had become victims of Christian savagery. The rumors were fallacious obviously, albeit some Christian masses reportedly planned to attack the mosque, which during the turmoil became a shelter for casualties. But GPM Synod, said its former chairman Rev. Sammy Titaley, was successful in preventing the masses from attacking the mosque.⁴ What actually happened was the burning of a church in the Muslim suburb of Silale, near Ambon’s harbor. Unfortunately, Muslims who saw the smoke from the other side of the Ambon bay mistakenly decided it came from the nearby Al-Fatah mosque, and called in help from Muslims in Hitu on the north coast of the island. As a result, Muslims from Hitu and the surrounding areas in the uplands of Jazirah Leihitu in Ambon Island marched down to Ambon city while bringing machetes, arrows, and other “war accompaniments” (see Chapter 2). In the town, they reportedly killed Christians and destroyed and burnt their houses, religious centers, and places of worship. Muslim fighters of Leihitu not only targeted Christians in Ambon city, but also those living in the rural areas of Ambon Island. The Christian community living between the border of Hila and Kaitetu, as well as in Larike, was chased away, and their churches were devastated. In Hila, reportedly, six people who were staying at a Bible camp organized by the Gereja Kristus Perjanjian Baru (GKPB, New Covenant Church of Christ) were killed (Adam 2009, 2010).

The rivalry, tensions, and violence between Muslims of Jazirah Leihitu and Christians of Jazirah Leitimor (Ambon) were not a new phenomenon in the history of the Moluccas. Such conflict and violence had already been present since colonial times (especially Portuguese, Dutch, and Japanese) and continued under post-colonial governments (Aritonang and Steenbrink 2008; Benda 1958; Steenbrink 1993). Indeed old resentments at the preferential treatment of Christians by the Dutch, or the collaboration of Muslims with the Japanese, resurfaced in the context of the Maluku violence (Goss 2004: 15). Both Christians and Muslims in the Moluccas utilized local history, popular narratives, and memories of hostility to legitimize their violent acts. As Richard Chauvel (2007: 110) has rightly noted, the unprecedented intergroup conflict was the product of processes of social and political change dating back to colonial times, added to the collapse of traditional means of conflict management that had been built up over four centuries.

Concerning the “historical legacy” of the Maluku violence, Thamrin Ely, chairman of Muslim delegation for the Malino II peace pact, makes an interesting observation as follows:

When the mass violence erupted in Ambon in 1999, there were flyers written by the Moluccan Ulama Council [MUI Maluku] about the Muslim revenge toward Christians regarding killings committed by the Christian inhabitants of Leitimor, particularly the village of Passo, toward Hitu Muslims some 300 years ago, on September 9, 1699, more precisely. During that time, the story goes, Christians walked on hundreds of the Muslim bodies. This event marked the confiscation of Hitu Muslims from their land. The same thing happened when Muslim fighters attacked Christian villages of Hative-Tawiri. They also legitimized their attacks by “historical claims” that the land once, some hundreds of years ago, belonged to them. Such historical legitimacy of land ownership was also used by some Muslim rioters when they occupied Christian areas of Kelang, Boano, Manipa, and west Seram resulted in the removal of Christian populations. No one can deny that the past works very well influencing today’s (Ambonese) Muslims to commit violence and aggression against Christian community.

(Wattimanela 2003: 95)

Moreover, while Hituiese and non-Hituiese Muslims attacked Christian targets, Christian rioters based at the Rehoboth church in Kudamati, one of Ambon’s Christian strongholds, set about systematically trashing the market stalls run by, mainly, Butonese and Bugis-Makasarese Muslim migrants. In the next few days, violence spread to different areas on Ambon Island, and by early February 1999, the mass violence multiplied rapidly to other parts of the region and to neighboring islands such as Haruku, Saparua, Seram, and Buru. A confrontation with much bloodshed took place between the Muslim village of Tulehu, together with Liang, and the Christian village of Waai, which lies between the two. Then, in March, violence spread to the Kei Islands of Southeast Maluku,⁵ bringing destruction and bloodshed to a large number of Muslim villages on the west coast of Kei Kecil. Most surviving residents fled to the local capital of Tual, faraway from the Kei Islands (Bohm 2005; Thorburn 2002). In Tual, more vicious fighting exploded on March 31, 1999, two days before Good Friday and three days after the Muslim holiday of Idul Adha.

Unlike other Christian areas of Maluku (Negeri Sarane) in which Protestants had been dominant, the Christians living in Tual and Kei were mostly Catholics. Clashes between Catholics and Muslims in the areas were triggered by an incident involving the exchange of insults between two youths on March 27. The violence spread to more than 30 villages and to the local capital city of Tual. Reports estimate more than 80 people were killed, more than 60 people were wounded, and hundreds of houses were destroyed. Explained by the local police as an outg...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations and glossary
• Introduction
• 1 The Moluccas sectarian unrest: religion, history, and local dynamics
• 2 Perang Sabil: Islam, radicalism, and the idea of holy war
• 3 Perang Salib: Christianity, militancy, and the imagery of the Crusades
• 4 The indigenous systems of brotherhood and dispute resolution
• 5 Christian and Muslim leaders and the idea of reconciliation
• 6 Grassroots agencies and the peace movement
• 7 Government responses towards peacebuilding initiatives
• 8 Contemporary Moluccas: religion, regionalism, and citizenship
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index