It was known as a spice island; that was Ambon before January 19, 1999. Ambon and the surrounding islands were hit by a devastating civil war on January 19, 1999. Even though Ambon has been known as a Christian-pocket region in Indonesia, the Muslims in Ambon had been living in peace and harmony with the Christians. This peace and harmony of life were ended in irreparable damage on January 19, 1999. The Ambonese refused to call the incident a riot; rather they insisted on calling it a civil war.

The war was started by a silly incident. It was a local domestic small incident, a fight or quarrel between a taxi driver and a Muslim Ambonese. Sources indicated very strongly that the incident was used by provocateurs to start a massive destruction all over Ambon and even to the surrounding islands. This kind of pattern seems to be repeating from case to case; a small local incident becomes a big and uncontrollable incident that collapses the whole community. We could see the pattern in the cases of Ketapang, Kupang and Poso. (The Poso case was not covered by Media; around Christmas of 1998 incidents in Central Sulawesi that hit towns of Poso, Palu and Palopo were very devastating as well). Sources even suggested very strongly that the provocateurs had been mobilized by Soeharto and his gang.

The Ambon case is very devastating; the first list of casualties is attached on Exhibit 1. Since then people live in fear and terror in Ambon, and small incidents took place here and there. On February 14, 1999 another serious incident took place. Christians in Kariu of the island of Haruku were attacked by people from Pelauw, Kailolo and Ori. People from those three places are mainly Muslims. According to eyewitnesses and the investigation of the fact finding team of the Salawaku Team, the 14 February incident was even worse, for the following reasons:

1. Right before the attack the post commando for the security force, which was to maintain peace at the border of Pelauw and Kariu, was relocated to some other place..
2. The Commando of the military post Yon 733, Mr. Safar Latuamuri (who is also from Pelauw), took with him some other officers and the people from those villages and attacked the people in Kariu.

Following is the list of the casualties from that attack:

3. Houses and even a church (which was already under the protection of the peace keeping military force) were allowed to be burned to the ground..

4. The peace keeping military officers were also involved in the brutal shooting of the people from Hulaliu who came over in a rush to help the injured in Kariu.

Following is the list of the casualties from the Hulaliu village:

On February 21 and 22, 1999, Monday and Tuesday, in the island of Saparua, the people from Siri Sori Islam and the people from Siri Sori Serani (Christian) broke into a fight; so did the people from Iha (Muslim) and Nolloth (Christian). There were 3 deaths in Nolloth and 1 person whose arm had to be amputated as a result of a shot by an officer.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, February 22, 1999, in the city of Ambon, riot broke out again. A bomb was set at Batu Merah Dalam. Houses belonging to Christians were set on fire. The security officer did not do anything when people started to attack the Christians. So far there were 6 people shot to death by the security officers, and three of them were shot by the security officers while they were inside the gate of the Bethabara Church in Batu Merah Dalam. Christians in Batu Merah Dalam had to escape for refuge.

Despite the headlines in the media - Christians slaughter Muslim in Ambon - the opposite seems to be true. However, the more sickening and concerning issue has been the behavior of the military officers. They were not only not doing anything, they would actually be the ones involved in the attacks and the shootings. This kind of behavior and performance by the military is not only unacceptable, but also has once again proven the loss of control and authority in the military unit as a whole, even from the top commando of Gen. Wiranto.

According to eyewitnesses, one of the officers who was involved in the shooting in Batu Merah Dalam was a police officer - Mr. Cahyana.

Following is the list of casualties in Ambon on February 23-24, 1999.

Persecutions against Christians, which were done in a very subtle way during the Soeharto era, have turned more blatant and vicious during the Habibie era with the Indonesian government in transition.. According to the report of the ICCF (Indonesian Christian Communication Forum) there were 455 churches attacked and burned during the Soeharto era, and there have been minimum of 95 churches attacked and burned during the Habibie era which is only less than a year. The force of fundamentalism which has been riding its way behind Habibie, starting from the formation of ICMI (The Association of Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals) in the early 1990s, has been showing its vicious teeth since the May, 1998 Riot. Despite the clear pattern of similarities among the incidents, ever since the June 9, 1996 Surabaya case and then followed by the October 10, 1996 Situbondo case, the government and the military have not been able to bring a total and absolute justice to the citizens of Indonesia by identifying and prosecuting the masterminds behind all of these incidents. The lack of will and capability from the government and the military has resulted in the weakening of their authority domestically and internationally, which should be expected when a government is not serving the people whom they are supposed to serve..

Report prepared by:
Hengky Hattu - Yayasan Sala Waku Maluku
Kie-eng Go - Texas-USA

Exhibit 1.

E-mail Max B. Surjadinata: max@igc.org

Also of interest: Call for Ambon Partition by Don Greenlees for The Australian, March 5, 1999