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Crisis in Maluku: from religion to nationalism.

Article Excerpt
Between 1999 and 2002 the Maluku islands were divided by a purportedly bitter religious/ nationalist struggle that left over 5,000 people dead and approximately 500,000 people displaced. After two years of relative calm, this inter-communal violence recently reappeared as open warfare.

The conflict was sparked on 25 April, the date marking the founding of the Republic of South Maluku (Republic Maluku Selatan [RMS]) by the islands' relatively small independence movement. Initially low-key, events escalated when police detained twenty-four people involved in hoisting RMS flags. Independence supporters protested outside police headquarters, and the pro-Indonesian onlookers--predominantly Muslim--started throwing stones at RMS protesters. Some reports claim that the pro-Indonesia side initially focused their anger at the police, believing that the police were protecting the RMS separatists.

The conflict escalated further, and by the next day ten people were dead and sixty were wounded. Widescale damage was caused to Ambon City by rioters, and the UN building was razed to the ground. Parts of the Christian University of Maluku were also torched, along with approximately 200 houses in the Christian neighbourhood of Batugantung. By the third day, 26 people were dead and 180 wounded. Christians, disembarking from a ship in the predominantly Muslim harbour area of Ambon, were also attacked--purportedly whilseIndonesian soldiers looked on....

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