Between December 1996 and the beginning of March 1997, one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence in Indonesia in decades broke out in the province of West Kalimantan between indigenous Dayak people and immigrants from the island of Madura, off the coast of East Java. In the aftermath of a fight between Dayak and Madurese youths in a town called Sanggau Ledo, in which two Dayak youths were stabbed, the Dayaks waged what appeared to be a ritual war against Madurese communities, burning houses, killing inhabitants, and in some cases severing the heads and eating the livers of those killed. The death toll was probably about 500 by the time the killing ceased, appallingly high but still much lower than some early estimates of 2,000 or more; the Indonesian government has discouraged any effort to determine an accurate count. The majority of those killed were Madurese, but several dozen Dayaks died as well, some in revenge attacks by Madurese, most in clashes that took place when army units tried to stop Dayak war parties from reaching Madurese settlements. About 20,000 Madurese were displaced.
Almost a year after an uneasy calm returned, and after innumerable government-supervised "peace treaties" between the two communities were concluded across the province, tensions remain so high that another outbreak could be triggered at any time. Given the precarious state of inter-ethnic relations in the region and the potential for future outbreaks of communal violence, it is imperative that the government take steps to investigate the conflict and answer the questions raised about the performance of the army and police.
There is concern in Kalimantan that this may not have been simply another eruption between the two groups, despite the fact that there is a history of Madurese-Dayak conflict in West Kalimantan. This clash was so much worse in terms of casualties than its predecessors and so much more geographically widespread that several people we spoke with, both Dayak and Madurese, saw as the precedent to this outbreak not the previous Madurese-Dayak conflicts but the Dayak war against ethnic Chinese in West Kalimantan between October and November 1967. The army claimed (and still claims) that the 1967 attack, which cost about 300 lives and led to the displacement of more than 55,000 Chinese, was a spontaneous uprising by the Dayak people against Communist guerrillas who had strong support among the local ethnic Chinese. In fact, the ritual war, in which ethnic Chinese of all political persuasions were killed, is now widely believed to have been deliberately sparked by the army.
Even though there is no hard evidence of manipulation in this outbreak, people of every background and belief seem to believe that there must have been, from the army commander who talks of an oknum penghasut, a scoundrel instigator, to those who believe the violence was related to a pre-election quest by the ruling party, Golkar, for dominance. It is the lack of obvious answers to hard questions that have led different people to propose a provocateur as the only explanation; a policy of greater transparency on the part of the government and a thorough investigation by the National Human Rights Commission, in collaboration with appropriate Indonesian or international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), might provide some of those answers. Not only has there been no such investigation, but at the time of the conflict, the government actively discouraged reporting, apparently out of concern that accurate information would only make the situation worse.
Whether or not communal tensions were deliberately whipped up, it is clear that human rights violations took place in the course of the conflict that have exacerbated ethnic tensions. These violations include reported extrajudicial executions of members of Dayak attack parties by soldiers, and arbitrary arrests of both Dayaks and Madurese in what appeared to be a misguided government attempt to prevent further conflict. There are also claims of police discrimination against the Madurese, failing to arrest the perpetrators of anti-Madurese violence or to respond to Madurese complaints.
In instances where the army stopped Dayak raiding parties from attacking Madurese settlements, the use of lethal force may have been justified, although how that force was applied and whether non-lethal alternatives were available need to be examined. The apparent extrajudicial executions took place not when the army opened fire on oncoming trucks full of Dayak raiders, some of whom were also armed and returned fire, but when soldiers reportedly shot and killed, at close range, individual Dayaks trying to surrender or those who were already in custody. Dayak sources believe some of these killings were carried out by or under the direction of Madurese soldiers, a perception that ensures communal tensions remainhigh even though it is not clear that the perception is accurate. The fact that some bodies were buried secretly, without a chance for families to hold traditional ceremonies, has also angered many in the Dayak community.
There is clear evidence of arbitrary arrest of both Dayak and Madurese under an anachronistic emergency regulation dating back to 1951 which effectively bans possession of sharp weapons. In a part of the country where most males carry a traditional knife and families keep various kinds of knives in their home, the regulation provides a pretext for arresting anyone at any time. Many of those arrested under this law were not involved in the conflict and are not charged with engaging in any violence; they were arrested by joint army-police teams who raided houses and work sites in the conflict area in late February or early March, looking for weapons. (All of those arrested under the 1951 law had been released by this writing.)
There is insufficient evidence at this stage to support claims of discrimination by police against Madurese, but those claims need thorough investigation. Both Madurese and Dayaks believe that the police have been looking for an opportunity to get back at the Madurese ever since 1993, when Madurese in Pontianak went on a rampage against virtually every police station in the city after a Madurese man was tortured to death in custody, and the involvement of several individual police officers and ex-officers has fueled speculation that the police had a hand in encouraging Dayak attacks. Several Madurese told us that complaints they had filed with police were ignored. In one case we were able to follow up, the subjects of the complaint had in fact been arrested, but the complainant, displaced from his home and living with relatives in Pontianak, had never received the news. Still, if the perception is left to persist that the police discriminated against Madurese and the army targeted Dayaks, the government's ability to diminish communal tensions in the future will be severely hampered.
This is a case where government controls on information, however well-meaning, are not only misguided but dangerous. Four highly negative consequences of this conflict are already apparent: deepened enmity between Dayak and Madurese at a grassroots level; deepened distrust of the police by Madurese; deepened distrust of the army by Dayak; and a heightened sense of ethnicity, not just on the part of Dayak and Madurese but on the part of every ethnic group living in West Kalimantan. To safeguard themselves against attacks during the conflict, non-Madurese residents scrawled "Melayu" (Malay) or "Jawa" (Javanese) on their homes, and Chinese hung a strip of red cloth on their doors.
This report is a very preliminary analysis of the conflict. It does not come to any hard conclusions about the causes but instead suggests questions that an investigation - preferably one conducted by a neutral body not linked to either ethnic group but trusted by both - must answer if communal tensions are to be reduced. We set out the background to the conflict as well as a detailed description of its two phases, based on interviews with eyewitnesses and leaders of both Dayak and Madurese communities. The information was obtained on two visits to Kalimantan, in January and July 1997. We then look at the way in which the Indonesian government reacted to the conflict in terms of the military's use of lethal force, pattern of arrests, efforts to control information, and promotion of local and province-wide peace pacts. While most of the government's actions appear to have been undertaken in a genuine effort to calm tensions and eliminate possible sources of violence, the end result appears to have been precisely the opposite. It has created as much ill-will on the part of both parties toward the government as between the parties themselves.
Recommendations
1. An investigation into the conflict is essential, but the way in which the investigation is conducted is as important as the questions it addresses. It cannot be conducted in a two- or three-day flying visit from Jakarta, and the investigators must be seen as absolutely neutral by all parties to the conflict. They must be able to conduct interviews with a guarantee of absolute confidentiality in terms of the source of the information and yet in such a way that the information itself can eventually be made public in a report that can be discussed and debated openly. At a minimum, the investigation needs to answer the following questions:
· Why was there so little effort on the part of security forces to stop the attacks?
· Why were no arrests made for organizing attacks, even when the names of alleged perpetrators were known?
· How did certain rumors that contributed to the conflict get started?
· How valid are the claims of extrajudicial executions by the army, and if the claims are substantiated, what will be done to prosecute those concerned?
· What happened to those killed in clashes between the army and Dayak attackers? How and where were they buried?
· What was the ethnic composition of the military and police at the provincial, district and subdistrict level and in the key infantry battalions involved in the clashes?
· Where did the Dayak attackers get semi-automatic hunting rifles that they used in some of the areas where Madurese casualties were heaviest?
· How were the Dayak raids and Madurese counterattacks organized?
· What was the role of the police, and was there any evidence of discrimination against the Madurese?
· What was the role of the army, and was there any evidence of discrimination against the Dayaks?
· What alternatives might there have been to government-sponsored "peace pacts" in reducing hostility between the communities in conflict?
2. The text of earlier peace agreements between Madurese and Dayaks, particularly the 1979 Samalantan agreement, should be published and made available for open discussion.
3. The government should refrain from using Emergency Regulation No.12/1951, banning possession or carrying of certain kinds of weapons, as a way of detaining people against whom there is insufficient evidence of a more serious offense. Enforcement of this law, in an area where much of the population carries or possesses traditional knives, became a pretext for the arrest of over one hundred people against whom there was no other evidence of wrong-doing. (It has also been used to detain pro-independence activists in East Timor.)
4. The government needs to find a way to halt the continuing economic and political marginalization of the Dayaks, and to this end, protection of the land and resources of the Dayaks must be given high priority. As a starting point, the government should consider becoming a party to ILO Convention No. 169, which states that indigenous and tribal peoples should have the right "to decide their own priorities for the process of development as it affects their lives, beliefs, institutions, spiritual well-being, and the lands they occupy or otherwise use."
5. The government should pay special attention to the needs of the thousands of Madurese displaced or financially ruined by the conflict.