The government had two basic responses to the violence: peace pacts and arrests. Both indicated a fundamental misunderstanding of the depth of the tensions and the political dynamics at work. With the peace pacts, the government staged probably well-intentioned but useless ceremonies that said more about loyalty to the state ideology, Pancasila, than about a genuine effort at conflict resolution. In an even more misguided effort at preventive action, the provincial government sent joint teams of police and military around to raid communities after the worst violence was over, looking for sharp weapons, and arrested scores of young men for possessing knives. Since most Madurese and Dayak men carry some kind of sharp knife as a matter of course, the effect of the arrests was to arbitrarily detain dozens of people who not only had nothing to do with the violence but who were not even accused of having anything to do with the violence. In contrast, those believed responsible for murder went largely unpunished. These efforts mostly took place at the provincial level on down; it is not clear that the central government was particularly engaged in events except insofar as they affected plans for the May election.
The Peace Pacts
As noted above, after the first round of violence, the government sponsored a number of peace ceremonies at the local, usually subdistrict level. At these ceremonies, local Dayak and Madurese leaders would be present, a traditional Dayak leader (temanggung) would perform a ritual symbolizing the restoration of relations with nature, and both sides would pledge to uphold the unity of Indonesia and to not be incited by false information. These ceremonies, mostly carried out between January 5 and 8, had no effect whatsoever in preventing the second round of violence.
Nevertheless, the government put even more effort into sponsoring formulaic peace pacts of this kind from February 18 onwards at the district and subdistrict levels, with a province-wide ceremony in Pontianak on March 15. In each case, the full panoply of relevant civil and military officials attended; in each case, the wording of the ikrar or pledge was almost identical.
The provincial ceremony in Pontianak is a case in point. It was attended by numerous military and governmnt officials: the provincial commander, Maj. Gen. Namuri Anoem; the regional commander of Korem 121, Col. Zainuri Hasyim; the provincial police commander, Col.Drs. Erwin Achmad; commander of the local naval base, Col. Sugeng Sugiatmar; head of the air force base, Lt. Col. Jon Dalas Sembiring; the public prosecutor, Masfar Ismail; the rector of the provincial university, Prof. Mahmud Akil, all members of the provincial parliament, all officials of the provincial government, all of the district heads of the province, the leaders of the three political parties - and, almost coincidentally, the leaders of the two ethnic groups. The chair and secretary-general of the National Human Rights Commission, Munawir Syadzali and Baharuddin Lopa, were present as was one other commission member. The program, according to press reports, included a choir from SMU Taruna Bumi Khatulistiwa, a school for cadets, which sang marching songs and a display of the drum band of the Naval Academy. All of the Taruna Academy attended. The ceremony could have been an election rally for GOLKAR.
The pledge read by representatives of the Dayak and Madurese communities said that:
The incident in question was caused by the failure of all the people of West Kalimantan to nurture, guide and protect the atmosphere of neighborliness between all sectors of society and also by the ease with which we are swayed by rumors and inaccurate information spread by certain groups who do not wish to see the stability of the region and our beloved nation safeguarded.
It committed both parties to upholding existing laws, settling all conflicts through negotiation, rejecting the practice of summary justice, respecting local customs and traditions, ending the practice of carrying a sharp weapon, foregoing any accusations of individual responsibility for the losses that occurred, and surrendering to the government the authority to process all claims in accordance with existing laws and regulations.69
The pledge read at the ceremony in the subdistrict of Sungai Ambawang on February 17, and attended by all the subdistrict officials, contained the phrase, "We believe and fully submit to the authority of the government, especially the military, for public law and order."70 Similar subdistrict level ceremonies were held in Sungai Pinyuh, Mempawah Hilir, and Sungai Kunyit on February 23; in Mandor on February 24; in Menyuke on February 24. Others took place shortly afterwards in Toho. Menjalin, Mempawah Hulu, Sengah Temila, and Ngabang.71
There were several problems with these ceremonies. They were first and foremost government shows and had very little to do with traditional end-of-war ceremonies. Second, they involved only the elite among Dayak and Madurese leaders and ignored how high emotions were running at the grassroots level.The Dayak or Madurese most likely to be called on by the government to take part in these ceremonies was not necessarily one with the most influence over those engaging in violence .There was little appreciation of the fact that the influence of an important Dayak leader in one community would not necessarily extend over a large geographic area or that it was critical to involve kyai (Muslim religious leaders) on the Madurese side, not just prominent community figures. The ceremonies wrongly posited two monolithic opposing sides, ignoring how fragmented and differentiated the two parties could be. The Madurese community was deeply split, for example, between "green" and "yellow" Madurese - supporters of PPP, the Muslim party and GOLKAR, the ruling party. The pacts were dangerous, because since they involved people who could not bring their respective communities along with them, they were quickly broken, amid mutual recriminations and charges of bad faith.
One result was that by the time of our last visit to West Kalimantan in late July 1997, dialogue and exchange of information among thoughtful individuals from the two communities had broken down completely. One particularly usefulforum, the Forum Komunikasi Antaretnis Kalimantan (The Interethnic Communications Forum of Kalimantan) made up of young intellectuals from both groups who met regularly during the month of January, had not met since the Pancur Kasih attack.
Arrests
The government also used its power of arrest in a way that led to widespread arbitrary detention and exacerbated tensions. Even when arrests were not arbitrary, there seemed to be no good reason why certain acts of violence led to arrests and others did not. A review of the 184 people formally charged in connection with the conflict revelas some telling statistics:
· the only people arrested as a result of the first wave of violence were the five youths who participated in the original stabbing of the two Dayaks at Sanggau Led. As noted above, they were initially charged with assault (Article 170 of the Criminal Code) and causing property damage (Article 351). Bakrie was sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
· A total of eight people were charged with murder - one Madurese, in the case of the death of the Dayak leader Martinus Nyangkot on January 31, and seven Dayaks, all from Sanggau district. Mohamad Sidik, charged in the Nyangkot death, was sentenced to three years in prison. The heaviest sentences of the whole conflict were given to two of the three charged in the death of Haji Sayuti in Balai Karangan; they received sentences of three and a half years in prison. Four others were charged in connection with deaths in Balai Sepuak, Belintang Hulu, where six members of one family were killed.
· Two Madurese were charged in connection with the Pancur Kasih attack, accused of violating Article 353 of the Criminal Code. M. Umar Farouq was sentenced to nine months and ten days, and with time served, was free by the end of the year.
· One Madurese has been charged with incitement: the man who made the telephone calls to other Madurese on January 28 stating that Habib Ali, a religious leader, was dead when in fact he was not.
· A total of fourteen people were charged with arson in connection with burnings in Sanggau and Singkawang: four Madurese in Mempawah and about ten Dayaks. The maximum sentence handed down in these cases was one year and three months.
· Three Dayaks were charged with weapons seizure for stealing a pistol from a soldier on February 3; five others were charged with stealing a motorbike in Monterado, Samalantan district, and received sentences in April of between three and four and a half months.
Virtually everyone else arrested was charged under Article 2 of a rarely used law, Emergency Regulation No.12/1951, banning possession of certain kinds of weapons. Most were arrested in joint military raids in March 1997 mounted with the express purpose of confiscating knives, as if eliminating knives would help resolve the conflict. Most of those arrested in these raids were Dayaks, and there is no evidence that they were linked to the actual conflict (indeed, no suggestion was made in the formal charge-sheets that they were). All were released by late 1997, but their prolonged detention under this law is cause for concern.
Regulation 12 is a legal anachronism, adopted at a time when Indonesia was just emerging from a long guerrilla war of independence against the Dutch, and the young republic was trying to both restore order, ensure that external threats were minimized, and transform a bewildering array of militias into a national army. Relevant provisions of the law read as follows:
Article (1): Whoever illegally enters Indonesia to make, receive, try to obtain, hand over or try to hand over, transport, possess, store, use, detonate or take out of Indonesia a firearm, munition, or explosive will be sentenced to death, to life in prison, or to a fixed term of up to twenty years.
Article 2 (1): Whoever illegally enters Indonesia to make, receive, try to obtain, hand over or try to hand over, transport, possess, store, use or take out of Indonesia a weapon for striking [as an ax or machete], thrusting [as a spear], or stabbing shall be sentenced to a prison term of up to ten years.
(2): Striking, thrusting or stabbing weapons do not include objects which are clearly intended to be used in agriculture or household use or for legitimate occupational purposes or which are clearly heirlooms, antiques or magical objects.
The "illegally enters" phrase should have made the law inapplicable to the current conflict. Moreover, in a place like West Kalimantan where virtually every household possesses hunting knives, some traditional, some not, the law could easily be used to arrest most of the male population of the province. Indonesian legal commentators themselves note that almost all the terms used in the law are vague and relative ("antique" and "household use" and "striking" among them).72
Most of the arrests made under the law appear to have been indeed arbitrary. In early February, the provincial army commander announced a ban on possession of firearms and carrying of knives. It was only in late February, after the second round of government-sponsored peace ceremonies was over, that the army launched "Operation Sharp Weapon," an operation that continued through late March. Joint teams from the army's Division VII/Tanjungpura command, Resort Command (Korem) 121, district army troops, units of the air force, as well as police from the provincial and district police commands went go into homes on raids, searching kitchens, bedrooms, and elsewhere for weapons. The raids appear to have focused particularly on Sambas and Pontianak districts. According to one press account,
The police have already arrested hundreds of people for carrying sharp weapons, but many people are still seen with them. The police have been carrying out an operation to ensure that this tradition disappears as soon as possible. Raids are being carried out in terminals, in tense/unsettled areas, ports, markets, entertainment places, and other areas. Those caught in the net will be brought to court unless they can produce a letter to prove the weapon in question is necessary for their occupation.73
Firdaus, a seventeen-year-old farmer from the village of Sei Buluh in Sambas district, was one of seventy-four people detained in the Pontianak detention center in April as a result of such raids. He was arrested on March 1 while working in a ricefield and had no known connection with the inter-ethnic violence. While some of the others arrested in the group were later released, Firdaus was still detained as of late July 1997 under Emergency Regulation 12/1951, together with about two dozen others. The lawyer in charge of the Indonesian Bar Association defense team for the 184 people arrested in connection with the conflict told us that 80 percent of his clients had been picked up in such raids and charged under Regulation 12.
"Operation Sharp Weapon" may have been intended as a preventive measure, but the conflict was not caused by the Dayak habit of carrying knives (far more Dayaks than Madurese were arrested in these raids), nor was another outbreak of communal violence going to be stopped by arbitrarily arresting hundreds of people. Rather, one person we talked with pointed out that now that Regulation 12 has been resurrected from legal obscurity, it could be used as an excuse for arresting any Dayak or Madurese who happens to offend an official, since the chances that the offender will possess a knife are very high.
There was one other negative consequence of "Operation Sharp Weapon." While the police were involved in the joint teams, the teams appear to have been disproportionately made up of army personnel. Not only does the army not havearrest functions under the Indonesian Criminal Procedure Code, but the army-dominated raiding teams and the large number of Dayaks arrested by them, left the impression among many we talked to that there was a division of labor in the security forces: the police went after Madurese, and the army went after Dayaks.
The Case of Zainuddin Isman
Zainuddin Isman's case highlights the arbitrary use of Emergency Regulation 12, although the case ended, surprisingly, with an acquittal. Zainuddin, a Pontianak-based journalist for one of Indonesia's largest and most influential daily newspapers, Kompas, who also happened to be a parliamentary candidate for the opposition PPP, wrote a chronology on January 13, 1997 of the events surrounding the original stabbing in Sanggau Ledo. Entitled "Chronology of the Disturbances in Sanggau Ledo, Sambas District, West Kalimantan" (Kronologis Kerusuhan Sanggau Ledo, Kabupaten Sambas, Kalimantan Barat), the five-page chronology was compiled, he said, from eyewitness testimonies. (In fact, he had not directly interviewed the eyewitnesses involved.) The chronology named Dayaks who, these witnesses said, were responsible for the violence on December 30 through January 3. It also claimed that neither Bakrie, the youth alleged to have stabbed the two Dayaks in Sanggau Ledo, nor some of the others with him were really Madurese, implying that the whole Dayak war against the Madurese was based on completely wrong assumptions about the ethnicity of the original perpetrators. In fact, Bakrie had Dayak blood on his mother's side, but since his father was Madurese and he lived in a Madurese compound, he was considered to be fully Madurese.74
Zainuddin gave the chronology to the Pontianak branches of Indonesia's two largest Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Mohammadiyah, on January 23. The two organizations had conducted fact-finding missions, and he was worried they would conclude that the conflict was essentially religious. The chronology, he said, was designed to show that it was not, although the fact that he claimed that "99.9 percent" of the victims were Muslim - not only Madurese, but also Malays and Javanese who lived in some of the transmigration settlements attacked by the Dayaks - did suggest that religion was an element. Once the chronology had been given to the two organizations, it was widely disseminated elsewhere, but with alterations and deletions that, according to Zainuddin, he had not authorized and which altered the tone and substance of his original document.
Not surprisingly, the chronology was considered pro-Madurese, in part because it named so many Dayaks as alleged instigators (five of whom said later that they had been slandered and were considering legal action against Zainuddin). Many Dayaks saw it as no coincidence that Zainuddin was also a PPP candidate, when most of the PPP's constituency in West Kalimantan was Madurese. The chronology also contained some serious mistakes. But it was also one of the few efforts to document what had taken place, and the language used was not in itself inflammatory.
No questions were raised about the chronology between January 23, when it was circulated, and February 3, when two police officers came to Zainuddin's office to take him to provincial police headquarters in Pontianak for questioning about the document. But when the officers and Zainuddin got in the latter's car to go the police station, the police found a mandau, the traditional Dayak knife, behind the driver's seat. They then searched the rest of the car - without a warrant - and found a kitchen knife in the trunk. Zainuddin was thereupon arrested on charges of violating Emergency Regulation 12/1951. He spent twenty-nine days in police headquarters before being transferred to the Pontianak detention center in Sungai Raya, Pontianak, where he was held until April 22. He was then released to house arrest as his trial got underway.75 In July, the prosecution requested an eight-month sentence, and on August 16, after twenty-five sessions in the courtroom, Zainuddin was found not guilty.
Zainuddin explained during his trial that the mandau was a traditional knife that he had bought as a gift for his brother in central Java, and that if he was going to be charged under Regulation 12 with not having a permit for it, all the tourists, Indonesian military officers, art dealers and others who routinely purchased mandaus would also have to be arrested.Indeed, he called as witness the owner of the Borneo Art Shop in Pontianak who testified as to how frequently he sold mandaus to visitors.
The arrest of Zainuddin under Regulation 12 may have served several purposes. By arresting someone seen as pro-Madurese, it was perhaps a way of trying to pacify the Dayak community in the midst of one of the worst spasms of violence the province had seen in years.76 It could have been a way of casting aspersions on a PPP candidate as the election campaign heated up. And it could have been seen by officials as a way of getting back at Zainuddin, a journalist who was known for writing hard-hitting stories about corruption in the province. No one we met, however - no matter what his or her political persuasion and no matter how angry with the content of the chronology - believes that the possession of a mandau was the real reason, or indeed a legitimate one, for Zainuddin's arrest.
69 "Kerusuhan, Turnnya Nilai Budaya Bangsa," Akcaya, March 16, 1997.
70 "Danrem: Hiduplah Rukun dan Damai," Akcaya, February 18, 1997.
71 "Merekapun Berpelukan Erat," Akcaya, February 24, 1997.
72 Andi Hamzah, Delik-Delik Tersebar di Luar KUHP, PT Pradnya Paramita (Jakarta), no date, p.7.
73 "Polri Masih Menggelar Operasi Senjata Tajam," Akcaya, March 25,1987. The paper cited elsewhere in this report, "Fakta-fakta dari Kerusuhan Antara Etnis Madura dan Dayak," notes that raids conducted in Sambas district, in Capkala, Sebale, Maundered and Sanggau Led involved soldiers who covered their faces with cloth, obscured any identifying marks on their uniforms, and removed the license plates of their vehicles. We had no opportunity to verify that account.
74 Zainuddin claimed that another of the youths was an Ambonese, from the Moluccas, but he appears also to have been a peranakan, an assimilated Madurese of mixed Ambonese-Madurese heritage.
75 The trial actually started on April 17.
76 Zainuddin himself was from a Dayak family that had converted to Islam a few generations; once Dayaks convert, however, they are more likely to be defined ethnically as Melayu (Malay) since the notion of Muslim Dayak is difficult for many Dayaks to accept.