That first round appeared to be running out of steam, when it became almost a pogrom with the entry of a fringe group from Java, the Laskar Jihad, with alleged military and political links or sponsorship. The Maluku independence movement, a rump group, largely based in Holland, also got involved (Maluku was the the original Spice Islands, then a Muslim kingdom, which the Dutch converted to Calvinist Christianity -- people may have heard of the Amboyna massacre?).
All the same, the conflicts that emerged in 1999 appear in retrospect to have been a part of the "madness", upon the removal of the strait-jacket, that consumed parts of Indonesia -- Kalimantan, East Java, Jakarta, Maluku -- and distinct from the conflicts in West Papua/Irian Jaya and Acheh which are long-standing conflicts for independence or autonomy (although such a summary glosses over the real and important differences between West Papua and Acheh, and ignores the resource conflicts in Maluku -- there was an "incident" just earlier this year over an Australian mining company's concession -- as well as the lingering regional autonomy/independence issue there).
By now, it's possible that the fighting in Maluku is due to hoodlums, possibly triggered by power contests at the centre. There are, again, charges by various groups, including church people, that the recent outbreak was instigated from outside. It appears to have been well-planned. Many, including the Indonesian national papers, are wondering how come the authorities allowed the demonstration by the South Moluccas Republic group, seeing that it is evidently a separatist group, probably unimaginable elsewhere, and definitely not in Acheh. The Singapore Straits Times, Tuesday, had an interesting column suggesting that the renewed violence would hurt Bambang and help Wiranto. Both were former generals; both now in the contest for the presidency. Wiranto is the one of East Timor infamy. Bambang had, apparently, been associated with the peace accord of 2002; whereas Wiranto now promises tough action to maintain the territorial integrity of the republic. (But be aware that the SST will also be likely to see the hand of al-Qaeda all over the place, on which matter there was an article about a year ago by Carl Thayer sounding a warning that most of the conflicts and troubles in SE Asia were home-grown and local, and it would be a mistake to assimilate them all to al-Qaeda politics.)
Apropos Michael Pollak's posting of Bruno Latour -- yes, there are persons with malevolent intentions who do engage in conspiracy, and not only 'terrorists' terrorise, as anyone with any familiarity with Indonesia 1965 and after knows only too well.
There's a draft essay by Dieter Bartels, who did his anthropology PhD in Cornell back in the 1970s on the then local system of alliances called 'pela', on the earlier violence at http://www.nunusaku.com/Research/R3a.htm
kj khoo
At 8:45 pm +0500 27/4/04, uvj at vsnl.com wrote:
>Jon Johanning wrote:
>
>> > HindustanTimes.com
>> >
>> > Sunday, April 25, 2004
>> >
>> > Muslims, Christians clash in Indonesia; 2 killed
>
>> This article makes it sound as though it is a purely religious clash,
> > but I wonder if there are fundamental economic or other non-religious
>> issues involved, as we have seen in other parts of the world where
> > "religious" conflicts have occurred?
>
>I don't know about this conflict. But didn't Marx say somewhere that the
>ideology becomes a material force when it grips the mass of people?
>
>Ulhas