History, Politics And Current Affairs

The Indonesian Collapse 2005


Root of the Breakup: the Maluku Religious War 1999-2002

(From a lecture at the Australian Defence Force Academy 2015)

The Maluku Islands (Moluccan islands) Religious War was an ethno-political conflict along religious lines, which spanned the Indonesian islands that compose the Maluku archipelago, with particularly serious disturbances in Ambon and Halmahera islands. The duration of the conflict is generally dated from the start of the Reformasi era in early 1999 to the signing of the Malino II Accord on 13 February 2002.

Though all violence during the four-year period cannot be linked directly to political or sectarian issues, as a significant majority could be attributed to opportunistic crimes, the violence was categorized by the armed campaigns of local militia groups targeted almost exclusively against the civilian populations of the islands. This also included the Laskar Jihad militia group, composed of trained fighters from other predominantly Muslim areas of Indonesia, who ran a campaign in the later stages of the conflict to drive out Christian residents of Maluku. The nature of the violence was intended to displace members of the rival community, as it assumed the form of mass-evictions through the use of intimidation and harassment, followed by vicious attacks on large groups of locals and arson attacks on their residences or even whole neighbourhoods that could be termed as pogroms in some cases. In one instance in April 1999 all Christian residents were expelled from the Banda Islands.

Despite firing some 80% of all ammunition spent in the fighting, the Police and Armed forces of the Republic of Indonesia claimed to be neutral throughout the conflict. However, the authorities were criticised for not preventing attacks and allegations of ethnic and religious bias were alleged by both communities, in particular that a number of troops handed over state-owned weapons, mostly to Muslim militia members, and said weapons were used in later attacks and atrocities. In some cases individual personnel of both the military and police are reported to have joined the militias of their respective religion, with up to 350 military personnel alleged to have assisted and fought alongside Muslim fighters. Initially the local militia groups had organised themselves as 'defenders' and 'protectors' of their respective community against rival attacks, establishing posko or command posts in light of the Police inaction, however, these rapidly evolved into mobilisation points for local gangs to launch attacks from.

The conflict had a significant effect upon the 2.1 million people of greater Maluku. Leading up to the Malino agreement, the International Crisis Group estimated that 700,000 people had been displaced by the four years of fighting in the Moluccas which is thought to have claimed a minimum of 5,000 lives. This constituted the largest movement of refugees since the federation of the Indonesian state and the majority of the 1.4 million internal refugees reported in February 2002 by the World Food Programme.

Ambon 2005

Tensions between the local Christians and the Muslim immigrants of recent decades under the transmigration program had been kept at bay by economic development. The steep decline of the Indonesian economy under the influence of realignment with the USSR brought these again to boiling point.

The militias had rearmed after 2002, but secretly and gradually until April 2005 when Ambon exploded. The immediate cause of the explosion was Australian attacks on the Soviet base there, which was in early stages of construction. The Australians had been in contact with the Christian Ambonese for some time, and had deeper connections going back to WWII. These contacts were mostly intelligence related, but the Ambonese had asked for and received both small arms and training for the Christian militias, whose communities and indeed themselves were under enormous Government and local sectarian pressure.

Immediately after one attack, 80 armed and about 400 unarmed members of one local Christian militia used their new weaponry to overrun the Soviet base armoury and ammunition facility while the Soviet personnel there were mostly absent fighting fires. They cleaned it out, obtaining about fifty truckloads of arms and ammunition. As night follows day the Soviets and Indonesian Government reacted poorly and sent in both troops and armed Muslim militias to ‘recover the weapons’.

Unfortunately, the first action of the militias was to massacre about 90 worshippers in a Church, and Ambon simply exploded. The Christian Militias had developed close relations since 1999 and even had something approximating a plan. This revolved around cleaning out the Muslim Militias.

What followed was two weeks of carnage and the slaughter of about a quarter of the Muslim population (about 50,000 people) while most of the remainder were displaced. During this two weeks the war spread throughout the Moluccas with catastrophic effects. Muslims from the South Moluccas fled north and Christians from the Northern Moluccas fled south or west to North Sulawesi, which also rose in revolt.

The revolt succeeded due to something the Indonesians had never suspected – Chris Soumokil had had a son. Chris Soumokil had led the short-lived Republic of South Maluku (Indonesian: Republik Maluku Selatan, RMS) in 1950, then led the guerrillas on Ceram until captured in 1963 and was executed in 1966. Ian Soumokil was his son by a Ceramese woman, Helen Tehatune, who had remained in Ceram rather than fleeing to Holland. Born in 1963, Ian Soukomil had used his mother’s name and quietly taken over a large portion of the Christian militias, while his mother covertly obtained the support (and funding) of the RMS Government-in-Exile in Holland.

Critically, this included the support of the thousands of former soldiers of the Royal Dutch East Indies Army who, from arrival of the last 12,000 soldiers (and their families) in Holland in 1963 until 1970 had been treated by the Dutch as stateless persons. While very old by 2005 they were respected in the Dutch South Moluccan community.

The result was that eastern Indonesia was torn apart by the close of 2005.

As of early 2006, the archipelago remains riven by war, with the following states seeming most probable to emerge from the chaos.


West to East

1. Darul Islam Aceh. Broken away and declared a Sharia Republic. Still much serious fighting against ABRI in North Sumatra province.
a. Supported by the PRC, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Burma .
b. Future uncertain, Indonesia is a mortal enemy, Malaysia is supportive of Indonesia. A future losing war followed by a decimation (or worse) of the population is probable.
2. “Riau Republic”. Actually this was nothing of the sort. The Indonesian Governor sought Singaporean protection in 2005. The province has de facto been annexed by Singapore. Jakarta has grudgingly acceded to this in return for massive Singaporean payments and other special conditions. These are not entirely known but include majority equity in the massive Natuna gas fields as well as full protection of all Indonesian economic interests.
a. Future very bright.
3. “People’s Democratic Republic of Bangka-Belitung”. PRC entry into the stewpot of Indonesia revolves around their remarkably incompetent intervention in Bangka. Attempting to do by bullying and clumsy opportunism what the Singaporeans achieved by subtlety and truly enormous bribes has resulted in an ongoing fiasco which has poisoned PRC relations with everyone in the region.
a. Supporters: PRC, DPRK.
b. Future – is going to be retaken by Indonesia with support from all ASEAN nations and the Quad.
4. Darul Islam Java. In 2005 the Darul Islam conducted another rising in West Java, their third, intent on extending Sharia over Java. The rising was again crushed by ABRI but with much more than the usual ruthless ferocity, many of the fighters were found to be Acehnese, Iranian and Saudi. All Darul Islam and their supporters have been executed and the supporting population literally exterminated, to the tune of somewhere around 350,000 killed.
a. Supporters: Darul Islam Aceh, Saudi Arabia, PRC, Pakistan, .
b. Status: permanently extinct.
5. Indonesia. Most of Sumatra. Java, Kalimantan, most of Sulawesi, most of West Nusa Tenggara (Lombok excepted) and West Papua.
a. Supporters: pretty much everybody except the USSR, PRC, Pakistan and DPRK.
b. Future: uncertain but stabilising quickly.
6. Sailendra Kingdom of Mataram. Bali (mostly Hindu) and Lombok (mostly syncretic Islam and Hindu with animist admixtures). Matters are quite opaque as to how the Kingdom emerged to the point where no-one quite seems to know how the Kingdom re-appeared except the Balinese and Lombokese and they are not talking about it. It happened peacefully in mid-2005 without anyone really paying much attention. Nobody seems willing or able to define how or why the Kingdom re-emerged, even the Javanese, who, given the enormous and positive cultural impact Mataram still has in Java from the last time it was around, seem to be intent on pretending it’s always been this way. India has provided a token protective force training a small Mataram Army as well as a patrol boat group.
a. Mildly Puzzled Supporters: India
b. Countries trying to pretend it’s always been like this: Indonesia.
c. Confused countries: Everyone else.
d. Countries given a serious talking to by the Kingdom:
i. Australia. The Kingdom now has a specific crime called “being a bloody bogan in public” which involves four strokes of the rattan, a boot in the arse and a seat on the first flight to Darwin.

e. WTF Moments:
i. Why was their first embassy in Paraguay?
ii. Just where did they find actual Sailendras?
iii. The curious matter of the Diplomatic Chickens.
f. Future: a very good question.
7. Federation of Flores-Timor. East Nusa Tenggara has merged with Timor L’Este in a species of federation based on ethno-religious grounds. The relationship with Indonesia is very complex and while confrontation is being avoided, it is cold.
a. Supporters: Australia, New Zealand, PNG, USA, Japan.
b. Future: uncertain.
8. Christian Republic of South Maluku. Emerged from the carnage of 2005 and still exchanging population with the Sultanate of North Maluku. The Republic is severely devastated.
a. Supporters: Australia, Indonesia, ASEAN, Philippines, USA.
b. Future: uncertain but USA, Japan and Australia are pouring in reconstruction funds and assistance.
9. Sultanate of North Maluku. Emerged from the carnage of 2005 and still exchanging population with the Christian Republic of South Maluku.
a. Supporters: Australia, Indonesia, ASEAN, Philippines, USA, Saudi Arabia.
b. Future: uncertain, but reconnection as an autonomous part of Indonesia seems possible. Self-declared Sultan Mohammed Mohammed remains an enigma and reports on his rule are deeply disturbing. Saudi Arabia is pouring funds in for reasons unknown.
10. Province of North Sulawesi. This area was locked down by well-coordinated Minhasan Christian Militias in 2005. There has been remarkably little communal violence or religious strife: little in fact beyond scuffles. Combined Christian-Muslim militias have been engaged in heavy fighting against the Sultanate, which has attacked the province on several occasions. The area is ethnic Minhasan with a sizeable minority of Javanese from the Transmigration programmes. There is now an influx of shattered Christian remnants from the Sultanate.
a. Supporters: not applicable.
b. Future: the Minhasans are in negotiations with Jakarta for internal autonomy, an end to transmigration, and ‘peaceful internal Minhasanisation over time’.

The Australo-Indonesian Conflict 1998-2005

The Indonesian collapse was the second strategic disaster for Australia in less than a decade. The most favourable strategic environment for Australia was for Indonesia to be a stable, friendly nation ‘from Sabang to Merauke: and this was why they had supported the establishment of the Indonesian state from the late 1940s.

The conflict known as ‘Konfrontasi II’(1998-2005) was the first strategic disaster. Prior to 1998 Australia and Indonesia had been enjoying closer and improving relations. Trade and mutual investment was booming, diplomatic relations were good, and then the Soviet-supported military coup displaced the civilian government.

Following this, the second confrontation occurred very quickly due to Soviet influence, funding and weapons supplies. This strategic disaster obviously wrecked relations between the two governments but not entirely between the two counties or their respective peoples. After all, there had been a first confrontation. Good but quiet, offline relations were maintained between several arms of government. The main conduit was between POLRI and the Australian Federal Police, because there remained common enemies: terrorists, Chinese transnational criminal gangs and other slavers, regional drug gangs and suchlike.

This explained what was to outsiders the strange ‘surging’ nature of the conflict, where there were long periods of tension followed by upticks which were mutually tamped down. It also explained the great care both the ADF and TNI took to keep the conflict as ‘clean’ as possible, a conflict between professional militaries – relations between them had been good before the coup and the personal relations between senior officers were good. There were deliberate efforts to keep as much of the actual fighting confined to Timor as possible, and at the lowest possible levels. Therefore there was ample reason for the TNI to conduct its incursions on the Australian mainland in remote and unpopulated areas as far as possible. Everyone in the militaries also wanted to avoid civilian casualties as far as humanly possible: after all, geography did not change and even during the upticks where military bases close to cities were hit, care was taken to minimise chances of civilian losses.

The actual collapse of Indonesia was the second strategic disaster. The breakup of the country into an initial nine separate entities immediately generated strong regional reactions. Australia, Singapore and Malaysia coalesced rapidly around the concept of making Indonesia as whole as possible so it could be powerful enough to entirely overshadow the break-off polities.

Iran in TLW has shed the shackles of Mullahism and is firmly in the western camp. I doubt they'd support a Sharia republic.

Thanks Jotun, I'll edit those points, appreciate the help.

One reflects personal experience. Some things in this world are simply evil. TSEC is one of these.

Back in 2005-2007, an organisation I worked with helped regional police forces break a 'business' using charter flights to fly in persons such as described and of the nationality described (some Belgians also involved), it was detected by an ADF officer and his wife who had missed a flight and been placed on one of their charters out of Frankfurt enroute Manila (I knew him, good man, he died a few years ago). These people had been provided by the 'business' with folders filled with pictures of the children available to them. The ADF officer stole one of the folders which helped the Pambansang Pulisya ng Pilipinas (PNP). The flight went to Manila and then they went to various regional countries to pursue their interests, unfortunately not even a majority were caught and very few were tried and executed. IIRC the PNP caught some of them in Cebu and the rumour mill said they 'died' shortly after arrest. Never knew more than that. The eradication of the TSEC trade (TSEC = transnational sexual exploitation of children) is an ongoing issue in south east Asia and is being actively pursued by regional police organisations. More strength to their arms.

Specific communities in specific European nations have quite tainted the reputation of their countries in south east Asia due to the activities of these people. Such procilivities are very oddly concentrated in Europe, no-one knows why. In the Anglosphere they are spread thinly across the population, not concentrated. Also concentrated in the Arab world, too: again, I don't know why. Highly localised cultural influences maybe??

As poverty is reduced even in the poorest regional nations out here, the trade is being reduced in our region. The poor don't have to sell their kids, for example. The Thai Royal Family have done a lot to help in the Kingdom, for example. Unfortunately the European aspect of that trade has shifted to sub-Saharan Africa. Like slavery, it is an evil very difficult to eradicate.

Such people from Australia have already been dealt with by a very interesting Australian law. We have agreements with a lot of states that if one of our citizens breaches Australian law there as it relates to exploitation of children (even if that is legal in their country: if they have a lower age of consent than we do, for example) then they are dealt with by us under our law. And harshly for a western nation.

Cheers: Mark

I edited out the part about Germany while you were writing your answer.
In the wake of the postmodern idiocy of demanding "reparations" for the descendants of the victims of slavery, and serious claims by Afrocentrists (now THAT is a bunch of certifiable idiots) that slavery was pretty much a "white" invention, I did a lot of research and found out the the history of slavery, the extent of modern human trafficking, of modern slavery and who it was who decided to end the "triangle trade" bewtween Africa, North America and Europe in the first place, and began to fight slavery in the literal sense. Not that the British Empire were a bunch of saints, mind. And last but not least the etymology of the word "slave".

Homo homini lupus, is all that I can say about the whole thing, only that wolves aren't psychotic assholes to their pack members. I hate humans at times.

Slavery is an ancient institution. However, we turned it into an industrial concern and made billions out of it. I too am not in favour of reperations. Why should people who had nothing to do with past events be held responsible for them? Also, who do you pay reperations to?* However, I think it is important to acknowlegde how in many ways the UK benefited from slavery. Glasgow and Bristol, for example, became very wealthy. There are countless stately homes across the UK built with slavery profits. At the moment we do have what I call Gammon-Flakes, who go into meltdown at the very idea that English Herritage, or the National Trust should acknowledge that part of some of their properties history. My view is that you can't only tell the parts of history you like. However, this is a discussion for somewhere else.

* With regards to reparations, where do you stop? I could argue that Jotun owes me 'reperations' for the SWW. Or that Scottish people are owed reperations from the Nordic countries for the Viking/Norse raids. How about Italy? Don't they owe most of Europe and much of North Africa for the Roman Empire?

I am really unsure about where this discussion came from.

There is a vast sea of misinformation and outright lies about the slavery issue in the west, where it is being used by activist groupings as a stick to beat western civilisation with.

Some germane points mostly from memory:
- The trans-Atlantic trade was about 5-6 million over three centuries, of these roughly 300,000 went to the US, the bulk went to the Caribbean and above all Brazil. The slaves were sold to traders by the African Kingdoms mostly around the Gulf of Guinea
- The trans-Saharan trade run by the Arabs was perhaps 10-15 million over more than a thousand years and continues to this day. Last time I checked (couple of years ago now), a sub-saharan African labour slave was €500 on the Libyan slave market.
- The east-African coast trade was the biggie, again it went on for over a thousand years and again was run by the Arabs. Figures? Not less than 15 million and probably not more than 50 million. What made it hideous is that the Arabs sold these slaves into the vast slave markets of the Ottoman Empire and they did not want the males breeding, so on capture they were castrated, the death toll from that was about 50% on-the-spot.
- The Barbary states operated the western end of the trans-Saharan trade and the European slave trade. They enslaved maybe 1-2 million Europeans, raiding as far as Ireland, Iceland England and Norway.
- The Ottomans were the worst slave-empire ever to exist, fully a third of the population of the entire Empire were slaves and they treated them appallingly.
- Latin for slave is 'servus' and we get the word 'servant' from it. The word 'slave' comes from 'Slav', the most enslaved people ever to exist. Records of the Ottoman slave markets showed that for the price of a fine high quality horse one could buy 5 Slavic girls for exploitation. Slavic slaves were a glut on the Ottoman slave markets for century after century. There's some excellent Hungarian scholarship on just what really happened in Hungary during the 185 years (IIRC that's correct) they were a subject colonised people of the Ottomans. The normal treatment of slaves in the southern states of the USA was paradisical compared to how the ottomans treated slaves.
- The Second British Empire used its global maritime dominance in the 19th century to conduct the greatest purely moral campaign the world has ever known, the eradication of global slavery. They could not eradicate it, but they tried and lost thousands of men trying, the Empire did eliminate it from the sea, and then systematically in every area they controlled. They forced everyone else - even Brazil - to do the same through economic sanctions. They fought wars to stop it. They solved the slave problem in the Empire itself by making it illegal - and then the Imperial government (the British taxpayer) took out a vast loan and bought every single slave in the Empire and freed them all. I believe they finished paying off that loan in 2003.
- of all the nationalities on Earth, the ones with the proudest record of anti-slavery by orders of magnitude are the British. They should be damned proud of what their ancestors did. And the entire thing was championed and led by some remarkable Christian Englishmen (and yes, some of them were former slaves), for specifically Christian reasons: Granville Sharp, James Ramsay, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho. Josiah Wedgewood, William Grenville, John Newton, James Stephen. Heroic figures all of them - and all very human.

In the counter-terrorism 'world' you deal with a lot of very bad things. Slavery is one of them: all Islamic terrorist groups promote, practice, trade and profit from slavery. The Israeli Defence Force has liberated quite a number of slaves from Gaza (mostly females): the Indian constabularies frequently find and free slaves: hell, the British police force used to free slaves owned by wealthy Arabs in LOndon. The PRC practices slavery on an industrial scale (makes the old 19th century American Southern Democrat slaveocracy look like bumbling amateurs). I do not buy Apple, Nike or other products because they purchase slaves from the CCP and use them to manufacture their products in the PRC: and we are talking tens of thousands of slaves.

https://www.businessinsider.com/compani ... 22-12?op=1

It's a nasty world out there. What is distressing is that the activists who lie about all of this to bash the west are actively helping the slavers by sweeping all this reality out or public view.

You want to strike a real blow against modern slavery? Organise boycotts of, say, Apple products. Buy NOTHING from China if at all possible. Show me a modern day activist doing any of that.

End of 'rant' - yes, I loathe slavery and slavers.

Mark