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to be behind the conflict and called for a jihad in December 1999 to respond to ‘a crusade waged byChristians’ with the headline “Jihad War is continuing in Ambon”. 113 Another publication equallysought to popularize this Zionist-cum-Christian conspiracy theory by headlines such as “Uncover thePractice of the GGG: Gold-Glory-Gospel: The Moslem Cleansing in Ambon”. 114 The attention ofIndonesian Muslims to the conflict increased as the discourse spread.The Pivotal “Bloody Christmas” MassacreViolence continued in Ambon as a reaction to the outbreak of violence in North Maluku in August1999 115 116 and dramatically increased during December 1999. President Wahid and Vice-PresidentMegawati visited the province in December and issued a joint appeal for peace to the population. Theydismissed the circulating conspiracy theory of a Christian separatist movement that provoked the conflict.117 On 24 December 1999, the Association of the Maluku Community in Makassar, a multireligiousbody with some 300 members, demanded the authorities to declare another ceasefire inMaluku to end the violence. It worked out peace proposals that were sent to the minister of religiousaffairs. 118Two days after the latest peacemaking efforts, the “Bloody Christmas”-massacre was committed on 26December 1999 in North Maluku. 119 The massacre of 400 to 500 Muslims was widely covered in theIndonesian press. It became pivotal in that it allowed Laskar Jihad to gain a stage. The Crisis Groupstates that local Christians went on the offensive against the local Moslem minority Tobelo, and atleast 500 Moslems were killed. 120 On the contrary, Aditjondro argues that the massacres were perpetratedby military troops who had previously disappeared in Maluku. He claims that precisely the sameweapons found in the hands of civilians that were owned by the rest of the troops still on duty. 121Hefner also states that eyewitnesses reported that trucks with men armed with automatic weaponsmade their way up to the Muslims settlements in an overwhelmingly Christian area. 122 The residentswere butchered with machetes, shot or burned alive in their houses. About 250, mostly women and113 Media Dakwah December 1999: 42-44. Cited in Hasan, The Radical Muslims Discourse, 6.114 Suara Hidayatullah, October 1999. Cited in Hasan, The Radical Muslims Discourse, 6.115 ICG, Overcoming Murder and Chaos in Maluku, 6.116The Indonesian government had approved the creation of the new province of North Maluku under its policy of decentralizationand therefore split Maluku into two provinces: Maluku and North Maluku. The Makianese, a Muslim migrantcommunity, hoped to create their own administrative district in the new province that would subsume five ethnic-Kao villages.The new district would have enormously benefited from the revenue of a gold mine in the area. Thus, the decisionabout the Makianese district would have had large financial consequences. Since February 1999, the Kao had stronglyand vocally opposed the plan and warned that blood would be spilled, but were largely ignored in the negotiations.North Maluku had seen long-standing competition between supporters of the traditional sultanates of Ternate and Tidore,the two small islands on Halmahera’s West coast that dominated the spice trade 200 years ago. Though both islands areabout 80 per cent Muslim, the Ternate sultan sided with the predominantly Christian Kao tribe on Halmahera Tidore sidedwith the Muslim Makianese. Thus, this rivalry underpinned the conflict in North Maluku. In spite of these complex localissues and tensions, the violence was quickly subsumed under the label “religious violence” that had already been acceptedfor the violence in Ambon and the surroundings. See Olle Törnquist (ed) Political Violence: Indonesia and India inComparative Perspective. SUM Report No.9; ICG, Overcoming Murder and Chaos in Maluku.117The Jakarta Post, 13.12.1999: Gus Dur calls for peace in Maluku.118The Jakarta Post, 19.12.1999: Group demands end to Maluku clashes.119 ICG, Overcoming Murder and Chaos in Maluku, 8120 ICG, Overcoming Murder and Chaos in Maluku, 16.121 George Aditjondro, Maluku: While Elephants fight, the people of Maluku die. In: Asia-Pacific Network: 27 January 2000http://www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/resources/aspac/maluku.html, last accessed 10.02.2008.122 Robert W. Hefner (2000) Disintegration or Democratization? Muslim-Christian Violence and the Future of Indonesia. In:Törnquist (ed) Political Violence: Indonesia and India in Comparative Perspective, SUM Report No.9.29