Conflict Management in Indonesia – An Analysis of the Conflicts in ...

impending attack by Christian groups. In other
cases, local government efforts, rather than the
product of ill will, were well intentioned but misdirected;
for example, the decision by the four
Governors of Sulawesi to use 13 adat leaders for a
Rujuk Sintuwu Maroso ceremony to aid reconciliation.
The ceremony did not have the buy-in of many
groups involved in the conflict, particularly from
the Muslim community, and the initiative suffered
because it did not involve district leaders. The
working group set up after the ceremony, the Pokja
Rujuk Sintwu, was resented by district governments.
Malino I did mark a turning point in the conflict.
The three choices presented by Jusuf Kalla to
the conflict parties showed that the Government
had the power to help resolve the conflict and the
political will to exercise it. In the latter phases of
the conflicts, Muslim groups were launching the
majority of attacks and, because they were ascendant,
they were not inclined to make peace (just as
Christians were during the third phase of the conflict
when they were dominant). However, Jusuf
Kalla’s implicit threat that prolonging the conflict
would make them a target of the central government
was taken seriously and had a strong deterrent effect.
As Malino I was the first time that the central government
was involved in facilitating the resolution
of communal conflict, there were certainly weaknesses
with the process, not least how quickly the
“agreement” was reached. Lessons from the process
in Poso were learnt and applied more successfully
in Ambon later.
When Malino I was signed, it did not have full
public support, despite growing fatigue with the
conflict. To gain this, the Government used the
media fully to push its message of reconciliation
and combined this effectively with the Pokja Deklama
to disseminate the terms of the agreement at a
community level. While trust in the Pokja Deklama
was lacking, as people perceived it to be linked to
corrupt use of funds, perhaps its single greatest
achievement was that local leaders who had tacitly
or actively supported the conflict became agents
of peace.
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Conflict Management in Indonesia