Ignas Kleden: Reconciliation: Not just ending the violence

The Jakarta Post
April 30, 2002

Opinion

Conflict and conflict resolution used to be seen as very closely related.
However, between the two things there is a great distance, in which different
problems emerge and where some intermediate initiatives can be taken.

First, most of the horizontal conflicts since the end of the New Order have
been accompanied by violence. People are murdered, injured or harassed,
houses are burnt, hospitals and school buildings are destroyed, streets are
closed, and waste disposal does not function.

The conflicts might still go on for some time until the most important
factors leading to its occurrence have been satisfactorily settled. However,
it does mean that no action can be taken to stop violence in the meantime.

One should never look at the termination of violence as identical with
conflict resolution or reconciliation. People must wait for some time until
real conflict resolution can take place, but the government can and should
take direct and quick action to stop the escalation of violence.

Secondly, most of the conflicts originate in casus belli which often turns
out to be trivial affairs. If this casus belli can be identified, clarified
and contained at the earliest possible stage, many conflicts could have been
prevented from escalating. Yet the original cause is usually left in the dark
though there is enough evidence to make it publicly clear. This takes place
so frequently that the question is whether it has been done so intentionally.
This uncertainty has brought about many rumors, disinformation, action and
reaction resulting in increasing insecurity which is very liable to explode
in violent conflict.

The role of the security apparatus, and the role of police in particular, is
instrumental in clarifying the casus belli and consequently in preventing
people from getting trapped in unnecessary disorientation, confusion and
destruction.

Thirdly, given the fact that many horizontal conflicts could not be solved
yet, some rescue action should be taken to alleviate the sufferings and the
hardships of those who are victimized by the ongoing conflicts. These actions
can also function to reduce the destruction of infrastructure such as
hospitals, schools, market places and buildings for religious service.
Therefore any rescue initiative should be taken right away despite the fact
that conflicts are still going on, this being necessary because of two main
reasons.

On the one hand, people affected by the violence have the right to relief and
security. Those injured not because of their own mistakes deserve help and
relief service though (or rather because) they are not in the position to pay
for it.

Also, the destruction of physical infrastructures should be reduced gradually
and should be terminated eventually to prevent people living in conflict from
believing that they are trapped in an insurmountable abnormality. This
impression is instrumental to reduce the feeling of insecurity which becomes
the very first prerequisite for being ready and prepared for reconciliation.

On the other hand, rescue actions and rehabilitation initiatives can distract
the attention of the people concerned from being preoccupied with fighting
one another. In various places a great part of their time and energy is
already used for this purpose and they are less prepared to fight and to kill
though they want to do so.

Of course there is a heated debate as to whether rehabilitation initiatives
are of any avail if conflict resolution has not yet been attained. What if
all the energy has been spent on rebuilding schools or restoring a demolished
hospital, and right after that another conflict explodes and the new building
is destroyed?

Conflict resolution and rehabilitation cannot be treated as an either/or
choice but rather as a complementary package -- rehabilitation should be
treated as a means for conflict resolution.

The third problem regarding conflict and its resolutions is that people in
many communities are fairly familiar with conflict and have had their own
conflict resolution methods ever since time immemorial. There have always
been conflicts pertaining to land, marriage systems, or customary law.
However, most of these conflicts could have been solved through traditional
conflict-resolution institutions.

Given the importance of these institutions, we must remember the different
situation between regions whose culture is fairly homogeneous and those where
a great variety of cultural systems exist. In the former case it is easier to
rely on traditional institutions because people refer and orient themselves
to the same institutions.

In the latter case however, the institutions may be different from one place
to another, or the immigrants might stand aloof from their own traditional
institutions. In this case the role of the state law might be more important
than the customary law.

However many of the traditional conflict-resolution institutions have been
destroyed during today's conflicts. The destruction of these peace-making
institutions is conducted not by the people in those communities, but rather
by "external forces".

Why is it so difficult to identify and to capture these trouble-makers, who
paralyze the life of local communities by destroying their traditional
institutions?

Fourth, the discussion about the top-down and bottom-up approaches in
management can never become more significant than in matters pertaining to
conflict resolution. The experiences with local and communal conflicts have
given us a good lesson that people's participation is essential to any effort
for reconciliation.

This does not necessarily mean that the government should only wait and see.
The point is that the government can and should take initiatives to restore
peace and security, but these initiatives can be done if these can motivate
and persuade people to engage in the preparation and implementation of
conflict resolution. It is no use to see and to treat people living in
conflicts as an objective of conflict management engineered from outside or
from up above. They are by no means a mere target but the very agents of
conflict resolution and reconciliation, whose involvement and participation
can never be done away with.

The failure of Malino II, the peace pact for the Maluku conflict, is to be
attributed to the conflict management bias of the initiators, in this case
Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla, despite the
government's good intention and serious effort. The physical and
psychological conditions which are to be restored are so destroyed that any
effort which tries to force a quick recovery would produce new vulnerability,
resentment and restiveness.

The only possible way is long, or lengthy, boring, and protracted dialog, in
which the facilitators should be prepared to listen to much anger, blame and
misgivings before they can win trust of those involved in conflicts, namely
people who are more liable to suspect than to believe, to discard than to
listen, to take something seriously or to look at it as nonsense.

In such conditions a real dialog is not necessary -- yet almost impossible
because every party tends to speak of their own case and are ignorant or
indifferent towards the affairs of the other party.

by Ignas Kleden, Sociologist, The Center for East Indonesian Affairs, Jakarta