Conflict Violence And Displacement In Indonesia

This volume foregrounds the dynamics of displacement and the experiences of internal refugees uprooted by conflict and violence in Indonesia. Contributors examine internal displacement in the context of militarized conflict and violence in East Timor, Aceh, and Papua, and in other parts of Outer Island Indonesia during the transition from authoritarian rule. The volume also explores official and humanitarian discourses on displacement and their significance for the politics of representation.

Indonesia is currently affected by many serious conflicts which have arisen as a result of a variety of ethnic, religious and regional tensions. Presenting important new thinking on violent conflict in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, this book examines a selection of conflicts in detail and discusses the nature of violence and the reasons behind violent outbreaks. Chapters include analysis of conflicts in Aceh, East Timor, Maluku, Java, West Kalimantan, West Papua and elsewhere. The contributors provide analysis of political, ethnic and nationalistic killings, with a concentration on the post-Suharto era. The book goes on to examine vital questions concerning the way in which violence in Indonesia is represented in the media, and explores ways in which violent conflicts could be resolved or prevented. The last section turns the focus onto victims of violence and forms of justice and retribution.

Yaël Ronen analyses the international legal ramifications of illegal territorial regimes, namely the illegal annexation of territory or illegal declarations of independence, by reference to the stage of transition from an illegal territorial regime to a lawful one. Six case studies (Namibia, Zimbabwe, the Baltic States, the South African Bantustans, East Timor and northern Cyprus) are used to explore the tension between the invalidity of the illegal regime's acts and their effectiveness, with respect to the international relations of such territories, their domestic legal systems, the status of settlers and land transfers. Relying heavily on primary and previously unconsidered sources, she focuses on the international legal constraints on the post-transition regime's policy, particularly in the context of international human rights law.

Since the end of Suharto¿s so-called New Order (1966-1998) in Indonesia and the eruption of vicious group violence, a number of questions have engaged the minds of scholars and other observers. How widespread is the group violence? What forms¿ethnic, religious, economic¿has it primarily taken? Have the clashes of the post-Suharto years been significantly more widespread, or worse, than those of the late New Order? The authors of Collective Violence in Indonesia trenchantly address these questions, shedding new light on trends in the country and assessing how they compare with broad patterns identified in Asia and Africa.

Between 1999 and 2000, sectarian fighting fanned across the eastern Indonesian province of North Maluku, leaving thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. What began as local conflicts between migrants and indigenous people over administrative boundaries spiraled into a religious war pitting Muslims against Christians and continues to influence communal relationships more than a decade after the fighting stopped. Christopher R. Duncan spent several years conducting fieldwork in North Maluku, and in Violence and Vengeance, he examines how the individuals actually taking part in the fighting understood and experienced the conflict. Rather than dismiss religion as a facade for the political and economic motivations of the regional elite, Duncan explores how and why participants came to perceive the conflict as one of religious difference. He examines how these perceptions of religious violence altered the conflict, leading to large-scale massacres in houses of worship, forced conversions of entire communities, and other acts of violence that stressed religious identities. Duncan’s analysis extends beyond the period of violent conflict and explores how local understandings of the violence have complicated the return of forced migrants, efforts at conflict resolution and reconciliation.