A few poorly organised men

While previously a quiescent and peaceful locality without any history of interreligious unrest, between 600 and 1000 people lost their lives there due to the outbreak of violence and the many acts of reprisal. Although this number made the Poso conflict less damaging than the deadly clashes in the neighbouring Moluccas taking place around the same time, the events in Poso nonetheless had deep repercussions among the local Muslim and Christian populations. Also, it left a distressing mark on the national recollection.

Based on long-term observations and multiple fieldwork encounters over ten years, Dave McRae has gained unique insights into the local settings in Poso and the socio-political developments that shaped the bloody events. Thus, his book presents the first comprehensive history of the conflict in Poso. Nonetheless, given that the causes and courses of interreligious violence in Indonesia, and elsewhere, have busied large numbers of scholars, experts of local conflict histories have to put up with the question of what are the greater contributions of their books to understanding both the genesis of interreligious violence and finding ways to terminate it? In other words, what could be possibly learned from reading a narrow account of just one conflict rather than a more comparative analysis of interreligious violence that takes into account a number of conflicts? There are a number of good reasons, which make Dave McRae’s book an enriching and rewarding reading.

Violent conflicts in Indonesia have often been described as the consequence of the rapid political change after the end of the Suharto-era. This change was characterised first and foremost by democratisation and decentralisation that allowed more people to partake in political competition. McRae, however, makes the effort to study the local dynamics in great detail in order to explain both the onset and the continuative dynamics of the enfolding violence. Rather than just assuming that “violence [can be utilised] as political tool in political contestation” (p. 54) when transitioning state authorities (including the security forces) can no longer guarantee law and order, McRae points out the “insufficiency of political interest to account completely for the violent action of the key actors” (p. 66). As McRae successfully demonstrates, by instigating violence against people of the opposite faith, local conflict leaders had little to gain, but much to lose. Having been found guilty for the instigation of violence, in fact, cost a number of promising candidates their prospect of success in the impending local elections. By studying the most prominent leaders and core combatants, McRae not only disentangles the medley of payback and revenge, he also reveals an astonishing shortage of direct political interests. But how does McRae then manage to fill this explanatory vacuum in order to explicate the shifting dynamics of aggravation?

McRae divides the conflict in four specific phases that overlap and at the same time are each marked by very specific characteristics of patterns and participation in the collective violence. For each of these phases, McRae exposes different “divisions of labour” among conflict participants, which serve as one of the most outstanding factors for explaining the shifts in violent action. Whereas the first phase of fighting (1998-2000) started as a youth brawl and then developed into urban riots between rivalling patronage networks, the subsequent phase (May-June 2000) saw widespread killings carried out by Christian combatants, who had been recruited spontaneously and received some form of rudimentary training. While the two-sided violence between Muslims and Christians continued as tit-for-tat murders and sporadic attacks on villages during 2000 until 2002, the Christian dominance started to crumble with the arrival of mujahidin fighters from other parts of Indonesia. Not only had these mujahidin access to manufactured instead of only self-made weapons, moreover, because of their affiliation with Islamic terror groups, such as Laskar Jihad, some of them had previously received military-style training in other conflict areas, both inside the archipelago and overseas. Although these mujahidin brought along a number of conceptions of piety and morality that they sought to impose on the newly recruited followers, they had no formulated further-reaching political objectives other than multiple revenge.

Given the swelling militancy and the enduring violence applied by the involved fighters, who did not shy away from bombing public markets, burning places of worship and beheading innocent civilians, one must ask the question of why the state authorities both at the national as well as at the provincial level remained inactive for such a long time? McRae refers not only to the peripheral significance of Poso amidst all the other Indonesian troubled districts and provinces, but also mentions the shortage of funding, skills and resources among the local police that prevented them from conducting proper investigations. Moreover, arrests were also impeded by the fears of reprisals towards law enforcers, as a number of officers had previously died while on duty. The inactivity of the central government only paused briefly in the aftermaths of 9/11 and once again, after the Bali bombings, when Indonesia saw widespread arrests of militant Muslims. Given the continuing violence and the risk that the Poso conflict might spread to other areas, the central government eventually had to stop looking the other way. The “cost of violence” among combatants increased through the deployment of extra troops and the arrests and prosecutions of some leading figures, making fighters rethink their participation. According to McRae, continuing to fight was seen no longer as a necessity for defence but rather became a choice that brought along higher risks than before when perpetrators usually enjoyed impunity (p. 170). The battle fatigue together with the need for community rebuilding led some former fighters to return to their villages and take up their previous occupations in the fields and plantations. Financial shortages among the mujahidin also caused some of them leave their posts. Last but not least, the negotiations that eventually led to Malindo Peace Agreement deserve some mentioning here, even though McRae deals with these consultations only marginally. However, given the involvement of four state ministers, first and foremost Vice President to-be Yusuf Kalla, and several dozens of representatives from the Muslim and the Christian sides, this approach later became an important model for conflict resolution in other areas in Indonesia, such as in Aceh. 

Dave McRae’s book is a great example of thorough and subtly nuanced research. He has sought to reconstruct the violent developments through interviews with victims and perpetrators, court documents and other material evidence. In encountering the many voices and versions of the stories, he consistently applied a healthy amount of scepticism towards the content of material documents and interview responses, which allows him to create a well-nuanced and fine-graded analysis. Thus, his book offers profound insights that other comparative analyses can hardly ever offer. All and above, this book is written in a sober and straight-to-the-point-style, however, what makes it particularly pleasant to read, is the occasional interspersion of subtle irony.

Antje Missbach, University of Melbourne (antje.missbach@unimelb.edu.au)