Waylaid in Ambon

After three weeks of orientation at a four star hotel in Bandung, West Java, Brian Kraft and I headed out to Maluku to begin our teaching assignments in two of the program's most remote placements, both located on islands accessible only by boat from the regional capital of Ambon.

We were supposed to spend one night in Ambon. Just one. But the afternoon we arrived (Sunday, September 11), the city erupted in riots a few blocks away from our hotel. We watched from the roof, saw smoke from burning car tires, heard gunshots. Lots of gunshots. Some of the hotel staff watched with us. They said the cops were using rubber bullets, but we should watch out for snipers on other rooftops. This might seem crazy or paranoid, but they had precedent for their concern.

Ten years ago, this city saw serious and long-lasting inter-religious violence triggered by a fight between a bus driver and his boss at a major transit hub. The Muslims and Christians were segregated at gunpoint by security forces. Homes were burned to the ground as communities of both faiths turned on their neighbors. In 2004, military snipers killed 34 people from building-top perches in the city.

We heard the riot started because the corpse of a muslim youth had been discovered by a dumpster in a Christian neighborhood, like the one we're staying in. As to how it got there we heard differing accounts. Some thought it was planted there by radical muslims, others said the kid was riding his motorcycle too fast and hit the dumpster, dying on impact or shortly after. 

The character of the smoke changed as fires moved from tires to a downtown restaurant. Gunshots continued in periodic bursts. We got a phone call from our boss in Jakarta. She said the people at the embassy wanted us evacuated, police escort and all. We weren't to leave the hotel, she said. Just wait for the cops.

By evening the situation seemed to have calmed down. We got another call saying the evac was cancelled, but keep laying low in the hotel. So, of course, we got up the next day and went exploring.

We found some of the wreckage that hadn't been cleaned up yet. All the stores were closed, the streets deserted. Everyone had taken the day off to let things cool down. We talked to those we could find, and some consistent themes presented themselves. Firstly, everyone remembered all too well what this sort of unrest could lead to, and nobody wanted to repeat it. Secondly, many of the Christians we spoke to believed that some marginal group of radicals were attempting to instigate trouble, while the majority of the Muslim community were as innocent as they were. 

Toward evening we learned that three more people had died in the riot. We were told to keep sitting tight, the ways out of town go through dangerous neighborhoods and are blocked by the military. A woman at the food stall where we bought our dinner told us that hundreds of police had been flown in from Makasar in South Sulawesi to help keep order, but in her opinion they did more to stir things up than calm them down.

The next morning, this morning, somebody's house was burned down within sight of a police station. We decided to walk around again, and found things had generally gone back to normal. Most shops and vendors were open and busy, people seemed calm. 

We found a crowd of people scrambling to buy what smelled like gasoline from a pair of vendors, who dipped small buckets into an open barrel of the noxious fuel, pouring it through a funnel into containers brought by customers. One of the vendors told us it was gas for stoves, that demand was higher than usual today because many other places were still closed for fear of more violence.

This afternoon we got another call from Jakarta. We were to wait at the hotel for a certain man, I'll call him Joe, to call on us in about 30 minutes. We were to take him out to dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in town, pay for his meal, and receive instructions from him about the safest way out of the city tomorrow to the harbor in a neighboring town.

Joe showed up and we did as we were told. During the course of the evening Joe introduced us to the provincial high commissioner for Human Rights in Maluku, as well as an intelligence officer from Jakarta. He told us a story about how he and this officer were arrested and tortured by the military as teenagers for throwing rocks at them. It was decided that Joe himself, who is very well connected in both Muslim and Christian circles, will escort us to the harbor tomorrow afternoon.