"The whole tragedy has become part of a national chess game, " complains Maluku Governor Saleh Latuconsina.
CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Indonesia: A Wasteland Called Peace
Unfortunately, that kind of indecision may only prolong the search for a lasting solution to Maluku's divisions.
CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Indonesia: A Wasteland Called Peace
"The military is always on the frontline in the conflicts here, " says Josy Palnaya, a Christian leader in Ambon, Maluku's provincial capital.
Various radical groups, including the Laskar Jihad militia, which helped to encourage fighting in Central Sulawesi and Maluku, claim to have disbanded.
Serious trouble has already scarred the provinces of Maluku and Aceh, and more could be brewing in Sulawesi and Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya).
In early January, he addressed in Jakarta Islamist protesters stoked up by religious strife in Maluku and demanded that the government take responsibility for it.
Such factors may account for his fondness for pushing hot-button issues for Muslim voters - like Maluku and communism - to boost his own standing.
But there are fears that the sectarian violence that originated in eastern Maluku, which has left thousands dead over the past year, appears to be spreading.
Some see the army's fingerprints all over the violence in Maluku, where 1, 700 people have died in more than a year of fighting between Muslims and Christians.
Such moves may protect the President from his enemies in Jakarta, but they hardly address the cloud of mistrust and anger that has poisoned the air throughout Maluku.
CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | Indonesia: A Wasteland Called Peace
Large-scale religious violence appears to be on the wane (see chart 3), and most of it is confined to three remote provinces: Maluku, North Maluku and Central Sulawesi.
The provincial parliament chiefs of Maluku and Aceh (both retired military officers) have asked that Military Command Regions (known as Kodam in Indonesian) be reinstated in their troubled areas.
The pogrom against them, coming on the heels of the murderous strife in Ambon, capital of the eastern Maluku province, has Indonesians fearing that their nation's already fragile fabric is tearing.
Now a widespread suspicion is that some in the army are using the Maluku troubles to weaken Wahid - a view bolstered by the uncovering of military-issue weapons during police sweeps in Ambon.
Results from the "fraying edges" - the restive regions of Aceh, East Timor, Irian Jaya and Maluku - have been slow to come in as well, and official tallies from those areas are still unavailable.
Last week Tamrin Amal Tomagola, a sociologist at the University of Indonesia who has been involved in reconciliation efforts in Maluku, handed the armed forces a list of people suspected of stirring up trouble in the province.
Unless Jakarta can regain control and at least separate those who are at one another's throats, it risks having to postpone the June 7 elections in Maluku and possibly other volatile regions, such as Aceh and East Timor.
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