Hoax

KOMPAS/TATANG MULYANA SINAGA

Young people join the Bandung Anti Hoaks (Bandung Against Hoaxes) declaration organized by the Indonesian Anti-Libel Society (Mafindo) during Car Free Day on Jl. Ir Djuanda, Bandung, West Java, on March 31, 2019 (31/3/2019).

Tuti Kilwouw had not expected to finally leave Tobelo to save herself after anxiety had been haunting her for months.

She was 11 years old at the time, studying in grade 1 of junior high school. Her parents were migrants in Tobelo. Her mother was from West Seram, her father from East Seram. Tuti was a Muslim. She had good friends among children of different ethnicity and religion.

The mood in Tobelo in North Halmahera was tense when leaflets, ordering people to attack Muslims were circulating. Furthermore, there were rumors that 9 Sept. 1999 would be the D-day of the attacks. Many of her school friends and their families who were Muslim immediately left Tobelo for Ternate and Makassar. Christian students, including ethnic Chinese, came from Ternate to Tobelo.

Tuti\'s father worked at the Tobelo District Court as a civil servant, so he could not relocate with his family without an official letter.

Their identity cards were checked.

When the Ambon riots broke out in early 1999, land conflicts involving the Kao and Makian people in Malifut were just starting. The trip from Tobelo to Malifut took about three hours by car. Tuti\'s father, who was about to go to Tidore, was stopped by the Kao people at the Kao-Malifut border. Their identity cards were checked.

They had no questions about his religion, but his ethnicity. Makian and Tidore people were not allowed to pass. The Kao-Makian conflict caused people in Halmahera to panic more than the riots in Ambon, which were quite far away. That night, 26 Dec. 1999, Tuti’s and her neighbors’ houses were burned down by a mob. She, her parents and thousands of other refugees took shelter at an army complex, then boarded a ship to Ternate on 3 January 1999.

After meeting Tuti in Ternate, I visited Jesaja Singa in Kampung Doro, which was about 40 minutes from Tobelo. Although he had suffered a stroke several years ago, Jesaja\'s memory was still sharp at the age of 79.

One morning in November 2019, I took a speed boat from Ternate to cross to Halmahera. He was sitting on the front porch of his house when I arrived.

On 11 Jan. 1999, Jesaja was locked up at a hotel in Batu Meja, Ambon, with five women from Tidore who were on an official trip. At the time, he was employed with the Ambon Education and Culture Agency.

Batu Meja was an area inhabited by Christians. Jesaja was safe, but he was uneasy thinking about the five Muslim hotel guests. At night, he let all five of them sleep under his bed for safety. A week later, the boat arrived. Six of them were escorted by the authorities to the port.

At the time, leaflets were already circulating in Ternate. The leaflets were titled "Counterattack Plan of the Bloody Sosol". Sosol was one of the villages of the Kao people that was about to be transformed into a village for Makian people. The leaflets maker had turned the land conflict into a religious conflict.

Jesaja recalled the close brotherhood of Islam and Christianity in Tanah Kao, "Nine Muslims and two Christians were killed in the fight against Dutch colonialism. They were buried together behind the Kao mosque. [They] Lived together, fought together [and were] buried in one grave."

The Kao-Makian land conflict was exacerbated by Government Regulation No. 42/1999 concerning the establishment and arrangement of several districts in North Maluku regency. This regulation was enacted by President BJ Habibie on 26 May 1999.

The regulation anticipates the danger of the Kie Besi volcano eruption on Makian Island by authorizing the establishment of the Makian Malifut district in Halmahera for displaced Makian people. Not only did it legalize the establishment of 16 new Makian villages in Malifut district, it also included five traditional Kao villages in the district and six Jailolo villages.

Land or agrarian conflicts continue to this day. Regulations made without involving indigenous peoples or local communities still exist. In Kalimantan, customary forests are in danger of being cleared. In Central Java, people\'s agricultural lands were taken from them.

Death toll

Leaflets are a form of hate propaganda that contains news or fake stories with political intentions. Later, the term "hoax" became popular. To make them more convincing, (hoaxes) are mixed with data or facts that are amputated or fabricated. They spread faster and more widely today thanks to messaging apps and social media.

Raymond Bonner, an investigative journalist, points out that hoaxes or hate propaganda have cost human lives. The media are vulnerable to getting involved.

In the article, Bonner also criticized himself.

In his article, "After 9/11, We were All Judith Miller", published on 21 April 2015 on politico.com, he criticized journalist Judith Miller\'s fake report about the existence of chemical weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In the article, Bonner also criticized himself.

When Lotfi Raissi, the Algerian-born pilot, was arrested after 11 September 2001 for allegedly training the suicide plane pilots, Bonner wrote a number of articles that suggested Raissi was guilty. A court in England found Raissi not guilty. He was a victim of negligence by law enforcement authorities.

In North Maluku, at least 2,000 people died and tens of thousands were displaced from late 1999 to early 2000 due to conflict. Homes, schools and places of worship were set alight.

Kompas

Linda Christanty

The experiences of that era taught Tuti to panic whenever she saw a mob or crowd of people. She remembered the situation in the refugee truck, struggling to get air to breathe and being squeezed by the crowd. She also couldn’t stand seeing blood. Several of her short stories inspired by those experiences are included in the anthology The Pink Tank, which was published last year.

Linda Christanty, writers and cultural activists.