UNREPORTED WORLD
Indonesia: 21st Century War
January 2001 – 25 mins
Tracking shots, Ambon City 10 00 00
10 00 02 music in
JO music
Q1Commentary
We’d come to a city ravaged by murderous conflict. Not long ago the people who lived here were prospering, beneficiaries of the global economy. Then it all went wrong.
derelict street pan L to find Jonathan
10 00 21 Johnathan Miller Welcome to Ambon.
riot footageAmbon Christian footage dur: 5”
10 00 music out
10 00 28 Street pan out to Jonathan walking
Jonathan: This city used to be known as ‘The Queen of the East’. These days it’s better known as the Sarajevo of Asia.
10 00 31 music inJO music Q2
riots archive
Ambon Christian footage dur: 25”
10 00 52 Commentary I was one of the first foreign TV journalists to reach Ambon. Indonesian Muslims and Christians are slaughtering each other every day. Forget talk of ancient religious hatreds. This is a new type of war, unleashed by the forces shaping our century. It’s what happens when the heat of global competition tears a nation apart.
fade to blackUnreported World titles backgroundUnreported WorldA 21st Century Warfade to black 10 01 05
10 01 14 music changeJO Unreported World title music
Jakarta sunset shots
10 01 15 music change JO music Q3
10 10 28 The Jakarta skyline is testament to the fact that Indonesia embraced the big idea of our time – global capitalism. But three years ago, Asian currencies collapsed like dominoes. Global investors ran scared. The corrupt edifice of the Indonesian economy came crashing down, dragging the dictator Soeharto with it.
top shot Jakarta nightInsight News Television dur: 3”Jonathan at satay stall PTCs/i Jonathan Miller 10 01 4710 01 5010 01 53 JonathanIndonesia’s got a new President now. In fact he’s been in power for more than a year, [music out] but he’s failed totally to unite this country and it’s still racked by economic and political turbulence.
demonstrationInsight News Television dur: 40”
10 02 00 Commentary This country of 220-million people is on a knife edge. There’s anger and turmoil. The economic disaster has plunged eighty-million Indonesians into poverty. Hardship fuels protest about everything from political corruption to the cost of living. Many Indonesians had hoped the guardians of the global economy would end the pain. But the International Monetary Fund imposed huge cuts in government spending that have hit the poor, hardest. And the turmoil isn’t confined to Jakarta.
Jonathan on bike
10 02 40 music inJO music Q4
10 02 44 I set off to see someone who wanted to tell me about a city called Ambon. He’d said on the phone that what was going on there showed the true extent of Indonesia’s meltdown.
film projector Des Alwio/s projected imagesDes Alwi footage dur: 19”
10 02 17 The man I’d come to meet had led a fact-finding mission to Ambon, [music out] the capital of the Indonesian Spice Islands, thirteen-hundred miles east of Jakarta. Des Alwi showed us some film he’d taken. Muslims and Christians had been fighting throughout the city. Most Indonesians are Muslims, but unusually, in Ambon, there’s a large Christian community as well.
Des Alwiprojected imageDes Alwi footage dur: 18”
10 03 28 Des AlwiThis is the worst case, Ambon is the worst case… Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think, it couldn't be and it is really.
fade to black
10 03 41 CommentaryThe problem was, even if we could get there, Des Alwi said Ambon was now so violent we’d never get out of the airport. But the images of this distant mysterious city strengthened our determination to get there.
black and white sequenceint car - Jonathan to cameraPOVJonathan to cameradriving pov
10 03 59 JonathanIt’s just gone four o’clock in the morning and we’re heading off to the military airport which is about 15 kilometres outside Jakarta. Reason we’re going is that we heard quite late last night that there’s a military flight going out to Ambon and supposedly it’s for journalists, so we’re going to have a go at getting onto it.
10 04 23 CommentaryIf we went in with the military they would be able to give us some protection. For people in Ambon, life sounded grim.
int car - Jonathan to cameraPOVguard waves cars through checkpoint 10 04 30 JonathanAmbon is really the centre of the firestorm that’s enveloping Indonesia at the moment. Most people are trying to leave.
out of car - talk to colonelguards talking
10 04 43 Commentary We tried our best sales pitch, then waited.
Jonathan walkingguards 10 04 53
It’s not looking so good. They seem to have changed their minds a bit about what we should be doing. They were going to take us in to at least try getting access to the aircraft but I think they're trying to find some plausible excuse to refuse us access to the plane to Ambon. They're saying that it’s full of medical equipment and food and there’s already 11 or 12 local journalists. But I think, basically, they don’t really want a foreign journalist on board
Indonesian journalistsguardend black and white sequence
10 05 24 Later we heard the army allowed the Indonesian reporters to stay in Ambon for just ninety minutes.We realised that to spend time in Ambon we needed to get there by ourselves. And we needed safe passage from the warring communities.
int Christian church 10 05 39 singing inOnward Christian Soldiers
cross pan to Christian leaders talking withJonathan 10 05 45
Some of Ambon’s Christian leaders were visiting a church in Jakarta.After the service I pulled them aside to talk over security [singing out] in Ambon.They agreed to send word to their fighters that we were coming. They said they wanted their story told.
Dickie 10 06 02 DickieYesterday I have contact with friends in Ambon who will arrange security foryour visit in Ambon.
Jonathan meets other Christian leadersPeter and video – riot footage dur: 44”Christian footage 10 06 1510 06 17 CommentaryLater they invited me to a screening of a video just in from Ambon.
10 06 21 The tape showed Christians and Muslims fighting. More than 4,000 people have died in the violence including the man who took these pictures.According to the Christians, Muslim preachers helped incite this by blaming Indonesia’s economic disaster on the Christian West. The church leaders said Ambon’s Christians were the closest scapegoats to hand. Islamic warriors from all over Indonesia have arrived in Ambon. They call themselves Laskar Jihad, Soldiers of the Holy War. Christians fear them.
Navy commanderJonathan: Navy commander:
10 07 01 Jonathan … they’re running all over ..CommanderYes, they are not in control, in the Moluccas. The governor, the military commander there, is not in control any more. JonathanWhat, anarchy? CommanderAnarchy, yes, that’s right.
10 07 18 music inJO music Q5
Laskar Jihad collecting donations from cars
10 07 19Commentary We’d been promised safe passage from the Christians. Now we needed the same from the Muslims.Outside the headquarters of Laskar Jihad a man was collecting donations to finance the holy war.
pan off Jihad HQ sign to Jonathan with Muslim leaders
10 07 32 music out
JonathanSo Umar Jaafar and Ayib Syafaruddin are taking me into their headquarters here – this says posko pusat mobilisasi jihad, which is the headquarters of the Jihad mobilisation, this is their, this is where all their planning happens.
map sequence
10 07 54 And their aim is to purge the Spice Islands of Christians. They told me how they and their allies were doing.
10 08 03 So up here Galaila.Up here there were a lot of Christians massacred about a couple of months ago, more than a hundred in one village and at …. Alright, so they are saying that those responsible for the massacre weren't actually the Laskar Jihad people but the local Islamic Mujahadin militia.
int hospital wardBrigadier-General Kastor’s room
10 08 29 Commentary When we raised the question of safe passage they suggested I meet the mastermind of the jihad. Brigadier-General Rustam Kastor was being treated for diabetes in a nearby hospital.Christians say this retired soldier is up to his neck in Christian blood. This former aide to the disgraced dictator Soeharto has written a best-seller about ‘the Christian conspiracy.
10 09 00 It’s fired the minds of the Islamic warriors slicing up Christians in Ambon.
Jonathan and Brig-General
10 09 05 [Asks question in Basha]CommentaryIndonesia’s in the process of being destroyed, he told me. Our economy’s collapsed thanks to all this foreign meddling. Christians and their international co-conspirators – like the IMF – have created this chaos. The time has come for Islam to fight back.
WS chatting with Generalfade to black
10 09 39 After the interview, Laskar Jihad contacted their fighters in Ambon and safe passage.
POV from plane into Ambon
10 09 52 Armed with our guarantees of protection we headed into Ambon. A small commercial airliner was flying there and we’d managed to get tickets.We expected to be met. The provincial governor had sent word that in our case he’d lift the ban on foreigners and would even send soldiers to take us to his residence.
int airport - PTC
10 10 16Trouble is that the governor has not sent an armed escort for us so we might need to pick up some security for ourselves now. But um, we’ll play it by ear.
travelling shots from airport 10 10 24 music inJO music Q6
Jonathan inside minibus 10 10 28
10 10 35 A Christian minibus driver agreed to take us out of the airport. For most of the time we were on his side of the lines.
travelling shots 10 10 36
10 10 39 JonathanYou're a Christian, yeah?CommentaryEven so, he kept his foot down. Everyone here fears snipers.Our destination was a beach where he said we could catch a Christian speedboat across the bay to Ambon City.
beach Jonathan walking to boatand gets on board 10 10 5610 10 58 We were told that the speedboats could reach the Christian part of the city in ten minutes.
10 11 05 music out
on boat Jonathan to camera
10 11 06 JonathanI think it’s time to put on these massively heavy flak jackets because quite a few of the boats going across the bay have been attacked and, well, it’s just not worth it.
travelling shots from speedboat
10 11 26 music inJO music Q7
approaching beach
10 11 28 Muslim and Christian speedboats often open fire on each other. Almost every day snipers on the shore killed drivers and their passengers. Someone had died that very morning.So far our driver had been lucky. And his luck continued to hold.
travelling shots to Governor’s residence
10 11 We sped through no-man’s-land towards the governor’s residence. The locals call this sniper alley.
10 12 07 music out
Jonathan inside cartravelling shots
10 12 10 JonathanOK, we’re right down town now and there’s a Muslim area on one side of the road and a Christian area on the other. And you know you can really get the sense of the communities living side by side.
guards outside Governors house Jonathan walking to meet Governorpan to see refugees in garageand closer refugeesbullet hole in windowJonathan with Governor
10 12 281 CommentaryWe reached the fortified hilltop house of the province’s Muslim Governor. Saleh Latuconsina apologised for missing us at the airport, and showed us round his home. Seventy Christian refugees live in his garage. Their burned-out houses litter the hillside below. The fighting’s left close to half-a-million people homeless.Three people had just been killed in a mortar attack on the Governor’s house. Snipers regularly fire into his living room.
10 13 The Governor has declared a state of emergency. Indonesian troops are trying, and failing, to keep the two sides apart.
Governor looks at map
10 13 18 He briefed us on the constantly shifting front lines.
pan up from map and back
10 13 22Jonathan … which is over there where the big long green roofs are and the yellow crane.GovernorYeah.JonathanOK, so any hospital militairia? So that's the Military Hospital and this is Ambon’s very own sniper alley.
topshot Ambon City 10 13 43music in JO music Q8
10 13 44 CommentaryMessages went out to both sides. We were ready to enter the city.
black and white sequencepan to Jonathan at night with driver from Christian sidewith Reza from Muslim side 10 13 5010 13 10 13 57 JonathanIt's ten past eleven and we're just in the throws of an interesting manoeuvre here. [music out] We've crossed from the Christian area, our hotel, just about five hundred yards in that direction and we're in the middle of no man's land right now and we're trying to cross into the Muslim area. And it's right here, that we leave Verti, our driver from the Christian side and we hitch up once again with Reza who has come across from the Muslim side to meet us and to bring us back to Al-Fatah. And the reason for this is that the Muslim community has suggested there is something we might like to come and see in there part of town tonight.
Jonathan walks with Reza to carJonathan inside carPOV from car sniper alley
10 14 46 It was well after curfew. That meant that as well as Muslim and Christian gunmen, Indonesian soldiers could shoot on sight.
int car Jonathan PTC
10 14 56 JonathanRight, we’re heading down what is normally Sniper Alley now, and Reza’s had a word with the Commandos who man this area so they know that we’re coming so we’re safe to go through at the moment. And we’re heading straight down to Al-Fatah which is about 500 metres down this road.
10 15 20 Jonathan walking towards Jihad cemetery actuality singing in
10 15 27 Jihad cemetery and mourners
10 15 38 Commentary We joined a procession of Ambon’s bereaved.There was to be a midnight vigil at the Jihad cemetery. All around us were the graves of the hundreds of fighters.
10 15 42 singing out
Ambon’s Muslim warlord led the prayers.
mourners
10 15 51 One-hundred-and-ninety-million Indonesians profess faith in Islam, making this the world’s biggest Muslim country.
Jonathan to camera
10 16 02 All these Muslim men are praying that these heroes of Islam will be looked on kindly by Allah and that they will be able to sit next to him in Paradise.
graveyard
10 16 17 Commentary
This conservative religion was already disorientated by the dizzying modernisation that followed the leap into the global economy. The economic collapse provoked a backlash that was waiting to happen.
pan around to see Muslim warlord
10 16 34 They see globalisation as a new form of cultural and economic imperialism. They’re making a stand. And Ambon is the front line.
10 16 46 Borut’s grave
10 16 48 This is the graveside of a young man shot dead by a Christian sniper as he prayed in a mosque.
pan from grave to Jonathan
10 16 53 JonathanIt’s been absolutely amazing to witness this event tonight. This is a group of men, some of whom are related to this dead Jihad warrior. His name was Harut. This is his brother over here, this is his uncle beside me here.
Mourners beside graveside
10 17 20 Commentary The dead man’s mother told me proudly her son’s last words were Allahu-akbar: God is Great.In Jakarta, we’d heard economists talk optimistically about life returning to normal. They don’t talk about such things here.
end of black and white sequence 10 17 31
10 17 35 muezin chorus
derelict buildingsint hospital
10 17 48 The Muslim wounded lie in an annex of Al-Fatah mosque. When this city was divided, the Muslims got the port, but had to forfeit the hospital.
10 17 58 Many patients are children. Twelve-year-old Iskandar was shot in the leg as he ran away from a riot.
Jonathan with Sano and his father
10 18 19 JonathanIn another corner I met a boy infected by the hatred that’s enveloped this city. His father, Ambara, was resigned as to how his only son ended up here.
pan to boy’s legs
10 18 3Ah, this is a sad story. This is Sano. He says about a month ago I think they were living in a refugee camp and he and some of his friends were making a home-made bomb and somehow when they were turning the detonator, a spark ignited the TNT and bang and three of his friends were killed and (Bahasa: how many injured?) eight were injured. He’s been in here a month now and he’s got really bad burns on his legs.
10 19 12 CommentaryI asked Sano why he’d been making a bomb in the first place. He said: “Because we’d run out.”
10 19 17 chorus out
entering refugee camp
10 19 29His mother, Ani, took me to where he’d been making his bomb. Ambon’s old government tourist office is home now to twelve-hundred Muslim refugees.
Jonathan walking to Ambara’s house
10 19 42 Sano’s family recently moved into a house whose owners who've now fled.
pan up to see house and back to Jonathan
10 19 47 JonathanThis is their house, this is the sort of Chinese Christian property which was vacated and they moved into and they live on third floor up here.
walking up to third floorand greetingsbreakfastfamily having breakfastWS Jonathan and Ambara
10 20 16 Commentary I met up with Sano’s father, Ambara, again. Over a fried banana breakfast he said he had no expectation of peace. Then he told me that when a Christian mob attacked his Muslim neighbourhood, Christian friends had sheltered his family.
child brings paper and pencil 10 20 18
10 20 20 I asked Ambara to draw a map showing where his old house was.
map drawingsmall child
10 20 36 It was less than a couple of miles away, but it was impossible for Muslims to go there.
10 20 40 music inJO music Q9
10 20 41 drive-past destruction
10 20 43 We drove towards the Christian half of the city.
Jonathan walking down streetpan to see sand bags and motorbike
10 20 57 This sandbagging here [music out] is because until just a few weeks ago this was an incredibly dangerous area. About 20 people were shot dead right here. Down there, there was Muslim snipers and the Christians finally managed to take the area and the Marines based in that building there, so they feel a lot safer.
Jonathan walking up hill chatting to villagersbuildings pan down to JOnathan 10 21 17
10 21 25 Commentary We began our search for the Christian man who’d saved Ambara’s family when the Christian mobs attacked. Using his map, their old house was not hard to find.
meet and talk to Agus
10 21 33 Some neighbours came out to see what the fuss was about. The first one I met, turned out to be the man I was looking for.
Agus tells us his story
10 21 45 Agus Tetelepta hadn’t just rescued Ambara’s family. He told me how, as the Christian mobs attacked, he’d shepherded three-hundred Muslims into this church. After three days, he persuaded local Christians to line the road so the Muslims could be safely evacuated.
Agus tells us about his daughter
10 22 08 Not long after that his own daughter had been killed. Her throat slit by Jihad fighters.
Agus’ wife Agus.
10 22 18 He said he and his wife had been so proud of her – she’d been studying at university in Jakarta.
10 22 24 Christian Militia shots
10 22 34 Not far away, we encountered a local Christian warlord, Agus Watimena, and his bodyguards. Watimena claimed he had tens of thousands of men under arms. He and his men had just raided a police armoury, yet he complained they still couldn’t get enough guns.
pan from militia to Jonathan
10 22 55 JonathanOK, so this is quite an interesting take. We know from before that the Muslims are accusing the Christians of being supported by the Europeans. And what Pak Agus is saying here is that he doesn’t understand – he says it’s really so difficult to get hold of the guns, the automatic guns particularly – and he doesn’t understand why the Europeans don’t support the Christians, because they’re Christians. And he says, you know, Jesus comes from Europe, so why can’t you guys help us?
militia man with gunAgus Watimena fires gun
10 23 21In Northern Ireland, he told me, they’d murdered each other for thirty years. And they’ve got the same God, he said. What hope have we got?
derelict housepan to find Jonathan
10 23 34 music inJO music Q10
10 23 38 CommentaryI climbed the hill to a wrecked village. The Muslims who’d lived here had been driven out by a Christian militia – but it could just as well have been the other way round.
Jonathan translates graffiti
10 23 50 This says ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, Luke 23.
walk through ruins to contemplate view
10 24 03The forces that drive the global economy are making many people wealthy.
10 24 09 But standing there in the debris of people’s lives, my thoughts were of the havoc and misery those same forces can cause.
10 24 17 music changeactuality procession drumming
Tongue-slashers and swordsmen
10 24 18 The governor invited us to a commemoration by Muslim villagers of a battle against European colonialists. It’s staged every three years.The men work themselves into a frenzy. They cover themselves with painful cuts none quite deep enough to draw blood.
Jonathan amongst procession
10 24 JonathanI was talking to some of the village elders here and they were explaining to that this war dance is all about invincibility. Before these warriors would go to battle they would cut themselves with swords and knives and if they didn't bleed it would mean that they were invincible.]10 25 And I've just been to go and see some of these swords myself and they really are razor-sharp.
more slashing
CommentaryThe governor portrayed it as harmless tradition. [drumming out]
But we learned later that afterwards there was a killing spree in a nearby Christian village. There are many people who think that a globalised world of open markets and shared culture is inevitable but globalisation puts such pressure on some societies that they implode. Coca Cola and the internet are yet to supplant older, darker forces.
Fade to black
Indonesia: 21st Century War
January 2001 – 25 mins
Tracking shots, Ambon City 10 00 00
10 00 02 music in
JO music
Q1Commentary
We’d come to a city ravaged by murderous conflict. Not long ago the people who lived here were prospering, beneficiaries of the global economy. Then it all went wrong.
derelict street pan L to find Jonathan
10 00 21 Johnathan Miller Welcome to Ambon.
riot footageAmbon Christian footage dur: 5”
10 00 music out
10 00 28 Street pan out to Jonathan walking
Jonathan: This city used to be known as ‘The Queen of the East’. These days it’s better known as the Sarajevo of Asia.
10 00 31 music inJO music Q2
riots archive
Ambon Christian footage dur: 25”
10 00 52 Commentary I was one of the first foreign TV journalists to reach Ambon. Indonesian Muslims and Christians are slaughtering each other every day. Forget talk of ancient religious hatreds. This is a new type of war, unleashed by the forces shaping our century. It’s what happens when the heat of global competition tears a nation apart.
fade to blackUnreported World titles backgroundUnreported WorldA 21st Century Warfade to black 10 01 05
10 01 14 music changeJO Unreported World title music
Jakarta sunset shots
10 01 15 music change JO music Q3
10 10 28 The Jakarta skyline is testament to the fact that Indonesia embraced the big idea of our time – global capitalism. But three years ago, Asian currencies collapsed like dominoes. Global investors ran scared. The corrupt edifice of the Indonesian economy came crashing down, dragging the dictator Soeharto with it.
top shot Jakarta nightInsight News Television dur: 3”Jonathan at satay stall PTCs/i Jonathan Miller 10 01 4710 01 5010 01 53 JonathanIndonesia’s got a new President now. In fact he’s been in power for more than a year, [music out] but he’s failed totally to unite this country and it’s still racked by economic and political turbulence.
demonstrationInsight News Television dur: 40”
10 02 00 Commentary This country of 220-million people is on a knife edge. There’s anger and turmoil. The economic disaster has plunged eighty-million Indonesians into poverty. Hardship fuels protest about everything from political corruption to the cost of living. Many Indonesians had hoped the guardians of the global economy would end the pain. But the International Monetary Fund imposed huge cuts in government spending that have hit the poor, hardest. And the turmoil isn’t confined to Jakarta.
Jonathan on bike
10 02 40 music inJO music Q4
10 02 44 I set off to see someone who wanted to tell me about a city called Ambon. He’d said on the phone that what was going on there showed the true extent of Indonesia’s meltdown.
film projector Des Alwio/s projected imagesDes Alwi footage dur: 19”
10 02 17 The man I’d come to meet had led a fact-finding mission to Ambon, [music out] the capital of the Indonesian Spice Islands, thirteen-hundred miles east of Jakarta. Des Alwi showed us some film he’d taken. Muslims and Christians had been fighting throughout the city. Most Indonesians are Muslims, but unusually, in Ambon, there’s a large Christian community as well.
Des Alwiprojected imageDes Alwi footage dur: 18”
10 03 28 Des AlwiThis is the worst case, Ambon is the worst case… Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think, it couldn't be and it is really.
fade to black
10 03 41 CommentaryThe problem was, even if we could get there, Des Alwi said Ambon was now so violent we’d never get out of the airport. But the images of this distant mysterious city strengthened our determination to get there.
black and white sequenceint car - Jonathan to cameraPOVJonathan to cameradriving pov
10 03 59 JonathanIt’s just gone four o’clock in the morning and we’re heading off to the military airport which is about 15 kilometres outside Jakarta. Reason we’re going is that we heard quite late last night that there’s a military flight going out to Ambon and supposedly it’s for journalists, so we’re going to have a go at getting onto it.
10 04 23 CommentaryIf we went in with the military they would be able to give us some protection. For people in Ambon, life sounded grim.
int car - Jonathan to cameraPOVguard waves cars through checkpoint 10 04 30 JonathanAmbon is really the centre of the firestorm that’s enveloping Indonesia at the moment. Most people are trying to leave.
out of car - talk to colonelguards talking
10 04 43 Commentary We tried our best sales pitch, then waited.
Jonathan walkingguards 10 04 53
It’s not looking so good. They seem to have changed their minds a bit about what we should be doing. They were going to take us in to at least try getting access to the aircraft but I think they're trying to find some plausible excuse to refuse us access to the plane to Ambon. They're saying that it’s full of medical equipment and food and there’s already 11 or 12 local journalists. But I think, basically, they don’t really want a foreign journalist on board
Indonesian journalistsguardend black and white sequence
10 05 24 Later we heard the army allowed the Indonesian reporters to stay in Ambon for just ninety minutes.We realised that to spend time in Ambon we needed to get there by ourselves. And we needed safe passage from the warring communities.
int Christian church 10 05 39 singing inOnward Christian Soldiers
cross pan to Christian leaders talking withJonathan 10 05 45
Some of Ambon’s Christian leaders were visiting a church in Jakarta.After the service I pulled them aside to talk over security [singing out] in Ambon.They agreed to send word to their fighters that we were coming. They said they wanted their story told.
Dickie 10 06 02 DickieYesterday I have contact with friends in Ambon who will arrange security foryour visit in Ambon.
Jonathan meets other Christian leadersPeter and video – riot footage dur: 44”Christian footage 10 06 1510 06 17 CommentaryLater they invited me to a screening of a video just in from Ambon.
10 06 21 The tape showed Christians and Muslims fighting. More than 4,000 people have died in the violence including the man who took these pictures.According to the Christians, Muslim preachers helped incite this by blaming Indonesia’s economic disaster on the Christian West. The church leaders said Ambon’s Christians were the closest scapegoats to hand. Islamic warriors from all over Indonesia have arrived in Ambon. They call themselves Laskar Jihad, Soldiers of the Holy War. Christians fear them.
Navy commanderJonathan: Navy commander:
10 07 01 Jonathan … they’re running all over ..CommanderYes, they are not in control, in the Moluccas. The governor, the military commander there, is not in control any more. JonathanWhat, anarchy? CommanderAnarchy, yes, that’s right.
10 07 18 music inJO music Q5
Laskar Jihad collecting donations from cars
10 07 19Commentary We’d been promised safe passage from the Christians. Now we needed the same from the Muslims.Outside the headquarters of Laskar Jihad a man was collecting donations to finance the holy war.
pan off Jihad HQ sign to Jonathan with Muslim leaders
10 07 32 music out
JonathanSo Umar Jaafar and Ayib Syafaruddin are taking me into their headquarters here – this says posko pusat mobilisasi jihad, which is the headquarters of the Jihad mobilisation, this is their, this is where all their planning happens.
map sequence
10 07 54 And their aim is to purge the Spice Islands of Christians. They told me how they and their allies were doing.
10 08 03 So up here Galaila.Up here there were a lot of Christians massacred about a couple of months ago, more than a hundred in one village and at …. Alright, so they are saying that those responsible for the massacre weren't actually the Laskar Jihad people but the local Islamic Mujahadin militia.
int hospital wardBrigadier-General Kastor’s room
10 08 29 Commentary When we raised the question of safe passage they suggested I meet the mastermind of the jihad. Brigadier-General Rustam Kastor was being treated for diabetes in a nearby hospital.Christians say this retired soldier is up to his neck in Christian blood. This former aide to the disgraced dictator Soeharto has written a best-seller about ‘the Christian conspiracy.
10 09 00 It’s fired the minds of the Islamic warriors slicing up Christians in Ambon.
Jonathan and Brig-General
10 09 05 [Asks question in Basha]CommentaryIndonesia’s in the process of being destroyed, he told me. Our economy’s collapsed thanks to all this foreign meddling. Christians and their international co-conspirators – like the IMF – have created this chaos. The time has come for Islam to fight back.
WS chatting with Generalfade to black
10 09 39 After the interview, Laskar Jihad contacted their fighters in Ambon and safe passage.
POV from plane into Ambon
10 09 52 Armed with our guarantees of protection we headed into Ambon. A small commercial airliner was flying there and we’d managed to get tickets.We expected to be met. The provincial governor had sent word that in our case he’d lift the ban on foreigners and would even send soldiers to take us to his residence.
int airport - PTC
10 10 16Trouble is that the governor has not sent an armed escort for us so we might need to pick up some security for ourselves now. But um, we’ll play it by ear.
travelling shots from airport 10 10 24 music inJO music Q6
Jonathan inside minibus 10 10 28
10 10 35 A Christian minibus driver agreed to take us out of the airport. For most of the time we were on his side of the lines.
travelling shots 10 10 36
10 10 39 JonathanYou're a Christian, yeah?CommentaryEven so, he kept his foot down. Everyone here fears snipers.Our destination was a beach where he said we could catch a Christian speedboat across the bay to Ambon City.
beach Jonathan walking to boatand gets on board 10 10 5610 10 58 We were told that the speedboats could reach the Christian part of the city in ten minutes.
10 11 05 music out
on boat Jonathan to camera
10 11 06 JonathanI think it’s time to put on these massively heavy flak jackets because quite a few of the boats going across the bay have been attacked and, well, it’s just not worth it.
travelling shots from speedboat
10 11 26 music inJO music Q7
approaching beach
10 11 28 Muslim and Christian speedboats often open fire on each other. Almost every day snipers on the shore killed drivers and their passengers. Someone had died that very morning.So far our driver had been lucky. And his luck continued to hold.
travelling shots to Governor’s residence
10 11 We sped through no-man’s-land towards the governor’s residence. The locals call this sniper alley.
10 12 07 music out
Jonathan inside cartravelling shots
10 12 10 JonathanOK, we’re right down town now and there’s a Muslim area on one side of the road and a Christian area on the other. And you know you can really get the sense of the communities living side by side.
guards outside Governors house Jonathan walking to meet Governorpan to see refugees in garageand closer refugeesbullet hole in windowJonathan with Governor
10 12 281 CommentaryWe reached the fortified hilltop house of the province’s Muslim Governor. Saleh Latuconsina apologised for missing us at the airport, and showed us round his home. Seventy Christian refugees live in his garage. Their burned-out houses litter the hillside below. The fighting’s left close to half-a-million people homeless.Three people had just been killed in a mortar attack on the Governor’s house. Snipers regularly fire into his living room.
10 13 The Governor has declared a state of emergency. Indonesian troops are trying, and failing, to keep the two sides apart.
Governor looks at map
10 13 18 He briefed us on the constantly shifting front lines.
pan up from map and back
10 13 22Jonathan … which is over there where the big long green roofs are and the yellow crane.GovernorYeah.JonathanOK, so any hospital militairia? So that's the Military Hospital and this is Ambon’s very own sniper alley.
topshot Ambon City 10 13 43music in JO music Q8
10 13 44 CommentaryMessages went out to both sides. We were ready to enter the city.
black and white sequencepan to Jonathan at night with driver from Christian sidewith Reza from Muslim side 10 13 5010 13 10 13 57 JonathanIt's ten past eleven and we're just in the throws of an interesting manoeuvre here. [music out] We've crossed from the Christian area, our hotel, just about five hundred yards in that direction and we're in the middle of no man's land right now and we're trying to cross into the Muslim area. And it's right here, that we leave Verti, our driver from the Christian side and we hitch up once again with Reza who has come across from the Muslim side to meet us and to bring us back to Al-Fatah. And the reason for this is that the Muslim community has suggested there is something we might like to come and see in there part of town tonight.
Jonathan walks with Reza to carJonathan inside carPOV from car sniper alley
10 14 46 It was well after curfew. That meant that as well as Muslim and Christian gunmen, Indonesian soldiers could shoot on sight.
int car Jonathan PTC
10 14 56 JonathanRight, we’re heading down what is normally Sniper Alley now, and Reza’s had a word with the Commandos who man this area so they know that we’re coming so we’re safe to go through at the moment. And we’re heading straight down to Al-Fatah which is about 500 metres down this road.
10 15 20 Jonathan walking towards Jihad cemetery actuality singing in
10 15 27 Jihad cemetery and mourners
10 15 38 Commentary We joined a procession of Ambon’s bereaved.There was to be a midnight vigil at the Jihad cemetery. All around us were the graves of the hundreds of fighters.
10 15 42 singing out
Ambon’s Muslim warlord led the prayers.
mourners
10 15 51 One-hundred-and-ninety-million Indonesians profess faith in Islam, making this the world’s biggest Muslim country.
Jonathan to camera
10 16 02 All these Muslim men are praying that these heroes of Islam will be looked on kindly by Allah and that they will be able to sit next to him in Paradise.
graveyard
10 16 17 Commentary
This conservative religion was already disorientated by the dizzying modernisation that followed the leap into the global economy. The economic collapse provoked a backlash that was waiting to happen.
pan around to see Muslim warlord
10 16 34 They see globalisation as a new form of cultural and economic imperialism. They’re making a stand. And Ambon is the front line.
10 16 46 Borut’s grave
10 16 48 This is the graveside of a young man shot dead by a Christian sniper as he prayed in a mosque.
pan from grave to Jonathan
10 16 53 JonathanIt’s been absolutely amazing to witness this event tonight. This is a group of men, some of whom are related to this dead Jihad warrior. His name was Harut. This is his brother over here, this is his uncle beside me here.
Mourners beside graveside
10 17 20 Commentary The dead man’s mother told me proudly her son’s last words were Allahu-akbar: God is Great.In Jakarta, we’d heard economists talk optimistically about life returning to normal. They don’t talk about such things here.
end of black and white sequence 10 17 31
10 17 35 muezin chorus
derelict buildingsint hospital
10 17 48 The Muslim wounded lie in an annex of Al-Fatah mosque. When this city was divided, the Muslims got the port, but had to forfeit the hospital.
10 17 58 Many patients are children. Twelve-year-old Iskandar was shot in the leg as he ran away from a riot.
Jonathan with Sano and his father
10 18 19 JonathanIn another corner I met a boy infected by the hatred that’s enveloped this city. His father, Ambara, was resigned as to how his only son ended up here.
pan to boy’s legs
10 18 3Ah, this is a sad story. This is Sano. He says about a month ago I think they were living in a refugee camp and he and some of his friends were making a home-made bomb and somehow when they were turning the detonator, a spark ignited the TNT and bang and three of his friends were killed and (Bahasa: how many injured?) eight were injured. He’s been in here a month now and he’s got really bad burns on his legs.
10 19 12 CommentaryI asked Sano why he’d been making a bomb in the first place. He said: “Because we’d run out.”
10 19 17 chorus out
entering refugee camp
10 19 29His mother, Ani, took me to where he’d been making his bomb. Ambon’s old government tourist office is home now to twelve-hundred Muslim refugees.
Jonathan walking to Ambara’s house
10 19 42 Sano’s family recently moved into a house whose owners who've now fled.
pan up to see house and back to Jonathan
10 19 47 JonathanThis is their house, this is the sort of Chinese Christian property which was vacated and they moved into and they live on third floor up here.
walking up to third floorand greetingsbreakfastfamily having breakfastWS Jonathan and Ambara
10 20 16 Commentary I met up with Sano’s father, Ambara, again. Over a fried banana breakfast he said he had no expectation of peace. Then he told me that when a Christian mob attacked his Muslim neighbourhood, Christian friends had sheltered his family.
child brings paper and pencil 10 20 18
10 20 20 I asked Ambara to draw a map showing where his old house was.
map drawingsmall child
10 20 36 It was less than a couple of miles away, but it was impossible for Muslims to go there.
10 20 40 music inJO music Q9
10 20 41 drive-past destruction
10 20 43 We drove towards the Christian half of the city.
Jonathan walking down streetpan to see sand bags and motorbike
10 20 57 This sandbagging here [music out] is because until just a few weeks ago this was an incredibly dangerous area. About 20 people were shot dead right here. Down there, there was Muslim snipers and the Christians finally managed to take the area and the Marines based in that building there, so they feel a lot safer.
Jonathan walking up hill chatting to villagersbuildings pan down to JOnathan 10 21 17
10 21 25 Commentary We began our search for the Christian man who’d saved Ambara’s family when the Christian mobs attacked. Using his map, their old house was not hard to find.
meet and talk to Agus
10 21 33 Some neighbours came out to see what the fuss was about. The first one I met, turned out to be the man I was looking for.
Agus tells us his story
10 21 45 Agus Tetelepta hadn’t just rescued Ambara’s family. He told me how, as the Christian mobs attacked, he’d shepherded three-hundred Muslims into this church. After three days, he persuaded local Christians to line the road so the Muslims could be safely evacuated.
Agus tells us about his daughter
10 22 08 Not long after that his own daughter had been killed. Her throat slit by Jihad fighters.
Agus’ wife Agus.
10 22 18 He said he and his wife had been so proud of her – she’d been studying at university in Jakarta.
10 22 24 Christian Militia shots
10 22 34 Not far away, we encountered a local Christian warlord, Agus Watimena, and his bodyguards. Watimena claimed he had tens of thousands of men under arms. He and his men had just raided a police armoury, yet he complained they still couldn’t get enough guns.
pan from militia to Jonathan
10 22 55 JonathanOK, so this is quite an interesting take. We know from before that the Muslims are accusing the Christians of being supported by the Europeans. And what Pak Agus is saying here is that he doesn’t understand – he says it’s really so difficult to get hold of the guns, the automatic guns particularly – and he doesn’t understand why the Europeans don’t support the Christians, because they’re Christians. And he says, you know, Jesus comes from Europe, so why can’t you guys help us?
militia man with gunAgus Watimena fires gun
10 23 21In Northern Ireland, he told me, they’d murdered each other for thirty years. And they’ve got the same God, he said. What hope have we got?
derelict housepan to find Jonathan
10 23 34 music inJO music Q10
10 23 38 CommentaryI climbed the hill to a wrecked village. The Muslims who’d lived here had been driven out by a Christian militia – but it could just as well have been the other way round.
Jonathan translates graffiti
10 23 50 This says ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing, Luke 23.
walk through ruins to contemplate view
10 24 03The forces that drive the global economy are making many people wealthy.
10 24 09 But standing there in the debris of people’s lives, my thoughts were of the havoc and misery those same forces can cause.
10 24 17 music changeactuality procession drumming
Tongue-slashers and swordsmen
10 24 18 The governor invited us to a commemoration by Muslim villagers of a battle against European colonialists. It’s staged every three years.The men work themselves into a frenzy. They cover themselves with painful cuts none quite deep enough to draw blood.
Jonathan amongst procession
10 24 JonathanI was talking to some of the village elders here and they were explaining to that this war dance is all about invincibility. Before these warriors would go to battle they would cut themselves with swords and knives and if they didn't bleed it would mean that they were invincible.]10 25 And I've just been to go and see some of these swords myself and they really are razor-sharp.
more slashing
CommentaryThe governor portrayed it as harmless tradition. [drumming out]
But we learned later that afterwards there was a killing spree in a nearby Christian village. There are many people who think that a globalised world of open markets and shared culture is inevitable but globalisation puts such pressure on some societies that they implode. Coca Cola and the internet are yet to supplant older, darker forces.
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