2000).The Politics of Going Home: The Future of North Moluccan Internally Displaced

The numerous conflicts that swept Indonesia before and after the fall of Suharto in 1998 displaced over 1.3million people throughout the country. These included refugees from the post-election violence in East Timor, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the various internal conflicts, such as North Maluku, Kalimantan and Poso. In October of 2001 the Indonesian government introduced a policy that was aimed at resolving the problem of displaced people throughout the archipelago by the end of 2002. The government’s plan con-tained no details on how this was going to be accomplished other than provid-ing three options for displaced populations: 1) return home; 2) empowerment in their place of refuge or; 3) relocation. After this date the IDPs would be han-dled by the “usual channels, ” essentially losing their status as IDPs. This policy affected the approximately 220,000 people displaced by the violence in North Maluku to varying degrees. Some were forcefully returned to their homes, while others were simply ignored. This paper looks at the effects of this pol