Thursday, October 14, 2010

Men with machetes were roaming the streets


Indonesians had been killed. And people were fleeing Tarakan.On Sept. 28, our quiet lives in Tarakan were suddenly on hold as ethnic conflict was taking over the city. A man and his son from the Tidung ethnic group had been killed by a group of 10 people from the Leta ethnic group. The Tidung had already suffered other murders by the same group and were tired of the police failure to capture the murderers. So, they were thirsty for revenge and wanted to take matters into their own hands. So, that night, they grabbed their machetes and headed out looking for Leta people to kill. The Leta brought their own machetes and home-made guns and met them downtown—next to the mall and the KFC—and they fought throughout the night.

We had heard about the tensions for the past couple of days and had been sticking close to home. That afternoon, Rebecca got a text message from the police, calling for a mandatory curfew of 5 p.m. due to the ensuing conflict. Brad and the other MAF pilots came home straight after work. And we all locked our doors and gates, wondering what the night would bring. This is what happened the next day:

Sept. 29
7 a.m.
Brad-I headed to work, prepared to fly a normal schedule that day. On my way to the airport (located a couple miles from our house), I passed a group between 50 to 100 Indonesian men carrying machetes, spears and clubs. The military was guarding all entrances to the airport.

Rebecca—Brad called me to tell me about the men with machetes and told me to stay locked inside, and to let the other MAFers know. I sent out a text message to the others.

7:15 a.m.
Brad
—The Program Manager, David, had been the first to arrive at the airport. He told me about the long night he’d had fielding calls from desperate Indonesians asking for flights out of Tarakan, scared about the conflict going on. The two ethnic groups had been fighting throughout the night and some people had been killed in the battle. More people were expected to come in from other villages and towns to join the fight. David made a decision to start the process to evacuate our MAF team to a small interior village. Ironically, that small interior village is where former headhunters live. But they are now, by and large, followers of Christ, so they are peace-loving, friendly people we are privileged to call friends. They were ready to welcome us with open arms.

Rebecca—Brad called, and through a really bad phone connection, he told me to prepare to evacuate, packing 10 kilograms worth of stuff for each of us. He said we may be flying out of Tarakan in two hours.

Brad—I and another MAF pilot, Craig, began pre-flighting the airplanes in preparation to leave. I jumped in the Caravan, which had just come out of inspection to do a Return to Service flight, flying over the fighting town below.

Across the airport apron, I had seen a battalion of Indonesian military that had arrived from a bigger city in the middle of the night.

Rebecca—I remember hearing Brad’s plane flying overhead—though I didn’t know he was the pilot. By this time, I was getting lots of text messages from Indonesian friends, asking if I was OK and telling me to stay safe inside my house. Many of my friends were being evacuated to military and government bases around town. I worried about my 9-month-pregnant friend, Elin, whose husband is away working on a ship. Another friend with a 6-month-old son lives alone since her husband works on another island. Another friend of mine called me, asking if she and her husband could join us on an MAF plane if we left Tarakan. I emailed our family and churches, asking for prayer. Then I tried to focus on packing for our trip. I hoped I’d have enough diapers to last. And I wondered what would happen to my friends, my house, my cats, and my town while we were away.

10 a.m.
Brad
—All morning, my thoughts were consumed with what would happen to our Indonesian staff. I knew we westerners would end up OK. This fight was not ours, and we had the means and the airplanes to leave. But what about our Indonesian employees with MAF? Many of them had spent the night sitting up, guarding their homes with machetes. What would happen to their families? We had enough airplanes to fly out just our eight American families. Would we pilots be able to return to pick up the wives and children of the Indonesian staff?

Rebecca—I had spent the morning running around the house, packing bags, weighing them, and hoping I had what we needed for a time away that I had no idea how long it would last. Brad finally called with an update. Our boss, David, has talked to other senior MAFers in other parts of Indonesia and they encouraged him to wait a bit before evacuating. The painful ramifications of inevitably leaving people behind would be difficult. Besides, these types of local tribal conflicts were not usually dangerous for westerners. So, for now, Brad said to sit and wait.

11 a.m. and on
Brad
—I returned home, ate some lunch, then immediately started working on stuff on the computer that I needed to finish. If we ended up evacuating to the village interior, we wouldn’t have Internet access.

Rebecca—We live on a rather busy street. I watched the traffic outside. One way, the motorbikes and cars were filled with men. I wondered if they were heading out to fight. The other way, the cars and motorbikes were filled with families and their stuff, headed to a nearby military base. By the end of the day, some 30,000 people were sent to these bases. Some didn’t have food or water for that day.

After putting the kids down for a nap, I needed to burn my nervous energy. So, I exercised for a bit. Then I decided to make peanut butter. It seemed a bit silly. But I knew it would use up some time and hopefully distract me from what was going on outside. When he woke up, Evan was my little helper and the chore did its job of giving me something else to do besides sit and wait.

10 p.m.
Brad
—I went to bed, wondering what another night would bring. More fighting? More deaths? Would I be flying a normal schedule tomorrow? Or would I be evacuating my family?

Rebecca—One of the MAF wives told me that a tribal leader with black magic powers had been called to Tarakan that night to use his magic machete that could fly on its own to locate and cut the enemy. Around that time, an Indonesian friend of mine sent me a text message, telling me that a peace agreement had been reached between the two ethnic groups. A few minutes later, our manager, David, confirmed the news, texting all of us. We felt relieved, but still not certain if the agreement would truly end the conflict.

The next day:
Brad
—I called David to find out the latest. An Indonesian MAF employee had spent the morning riding through the streets, making sure everything was safe. The agreement seemed to be doing its job of ending the conflict. I headed to work.

Rebecca—I chatted with my Indonesian neighbor across the street who had been out that morning. He said everything was fine and back to normal. I walked down to a small store to get a paper. The news said that the Indonesian president had come down firmly on the side of order and was doing everything in his power to make sure that the conflict didn’t become too huge. Later that morning, with reports of safety holding, I left the kids at home with our helper and headed out to the store. Only about one-fourth of the stores were open. The owners in the ones that were open talked to me in hushed tones, telling me what they saw, clearly still afraid. The town looked different. The men with machetes had chopped off some of the tops of palm trees that lined the streets. The windows in the mall had bullet holes in them. And military and police were everywhere. The KFC, which is almost always open, was closed. Two houses beside the mall had been burned to the ground.



Throughout the next few days, life seemed to return to normal. Kids went back to school. Stores re-opened. But now the most common greeting when we meet someone is, “where did you flee to?” In fact, we didn’t even know the word for “flee” until last week. Now it is imbedded in our minds.

We know of at least one Muslim Indonesian who seems to have come out of this situation with a desire for a changed life. Keep praying for this woman, who had nearly wrecked her life before the conflict. Now she wants to start over. And we’re encouraging her to start it through the power of Christ.

Some of our friends were involved in the conflict, brandishing their own machetes and heading out to fight their enemies. They told us stories of how they’d locate the enemy (simply asking someone they encountered in the streets if they were Tidung or Leta). They said that some 500 people had gathered the night of Sept. 28 to fight on the main street. Others fought in smaller neighborhoods. That night, at least, hardly any police or military monitored the situation. People had been maimed or been killed. The ambulance arrived and left several times throughout the night, carrying the wounded or dying to the hospital. Though the paper reported that only a handful of people were killed, our friends said that many more had died. Thankfully, our neighborhood remained safe and we saw no men with machetes marching the streets.


The following days:Life seems pretty normal and everyone here is hoping the peace agreement will hold. We are also praying for peace in the hearts of those who don’t yet believe.

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