In 1950 Ambon was the center of an uprising against
Indonesian rule, caused by the rebellion of Republic of the South Moluccas. Indonesia reasserted control
just in few weeks.
In April and May 1958 during the Permesta rebellion
in North Sulawesi, the USA supported and supplied the rebels.
Pilots from a Taiwan-based CIA front organisation, Civil Air Transport, flying CIA B-26 Invader aircraft, repeatedly bombed and
machine-gunned targets in and around Ambon. On 27 April a CIA raid set fire to
a military command post, a fuel dump and a Royal Dutch Shell complex. The
attack on Shell was deliberate: the CIA had orders to hit foreign commercial
interests in order to drive foreign trade away from Indonesia and undermine its
economy. The next day, the same CIA pilot bombed Shell interests at
Balikpapan in East Kalimantan on Borneo, which
persuaded Shell to suspend tanker services from there.
On 28 April a CIA air raid damaged an Indonesian Army barracks
next to a marketplace. On 30 April a CIA air raid hit the airstrip. On 7
May a CIA air raid attacked Ambon airstrip, seriously damaging a Douglas C-47 Sky train and an Indonesian Air Force North American P-51 Mustang and setting fire to a number
of fuel drums. On 8 May a CIA B-26 tried to bomb an Indonesian Navy gunboat
in Ambon harbour. Its bomb missed but it then machine-gunned the boat,
wounding two crew. The Indonesian National Armed Forces reinforced Ambon City's
anti-aircraft defences with a number of 12.7 mm (0.5 in) machine
guns. On 9 May a CIA B-26 attacked the city again. The
machine-gunners returned fire and an Indonesian Air Force P-51 Mustang chased
the B-26, but it escaped.
On 15 May a CIA B-26 attacked a small ship,
the Naiko, in Ambon Bay. Naiko was merchant ship
that the Indonesian Government had pressed into military service, and she was
bringing a company of Ambonese troops home from East Java. A
CIA bomb hit the Naiko's engine room, killing one crew member and
16 infantrymen and setting the ship on fire. The B-26 then attacked Ambon
city, aiming for the barracks. Its first bomb missed and exploded in a
market-place next door. The next landed in the barracks compound but bounced
and exploded near an ice factory. The B-26 in the May air raids was flown
by a CAT pilot called Allen Pope. On 18 May Pope attacked Ambon again. First he
raided the airstrip again, destroying the C-47 and P-51 that he had damaged on
7 May. Then he flew west of the city and tried to attack one of a pair of
troop ships being escorted by the Indonesian Navy. Indonesian forces shot
down the B-26 but Pope and his Indonesian radio operator survived and were
captured. Pope's capture immediately exposed the level of CIA support for
the Permesta rebellion. Embarrassed, theEisenhower administration quickly ended CIA support for
Permesta and withdrew its agents and remaining aircraft from the conflict.
As part of the transmigration program in the 1980s, the Suharto government
relocated many migrants, most of them Muslim, from densely overpopulated Java.
Between 1999 and 2002, Ambon was at the centre of sectarian conflict across the Maluku Islands. There was
further religious violence in 2011.
From 1999 until mid-2002, Ambon was ripped apart by
Christian-Muslim intercommunal violence. In Kota Ambon the first wave of attacks came in January 1999
with a largely Christian mob assault on the city’s main markets. A July 1999
reprisal torched predominantly Chinese businesses in the city centre. Island
and city alike became polarised into Muslim and Christian zones. By late 2001,
battered Kota Ambon looked like 1980s Beirut. During 2002 things improved markedly and the last
significant disturbances were riots in 2004, though occasional provocations
continue, including occasional sniping between police and army forces. Some
burnt-out ruins remain, notably around Pattimura University in Rumah Tiga, but
these are rapidly being rebuilt or swallowed by insatiable tropical weeds. By
2006 the island seemed gripped with a great optimism and visible economic
resurgence. It’s as though everyone suddenly awoke from a bad dream to find
themselves back in their busy little south-sea paradise.
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