"Many boys come to this sector command post saying they want to become agas, but we have to check them out. They've got to have balls, they've got to be fearless, disciplined, and they must be ready to die for the Christian cause," he said. "If there's any doubt, then we don't take them. Their parents must agree for them to join. If they do not agree or if we find out they lied, then they are not welcome."
The boys spend a lot of time in the commander's home, often sleeping on the living room floor on nights when an operation is being considered, said Wattimena, whose two grown sons are militia members. At Christmas there was a party, paid for, he claimed, by the daughter of a local pastor, but otherwise there's no pay. In addition, the youngest boys are required to attend school during the day, unless they are needed, he said.
"If I let them, they'd `play' all the time," the former school board employee said with a chuckle. "They keep asking over and over, when they'll get to play."
The rules of the "game" are simple and each agas, and the armed men who support them, has a role. The attack begins with an assault on the nearest TNI post. Men hurl pipe-bombs filled with nails and pieces of metal and follow up with gunshots. In most cases, Wattimena said, this is enough to force the predominantly Muslim soldiers, whom he accuses of supporting Ambon's Muslim community, to retreat.
Small squads of the youngest boys then dart into the gap, some carrying Molotov cocktails, others with five-liter cans of gasoline. They are backed up by older boys carrying rakitan pistols, and further back, men carrying rakitan rifles.
The agas weave their way through broken buildings and fences into the heart of the neighborhood they've been told to destroy. They pour the gas into buildings, hurl the cocktails onto roofs followed by incendiary charges, and quickly work their way back to safety, repeating the process along the way so that any pursuers face fiery barriers.
As Wattimena describes the agas' attack strategy, he is joined by two more of his Christian allies in the cramped front room of his modest home: two Ambonese police officers have arrived, warmly embracing the warlord and shaking hands with the dozen other men in the room before taking seats themselves.
"There is no problem," one officer said. "We are Christians."
Like a proud father, Wattimena repeats some recent successes: Al-Hilal school in Ambon, gutted within days of its reconstruction (this was Novi's first mission); a suburban apartment block destroyed by fire and explosives; dozens of gutted ocean-front homes in a predominantly Muslim village outside the capital.
"I had some agas that went to Seram Island sometime ago without telling me," he said, "and I was quite angry about it because it showed a lack of discipline. But they did very good work there and when they came back I was not mad.
"I'm very proud of their work. I plan to send more agas to Seram and the other islands where they are needed. Of course, the Whites are using them as well, we've seen them. These are God's soldiers."
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