May riots still burned into victim's minds<\/p>\n
Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Four years after the May riots, life is still hard for Yuliarti,
\n50, one of the survivors of the bloody tragedy.<\/p>\n
Her shop-house at the vicinity of the former Yogya shopping
\ncenter in Klender, East Jakarta, was burned to the ground on May
\n13, the first of two days of riots that paralyzed the capital.<\/p>\n
\"I failed to save even a spoon or a plate during the incident
\nas my family including my crippled mother were forced to seek
\nrefuge at a relative's home,\" Yuliarti recalled of the tragedy.<\/p>\n
For the next two years, life was nothing but misery for the
\nsingle parent with two children as she depended on the mercy of
\nfriends and relatives to survive.<\/p>\n
Brimming with tears, Yuliarti revealed that finally she
\nmanaged to reopen her restaurant thanks to the financial support
\nof friends.<\/p>\n
\"It has been a year since I reopened my small restaurant after
\nI lost everything during the riots,\" Yuliarti said.<\/p>\n
The Yogya Department Store has also been rebuilt and is now
\ncalled the Citra Plaza, which is owned by tycoon Ciputra.<\/p>\n
But Yuliarti complained that the shopping center was still
\nquiet and business was slow.<\/p>\n
Her restaurant is among a few of the shops which have resumed
\noperations in the vicinity of the shopping center.<\/p>\n
Dozen of other shops in the area, as in many other parts of
\nthe city, were destroyed during the riots.<\/p>\n
In West Jakarta, most of the shops alongside Jl. P. Tubagus
\nAngke are still closed. Some of them remain as messy burned
\nruins.<\/p>\n
The former four-story Tomang Plaza on Jl. Kyai Tapa, also in
\nWest Jakarta, is a burned out shell. Only some kiosks have been
\nbuilt in the area.<\/p>\n
According to Yuliarti, the owners of her neighboring shops
\ncomplained about the lack of funds and working capital to reopen
\ntheir business.<\/p>\n
\"Some of them went bankrupt following the riots.\"<\/p>\n
She said the owner of a chain of electronic shops lost all
\nthree of his shops in separate locations throughout Jakarta
\nduring the riots.<\/p>\n
The May riots inflicted losses of at least Rp 2.5 trillion
\n(US$268 million). Thirteen markets, 2,479 shop-houses, 40 malls,
\n1,604 shops, 45 garages, 383 private offices, nine fuel stations,
\neight public buses and minivans, 1,119 cars, 821 motorcycles, and
\n1,026 houses were destroyed during the riots.<\/p>\n
The violence claimed 2,244 lives, according to the latest data
\nfrom the Volunteers' Team for Humanity. The largest number of
\ndead came from the area of Yogya Plaza department store and
\nsupermarket with 288 killed.<\/p>\n
Anti-Chinese sentiment was sparked in the anarchy which was
\nfollowed by looting, burning, and the rape of Chinese-
\nIndonesians.<\/p>\n
Christ Manning, an economist of the Australian National
\nUniversity estimated that between 20,000 and 30,000 Chinese-
\nIndonesians had fled abroad permanently in fear of the
\npossibility of subsequent riots.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Marsono, 56, owner of a drug store on Jl. P.
\nTubagus Angke said that many kiosk owners were still waiting for
\n\"the right time\" to resume operations.<\/p>\n
The owners, Marsono revealed, would resume their operation
\nshould the area return to the conditions just prior to the riots.<\/p>\n
\"I myself have just opened the store seven months ago, thanks
\nto my close friends' help,\" said Marsono, a Jakarta-born Chinese
\nIndonesian who has two children.<\/p>\n
On May, 13, at 3 p.m., Marsono and his family were forced to
\nflee from the rear of the family's shop-house as a violent mass
\nsurrounded the building and set it alight.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/may-riots-still-burned-into-victims-minds-1447893297",
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