Ambon clashes force Butonese 'back home'

By Elizabeth Collins

BAU BAU, Southeast Sulawesi (JP): The refugee center in Bau Bau city is an open market next to a sports field. Between 500 and 1,000 refugees crowd under the roof on the cement platform. It is difficult to imagine how they would all find space to lie down at night.

The refugees in this center know that sometime in the distant past their ancestors migrated to Ambon from Buton Island, but they no longer know which village they came from, so they have nowhere to go. Many are women with small children and no way to earn money. Their children crowd around them, and their babies sleeping on the floor look exhausted and poorly fed. Several older women crouch over gas burners making snacks to be sold the next day, but most people seem to have no energy and no idea how they will manage.

Traumatized by the violence they have witnessed, the refugees spoke of "the terror". One young man, the youngest of seven children, had been a driver in Ambon. He said that on Jan. 20 he returned home to find the bodies of his parents and all his brothers and sisters cut to pieces. In Bau Bau he earns a bit of money as a becak (three-wheel pedicab) driver to supplement the meager supply of rice provided for refugees.

He hoped he would find relatives somewhere.

According to local government figures compiled by the regent of Buton, H. Sahiruddin Udu, there are now 37,000 refugees from Ambon in Buton, and more continue to arrive.

Frustrated that the central government has yet to grant any assistance to these refugees, La Ode Masihu Kamaluddin, Inspector General of Development for Backward Regions, led an expedition of reporters to Buton from March 25 to March 29 to collect information on the condition of the refugees. At the last minute, one reporter was unable to join the team of observers, and although I am a professor, not a journalist, I was invited to go along as a foreign representative.

Shortly after the team of observers visited, the refugees at the market in Bau Bau had to be moved because of heavy rains and flooding. Other refugee centers around Bau Bau city are located in an orphanage beside a mosque and in a state Islamic institute. Although these refugees also sleep on a cement floor, they are somewhat better off because they are protected from the weather. However, the refugees reported that they had not eaten rice for some time, nor had they had any protein.

The day the team visited, the refugees had been given instant noodles at noon, and this was the only food distributed for the day. One mother showed the team her baby, a listless infant suffering from malnutrition; another child had a high fever. Seven children have already died of diarrhea. The regent explained that it would take 12 tons of rice a day to feed all the refugees. All he could do was provide some rice and milk for pregnant women and babies. There was also a shortage of medicine and doctors.

In each of the five villages visited by the team of observers, there were between 700 and 1,500 refugees. These refugees had not yet received any help from the government.

Most lived on the ground under houses owned by relatives. The resources of the villages were strained to breaking point. The teacher at a village school said that formerly he had been responsible for just over 100 pupils. He had over 200 when we visited. Most of the refugee children had no books and no change of clothes. They were hungry and traumatized.

There is no simple solution to the problem of the refugees from Ambon. Those interviewed by the team said they had been born in Ambon. In many cases their families lived in Ambon for generations.

It was their home. Some want to go back to Ambon if there is real peace, others adamantly refused to return.

"We don't want to be attacked again," one villager said.

Some of the refugees are farmers, but Buton is a harsh and rocky island with no vacant land. Fishermen need boats and nets. The merchants, whose shops in Ambon were burned, have lost everything. One woman demanded to know what the government would do to help them start again. The refugees who were university students wondered how they would finish their studies now that their families had lost everything and they could not go back to Ambon for their exams.

Representatives from the team of observers met with the governor in Kendari, the capital of Southeast Sulawesi. He told them he had just learned that aid sent to the area had not arrived. He said he would investigate.

The central government has yet to establish any program to help the refugees of Buton.

The beginning of a solution to the problem of the Butonese refugees may lie in civil society, in the actions of ordinary citizens channeled through non-governmental organizations. The team of observers has already established Yayasan Nurani Dunia, a foundation to provide aid to victims of social and natural disaster, with the motto "People to People Aid". The foundation will establish a Crisis Center in Jakarta to deal with emergencies like the destruction wrought by the Ambon riots and the exodus of refugees.

Treasurers of Yayasan Nurani Dunia, Ita Julia Lestari and Ann Shoemake, can be contacted at 021-3457830.