Batam slum dwellers expelled from homes, seek shelter
Batam slum dwellers expelled from homes, seek shelter
By Ridwan Sidjabat
BATAM, Riau (JP): After following a small gravel path I arrived at a slum near the Batamindo Industrial Estate on Batam Island. I saw several naked, dirty children playing chase among the trees. Their parents were busy demolishing their ramshackle huts because they had received a demolition order from the local council.
"Hello sir, can I help you?" asked a five-year-old boy, who then asked me to take his photo.
"You should go that way, if you want to meet the girls," indicated another child, pointing to a small decorated hut.
Five beautiful girls sitting on the veranda of a small decorated hut tried to get my attention with smiles.
Only 50 shacks are left in the slum. Hundreds of others have been moved to Tanjung Piayu, five kilometers west of the industrial estate.
Thousands of illegal houses make up the 60 slums on Batam Island. Other slums include Tanah Longsor, Lubuk Baja, Batu Batam, Batu Aji, Baloi Center, Kumpung Sraya, Pamanuangi, Bengkong Harapan and Tiban Kampung.
Most of the slums are located on the edge of forests near industrial estates. Some are in the towns of Nagoya, Batam Center, Batu Ampar and Nongsa.
The people say they have to live there because the price of houses on the island is far beyond their reach.
"How can I get the money -- about Rp 30 million -- to purchase a house developed by the (Batam Industrial Development) Authority?" asked Miryam, a 55-year-old widow who lives in Muka Kuning.
Miryam and her five children live in a 16-square-meter hut. They have one small wardrobe and a plaited mat that they sleep on together at night.
"We are not allowed to stay here because the local authorities have said everyone has to move out by Jan. 20. They have said they will bulldoze all the huts if we refuse to take them apart," she said.
Miryam, a widow of an army officer who was killed in East Timor in 1980, sells snacks, drinks and cakes in the industrial estate to support her family.
"Alhamdulillah, I can earn about Rp 10,000 a day," she said, adding that her sons drive motorcycle taxis. Her daughters are unemployed.
Promise
Today all the shacks in Muka Kuning have been demolished. The authorities kept their promise on Jan. 20.
Budi Santoso, spokesman for the Batam Industrial Development Authority, told The Jakarta Post on Jan. 26 that all the slum areas located near industrial estates on the island have been demolished. Those located in natural reserves and housing complexes would be destroyed in phases.
He said the demolition was due to the authority's plan to enlarge the existing industrial estates in Muka Kuning, Kabil, Sekupang and Nongsa.
The inhabitants of another slum, in Tanjung Piayu, are young factory workers. They work in the Batamindo industrial park, which boasts 59 electronics factories.
Most of them are women who say they would rather live in the slum than in the company dormitories because it enables them to save more money. Some are no longer allowed to stay in the dormitories because they are married.
Fadjrin, Linda, Tuti, Ratna and Silvia are employees of PT Sumitomo, a Japanese electronics factory in Muka Kuning. They said they use their monthly housing allowance to rent a small house in the illegal housing area.
"This way we can save money and have a bit of money to shop on weekends," said Ratna.
She said that most of the people living in the slums around the industrial estates are laborers.
R. Panjaitan, who lives in a slum in Tanah Longsor, said that in spite of the government's warning, he and his family of four would remain in their house.
"Where will we stay if they demolish our house? No one would live in such an area if they weren't forced to," he explained.
Panjaitan, who came to Batam in 1984 from his home village in Balige, North Sumatra, said he couldn't get a better job with a high salary because he lacked specialized skills. He has a food stall to provide for his family.
"If the government wants to eradicate the slums," he said, "it should develop houses and give them to the local people free of charge."
"Batam, in reality, is an island of pains, not a paradise," he added.
Police Major Bambang, who lives in the slum in Lubuk Baja, also blamed real estate prices for the situation.
"Which civil servant can purchase a house that costs at least Rp 50 million? It's impossible," he said.
M. Siregar, a worker at the state-owned PT Astek plant and a slum-dweller, added: "If the government wants to demolish the illegal houses, it should build cheap, affordable houses."
Irony
Right beside the slums, thousands of houses developed by the Batam Industrial Development Authority remain uninhabited.
In Batam Center, located close to a slum, there are more than one thousand opulent houses with no one living in them.
Samuel Purba, chairman of the local branch of Real Estate Indonesia, explained that the luxurious houses, with prices ranging between Rp 150 million and Rp 250 million, had already been sold. "Their owners are in Jakarta," he said.
He acknowledged that most people in Batam had low salaries and needed very simple housing. But, he said, most local developers are reluctant to build cheap houses, because they yield small profits.
Influx
The Batam Industrial Development Authority has said the flow of unskilled people to the island is to blame for the rapid growth of slums.
"An average of 3,000 unskilled job seekers come to Batam every month and the figure is expected to continue rising in the future," Budi Santoso, a spokesman for the Batam authority, said.
"We cannot prohibit the newcomers from coming here because it is their right to do so," he explained.
He said the slums were one of the negative aspects of development on the island.
"The problem of the slums will become more complex if it is not handled properly."
The local administration is cracking down and Jan. 20, 1994, has been set as the deadline for occupants to dismantle their houses, he said.
"A team has been sent out to inform people about the government's plan to eradicate slums," he said.
Budi confided that the way the government is handling the slums will not solve the problem since the people are not able to purchase their own houses from the developers.
He said the local administration should urge developers to build affordable, simple houses, so that the people don't have to live in shacks.