City Council upsets Melawai traders

JAKARTA (JP): Around 300 small-scale traders of the Melawai marketplace in the Blok M terminal shopping center once again marched to the City Council yesterday to protest the Matahari Department Store's ongoing construction of two escalators for the building.

Several representatives of the protesters, led by Dasril, were received for a hearing by members of the city's Commission B, which oversees trade affairs. But the hearing failed to yield the positive results expected by the traders as their demands appeared to fall on deaf ears on the part of the councilors.

A fistfight nearly resulted between Dasril and Councilor Hotma Tambunan from the Armed Forces faction.

Hotma made a remark that angered Dasril, who immediately got up from his chair. Clenching his fist, the obviously angry Dasril challenged the councilor to a fight, saying: "Mr. Councilor we'd better go outside to settle this."

But nothing untoward happened, thanks to fellow protesters who managed to restrain Dasril from making further aggressive actions that could have exasperated the already tense situation.

"We are very upset with the responses of the councilors. If they are not willing to fight for us, we will go to the House of Representatives," Dasril said. "This is the third time in less than one month that we have staged a protest here. Unfortunately each time our demands have been ignored."

The protesters strongly oppose the construction of the escalators as they will only take customers to the second and third floors of the building which is rented by Matahari. They claimed that the escalators might prevent shoppers from buying goods displayed by the small-scale traders on the first floor and in the basement of the building.

Matahari is constructing the escalators with the intention of providing customers greater access to the department store.

Zarkasy Marzuki, who presided over the hearing, said the commission will hold further discussions on the case with the city-owned PD Pasar Jaya firm which manages the marketplace.

After the hearing, the traders moved on to the adjacent city hall, where they failed in their efforts to meet Governor Surjadi Soedirdja.

"We want the governor to settle the case. Otherwise, we will be forced to resort to violence," threatened Dasril. (jsk)