Images of injustice in the history of Kalimantan

A long time observer of Indonesia, Herbert Feith, shares some examples of historical incidents in Kalimantan to lend a greater understanding of the current conflict. After years of teaching at the Gadjah Mada University, he has returned to Australia where he talked to The Jakarta Post's contributor Dewi Anggraeni in Melbourne.

Question: What are the similarities between the current conflict in Central Kalimantan and previous inter-ethnic conflicts, especially in Sambas, West Kalimantan?

Answer: I certainly see similarities between the recent happenings in Central Kalimantan and the ones in West Kalimantan a few years ago. The persecution and expulsion of Madurese by Dayaks was very similar there, not only in Sambas in 1999 but also in Sanggau Ledo in 1996 and 1997.

"Ethnic cleansing" is a term that fits the actions taken against the Madurese in each of those provinces.

So why have the Dayaks turned against the Madurese with such ferocity in the last few years?

I see it as parallel to the way in which indigenous communities have turned against immigrant minorities in other parts of the country in the last six or seven years. The Bugis and Butonese have been targets of that in Maluku and various other parts of East Indonesia. And there has been similar kinds of behavior in Aceh and Papua as well.

But there is also something distinctive about Kalimantan. It has to do with Dayak identity and it has to do with the way the logging industry has destroyed the habitats of large numbers of Dayak people who were previously forest dwellers and slash-and- burn cultivators.

Dayak anger has been building up for a very long time, and the Madurese have become its principal target. It has always been much easier to attack the local Madurese than to direct the local people's anger against the big timber companies or the government officials protecting them.

So are we seeing some kind of general resurgence of the Dayaks?A.

That is certainly one useful way of seeing it. Dayaks have long felt marginalized by the way Jakarta has pushed "development" on their island. And they have long felt under- represented in the way Kalimantan is governed. It is a very long time since any of the four provinces of Kalimantan had a Dayak governor.

In the pre-1965 period there were Dayak governors in Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan, Tjilik Riwut and Oevang Oeraay, and they were both popular figures.

During the New Order period most of the governors were Javanese army officers, and Dayaks who protested against abuses of power were easily silenced and denounced as "PKI" (in reference to the banned communist party).

Why haven't the Dayaks been in conflict with, say, the Javanese minority in their midst? Is it because of the distinct features of Madurese culture, the fact that they are seen as tough, money-minded and individualistic, and always ready to pull out a dagger when they get into a brawl?

That is certainly the stereotype that many Dayaks bring up, and similar to stereotypes that local people in various parts of East Indonesia have of the Bugis who have recently settled in their areas. Like other stereotypes it contains a grain of truth.

But it is also a caricature. One major reason why the Madurese have become the target rather than the Javanese is that they are more vulnerable. Anyone arguing for throwing out the settler Javanese would soon be in serious trouble with the government in Jakarta.

Many believe that the current hostility has been provoked or orchestrated by political elements in Jakarta. What do you think?

I have heard several versions of that, each with some plausibility. One group of interpreters point the finger at people with experience in army intelligence and at various members of the Soeharto family and their cronies with an interest in discrediting the present government. And another group highlight rivalry between the army and the police. They argue that army headquarters intentionally delayed sending troops into Central Kalimantan because they wanted the world to know that the police were incapable of handling the situation. But I am not in a position to evaluate the evidence.

Do you see any likelihood that this Dayak violence against the Madurese will spread to other parts of Kalimantan?

That seems unlikely at the moment because a lot of Dayaks are ashamed of what they call the excesses of the anti-Madurese actions. Many who wanted the Madurese driven out of Central Kalimantan have been expressing shock about the scale of the recent killing, and also about the recrudescence of traditional forms of killing which have given currency to stereotypes of the Dayaks as primitive.

And the ethnic patterns in the two provinces where there have been no big anti-Madurese actions are different. Whereas Dayaks are the largest single group in Central Kalimantan and as large as any other in West Kalimantan, they are less significant in South Kalimantan (which is heavily Banjarese) and in East Kalimantan, the richest of the four provinces, where there is a vast amount of mining activity and great diversity of non-local ethnic communities.

The East Kalimantan pattern is particularly interesting, and promising. Nongovernmental organizations of various kinds are relatively strong there, including labor unions, and most of them are trans-ethnic. Most of them see reform in terms of reining in the depredations of business.

Is the Dayak movement connected to indigenous people's movements in other countries?

Not on any major scale as far as I know, though some Dayaks are actively interested in struggles for indigenous people's rights in places like Australia, New Zealand and various parts of Latin America.

Is there a Muslim versus Christian dimension in this Madurese- Dayak conflict?

The possibility of it developing into a religious conflict is there, and it is highly appropriate that the government should be doing its best to forestall it. That is what happened in Maluku in 1999. In January of that year Ambonese Christians mobilized anti-immigrant feeling against the Bugis and Butonese minorities.

But I see no signs of that happening in the case of Central Kalimantan. The Madurese there have been unable to attract much active sympathy from Kalimantan Muslims from other ethnic groups. Moreover the Christians who have been creating an "imagined community" of Dayaks have succeeded in attracting some Muslims to their cause.

During the late 1960s the Dayaks were also attacking the local Chinese. What was happening then?

It happened in West Kalimantan in October-November 1967. Over 50,000 Chinese people living in villages in the northern part of the province were forced to flee their homes in what was called a "Dayak demonstration".

At least 300, and possibly as many as 700, were killed and a large swathe of territory along the Sarawak border was cleared of its Chinese population. Most of those Chinese were villagers and some of them were the offspring of people who had lived there since the 18th century.

The pattern of Dayak attacks were similar to the ones which have occurred in Central Kalimantan over the last few weeks. At that time also, bands of raiders arrived with red headbands, brandishing traditional weapons.

After evicting the Chinese villagers, they looted their houses and then burned them down and the army and police did nothing to restrain them.

But the political context was very different in 1967.

The military was then fighting the remnants of a leftwing guerrilla movement, a movement based principally in Sarawak. It was a movement which the military itself had helped to build up in the years of the anti-Malaysian confrontation.

Military leaders opted for a strategy of "draining the sea in which the guerrilla fish swam", a strategy the British had used effectively against leftwing Chinese guerrillas in Malaysia in the 1950s. And they succeeded in involving an important group of Dayak leaders in this strategy.

What lessons can the government learn from the recent violence in Kalimantan?

I don't see any easy ways in which these conflicts can be resolved, but I don't see them as a source of despair. Conflicts between people of different religious and ethnic backgrounds have mushroomed all over the world in the last few decades, especially since the end of the Cold War.

Many of those in other parts of the world have been even bloodier than the ones which have emerged in Indonesia.

On the other hand, governments and NGOs have been learning about how to deal with conflicts in a way that forestalls violence.

The government can probably learn from the experience of various other countries, not only from developing countries like India, Pakistan and Nigeria, where religious and ethnic conflicts are often close to breaking out into open violence, but also from more stable and fortunate places like Western Europe and Australia which have experimented with race relation boards and community radio and television, and with festivals honoring the arts of particular communities.

What could the international community do to help?

A lot. One immediate need is material relief for the victims of the recent violence. Tens of thousands of Madurese refugees from the recent violence are still languishing in refugee camps in Kalimantan and Madura.

And an estimated 17,000 Madurese are still eking out a living in camps around Pontianak, victims of the ethnic purges of 1997 and 1999 in West Kalimantan. Medicins Sans Frontieres has been aiding some of these people in and around Pontianak, but its operation there is tiny.

In addition to providing humanitarian assistance, NGOs should be offering help to Indonesian organizations active in the areas of conflict resolution and inter-religious dialog.

Some of these are associated with universities (like Gadjah Mada's Centre for Peace and Security Studies). Others are associated with the National Commission for Women's Human Rights and with various NGOs active in the legal aid and human rights areas.